usiness in Western China.

[Illustration: OPIUM-SMOKING.]

An immensely rich city is Suifu with every advantage of position, on a
great waterway in the heart of a district rich in coal and minerals and
inexhaustible subterranean reservoirs of brine. Silks and furs and
silverwork, medicines, opium and whitewax, are the chief articles of
export, and as, fortunately for us, Western China can grow but little
cotton, the most important imports are Manchester goods.

Szechuen is by far the richest province of the eighteen that constitute
the Middle Kingdom. Its present Viceroy, Liu, is a native of Anhwei; he
is, therefore, a countryman of Li Hung Chang to whom he is related by
marriage, his daughter having married Li Hung Chang's nephew. Its
provincial Treasurer is believed to occupy the richest post held by any
official in the empire. It is worth noticing that the present provincial
Treasurer, Kung Chao-yuan, has just been made (1894) Minister
Plenipotentiary to Great Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Sweden and
Norway, and one can well believe how intense was his chagrin when he
received this appointment from the "Imperial Supreme" compelling him, as
it did, to forsake the tombs of his ancestors--to leave China for
England on a fixed salary, and vacate the most coveted post in the
empire, a post where the opportunities of personal enrichment are simply
illimitable.

In Suifu there are two magistrates, both with important yamens. The Fu
magistrate is the "Father of the City," the Hsien magistrate is the
"Mother of the City;" and the "Mother of the City" largely favours the
export opium trade. When Protestant missionaries first came to the city
in 1888 and 1889 there was little friendliness shown to them. Folk would
cry after the missionary, "There goes the foreigner that eats children,"
and children would be hurriedly hidden, as if from fear. These taunts
were at first disregarded. But there came a time when living children
were brought to the mission for sale as food; whereupon the mission made
formal complaint in the yamen, and the Fu at once issued a proclamation
checking the absurd tales about the foreigners, and ordering the
citizens, under many pains and penalties, to treat the foreigners with
respect. There has been no trouble since, and, as we walked through the
crowded streets, I could see nothing but friendly indifference.
Reference to this and other sorrows is made in the missionary's report
to _China's Million