The eighteen populous provinces which compose ‘China proper’ are enveloped on all sides, excepting the one open to the Pacific, by thinly peopled regions of more than double the area of the kernel, all acknowledging Chinese sway, having been acquired, some by conquest, some by inheritance, some by hardly unwilling submission to the superior civilization of their illustrious neighbour; all form together an area exceeding that of Europe, and not the least valuable of these outlying possessions is Manchuria.

Manchuria is so named from the Tartar tribe originally dwelling in the country, the Manchu, which conquered China in 1644 and whose descendants form the ruling dynasty to-day. The country, including the maritime province of Primorsk, has an area equal to that of France and Germany combined, possesses an exceptionally rich soil, and potential resources which only need development to render it equally productive: this vast region, extending from the 39th to the 52nd parallel of north latitude, lies farther to the south than do those countries, but, owing to the drop in the isotherms of Eastern Asia, the winter climate is colder by some thirty degrees than in the corresponding latitude in Europe, and ten to twenty degrees colder than in the same latitude in New England.