lasted twenty days; more than 850,000 men and 2500 guns
were engaged, and 120,000 were left dead on the field. On March 1, 1905,
the whole Japanese army began to move, and formed at last a ring round
the Russians and Mukden. Thus the Japanese became for the time being the
masters of Manchuria, but on the conclusion of peace the country was
handed back to China.

The life in the singular streets of Mukden is varied and attractive. The
Manchus seem a vigorous and self-confident people; they are taller than
the Chinese, but wear Chinese dress with fur caps on their heads. The
women seldom appear out of doors; they wear their hair gathered up in a
high knot on the crown, and, in contrast to the Chinese women, do not
deform their feet. Among the swarming crowds one sees Chinamen,
merchants, officers, and soldiers in semi-European fur-lined uniforms,
policemen in smart costumes with bright buttons, Japanese, Mongols, and
sometimes a European. Tramcars drawn by horses jingle through the
broader streets. The houses are fine and solidly built, with carved
dragons and painted sculpture, paper lanterns and advertisements, and a
confusion of black Chinese characters on vertically hanging signs. At
the four points of the compass there are great town gates in the noble
Chinese architecture, but outside stretches a bare and dreary plain full
of grave mounds.

In Pe-ling, or "Northern Tomb," rests the first Chinese Emperor of the
Manchu dynasty, and his son, the great Kang Hi, who reigned over the
Middle Kingdom for sixty-one years. Pe-ling consists of several
temple-like buildings. The visitor first enters a hall containing an
enormous tortoise of stone, which supports a stone tablet inscribed with
an epitaph extolling the deceased Emperor. At the farthest extremity of
the walled park is the tomb itself, a huge mass of stone with a curved
roof. In a pavilion just in front of this building the Emperor of China
is wont to perform his devotions when he visits the graves of his
fathers. Solemn peace reigns in the park, and under the pine-trees stone
elephants, horses, and camels gaze solemnly at one another.

From Mukden Port Arthur is an easy eight hours' railway journey
south-westwards; and it is only an hour and a half more to Dalny, which
in Japanese hands has grown to a large and important commercial town.

THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY

On December 28, 1908, we stepped into the train in Dalny, and commenced
a railway journey wh