Everything was a strange contrast from what we had left; the cold colouring of Manchuria was replaced by a warm red soil, through which the first tokens of spring were beginning to appear. Instead of the blue clothing to which we had been accustomed, every one here was clad in white, both in town and country. Rice fields greet the eye at every turn, for this is the main cereal grown. The only things that were the same were the Japanese line and the Japanese official, no more conspicuous here than in Manchuria, and apparently firmly rooted in both.