him that he was an "old rabbit" and that his father and his
grandfather and his great-grandfather were rabbits. To tell a man
that he is even remotely connected with a rabbit is decidedly
uncomplimentary in China.

But when it was all said I had accomplished nothing. The man looked
at me in blank amazement as though I had suddenly lost my mind. He
had not the faintest idea that burning up that beautiful forest was
reprehensible in the slightest degree. To him and all his kind, the
only thing worth while was to clear that bit of land in the valley.
If every tree on the mountain was destroyed in the process, what
difference did it make? It would be done eventually, anyway. Land,
whether it be on a hill or in a valley, was made to grow crops and
to be cultivated by Chinese farmers.

The wanton destruction which is being wrought at the _Tung Ling_
makes me sick at heart. Here is one of the most beautiful spots in
all China, within less than one hundred miles of Peking, which is
being ruined utterly as fast as ax and fire can do the work. One can
travel the length and breadth of the whole Republic and not find
elsewhere so much glorious scenery in so small a space. Moreover, it
is the last sanctuary of much of north China's wild life. When the
forests of the _Tung Ling_ are gone, half a dozen species of birds
and mammals will become extinct. How much of the original flora of
north China exists to-day only in these forests I would not dare
say, for I am not a botanist, but it can be hardly less than the
fauna of which I know.

If China could but realize before it is too late how priceless a
treasure is being hewed and burned to nothingness and take the first
step in conservation by making a National Park of the Eastern Tombs!

Politically there are difficulties, it is true. The _Tung Ling_, and
all the surroundings, as I have said, belong unquestionably to the
Manchus, and they can do as they wish with their own. But it is
largely a question of money, and were the Republic to pay the price
for the forests and mountains beyond the Tombs it would not be
difficult to do the rest. No country on earth ever had a more
splendid opportunity to create for the generations of the present
and the future a living memorial to its glorious past.

THE END

INDEX [Topics only, page numbers not reproduced]

Aeroplanes

Altai Mountains

American Museum of Natural History, Asiatic Explorations of;
trustees of

Anderson, Dr. J