EXTENT OF THE SERVICE

New lines have been opened in Manchuria in the most out-of-the-way districts along the Amur. Koko-nor, on the frontier of Tibet, has an excellent service. From Honanfu a continuous chain of day and night couriers is now running through Tung-Kuan, a town on the Yellow River where three provinces meet, through Shensi and Kansu provinces, past Chia-yu-kuan, the famous barrier on the Great Wall of China, to the capital city of the New Dominion, and thence to Kashgar, in Chinese Turkestan. This is the longest courier line in the world. In Lhasa the post-office is in charge of a Chinese named Têng Wei-ping, an excellent organizer, who speaks both French and English. Courier lines now extend from Lhasa to Yatung, on the border of Sikhim, from Gyantse to Shigatse, and new lines are being pushed forward over the 930 miles that lie between Lhasa and Chamdo.

From Hankow to Chêngtu, the capital of Ssuchuan Province, and to Tachienlu, a distance of more than 1,350 miles, there is now a continuous service of couriers travelling day and night. Hankow letters have reached Chéngtu in 42 days. From Tachienlu the courier service is being extended 370 miles west to Batang, the chief town on the Tibetan Marches, and the residence of the Frontier Commissioner, whence it will be continued 83 miles further to the Tibetan border, and thence be linked up with the main line of communications with Chamdo in Tibet, 357 miles from the frontier. When this is completed in the course of the next few months, there will be direct courier service from the Peking railway to Lhasa. When wireless telegraphy is installed in Tibet, as it shortly will be, few mysteries of this forbidden land will remain to be unveiled.

Through the Yangtsze gorges from Ichang to Chungking, postal boats last year made 50 per cent. more voyages than in the previous year. They carried 29,500 bags of mail matter, weighing 960 tons. Six boats were capsized or wrecked, one man was drowned, and only one bag of mail matter was lost. Any one who has made the journey from Ichang to Chungking by those dangerous rapids will appreciate at its true value the praiseworthy conduct of the crews, and will endorse the official commendation of that “splendid devotion to duty which made such records possible.” During the plague in Manchuria the service went on uninterruptedly; of 700 couriers carrying letters within the plague area, only one died, and in his case death was due to disregard of instructions. Both along the border of Yunnan, and in the distant province of Kweichow, the service is showing remarkable development, in the latter case

under an excellent postmaster, a Parsee in the service of the Chinese Government.