This page has been validated.
CHAPTER I.
A NEW ORDER IN THE FAR EAST.
The passage from the nineteenth to the twentieth century has been marked by many events of immense importance to the human race. Many years hence historians will no doubt give their decision as to the relative importance of the various movements which have characterised the past decade, and which have provided the outward and visible signs of the mysterious onward flowing current—call it evolution or what you will—which is for ever sweeping peoples and kingdoms along the road to an unknown goal. It would be rash, indeed, to endeavour to anticipate the verdict of posterity, but this at least may be foretold, that no historian dealing with the closing years
