ds of farming used in China largely
prevail here. I saw many of them taking their beans, grain, and other
produce to market. Along the dusty highway the oxen slowly trudged,
drawing great wooden wheeled carts. On one occasion the engine had
frightened the oxen and they had their heads up and tails flying as the
loaded cart bumped along over the field with the driver doing all he
could to get them back into the highway. Women and children were often
sitting on the ground in the villages, seemingly without any work
whatever to do.

The Manchurian people are larger physically than the Chinese and are
better looking. But some one has said of the Manchu, "he knows not,
neither does he learn." They say that he only bathes once a year and
does not care who owns the ground as long as he can till it, and that it
does not bother him in the least to see his wife and daughter sit on the
stone fence for hours picking the lice from each other's head. The women
folks are largely slaves of fashion and still persist in trying to stunt
the growth of their feet. Even while they do this they often work in the
harvest field, wash their clothing along the streams, clean out the
donkey stable, and do all kinds of outdoor work. While baking bread,
spanking their children and doing other household duties, they are not
slow in looking after and waiting upon their lordly husbands.

Some years ago a plague of the most deadly description swept over
northern Manchuria. It was so terrible and fatal that when one was
stricken there was but little hope for recovery. It was so contagious
that when one member of a family took it, generally the entire family
perished, as simply a whiff of the breath of one stricken was sufficient
to give it to another. The government made every effort to cope with the
situation but the difficulties were tremendous and the scourge spread
like a prairie fire. More than forty-two thousand took it and it is said
that not a single one recovered.

The ground was frozen so hard that it was impossible to dig graves for
the dead and preparation was made for cremating bodies. This created
consternation among the Manchus. Every possible subterfuge was resorted
to to conceal cases of the plague and bodies were often hidden in the
snow all winter long. Dr. Jackson, a brilliant young physician of the
Irish Presbyterian Mission in Manchuria, was stricken and died, as did
Dr. Mesny, a splendid French physician. Early the next spring th