Szechuan is supposed to be the Aargest, wealthiest, and most populous province in China, Some authorities place the population at sixty million, others estimate it at somewhere near fifty million, bat all agree that it is very forge. As its Rayne means, it is the province of "four rivers." On all sides it is surrounded by high mountains, and the centre of the province is one large fertile plain, Szechuan is ordered on the west by the high 'Tibetan mountains, beyond which Lio the wide tablelands of Tibet, and ita tremendous wealth lies in' this large piain,- sometimes callod the 'Chengtu Plain, which at many pott its produces' salt, whilst the sur rounding mountains give large Quantities of coal. Practically all water in the province enters the ingtao and flows towards Shang-'The thing, however, which impress the casual visitor is not alt, the coat, the plain, or th rivers, but the swarming population, "Chungking, Luchow, Suifu, Kinting, Chengtu, are among. Inrgost cities in 'China, Szechuan has plenty of room, plenty of food, and plenty of wealth to feed its enormous population, 'The province has its poor, but It is not poor it drag its rich, and they are very viol Geechuan' at the present time is political coutel, tax, dominate, rush as they please. twenty aition told the warlord above them that all they had left was the between their bones and if that from them they were done for. Other parts of the province have been a0 consistently and persistent "peeled" by the warlords that now there is nothing further to peel. The six big men occupy the six following parts of the province:—Paoning, Luchow, Tungchuan, Wanhsien, Chengtu, and Chungking, and ' ench one has spread himself out like a green ba; tree, Maintaining these six big men in office and in power are about one million soldiers and some the big men have enormous armies stretching in some places across the country for ten and twelve day
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.