Excerpt from Overland to China The writer had made many journeys in China, north and south, during the past twenty years: had explored the southwest provinces and their border lands towards India; served through the French campaign in Tongking as correspondent of the Times; and, as recently as 1896 - 97, made a care ful study on thespot of the political and financial changes in progress in the Chinese capital, visiting also Japan. But the questions arising are both diverse and unexpected, while the general problems coming up for solution are SO complex and SO grave that even personal knowledge becomes obsolete, and it is impossible for the most earnest student of news papers and books to follow intelligently the progress of events without frequently renewing and extending his studies from the life. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.