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and one a Chinese; it has four deputies in the capital, and all governors and lieutenant-governors are ex-officio deputies. Its officers are sent on periodical visits of inspection to various parts of the Empire, and by the people they are often called the sovereign's "eyes and ears."

The foreign affairs of the Empire, in which are included matters relating to Mongolia, Ili, Thibet, and other outlying regions, are managed by the Lifan-yuen, or Colonial Office. By this department the inhabitants of the territories beyond the eighteen provinces are distinguished as waifan, or "outside foreigners," while the various non-Chinese tribes still inhabiting parts of the provinces, are called nuifan, or "inside foreigners." Wai-i, or "external barbarians," used to be the epithet applied by them to the inhabitants of all foreign countries not acknowledging the supremacy and enjoying the protection of China, but the incongruity of such a term has been reluctantly recognised of late years. There are six bureaux in this Colonial Department. Their functions are carefully and intelligently prescribed, not the least important being the overseeing of the Lama hierarchs in Mongolia and Thibet; of the Mohammedan Beys in Nanlu, and of the inner and outer Mongol tribes. Diplomatic relations with treaty Powers are not, however, in the hands of the Lifan-yuen. They were removed from its control in 1862, after the capture of Peking by an Anglo-French army, when