of the country are apt to strike a traveler with a decided sense of surprise. The farther he floats down the stream the more does he note the sandy character of the level soil. The river becomes extensive and shows the tendency of wandering loose in several directions, so much so that it is difficult to say which is the main stream and which the branches.

From Taolaichao the Sungari makes its way steadily westward toward the eastern skirts of the wide-flung steppes of Eastern Inner Mongolia. The river remains about as deep and wide as it has been for some miles above Taolaichao, depth from two to eight feet; and it widens at some points to about a mile. All along the northern bank the cultivated fields, dotted here and there with farming villages, stretch level to the horizon. On the southern bank, with the exception of about three Districts, the land presents the aspects of a Mongolian steppe, entirely virgin. Between Taolaichao and Petuna is a length of about 101 miles, where as one proceeds toward Petuna he views a great open stretch of excellent grazing-ground in the rolling plain covered with grass. Many herds of sheep and cattle are seen over the vast country. As for the river, it becomes more and more trying to negotiate as it opens out into the steppe country. It loses its depth as the result of constantly dividing itself into innumerable branches and spreading over the level plain at the least excuse. As if that were not enough, the Itung River, which flows into the Sungari not far from Taolaichao, brings along with it a constant flow of silt. It makes the river-bed shallow and everlastingly shifting.

Between Petuna and Harbin there are 172 miles of the river's course. Here the Sungari takes on an entirely different aspect in its rôle of a trade route. Less than twelve miles below Petuna the Sungari adds unto itself the greatest of its tributaries, the Nonni. This brings

about a sudden and tremendous increase in the volume of water in the river course. It becomes four and a half to nine feet deep. Its current rolls with majestic grace at greater leisure. From this point on it is no trouble for river steamers to make their way through all the hours of night.

From the City of Harbin the Sungari flows 434 miles to the point where it joins the Amur. All along this long course it maintains the depth of about four and a half to nine feet. It flows through level and fertile plain, with the exception of two mountainous sections: one between Mulan and Sansing, some 105 miles down the stream from Harbin, where the spurs of the Changkwansai overshadow its right bank for about 106 miles, and another section about thirty-three miles below Sansing. This valley has been developing at so sensational a pace that its production of pulse and grains has been the talk of recent years.

The development of the past ten years seems to spell a singular story-the story of the Sungari taking the place of the Liao as the premier river trade route of Manchuria. Shipments up and down the Liao have been steadily declining with the building of the South Manchuria Railway since the early days of the Twentieth Century, and through the same years the fruitful valley of the Sungari seems suddenly to have waked into har

vest.

The agricultural products of the valley of the Sungari are estimated at about 6,612,000 tons, composed of 1,264,000 tons of kaoliang, 902,000 tons of soya beans, 361,000 tons of wheat, 271,000 tons of barley, about the same amount of millet, and other grains to the amount of 542,000 tons. It is a mere question of time when all this output will find its way to the central market of Harbin. Perhaps the largest interrogation point in the situation at present is just when will the

Chinese Eastern Railway recover its efficiency as a carrier. As soon as that line returns to full function then all these products of the Sungari plain will find their way to Harbin to be distributed from that point east to Vladivostok or south to Dairen or westward into Siberia through Manchuli. Even under the present disturbed condition it is said that 400,000 tons of soya beans, 180,000 tons of wheat, 72,000 tons of other grains, 652,000 tons in all, are finding their way out annually through Harbin into foreign markets.

The commonest type of boat used on the Sungari is the native junk built along similar lines to the junks afloat on the Liao. They are all fitted with sails and have cargo capacity of from 20 to 200 tons. The Chinese Eastern Railway Company owns and controls a large tonnage on the Sungari. Its flotilla is made up of twelve river steamers, five tugs, and thirty iron barges. Their total loading capacity is about 25,000 tons. It is reported that the total number of river steamers on the Sungari to-day is close to 100. Most of them have been brought down to the Sungari from the Amur by their owners, who had fled from the Bolshevik régime. A Chinese semi-governmental shipping company called Wutung Company is reported to have twenty-six river steamers on the Sungari, of which ten are of wood and sixteen of iron and steel. They range from 131 to 1,307 1,000 tons each, and the total tonnage of the twenty-six boats amounts to 12,591.

tons. Three are above

NO CANALS IN MANCHURIA

China built her Grand Canals in the days of the Sui Dynasty (589-618 A.D.). The Erie Canal, the greatest work of the kind in the United States, was completed in 1825. In 1850 the United States had 3,700 miles of canals. The history of transportation in Manchuria

is entirely innocent of canals. This form of water transportation, which proved both in China Proper and in the United States the cheapest means of transportation, never received even serious consideration in Manchuria.

There is a reason for this, all-sufficient and very simple: industrial Manchuria did not climb the ladder of evolution. An outsider came along, took her by the nape of the neck, and rushed her over from the river-transportation age right into the railway age, skipping all the intermediate stages. Down to 1899, when the Liao was in all its glory, Manchuria was a simple agricultural state of a rather primitive type. Then suddenly in the most arbitrary and artificial manner imaginable, through the political adventure of Russia, an advanced form of transportation utterly foreign to her economic constitution was imposed on her while she sat dazed and speechless.

RAILWAYS

In Manchuria there are 2,234 miles of railway built and in operation to-day. This includes branch lines and light railways to Tsitsihar and at Penhsihu, as follows:

The story of the South Manchuria Railway has already been told at some length. To the story of the Chinese Eastern line given in a former chapter we may add the following interesting facts from one of the recent publications of the Company issued at Harbin:

In the first part of 1923 the Chinese Eastern Railway owned 536 locomotives, 607 passenger cars, and 12,337 freight cars. There were 223 acres of floor space in the buildings owned, all of which had been put in order in the course of 1922. The entire length of the railbed has been covered with broken rock, and all the wooden bridges of the line have been replaced by others of permanent type. In 1921 the line made the net profit of 3,035,562 gold rubles in spite of the deficit of more than 4,329,800 rubles resulting from various enterprises, such as the policing of the railway zone and the maintenance of schools and hospitals, all of which are covered under the general head of "Special Estimates." In 1922 the net profit amounted to 5,416,481 rubles. On the cultural work of the Chinese Eastern Railway the publication from which we have been quoting has this to say:

"The Chinese Eastern Railway, having originated in a wild and desert country, undertook to serve the cultural and other wants of the railway personnel first and later of the whole population of both Russian and Chinese nationality.