t six of her eighteen provinces
bathe their feet in the waters of the Pacific; on the south she
clasps hands with Indo-China and with British Burma; and on the
west the foothills of the Himalayas form a bulwark more secure
than the wall that marks her boundary on the north. Greatest of
the works of man, the Great Wall serves at present no other purpose
than that of a mere geographical expression. Built to protect the
fertile fields of the "Flowery Land" from the incursions of northern
nomads, it may have been useful for some generations; but it can
hardly be pronounced an unqualified success, since China in whole
or in part has passed more than half of the twenty-two subsequent
centuries under the domination of Tartars.

With an area of about 1,500,000 square miles, or one-half that of
Europe, China has a busy population of about four hundred millions;
yet, so far from being exhausted, there can be no doubt that with
improved methods in agriculture, manufactures, mining, and
transportation, she might very
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easily sustain double the present number of her thrifty children.

Within this favoured domain the products of nature and of human industry
vie with each other in extent and variety. A bare enumeration would
read like a page of a gazetteer and possibly make no more impression
than a column of figures. To form an estimate of the marvellous
fecundity of the country and to realise its picturesqueness, one
ought to visit the provinces in succession and spend a year in
the exploration of each. If one is precluded from such leisurely
observation, undoubtedly the next best thing is to see them through
the eyes of those who have travelled in and have made a special
study of those regions.

To more than half of the provinces I can offer myself as a guide.
I spent ten years at Ningpo, and one year at Shanghai, both on the
southern seacoast. At the northern capital I spent forty years;
and I have recently passed three years at Wuchang on the banks
of the Yang-tse Kiang, a special coign of vantage for the study
of central China. While residing in the above-mentioned foci it
was my privilege to visit six other provinces (some of them more
than once), thus gaining a personal acquaintance with ten out of
the eighteen and being enabled to gather valuable information at
first hand.

A glance at the subjoined table (from the report of the China Inland
Mission for 1905) will exhibit the magnitude of the field of
investig