each pupil pursues his own studies. As soon as a boy has learned his lesson, he takes his book to the teacher and then, turning about, stands with his back toward him and repeats his lesson.

During the cold days of winter the Chinese boys sit in their schoolrooms clothed in so many layers of thick, wadded garments that there is scarcely room for two boys on the same bench. Their stockings and shoes, as well as their hats, are wadded. Instead of a stove

in the schoolroom, there is an iron kettle of ashes in the middle of the floor in which there are a few pieces of burning charcoal. Out-of-doors at play, boys do not need to wear mittens or gloves, because their long wadded coat sleeves keep their hands well protected.

We must not leave China without a sight of the Great Wall. From Peking the journey is not a long one, but it must be made in one of the springless carts so common in this country, over a road worn by centuries of travel. In places the road is simply a trench from ten to fifteen feet deep.

We pass villages, in many of which the houses, built of sun-dried brick, are huddled together in the greatest confusion. For long distances there are few trees or fences to be seen. A caravan from Mongolia to Peking passes us, and we count more than a hundred camels laden with grass and sheepskins.

At length the Great Wall is reached. As we gaze at this mass of stone and brick, and learn something of its history, we are not surprised that it has been called one of the wonders of the world,

This wall was built as a defense against the people of Manchuria and other northern tribes, it is believed, two hundred years before the time of Christ. It is about forty feet high and eighteen feet wide at the top. At certain intervals great square towers rise from the main wall. Crossing valleys and plains, rivers and mountains, it extends nearly sixteen hundred miles from the Gulf of Pechili to the Desert of Turkestan.

Before the days of gunpowder it proved a valuable protection to the country; but the time came when the very people whom the Chinese most dreaded broke through the wall and took possession of the country.

Some one has written this witty description of the Great Wall: "The most important building in China is the Chinese Wall, built to keep the Tartars out. It was built at such enormous expense that the Chinese never got over it. But the Tartars did."

This was more than three hundred years ago, and from that time to the present a Manchu has been the emperor of China.

It is interesting to know that the great viceroy Li Hung Chang, the emperor's chief counselor, is a pure Chinaman, with no trace of Tartar blood in his veins.

During the year 1896, Li Hung Chang made a tour around the world, having first attended the coronation of the Czar of Russia as the representative of the Emperor of China.

Visiting the great rulers of Europe, the aged viceroy was received with distinction and treated with great honor.

Crossing the Atlantic Ocean, he was welcomed to our country by the President.

In the short time he could remain in the United States he visited a few of our great cities; he examined with care many forms of tmachinery and the latest marvels of electricity, — in all of which he took a special interest.

Almost as soon as Li Hung Chang arrived in New York he visited the tomb of General Grant, and thus showed his deep regard for the man he had long admired.

The long journey by rail across the continent must have impressed this keen man with the advantages of railroads to a great land, and shown him how they develop all the resources of a nation.

It is hoped the many things he learned in this journey around the world will be impressed upon the emperor by Li Hung Chang, and that he may live to see the railroad, the telegraph, and many other improvements introduced into all parts of The Middle Kingdom.

There was a time when China was the equal, if not the rival, of the rest of the world. She built mighty walls, great canals, and led the way to some of the world's greatest inventions. To this day some of her manufactures have never been surpassed. She has within her borders almost boundless resources, great rivers, fertile plains, and mines of untold wealth. We can but wonder what her future is to be!

Her hatred of foreigners; her rejection of all modern improvements and labor-saving machines; and her evident belief that she can learn nothing from the outside world, are impassable barriers to progress.

But the time must come when China, no longer content with the wheelbarrow and the palanquin, the paper lantern and the clumsy junk, will welcome the more modern inventions of the Western World and strive to take a place among the leading nations of the earth.

“Builders of the mighty wall,

Bid your mountain barriers fall!
So may the girdle of the sun
Bind the East and West in one."

CHAPTER XVI.

THE SUNRISE KINGDOM.

LYING far, far to the East, in the path of the rising sun, is the Island Kingdom of Japan.

"Cradled and rocked in the Eastern seas

The islands of the Japanese

Beneath me lie; o'er lake and plain

The stork, the heron, and the crane,

Through the clear realms of azure drift;
And on the hillsides I can see

The villages of Imari."

This land is sometimes called the "Land of Flowers," and the "Chrysanthemum Empire." It can lay good claim to these titles, for nowhere else do we hear of the "Feast of the Chrysanthemums" or the "Feast of the Cherry Blossoms."

No country on the globe is more interesting than