Ar present China politics are dull, The active members of the foreign communities who bestirred themselves so zealously at the time of the Alcock Convention and the Tientsin massacre, are now silent. The questions that agitated men's minds in this country a few years ago, are for the time shelved, and a lull succeeds. We are supposed to "rest and be thankful." Perhaps before the year is out the Audience Question will be brought forward, or perhaps it will not; at all events the great end to which we should all labour, viz., the opening up of the Yangtsze, seems indefinitely postponed. Though going over old ground, it is well.to remind our readers what this means. Familiarity with a subject often occasions its neglect. Let us see then what this comparatively unused River is.
Ifwe take down a map of the Middle Kingdom and examine it, we shall seo that the sources of the Yangetsic,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.