with all the facilities necessary to
the carrying out of his inclination, and his travels with the Boy Scouts
had brought him into contact with many of the countries whole history he
had studied so enthusiastically.

Now he saw an opportunity of talking China to Jack, and started in at
once. Jack listened eagerly, for, while interested in the past of the
strange land, he was too busy a young man to spend much time in any
library. His father was one of the leading corporation lawyers in New
York, but the boy's inclinations pointed to mining as a future
profession--when he had investigated the wilds of the world!

"We don't know much about China," Frank began, "because for centuries
China has shunned what we call civilization. This is said to be the
most ancient and populous nation in the world, although it seems to me
that history goes back farther on the banks of the Nile and the
Euphrates than on the western shore of the Yellow Sea.

"The authentic history of China goes back 2207 years before the birth of
Christ, while Egyptian records and the data found along the Euphrates
and the Tigris point to a much older organization of men into
communities. However, it is said by some that Fuh-hi founded the Chinese
empire eight hundred years before the date given, when Yu the Great
began to make history.

"One reason why the story of China is so short, comparatively, is that
Ching Wang, the old fellow who caused the Chinese wall to be built to
keep out the Tartars, ordered all books and records previous to his time
to be destroyed. This was to dispose of the stories of wars, in which
China, before his time, was always engaged.

"China has always been at war with the Mongolians. In 1300 A.D.,
Genghis Khan raised a Mongolian army and captured Peking. Later, one
Kublai Khan overthrew the Sung dynasty and established a Mongolian
empire. The members of the defeated royal family drowned themselves in
the river at Canton. This Mongolian dynasty lasted until the middle of
the fourteenth century, when it was overthrown.

"The Chinese governed their own land, then, until 1644, just before
which time the emperor was murdered by native sons. Then the Tartars
got to Peking, in spite of the Great Wall, and established the dynasty
now on the throne.

"One cause of the growing revolt in China is the fact that the Tartars
are still in power. But the Tartars who were warlike enough when China
lay before them for conquest quieted