"The author of this book oversaw the British Consulate at Newchwang in Manchuria, a country whose western Frontier touches the Northern Chinese province of Chihli and Mongolia, from November, 1894, to July, 1897, and from April, 1899, to April, 1900, and the following pages are, most of them, the work of leisure moments snatched from a busy official life. In 1896 he had to visit the capital of Kirin, the central province, and , returning to England on furlough in summer of the present year, he journeyed along the eastern and northern frontier of Manchuria to join the Siberian Railway at Stretensk. The first four chapters contain an account of these journeys and a history of important events that have recently occurred in this part of the Empire of China, while the remaining chapters are devoted to a study of the country, its people, products, industries and trade. They make no claim to be a complete study of the fatherland of the Manchu dynasty; but they have entailed an amount of labour and research altogether incommensurate with the results. "--Provided by publisher.