Being the Tale of Her Long and Friendly Sojourning amongst a Strangely Interesting People

BY LUCY SOOTHILL

WITH A FOREWORD BY HER DAUGHTER

LADY HOSIE

16 ILLUSTRATIONS

HODDER AND STOUGHTON LIMITED LONDON

WARWICK SQUARE, E.C.4

MCMXXXI

FOREWORD BY HER DAUGHTER, LADY HOSIE

'My first experience of China was a Riot: my last a Revolution. Was living in China worthwhile? Well worthwhile.' So writes my mother in the final chapter of this book.

In the Three Character Classics, which Chinese schoolchildren used to learn by heart, is a famous story of a virtuous boy whose old parents longed to eat fish. The season being winter, he lay upon the ice, melted it with his body's warmth, and caught the fish! Never have I attained such heights of filial piety. Seeing, however, that my father has twice written introductions for books of mine, is it not right that I should now perform a similar office for my mother?

Indeed, it is only the payment of a debt that I should write. Was it not my mother who, after I went back to China as a grown-up young lady fresh from school, set pen and paper before me my first entrancing China New Year? Outside our haven of the White House in that Chinese city fire-crackers exploded all down Tilemarket Street." In and out of the room she passed, busy with Chinese friends and with the inter-change of mandarin oranges and red peppers, dyed eggs and smoked ducks, sweet persimmons and paper-white narcissi-or water-fairy flowers." On one of her incursions she found me sighing, confounded by that stumbling-block of the incipient author-the first sentence. "Then begin with the second!" quoth she gaily: advice which seemed inspired, and for which I can never be sufficiently grateful. In truth, she has been our family critic and help all along. A great reader herself, she brought a cultivated taste and a discriminating penetration which, though mingled with natural kindness, demanded difficult achievements of us. Lucidity in literature was her especial requirement and her search for the exact word was unremitting. The result, seasoned. with her spicy sense of humour, will be found in these, her own lively and living pages, with their theme of high endeavour founded on deep spiritual experience.

I once wrote in a book thus

A lady with white hair, luminous hazel eyes under arching eyebrows, and an expression of taking vivid interest in everything she saw, stood waiting outside Wing On's door.''

It was flattering that my mother's friends at once recognized her. In fact, they used to invite me to put her doings into all my books, quoting in particular the time when she sallied out to save the Lo family's silver hoard, carrying a revolver in a small red satin bag worked in blue forget-me-nots!

But I have mind-pictures further back than that: of a dark-haired hostess making life, even in an out-of-the-way Chinese Treaty Pod, seem vital and enriching. I see her, walking with the hill-born woman's springing gait over the glens and dales of South China, darting eagerly aside to pluck ferns, azaleas, roses. Or later, in North China, riding in more sedate middle-age on the fattest white horse ever seen roiling a broad back, which she flicked with innocuous whip. He grunted for breath as he responded to her incorrigible spirit of inquiry; scrambling safely with her in the precipitous loess along goat-tracks which alarmed me. I see her again, poring over intricate embroidery patterns for the benefit of her poorer Chinese women friends or lingering to correct a little Chinese girl's first essay, on a slate, the child in her variegated tunic halting between awe and affection at her knee.

During the European War, my mother and father led bands of young Chinese interpreters, ten at a time, about London, to behold its marvels. Lately we came upon poems written by them in acknowledgment saying how she had taken them upon "the rainbow buses flashing between the houses, and the moving glow-worms of the underground trains deep under the earth." When settling down in England, she was happy to be surrounded by Chinese objects and colours, the very woof and web of her life. Her natural background seemed blue-and-grey Peking Garrets, and temple tapestries with their swirling dragons, a cabinet from Shansi with painted panels and brass hinges, anti the carved blackwood chairs which she, as a good housekeeper, has often herself polished.

No Oriental "Woman without a Name" she! Her name, Lucy, is as pleasing as in English when transliterated into the Chinese language-spoken by her with such purity. Lu-Hsi, it runs: and it means, very aptly, Brightness-upon-the-Way. What could be more suitable for one so starry, so candid, so lovely-whose life has been spent in carrying "the Light"

DOROTHEA HOSIE.

"So they have sent me out another youngster to die," said the Veteran in our Service when he met the pale-faced, black-haired youth of two-and-twenty who stepped eagerly off the tender at Shanghai in the autumn of 1882.

"We must find this young man an anchor: or he will be all over China!" is what he ejaculated a year and a half later. And a more urgent petition than the Veteran ever sent on his own behalf went home to England, in which he recommended that the youth be allowed forthwith to marry, despite the fact that this would considerably antedate his period of probation. Wisely-or unwisely -the request was granted. In consequence, the youth-hereinafter called Sing Su, by Chinese mode of speech-entreated me to go out and act, not as an anchor of the soul, but apparently as a deadweight, a holdfast to the City-of-the-South. This city of China remains to the present day a Tom Thumb port in size from the Maritime Customs point of view. Its foreign, or Western, inhabitants are few, and its foreign trade has been slow in growth as to volume and value. But a hundred thousand Chinese dwell within its grey old walls and in its narrow streets.

Of course Sing Su did not put his startling invitation as baldly as that. Yet on receiving it, I knew instantly, and from internal evidence, that, whether I liked or not, I should have to go and do what I could to put a drag on the chariot wheels of so adventurous and exploring a spirit. In this particular I succeeded to perfection, as our long twenty-five years' residence in the City-of-the-South testified. Probably the cunningly devised letters that followed, hard after each other, confirmed my decision. They were enough to lure a duck oft the water. Anent these same epistles, on my arrival in Ningpo a man there Jocosely inquired if I had brought them with me.

"Some," I answered.

"Then read one aloud to him every day - to remind him of what he has promised you," was the advice.

An occasion arose when I deemed it politic to do this, and produced one. But he whose "Sing," or surname, was "Su" in Chinese, and whose career in life had been deflected from the study of law, was not easily trapped.

"Loving? Yes, always, but I never promised to be useful," came the quick retort which was what I wanted him to be at the moment.

As for me, it was easier to decide on going to China than to go. Difficulties arose, tile worst of which came after my boxes big and unwieldy as dromedaries-were packed, my berth taken, and myself ii' the very act of bidding farewell to my fiancés people. At that moment, with dramatic impact a cable arrived at the door which set me aquiver.

"European houses all burnt in the City-of-the-South no lives lost." Thus ran the laconic statement.

These evil tidings did indeed give pause; but in the and certain sympathetic spirits decided that it would be too discouraging for any young man to lose both wife and house at one fell blow. In later years the beneficiary of my devotion would tease me over this generosity on my part. "She was so anxious to go that not even a riot could stop her," he would assert.

The short interval before sailing was filled with a frantic effort to rid myself of my abysmal ignorance of the land whither I was going. Truth to tell, I had never altogether lost the childish impression that the Celestial Empire, which vied with Tibet in mystery, was surrounded by a monstrously high perpendicular wall, over which every one who would enter must first perform the well-nigh impossible feat of climbing There was no other entrance.

In the October of 1884 I set sail, knowing not a soul on board, and trusting - if ever I did in my life - in Divine Providence. The Bay of Biscay lived up to its reputation, and behaved abominably. For days I lay in my berth, too ill to move with the flagellations I received. Indeed I should have stayed there for ever had riot a kind German fraulein, returning to her work in India under the Church Zenana Missionary Society) come to my rescue. The battered passengers were collecting again on deck; a rumour went round that a young lady lay very ill in one of the cabins; so she went to see what she could do.

"Won't you come up on deck? It is better now," she said.

"I cannot dress," I forlornly replied.

"Do try, I will help you. Have you a long cloak?"

"Yes, fur-lined," I said.

"With that you need not dress even, and I will help you up.'

Thus encouraged, together we struggled to the top of the companion-way: just in time to be thrown violently down by a Wave in a heap on the deck Considerate fellow-sufferers rescued us, placed me in a long chair and fed me with Liebig-ate panacea of those days. But I have detested and shunned the Bay ever since.

In 1884 the hospitality of Shanghai was as generous as it was wide. I was received by people of whom I had never heard, who gave us a delightful wedding breakfast, to which we were free to invite whom we desired. An ideally handsome "father" not only gave me away, but also adopted me for all time. He made a happy breakfast speech, and afterward entertained us for a week in his comfortable house, although his wife was then at home in England. Our wedding hostess did her beet to encourage me by asserting tier conviction that my dart hair and rosy cheeks were certain to commend themselves to the Chinese who, apparently, had little use for blue eyes or fair hair,

Thus lapped in kindness, it was only when Sing Su and I married just two short week-stood solitary on the deck of the little coasting- steamer; waving farewell to our apprehensive Ningpo friends, that I realized to what a life I had comminuted myself. So far, all had gone well; but as the ship loosed from her moorings, a sudden mist blinded my eyes, shutting out shore and friends. I felt that I, too, had cut adrift, and was leaving all my known world behind. I was launching forth, not only on the uncharted sea of matrimony, but for a destination which might easily prove as inhospitable and perilous tome as it had already shown itself to Sing Su.

Our vessel, the Yung-Ning, or Eternal Peace, was the Smallest cockleshell driven by steam I ever saw, This may readily be believed when I append that she had been the mail boat from London to the Cape fifty years before t An upper deck had been added, which in stormy weather threatened to turn her turtle. On board were three European officers and a Chinese crew. The captain's was the only comfortable cabin.

"The lady shall have it," said he to Sing Su.

He and Sing Su spent the time discussing the recent Riot while we threaded our way through the numerous small islands down the coast. These looked lovely but the water, thick and turbid with the silt of the Yellow Seal needed to be redeemed, and was so, by the fleets of small fishing-boats. Their white sails flashed like silver as they flew along in the breeze and sunshine.

Hereabouts, I now learned, pirates were still possible. But in former years they had infested this part of the China coast until, indeed, British and Chinese cruisers, the latter captained at that time by foreigners, drove them out of action. Later an small of mine told me how, twenty years earlier, her own father was a passenger in a junk which was seized by pirates in these waters. With the rest of the passengers, he was thrown overboard. When he clung to the sides of the boat to save his life, they loosened his hold by stashing off his fingers with their knives. He fell back and was drowned. To Amah this seemed to be just another of life's trials, to be accepted with resignation.

It was the French war with China which caused the Riot that had taken place in the City-of-the-South two months before I reached there. The people had been in a restless fever of excitement for some time, fearing an attack from the French, who had attacked Foochow directly to the south. The city had been officially placarded with instructions ordering each householder to have ready, outside his door, a heap of big stones. Carpenters worked hard, both day and night, fashioning huge wooden cases, which were towed some distance down the bank of the river. When the watching fishermen gave the signal that the enemy was at the mouth of the river, these stones were to be carried by each householder and emptied into the cases, which were then to be sunk in mid-stream. Thus an impassable barrier would block the entrance to our river, the Ao-or Bowl River-from whose month our city is distant twenty miles,

But though the stones were collected, and the cases built, neither were put to their intended use. For years the huge tubs rotted on the banks; but in the Riot in which Sing Su suffered, some of the stones served as handy missiles, to the danger of the handful of Europeans in the city.

One Saturday night, twenty or thirty Chinese Christians met together for the usual service in a room on the premises adjoining Sing Su's house. Before the opening hymn was finished, a sudden attack was made on the front of his house. A mob had collected there, and finding the door unyielding, turned its attention to the back premises, and with greater. Soon those identical stones came hurtling through the doors and windows, and in a short time the back wooden gate. fell under combined effort, allowing the crowd to pour pell-mell into the yard. Meanwhile Sing Su had gone round to the front, but, seeing a dangerous blaze in his servants' quarters, ran back there, where he found a crowd of men gathered, many of whom were naked because of the hot weather. They carried sticks and were throwing stones, and were watching with approval the wooden floor merrily ablaze with the forthger's own limp-oil.

Calling to some of his friends to put out the fire, Sing Su approached the mob, which, when it saw him, incontinently fled. He followed, and began to expostulate. The only answer was a stone, which missed him but cut open the head of a Chinese Christian near him. Sing Su sent messenger after messenger hot-foot to the magistrate, asking help and protection. He made no mention of Treaty Rights, nor of Extra-territoriality he merely made the appeal of a peaceable citizen when attacked. But no help was forthcoming. The situation becoming dangerous, Sing Su set off in person, with only his riding-stick as protection, to inquire if the official had gone on a journey, or were asleep and must needs be waked. For a time the magistrate refused to see him but he relented in the end, and listened to what he had to say. After long delay, and then with great deliberation, the magistrate himself set off in PUS', Official chair on the unpleasant business of quelling the disturbance. Vain were his belated efforts. The mob, now realty augmented, warned him not to interfere, and they set about purposely to fire, first Sing Su's premises, and then the rest of the half-dozen European homes scattered in various quarters of the city.

When Sing Su bad proposed returning with the official to the scene of action, he was firmly told that this would not be permitted. He must remain in the yamen, where he was virtually a prisoner-but comparatively safe. Here, as time passed, be was joined by two other members of the little community who, in the effort to escape from their burning homes and the mob, had run the gauntlet of showers of stones combined with shouts of "Tae-sz-Beat to death!" One of the two was an old man, an American. The other was a Scot, and lame. When the canny Scot saw that the yamen gate was to be shut in their faces, to keep out the crowd, he cleverly inserted one of his crutches and retained an opening until it was made possible for them to push inside. After which, the massive doors were closed on the rioters. Thus it would seem that their own efforts saved their lives.

Other two young men, members of the Maritime Customs, escaped by dropping down over the city wall, some thirty feet. They carried their sporting guns, and with such aid to obedience, compelled the solitary boatman they were lucky enough to find to row them across to the British consulate. Here Her Britannic Majesty's consul sat in solemn state, having for the occasion donned his cocked hat and silverlaced uniform. Arrayed thus, he hoped to overawe the attacking force-which did not come: but only because the Taotai, or head official, had forestalled the rioters by ordering all the boats away out of their reach, to the far bank of the mile-wide river. In so doing he desired, doubtless, to avoid serious complications with foreign powers.

As may be imagined, the little company in the yamen - now increased to four by the coming of another Englishman-passed an anxious night watching the glare in the sky and trying to locate each other's burning houses. They wondered if the mob would not attempt to break in, and succeed in destroying them also, although as refugees they were ostensibly under official protection. Happily at this time there was not one white woman in the city, unlike during the Siege of the Legations at Peking sixteen years later, when the harassed men there succeeded in sending through their terse cable to London, "We have with us two hundred women and children."

Sunday morning dawned, bringing to Sing Su's side his servant, Chang, who with tears in his eyes took his young master's hand.

"Teacher! We did not know what had happened to you," he said. "We have spent the whole night searching and praying for your safety"

On that Sunday, with Sing Su under lock and key in the yamen, and their modest little sanctuary in ruins and smouldering from the fires of yesterday, a small company of Chinese Christians met bravely together in the house of one of them, and there worshipped the God so recently made known to them by the despised, detested foreigner. Nor should it be forgotten that in Chinese houses of the poorer type there is little privacy or protection from the public gaze.

Sing Su and his companions remained shut up in the yamen till evening, and were then escorted by a small band of soldiers over to the River's Heart, the island in the middle of the river on which to this day stands the British consulate. But with a difference. In those times the consul was housed in a temple, picturesque indeed, but riddled with white ants. Now, when a consul functions no longer in that City-of-the-South, the consulate, built with memories of those earlier, harder days, stands like a fortress, in stone!

In the consulate the refugees awaited the Eternal Peace-the steamship Yung-Ning-which took them away for a change of air and scenery. The consul went also, but he, poor man, was almost immediately sent a thousand miles up the Yangtsze, to open to foreign trade and residence the Port of Chungking. There his career was again interrupted by a riot, from which he escaped with greater difficulty this time and some damage, for his ankle was broken in his hasty escape over the city wall. The luggage of the Yung-Ning's passengers to Shanghai on this occasion was almost nil. Sing Su had only the white drill suit in which he stood, with the exception of a new Coarse red blanket supplied by the magistrate, and charged for by the said gentleman at an enhanced rate when accounts were finally settled between the British and the Chinese Governments.

The Veteran in our Service was wont waggishly to assert that when Sing Su left his blazing home for the yamen on that eventful fourth of October 1884, he bad, tied round his neck, his most valued possession, namely, a hand-painted plaque which had been sent him by me from England-a form of art in vogue amongst young ladies in Victoria's days. But no plaque survived in confirmation.

EARLY on New Year's Day, 1885, our Eternal Peace dropped her anchor in mid-stream, opposite to the busy North Gate of the City-of-the-South. Near her, also in mid-stream, lay the River's Heart, as the Chinese picturesquely call the island. Here, as I have said, lived the British consul, and Sing Su rowed off to ask the fulfillment of the consul's promise, which was that we might temporarily take up our abode in the consular office there on the island. To Sing Su's great relief, a couple of small rooms in what was nothing more than a detached cottage on the river's edge were granted to us, two distressed British subjects. This saved us the anxiety of not knowing where we should lay our heads that night. To tell the truth, Sing Su had not confessed to me the possibility of that other alternative. The same day, while struggling with the further problem of where to bestow all our goods, the sleep-mg-room being little bigger than my packing-cases, the consul himself appeared. An entire stranger to me, he abruptly opened communications.

"Come to tiffin," be said simply. were cordially welcomed by his wife, a young Swiss lady, a new arrival in China, which gave us much in common. Before tiffin was over, we were invited to dinner that night and breakfast the next day. Indeed, both our consul and his wife proved themselves to be true friends in need, the lady later on vigorously plying her needle to supply my hot-weather ward-role; for my own elaborate confections were not only unsuited but also unendurable in the heat of a semi-tropical summer. They both came and helped to unpack my boxes, and were as excited as ourselves when one article after another came forth:

mementoes of home and England.

Alas, the more difficult task of finding a place in which to all the things remained when they had departed. For days chaos reigned, amidst which was but one inspiring object an English vase holding a bunch of lovely pink monthly from the consul's garden, They stood, in their ordered beauty, a silent protest against the confusion. Meanwhile, we felt ourselves extremely fortunate in having this weather-tight brick-built shelter. A Chinese house was the only alternative, even if love or money could have procured one for us.

The city was a good quarter of an hour's row away, and this short distance created a sense of security. Often, while I slept, Sing Su would start up in the night and go out to listen: to assure himself that any unusual sounds coming across the water did not mean more mischief for us. Often, too, we planned how we could fly for our lives, with, I must say, scant hope of success. As it turned out, there was no occasion. One drawback to our life did I hate: the presence of the impudent rats, whose familiarity bordered on contempt, and who paid us dairy as well as nightly visits. At night they nibbled the candle close at my head, waking me with their gambols, and during the day they sometimes impelled me to jump on to the table. But this was better than the experience of the Chinese lad for whose thumb I made later a bread poultice. He came next day, minus the poultice, explaining that the rats had eaten it in the night while he slept. I believed him.

I was charmed with the scenery outside our door, This little island with its green trees, although not indeed "set in a silver sea "the water was too muddy for that was a pretty object, methought, as it lay almost in the centre of the mile-wide tidal river which encircled it. At each end was a big grassy mound, whereon, sentinel-like, to this day stand two ancient pagodas, which were erected ages ago, "to keep the River's Heart from floating away." The typhoons of centuries had failed to uproot them, but the relentless hand of time was urging to a surer if slower decay.

The ancient history of the River's heart, and that of the City-of-the-South-the latter divided from it by half a mile of water-digs deep in China's past. More than six hundred and fifty years ago, when China was disrupted and the Emperor Kang carried from his capital, Hangchow, to Peking by the conquering Mongols, his two younger brothers were sent to the City-of-the-South for safety. Here the elder of the two boys was enthroned in Kang's place under the title of Tuan Tsung, and here he reigned for a short time before fleeing south. In temporary safety, here also rested the Ancestral Tablets of his imperial forefathers. Tuan Tsung soon died of illness, caused by his having fallen from his war-junk into the sea. His younger brother, Ti Ping, was enthroned in his place when but eight years of age, and he also soon perished in these waters of the Southern China seas. Their faithful friend, Admiral Lu, who had fought bravely Ti Ping's battles, lost heart. He ended the unequal contest by first ordering his own wife to jump over-board, and then leaped himself into the blood-stained waters, bearing on his back the child-Emperor. In such calamitous fashion have dynasties in China a habit of ending.

In days previous to ours, it had been made possible by an earlier British consul for the sturdy to climb up the hundred and fifty spiral steps to the top of the pagoda at the southern end of the island, and out on to its tiny root. The view was glorious; and we celebrated New Year's Day by mounting to see it In those precarious times, with no telegraph-wires to us to the outer World, our consul was wont to carry his tale-SCOPE up the pagoda, in the hope of being the first to catch of the thin line of smoke out at sea which heralded the a-ad' of our one link with that world-our steamer. In later yen', alack, some vandal spoiled the fine appearance of this south pagoda by removing its tier upon tier of surrounding outside wooden galleries with their curving roofs. Worse still, the whole towering edifice was covered from top to bottom with thick white plaster! Thus can a beloved and noble landmark be reduced to the semblance of a mill-chimney. Nothing is left for a circling bird to lodge upon, or a crevice in which to teat its young. I heard the whisper that a British consul was concerned in this change for the worse. If so, could even the safety of the new consulate, erected under its age-long shadow, be a sufficient excuse? Today, our little home of 1885 has disappeared, and the consulate is closed down for lack of business; but the spoiled pagoda, that blot on the fair landscape, remains.

Across the river, running parallel with the bank for a long stretch rises the formidable old city wall, built of huge of stone or granite, and having its top battlemented. Opposite the island is the landing-place for vessels, behind which stands the principal entrance to the city-the North Gate. Further up the bank of the river, with its road under the lee of the wall, is the Salt Gate, where the boats which carry that valued commodity up-stream on its journey into the interior must stop and pay their dues, or woe betide them. Here there is occasionally a serious passage of arms in which, mayhap, some would-be salt smuggler or excise officer loses his life. Another length of fine wall brings us to the West Gate with its high ting-erh, or pavilion; after which the wall turns inland and is lost to view from the island.

The river continues its meandering among range after range of bare but beautiful bills, some of which have temples perched on their lofty summits. Some ranges were so high, albeit snowless, that we began to give them alpine names, until we found that we had been anticipated by our old American resident, who had already bestowed names we could not presume to alter. Grace Mount was well known, and named after the plucky earliest British lady who came to the City-of-the-South. To me was quickly allotted the lofty Lucy Range, in which the highest peak, with a temple built on its tiny plateau, and visible from long distances, became known as Dorothy Peak when my baby daughter arrived. only one mountain, and that down-river, could be spared to a man-but what a man! The famous British organizer of the Chinese Maritime Customs stands memorialized there in "Hart Peak."

Quite early during our residence on the island I received a shock. I want you to cut my hair," Sing Su said to me in a casual tone.

But," I cried, "I cannot! I have never done such a thing. I am quite incompetent, and should make you look as if you had had a basin put round your head."

My protests were in vain. I was informed, and rather peremptorily as I thought, that my worst would be better than the uninstructed Chinese barber's best, even if such an operator existed.

In mock despair I accepted the scissors, and for one hour snipped away cautiously at the thick dark crop, for the time oblivious of seven keenly interested Chinese women who had come over from the city to "look-see" rile, With noses flattened against the window-panes, they became as engrossed as myself in my performance. They then and there came to a decision, loud enough for us to hear:

"In the outside barbarian red-haired country, evidently the women are the barbers," said they.

So much for hasty judgments.

But mark the sequel. My friend, the consul's wife, had an "Eton crop," and urged that I should follow her example. It was so dean, and cooling in the heat, to be able to put one's head into a bowl of water, day or night, she urged. It was a tempting suggestion. But such a fashion, then unheard of especially among Chinese women, raised grave doubts as to the expediency of my yielding. So Sing Su and I went into the city to consult the doyenne of our ladies, she being the original of Grace Mount. After due deliberation, the lady pronounced judgment.

"It seems to me," she announced; "that we are strange object in Chinese eyes whatever we do; and a little hair more will not alter their opinion. So do as you like."

'That settled it and enabled to turn the tables on Sing Su. If I consented to cut his hair, he could not in all conscience refuse to cat 'nine. Nor did he. For dose on eight years we both wore Eton crops, and I only began to grow long locks again when I was coming home to England and must appear decorous in the eyes of my countrywomen. After these many years, another sequel may be told. In December 1928 a letter reached me from the City-of-the-South, sent by an old school girl of mine, now a married woman. To her" beloved Mother," myself-her own Chinese mother having died in infancy-she mites:

"My hair is already bobbed. There are many here who have also cut off their hair, following the example of Mrs. Thanks" (an Englishwoman in our apostolic succession in the city). As it is forty odd years since I ventured to wear short I cannot be held responsible for the fashions of New China. But I may add that in 1927 I myself reverted, with content, to that same mode of cut hair which I had found so comfortable 1885!

During our six months' stay on the River's Heart, and indeed long after that, the man I came to sympathize most with was the British consul. His service demanded, in the first place, that he be a man of attainments, at the head of the list in examinations before leaving England. Yet, as likely as not, in China he would find himself stationed in some quiet, far-distant spot, or on a little island like the River's Heart. Here, usually, his duties were few, unlimited time was on his hands, and he was thrown entirely on Iris own resources. These sometimes sufficed. One of our consuls bailed his monotonous existence as a glorious opportunity for writing books on his former travels. Another seized the chance and became an authority on the fauna and flora of the outlandish corner of the empire to which he was sent.

Having passed through the various stages of Assistant, Vice-consul, etc., a consul was at last fully-fledged, and was appointed-in those days with the imprimatur of Queen Victoria-to a Port. This was designated as his, although as likely as not he might never do duty there, but in some other consul's Port. which seems strange and paradoxical.

Unlike Sing Su, our consul had generally no particular interest in the city, or the people. His dealings with the officials were normally limited to periodic visits, and the exchange of presents and courtesies at the New Year. Is it to be wondered at that occasionally the consul developed eccentricities, and had to fight to keep his soul alive? One consul, little in stature but great in spirit, religiously put on his dress-suit every evening for dinner, whether at home on the River's Heart or up-stream in a primitive house-boat: to remind him-self that he was still a clean English gentleman. Yet another made a hobby of taking the time of day by the sun; after which he would rush into the city, walk unannounced into the one or two foreign houses there, make a bee-line for the clock, open and correct it, and stride out again. His only salutation to the occupants of the house would probably be)" Two seconds slow!"

To keep himself fit, this same man once or twice a day would forge rapidly round the River's Heart, eight times to the mile. If a fellow-countryman came over to see him on business, he would pound past him, with coat and waistcoat off. "Wait! Only three times more to go," he would call, with never a halt.

One new consul arrived with the nickname "Mad" before his Christian name. He was sane enough when he called on us, only the frayed edges of his overcoat announcing him to be superior to outward show. Needless to say, he was unmarried. It was he who invited the captain and steamer officers to lunch it' unusual terms:

"If there is little to eat, there will be plenty to drink!" Was he referring to the river water?

Yet it was not this so-called "mad" consul who employed his redundant leisure in practicing the old-fashioned art of netting, and who boiled his own handkerchiefs in a little copper pan, but another.

Not that eccentricities are the distinguishing monopoly of consular officers.

Missionaries, you know, can be very trying," said a well know missionary to me lately. When I asked how, he in stanced the man who, on however mundane business, signed himself invariably, "Yours in Christ." And I recalled the which a consul and his wife received from the unmarried missionary lady whom they invited to dine, with the flit of the British comminuting, at the consulate on the River's Heart the occasion being Queen Victoria's birthday.

"No," was her blunt response. "I did not come to China to go out to dine. I will stay at home and pray for Her Gracious Majesty." which drew from the consul the rejoinder that he did not see what that had to do with his dinner-party.

Many years ago, in a South Kensington hotel, a name in the letter-rack arrested me: the name of Margary. The letter was claimed by two ladies in black who mounted the stairs at the same time as myself.

"Excuse me, is your name Margary?" I ventured to ask.

"Yes," came the reply.

"Did you ever have a relative?" I hesitated; and the St-Ice was finished for me:

"Who was killed in China? He was our brother."

Margary was a young promising consular officer who was on the borders of China and Burma, at Manwyne, in 1873, at the instigation of Chinese officials. He was m Peking on that five months' journey by the British Government to be the guide and interpreter of a British Commission which was surveying the trade route. Margary crossed the border into Burma and met the Commission. But they then received rumours of possible trouble and resistance to a further progress into China, although under Imperial sanction. Speaking Chinese, and hoping to ensure the safety of the Commission, Margary returned alone over the border. He fell into an ambush and was killed-a tragic fate for a brave young spirit.

In later talks with the sisters, I learnt more about Margary. On that long solitary journey to the Burmese frontier from which he never returned, young Margary wrote to his mother "On this long, long trek I have found myself, in the highest sense of the words."

This came to be their supreme consolation and so they felt they had never really lost him. Once, they told me also, when stationed in Formosa, a Chinese junk was wrecked off the coast. Margary swam out to the doomed boat in an attempt to save the lives of the crew. On nearing the ship a big black cat sprang oft the ship on to Margary's shoulders, as keen on saving its life as any human. But, oh, the claws

All down the years I was indebted to our consuls and their wives for unexpected pleasures, as, for instance, when the ill-fated German gunboat lids came up our Bowl River and anchored near the River's Heart. Sing Su was, as usual, up in the country, but I went over to the River's Heart and lunched at the consulate with Captain Braun and his officers. I was impressed by the exceeding stiffness of the deportment of the German officers, from which they allowed themselves not a moment's respite, either while at lunch or when, later, they duly paid a call on us in the city.

Alas From the City-of-the-South they went straight to their death, only one surviving to tell the story. Off the Shantung coast they encountered a terrific typhoon, and knew the Iltis was doomed. The story goes that, gathering on deck, they all joined hands, sang of their devotion to the Fatherland, and then sank into the terrible deeps. A fine monument was erected on the Shanghai Bund to the Jitis and to the memory of these brave men-representatives, like us, of a far country.

THE first time I went to church was on this wise. It rained. Some people say it always does in the City-of-the-South; and when I admit we have had five inches in twenty-four hours, and that I have known it rain for nearly three weeks on end without stop, there would seem to be justification for the accusation. The Chinese speak of their heavy rain as "coming down in strings," and it actually seems to do so. Until the little street church was rebuilt, the Sunday services were held in brave Chang's house-or, rather, compound or enclosure. This was partially covered in for the occasion with bamboo mats, and supplied with stools from any who would lend. Soon the small yard was so chock-a-block that the doors had to be closed and barred. The foreign lady was, of course, the prime object of attention; more so than was agreeable to her, or advantageous to the preacher. The" Outsiders," as the would-be Christians polity calls the disaffected, pressed close upon me. They criticized my garments so minutely that their examination of than violated even their own standards of politeness as well as 'nine. In the end, I had to indicate firmly: thus far, and no farther, should they go. Probably our then tight-fitting clothes accounted for some of this continued curiosity concerning my clothing, seen and unseen Years later, away in the country, a Chinese lady of manners, while not presuming to turn up my skirt as so many had essayed to do, asked me point-blank a question.

Have you anything on underneath? "she queried.

It was my pleasure to demonstrate to her that, despite appearances to the contrary; I had on underneath even more garments than she herself wore. Where at she seemed agree-ably surprised and relieved.

At this first Christian service-and remember it was soon utter the anti-foreign riot-I was indeed a rara avis. The People gazed at me with unwinking eyes, and many with mouths It same time literally opened to the fullest extent: and for an interminable time. It was as much as my gravity would stand. That, and many similar experiences, led me to claim Chinese as the champion starers of the world-perhaps another case however, of hasty judgments!

There was an afternoon service which reduced me to imbecility. Mr. Tang preached, and remained. sublimely, or perversely, unconscious of Sing Su's efforts to induce him to bring his remarks to an end. Pressure on his foot, the last hymn ostentatiously placed open before him, were in vain, and both native and foreigner had to endure to the long-delayed end. When that arrived, what Sing Su could do, he did. You spoke just one hour too long I" said he to Mr. Yang.

Work had to be resumed with caution. We tried to be in evidence as little as possible. Daily expeditions had to be made into the city, but we kept to the side streets, and for a long time avoided the rowdy suburbs outside the East Gate. The first time we ventured there, more things than bad words were thrown at us. Cantonese soldiers filled the city, still awaiting those tardy French and we feared them more than the citizens. They would rudely push against us in the street, and once Sing Su narrowly escaped capture by them, when he came back to the island one day I asked

What has become of your pearl button? It looks as if it had been torn from your jacket."

He told me the story. He had been on a business appointment with two Chinese gentlemen outside one of the seven gates of the city On finishing his business, he left them, intending to come home the nearest way, which was through the East Gate. He was on his pony, a mettlesome little Mongolian creature. Now the ordinary folk were always civil to us, and they had also good reason to dislike headily those Cantonese soldiers, who a few nights before had all but killed five poor harmless junksmen. The last time our consul went to a certain part of the city, they had shouted after him Kill the foreigner! Kill the foreigner!"

Sing Su was a little way up the street when he found himself in the midst of a band of these Cantonese soldiers. It was at once Marci plain to him that they were excited and not friendly. One soldier seized his reins, another his leg and his jacket. Being defenseless, he thought it wisest to cut and run; so, urging his pony forward, he broke free, leaving his button in their hands. But further up the street, he saw a larger number of soldiers in front of a temple where, probably, a play with direct incentives to violent hatred of foreigners was proceeding.

Fearing more trouble, he instantly decided to avoid this second group by turning back. Winding the reins round his hands, to prevent them being caught, and spurring his willing pony to gallant effort, he dashed swiftly through the soldiers who had previously laid hands on him and taken prisoner his button. For their own safety's sake, they had now to stand aside as the pair rushed through. But they yelled and re-yelled their chagrin and, after the fashion of the baser sort, in base vocabulary.

Our worst trial was that for the first three months-which seemed like three years-the outside world would have nothing to say to us. Not a single communication from England or Shanghai; and only one letter arrived from Ningpo, brought overland by a running Chinese postman. Nor did we much the news it contained. Major Watson, an Australian resident Ningpo, who had fought under General Gordon during Taiping Rebellion, wrote:

"Here we are hourly expecting a rising against us. Every foreigner, British or European, living on the bank of the river has a e sampan' at Ms door, packed with food and clothing for Ma wire and Children, ready at a moment's notice, day or night, to hurry them off to the English gunboat lying as near as possible in the river."

This happened forty years and more ago, but I can still see the gleam in brave Madam Grace's blue eyes, and hear her con-strained laugh when she read us this letter as we three met on the site of our projected buildings. Not a comment was made, but each knew what the other thought. We had no such protection. One at least of the three wished there had been; and all felt very much like rats in a hole.

During my twenty-five years in the City-of-the-South I never heard a single protest against the rare visits of a British, or other foreign, gunboat. If the officials were friendly, its presence helped them in their duty of protecting the foreigner. When superstitious ignorant mobs exceeded their power to Control, the gunboats at least represented law and order. The personnel were like lambs in a field for quiet behavior, unless law and order were violently set at naught. But alas! in those days very often the officials were not friendly, and it was this attitude of theirs which constituted our real need of outside protection. The citizens, on the other hand, hailed with satisfaction their chance of disposing of their produce and manufacture at enhanced prices to the visiting crews.

The sailors on the small gunboat which came perhaps once in three years were allowed occasionally to stretch their legs on shore, and usually comported themselves with credit to the foreign residents. Sad to relate, there happened one exception. A handful of them, and as I can vouch-from a splendidly disciplined British gunboat, made too close an acquaintance with the strong waters, probably Bass, of a certain shop in our Big Street. With profit to the dealer, but disaster to them-selves, the tars cleared out his stock. In their subsequent rolling back to the ship they came in sight of a young English lady missionary, whom they vociferously hailed as a fellow-countrywoman. Seeing her terror, kindly Chinese interposed their persons, enabling her, ready to weep with shame and humiliation, to escape down a side street. But mark the denouement. Their captain let loose the vials of his righteous wrath, forbade further leave ashore during the rest of their three weeks' stay, and every night Chinese and foreigners heard,, across the quiet waters, the delinquents hauled out of their berths at 2 A.M., to dress ship!

The continued absence of Eternal Peace, coupled with the lack of stores which she normally would have brought us, such as beef and mutton, potatoes, white sugar, butter, wheat-flour, etc., began to take toll of me. I felt starved. I had not then had enough experience of native produce to know how to make the best of it. Consequently we made far too intimate an acquaintance with the various sections of a Chinese pig and the undersized local chickens. Both became nauseating.

Stores of all kinds ran so low that we instituted an exchange and mart. The consul would appear at our door, in his hand a tin of French butter which he was willing to sacrifice for Scotch canticle, and so on. The community inside the city, consisting of the Commissioner of Customs and his assistant, and the four or five missionaries, were in no better plight. They met daily on the hill, till'" the old time and the old place" passed into a byword. As they strained their eyes seaward, looking for the faint blue line of smoke, constant disappointment led them to fear that Eternal Peace would never steam up the river again;

Our enforced isolation on the River's Heart had one advantage. It gave us better opportunities to explore the neighbour-hood than we ever had again. The City-of-the-South is considered to be one of the most picturesque of Chinese cities, and I have heard it grandiloquently called the Venice of China. We certainly made the most of its river, charming scenery, and encircling hills, thereby provoking sarcastic comments from the Commissioner. "You cannot eat hills. A dub would be more satisfying," he said.

Our city was also said to be among the cleanest of Chinese cities. Faint praises this perhaps, and I doubt the truth of it. Open cesspools are frequent in the streets, and, at certain season of the year especially, fertilizing operations thicken and pollute the air, for the farmers make use of their malodorous contents on their fields. But I spare you. Sanitation is unknown, and drainage, save into the canals, is non-existent. Even in 1920 an Englishwoman visiting the city used to cry out to tin 'core hardened hostess, as buckets of night-soil were being carded past: "Tell me, dear, when I can take my hand kerchief from my face!"

It is not surprising that epidemics of cholera and dysentery an. common, and sweep away multitudes almost yearly.

To vary the monotony and stifle the longing for letters and a good square meal, we crossed the river one afternoon, went through the city, and made an expedition to Cemetery Valley, a picturesque Chinese burial-ground lying betwixt the low hills situated about a mile outside the Hill-foot Gate. As we sat there, I, for one, not a little disconsolate, a whistle broke the silence, so shrill, so penetrating and prolonged, that it seemed to say, "Behold me-at last!'. We sprang to our feet.

"Eternal Peace! The Yung-Ning!" we exclaimed.

True enough: for over the distant city buildings we could discern the top of her masts, whereat we shouted "Hurrah!"

In less time than it takes to write, Sing Su was off like the wind on his pony, leaving me to follow as fast as the willing legs of my two Chair-bearers could swing along.

Alack! Our fears were realized. As Sing Su approached the North Gate, outside which the steamer lay, he met every servant he knew hurrying home with legs of mutton, roasts of beef, and other precious "stores," including my much-desired potatoes. He went aboard. "Everything has gone in the way of provisions except potatoes," he was told.

In vain he besought the Chinese steward.

Mississee ill: I must indeed have something for her."

The steward insisted that his larder had been cleared out, and he had barely enough left to feed the European officers on the return journey to Shanghai. As Sing Su turned sadly away, the heart of the steward relented, for he added I might, perhaps, let you have a brace of woodcock."

"Anything," was the eager rejoinder. The small birds were brought home in triumph, and ever since" woodcock "has been a name to conjure with in our household. Potatoes I feasted upon three times a day as long as they lasted. Nor must I neglect to add that when our lack was made known, other members of tile community gladly shared their beef and mutton with us.

Given time, one learns how excellent Chinese food can be, though the exhibition of it, as seen in the streets, does not appeal to the foreigner. In the Big Street, narrow and crowded as it was, one's olfactory nerves were anything but gratified by the rank odours arising from the open cooking-stoves. The look of their pans of mahogany-coloured boiling fat, the oil of the tea-plant berry, in which so many of the cakes and the ducks and the chickens were fried, was decidedly unappetizing. Add to this the smell and the blinding smoke, and one had a combination which produced dislike as well as blurred the vision. The moment one stepped ashore and entered the North Gate, there was the open market for dried fish with its clinging smell. Huge barrels of fish, thickly encrusted with coarse salt or lying in brine, lined both sides of the congested narrow street. There were baskets of sun-dried shrimps, too tiny ever to be skinned, and producing merely a slight flavour in the mouth. There were open trays of "tape fish," just a few inches wide, yet so long as almost to be sold by the yard.

Further on came the butchers' stalls, with pork thereon, which, particularly in the hot weather, presented a measly and inflated appearance. Under the stalls might be a black brother porker, unwittingly striving to fit, or fat, himself for the board above by means of any unsavoury remnants he could pick up beneath it. Dried ducks and geese, saffron-coloured fried chickens, strings of repellent queer-coloured beef, cakes of some dark brown composition like burnt parkin, great slabs of dingy looking blancmange-made from beans, and which I learned to like all these and more met the eye as we walked along the principal street. To the new arrival, these viands appear still, as to me then, eminently disagreeable, and shout for the sanitary inspector. But time modifies one's ideas, and I have eaten with pleasure some formerly despised dainties-such as "field chicken," as frogs are euphemistically called. Nor do I forget the emphasis with which a dainty Chinese woman friend once said:

There are delicious eatables to be had here in our City-of the-South."

The quiet implication was:

"Of which you, dear madam, are in total ignorance."

I HAD a fright about this time on one of our daily peregrinations to the city from the River's Heart. We both had though neither confided it to the other.

After crossing the river we set out for the temporary Chinese quarters of Madam Grace and her redoubtable husband. As we proceeded along one of the quieter streets, which are more like lanes for narrowness than streets, we came to a group of men who stood furiously gesticulating, without apparent reason. As we passed them, their demeanour to us was more than unpleasant: it was belligerent. I was far from reassured when we saw-a little ahead-another and similar group also loudly declaiming and standing as if awaiting us. Not a word passed between Sing Su and myself: but I felt my face growing redder anti redder.

We are between the devil and the deep sea," thought I.

When the first group, now behind us, started running in our direction, I expected nothing less than that they were bent on our destruction. The strength completely left my limbs. How I walked on, I knew not. When, close at our heels, the two groups joined forces and rushed pell-mell up a side lane, on some other ploy, my relief was unspeakable. In extenuation of my fears, may I plead that the Riot was yet only six months behind us and that I was a tenderfoot?

Meanwhile the great concern of rebuilding made progress. The property destroyed in the Riot had been bought at a price a heavy one, too. With the compensation given by the Chinese Government, additional funds from home, and some of our own, we vastly improved on our former position the proper sequence after one has been burnt out! "Petticoat Lane" was an admirable center for work, but unhealthy and almost impossible as a dwelling-place for Westerners with views about fresh air. In the terrible heat of summer the street was close and ill-smelling. The high walls of the surrounding buildings kept off good air, but freely admitted bad from the constant supply of night-soil boats. Some of these were anchored in that locality, and others were continually being propelled along the canal which ran parallel to the lane and thence away off into the countryside. Also Sing Su wanted the ground on which his house had formerly stood for a future large city church, of which he dreamed dreams.

The buying of land for a new house in an open part of the city, coupled with the building of a moderate-sized church on the old site, was a frantic business for twenty-four-year-old Sing Su. His total lack of architectural knowledge, of con-tracts, of Chinese workmen, and-last but not least-his imperfect acquaintance with the language, was enough to daunt the stoutest heart. One evening, eight or ten master-workmen came over to the River's Heart to settle contracts, and filled, standing, our small room to overflowing. As they shouted and argued with each other and Sing Su at the top of their strident voices, it was Bedlam. I feared they would come to a free and what then? How a soft-toned foreigner could evolve the slightest sense out of such Babel-like proceedings I could not comprehend. Apparently he succeeded. Doubtless them were the methods whereby Sing Su acquired his acknowledged mastery of the dialect. And years later a Chinese scholar On a visit to England announced triumphantly, but in public:

"Sing Su! Why, he can outslang any of us I"

Another was anxious to impress his Chinese listeners with his foreign friend's proficiency.

He even understands our swear words," he remarked, Save us from our friends!

He, however, thoughtfully saved Sing Su's face by adding:

Yet he never uses them."

Lazy incompetent foremen, dishonest contractors, and bad workmen all combined to make the building period one of disquiet and incessant unpleasantness. But the buildings grew.

Meanwhile on our island I had my own adventures. One day I had a strange experience all to myself. It was a frequent occurrence for devout Chinese to come over from the city to worship at one or more of the pretentious temples on River's Heart. Built up to our cottage, however, was what I suppose I must name a temple, though it was nothing better than a bare neglected shed in which an old dirty table did duty as an altar, and on which were a number of big, gaudy, decrepit old gods.

Looking out of the window, across the river, I spied a number of boats approaching, full of people and of priests, whom I recognized by their long yellow robes. Evidently something of importance was afoot, and being greedy of new happenings, I watched to see what would transpire. Being alone, I took the precaution of pulling down the blinds so as to see and yet remain unseen.

On the little grass plot in front of the shed the priests proceeded to put tip their own table. Upon it they spread various offerings as sacrifices, such as fruit, wine, dried fish, confectionery, etc., and with them had come a big strong man, clad in a clean white robe. After a number of prayers chanted by the others, this man took his seat in the chair, which they had placed, inside the narrow shed of the temple. The priests and the people then knelt down on the little grass plot in front, and the head-priests again began to chant prayers. They drawled out the object of their visit in a sing-song voice, the people at regular intervals bowing their heads to the ground in confirmation of the utterances.

This continued for some time. Then the white-robed man in the chair began to move uneasily. The priests took no notice, but chanted on monotonously. By and by he began to roll about and throw his body into every sort of contortion until, with purple face and eyes starting out of his head, he seemed in an agony. I grew alarmed, expecting him to have a fit. He looked like one possessed. Yet still, apparently heedless, the priests drawled on.

At last, and suddenly, the man sprang out of his chair and rushed wildly about. The priests seized and tried to control him. In the end he gave one final spring and sank, utterly exhausted, into his chair. Next he stretched himself out, and lay as stiff as a board. Presently he began to yell out, in a startling voice, a few monosyllables, to which the priests listened with strained attention. When he had ceased speaking, lighted paper-the imitation silver paper money-was waved over and around him. This apparently restored him to his normal condition, upon which the whole company packed up their accessories and took their departure.

In one respect the Chinese are far more generous than we are. To each person we allot one soul: they portion out, not one but three souls, with seven animal spirits in addition. When a man is ill it is because one of his three souls has been seized by one of the myriads of demons with which, as an old Chinese gentleman asseverated to Sing Su, China swarms.

"Christianity having driven the devils out of England," so his commentary ran, "they have all fled to China!

The lost soul, when a man is ill, has been carried off to the cave where the demon lives. But demons are too crafty for ordinary people to know which particular one has wrought the evil, and priests must be called to help in finding out. They, in their turn, often resort to a spirit medium, such as the one I saw. He is doubtless prompted beforehand which temple he shall indicate, and plays his part well: with the astounding effect which I had witnessed., It was his duty to discover, by the aid of a superior god, exactly where the lost soul was held in durance. Like our monks of old, the priests in China in bygone years erected temples in beautiful spots, and also in places where evil spirits were supposed to live. When that distraught medium shouted those few words, I found out later that he named a temple where there is a cave in which lived a demon. The priests directed the distressed family to that temple, where they would have to make further efforts and offerings to induce the evil one to release the captive soul.

It is touching to see, as I have seen, mother, wife, or daughter, or perhaps all three, crying earnestly into such a cave at the back of a temple the name of the lost one's soul, beseeching it to return. The necessary incantations having been gone through at the front of the temple, the relatives go to the cave at the back, hold out a coat belonging to the sick member of the family close to its mouth:

"Come back! Come back!" they call.

Garment in hand, they wait until they think the soul has entered it, and then, hurriedly putting the bundled-up coat beneath their own clothes, and holding an open umbrella closely over themselves to protect it still further, they hasten back to the sick-room. On the way they walk close together to prevent the soul's escape; they talk to it audibly to comfort and calm it. When home is reached, all doors and windows being shut, and the bed-curtains let down, they throw the precious coat over the sick one, in the pathetic hope that its supposed living inmate will re-enter the patient and all will be well.

If all is not well, then it is evident some mistake has been made. They have sacrificed to the wrong demon, or gone to the wrong temple-cave. If they have money, or can borrow, they try to rectify their mistake by doing the same things over again elsewhere. A costly, nay, at times a ruinous business but-all that a man hath will he give for his life!

Sing Su and I once made an expedition to Dorothy Peak, a hard precipitous climb. On the top we found a tiny plateau whereon stands a temple, visible for a long distance. While resting and feasting our eyes on the wide prospect, we saw a man come toiling up. Baskets hung from his shoulders, containing the usual objects offered to idols. Curious as to why he had made such a difficult journey, seeing that temples and shrines abounded below, we questioned him. This, he informed us, was a last resort, on behalf of a sick member of his family. Having failed to obtain a favourable reply from the numerous temples, which he had tried below, he had come hither also. Verily the Chinese are willing to pay for their religion: though rather from fear than love, one gathers.

When I watched from behind my drawn blind that early day on the Riverts Heart, I had no idea of what I had been the spectator. It was later that I learned it was a Chinese spiritualistic seance. A few years afterwards, I woke to the fact that the same kind of seance went on in a little temple just over the wall of our new White House in the city. On the second occasion I could not see, but only hear, the brass tinkling instruments and the shrill voices. This spirit medium, I was told, was a woman, who had two female divinities inhabiting her shrine. From the varying, penetrating sounds of her voice, I gathered this medium in her trances held a conversation impersonating first one of these spirits in a high falsetto voice, and then the other in deeper tones.

So it went on. And so it still goes on. And have we not something very much akin to it in the West?

MEANWHILE, like the farmer's wife, I was dumb, dumb, dumb. I could neither speak nor be spoken to, apart from the few Europeans. And I needed to talk. oh, how I needed! Sing Su gave me my first lesson in Chinese, which consisted in counting up to ten. The sounds I had to imitate there weird in my ears, and seemed unhealthy to my throat. I made little progress with "five" until told that in our dialect I must pronounce it "as if a pig were grunting." One, seven, eight, and ten pleased me better: each of these requiring a sort of run up the scale. The word "cow" was the cause of excessive stumbling, for it began, and seemed to end, gutturally.

As a Yorkshire woman, I thought I knew something about uncouth sounds, but in "cow" I failed miserably. At last Sing Su made me a speech, rather brusquely, I thought.

It is no use expecting to speak Chinese with a cultured English accent. What you must do, is to speak it as the people of the place speak it. The word for "cow" they utter almost after the call of the animal itself: that is, in the throat, and with the mouth wide open.

Sing Su soon cast me off as a pupil, leaving me to sink or swim. I did both. Indeed, he had more pressing business superintending our new buildings in the city, and he returned to the River's Heart only for meals.

He found me a Chinese substitute, but one more inadequate to my needs it were hard to imagine. In the first place, I could speak no Chinese, he could speak no English. There was no primer or simple book with which I could start; so we just sat. In front of us we had a Mandarin Bible, a book which bore no relation to the needs of our daily life in word or sound, being in the Chinese official language, which is entirely different from the dialect spoken in our City-of-the-South. Sing Su had taught himself to talk by going round his room with his so-called teacher, pointing at the various objects and asking in Chinese fashion, "Called what name?"

There was no book in existence which could tell him the answer, when the cook demanded of a new-comer what he would eat for dinner, he might draw his hand across his throat and crow lustily. Such difficulties led Sing Su to begin jotting down how he thought the names of things in Chinese could be written if spelled with our Western alphabet, or roman letters, as had been attempted elsewhere.

The only teacher available for me had the demerit of also being an opium-smoker; and this, aided by the unutterable dreariness of the lesson, caused him frequently to fall asleep. Whereupon I would pull his sleeve-on which I occasionally beheld creeping things which impelled me to shrink away.

"Waken, Teacher!" I would cry.

He died but not, believe me, until some time after he and I had parted company.

There are certain difficulties in China which well-nigh pass the wit of the Westerner to circumvent. Ordinary people like myself, and perhaps sinologues too, will say the Chinese language is one of them, that is if any one proposes to read, write, or speak it well. It is true the" characters," as we generally call the ideographs, have well-defined meanings, and can be read and understood all over China. But one great drawback is that only a tiny fraction, not five per cent., of the people are sufficiently educated to read and write their own tongue. Possibly this accounts for the almost superstitious reverence paid by ignorant and unlearned Chinese to their "characters" or written words. Paper on which they have been inscribed must not be put to ignoble uses. Indeed a man is paid to go about the streets picking up with a long fork all stray pieces of paper on which characters have been written, to save them from the desecration of being trodden under foot. Ultimately these are burnt, ceremoniously, and with incense.

The spoken language has its difficulties also. In the first place there is "Mandarin" or the court language. This is the spoken tongue of the Northern half of China, but with very varying pronunciation in different localities, that of Peking being considered the best. Mandarin can also be written in character," but until recent years there was no extensive literature in Mandarin, because it formed no part of a scholar's equipment. Lately, however, an earnest attempt has been made to raise the spoken Chinese various dialects, especially Mandarin, to the status of a literary or book language. It is certain, in the process of time, that these spoken dialects must form their. book or literary language. Such has been the case in Europe. Centuries ago, Latin was the written language of Europe, but it was superseded by the gradual formation of literatures in the vulgar tongue of the various nations. In like manner, Wenli, the book language - the "Latin" of China-also promises to be superseded by at least one of the important dialects of China: probably by some form of Mandarin.

Not content with the spoken Mandarin of the North of China, the South bristles with a formidable array of these so-called dialects. But each is in effect worthy the name of a language, for each is spoken by millions of people. Offhand I can count seven of these "dialects" of the South: Shanghai, Ningpo, Wenchow, Fukien, Swatow, Amoy, Canton. Numerous resemblance, in word-sounds may be discovered, but the total difference m most sounds is so great that no speaker of any one of can understand a speaker of another.

When Sing Su reached Hong-Kong in 1882, it was Sunday, and he went to a Chinese church by way of introducing him-self to the Chinese language. The preacher was a Cantonese. The hop, skip, jump, and bite of his talk so appalled the solitary young man that in the middle of the sermon he bowed his head in his hands.

"Oh God, however shall I learn such a jerky language?" he ejaculated to himself. But, after all, Cantonese was not the language given him to learn!

Fortunately the idiom, or construction of sentences, is the same everywhere. Books are written in Wenli, the "Latin" of China. Thus in South China, the most populated half of the country, a Westerner desiring to serve the people has the necessity laid upon him of learning practically two languages. First there is Wenli for his book-lore, and then there is the everyday speech of the people among whom he elects to dwell, be they Ningpoese, Cantonese, Wenchowese, etc. A few of the dialects had already been reduced to writing by missionaries "to used our A B C as their medium; but not so with the dialect of the City-of-the-South. There Sing Su had practically virgin soil for his efforts in that direction. Moreover, the Mandarin spoken tongue is unknown in South China. Strangely enough, however, the New Testament translated into Mandarin by missionaries was found easier to read and understand, both by Chinese and foreigners, titan was the orthodox Wenli or classical language. Consequently this Mandarin New Testament was used by Christian Chinese in the churches and it was with a copy of this that I and my opium-smoking teacher started work.

In North China this language of the Mandarin New Testament is the everyday speech of the people. Happy are those Westerners whose easier fate sends them in that direction. An English friend from Hankow expatiated on my lack of wisdom in choosing the City-of-the-South wherein to dwell.

As for me, I can learn a sentence from a Mandarin book, go out in the street and repeat it to any one I may meet, and be understood-which you, with your terrible dialect, cannot possibly do," she remarked.

"True, too true," I told her; but there are compensations my dialect is more endurable than the excessive heat of your summers!

It was the dialect into which we had first to grope our way; and by ear only! The idiom appeared very peculiar, and totally different from our English idiom. If there is such a thing as a Chinese grammar, I have never seen it. I have been told that there are rules, but I do not know any one who cart tell me what they are. My pressing need was to be able to direct the flu-enlightened labours of the two raw Chinese men who served us during the day but conveniently disappeared into the void at night, since we had no sort of sleeping accommodation for them on the River's Heart. Happily Sing Su had a good ear, and could learn easily through that gate, but mine automatically closed before such unknown sounds as our dialect produced. Also I must needs see with my eyes what the written equivalent of the sound looked like on paper, in black and white, before I dared attempt to tell the coolie to wash the floor, or the cook to buy fish. Thus, largely for my benefit, a handbook of everyday phrases sprang into being, written with the aid of our friendly old English A B C, but with continental pronunciation.

Thus, out of our own exigencies and with the continued use of our roman letters, there grew a primer, then a hymn-book, and last of all a translation of the New Testament itself all in the dialect of the City-of-the-South. On the completion of the last, the two of us danced rather than plodded along our usual walk outside the East Gate. But much water flowed under our bridges before that auspicious day.

Before leaving this subject, altogether too recondite for simple explanation, let me add that Sing Su's system of writing the colloquial speech was so simple, so easily grasped, that both Chinese and Westerners learned it rapidly and used it largely. Ten years later, when an English colleague joined us, he could take the hymn-book and straight away, though not under-standing, sing hymns with the best, to the great puzzlement of the Chinese.

"How comes it," they queried, "that Mr. Sea can sing, but cannot talk, Chinese?"

The Chinese have the amiable quality of saving the face of the Westerner by themselves keeping a straight one even at his most ludicrous mistakes, when we should have been convulsed laughter. We all have a store of these mistakes, and I my reminded of the lady who told her cook to buy, as she thought, a dish of strawberries. At long last he reappeared, and presented with what difficulty he had obeyed tier behest, and Presented her with a dish of-sheep's tails. These in China are both large and fat. But she received that for which she asked. And I would bespeak your sympathy. Sing Su said he could always tell when I had been studying Chinese because of the dazed look on my face. Small wonders, facing, as I did, two languages, the spoken and the written. Either of them alone would have been sufficiently upsetting to a beginner. As I have shown before, there was no medium at the outset whereby teacher and learner could exchange even the simplest greetings.

Previously Sing Su had had a servant who knew how to cook English food and understood foreign ways of service. It was in 'the nature of things," as enunciated by Mr. Mantalini, that this servant should commit some uncondonable offence and have to be dismissed just before I arrived on the scene. Consequently, for a couple of years the trials of housekeeping were to me a e., The incredibly difficult task I had of procuring even ordinary bread that we could eat nearly brought me grey hairs. It was humiliating: for, in North-country fashion I had been drilled, at the instance not of my mother but of my father, prophetic soul, in almost everything pertaining to a household, including the mysteries of bread-making.

The drawing-room in the afternoon, but the kitchen in the morning," had been his aphorism concerning his only daughter.

In the City-of-the-South my difficulty lay in the production of the yeast, which could not be bought, but had to be made afresh every baking occasion. Cook and I knew the ingredients to perfection." A pinch of hops, a slice or two of potato, and a teaspoonful of sugar" these innocent items had to be boiled together, put into a bottle with a little of" the old leaven," and left to ferment till the next day, when the mixture should, properly speaking, have been ready for use. All we produced by our combined efforts was bread too bad and sour to eat!

The dough refused to rise in the tins. Eat the bread we could not. I borrowed bread from all possible lenders, with small hope of repayment, until I was ashamed. Yet how we tended, as it were with our lives, that bottle of yeast! It received more attention than many a babe. In the cold weather it was encased in flannel and kept by the stove for fear of a chill. It was studied and turned upside down occasionally, and sometimes given a drink at night. All in vain. I began to look upon yeast-making as the greatest chemical achievement of time. Sing Su's description of one of our loaves was literally true. "So hard that not a chopper could cut it!" he declared in later years. "Where upon it served as a footstool. After that we threw it into the fire but it refused to burn. A brick it went in; a brick it came out."

To me, the ambitious and would-be-honoured bread-giver, those were bitter and mortifying days. Of many failures this was the least understood, and one that to this day rouses in me a deep sense of impotence and injury. I want to rise and try again.

One evening, while seated at our unavoidably frugal board, Chang-boa, our then cook-save the mark!-rushed in like a whirlwind. He had a sadly pock-marked face and such protruding eyes that a visitor once remarked that he certainly was not behind the door when eyes were given out. In real but comic despair he spread his hands. Another failure with the bread I." he announced. I can swallow it down no longer," that is, his failures, not the bread. And he forthwith proposed to stop trying. We let him.

Then, one day, out of the blue there stepped in a Celestial who asked nothing better than to come and do for us what was common knowledge throughout the city that we were unable to do for ourselves: make yeast as well as bread. Sing Su broke this news with excited mien. Ah Djang, I was told, had been brought by a friend of his who explained that he had repented of the delinquencies which had caused his dismissal from a Miner foreign master. Moreover, his peccadilloes had paid so badly that even the nether garments in which he now stood had been borrowed!

Ah Djang was installed in our kitchen-on due promise of future upright dealing. His advent was as the coming of Spring. He proved to be the happy solution of our commissariat troubles. He made bread, and other things, fit for a king.

Do not be surprised if he reappear in our domestic annals; for he and later, his wife also, earned our gratitude by years of good service. I gladly lay this affectionate tribute at their devoted feet-one pair of which had been, fashionably but cruelly, bound.

It is the custom," she apologized.

IN the piping heat of June 1885 the house that was to be a dear home for twenty-five years was sufficiently ready for habitation. We were impatient to be out of our cramped quarters and on to our job. Joyfully, but with affection, we bade adieu to our helpful friends on the River's Heart and, our household stuff having preceded us, we were once more rowed across to the City-of-the-South.

Not that worries or annoyances were left on the island When I had come across to the buildings to mark progress, I often found the workmen sitting smoking, contentedly contemplating the work they had not done. Sing Su had imported a Ningpo man to varnish floors and doors, because of superior skill and more lasting material, Ningpo varnish is famous all over the country. One day this man. pointed out to us blemishes, and angrily charged the men of the city, whom Sing Su had bargained he should employ, with purposely spoiling his work. He also was a foreigner in their eyes!

It would be rash to recommend riots as a daily habit, but the one I knew most about had in it a soul of good. People said I could not possibly have lived in the house in Petticoat Lane, which Sing Su's predecessor, also youthful, had bought with much difficulty. Probably its site and insanitary situation accelerated his death after less than three years service. We now had spacious rooms and wide verandas, on the east side of one of which I stole many a good night's sleep, despite the terrible heat of our summer weather. We rejoiced in a beautiful view of the hoary, moss-grown, fern-fringed city wall which, though broken here and there, climbed up one hillside and ran down another, and had ting-erh, or small pavilions, built on its highest points. We could not see the river itself, but from our upstairs veranda, with the thickly clustered low houses of the east suburb lying between, we had a glorious vista of the long stretch of bare mountains running sharply down to the unseen river's brink on the further bank, amongst which towered Hart Peak. Perhaps even more appealing than the beauty of the view was the fact that from our back window upstairs we could see the masts of s.s. Eternal Peace. So we knew when she arrived and when she left, even if we failed to hear her cheerful hoot on approach, or blast of farewell on departure.

Being young, and having come to stay, we adventured several of our halfpennies, and in our front garden made good concrete paths and a grass lawn for tennis. To this lawn the little community, including consul and commissioner, did cheerfully resort, save when torrential rains turned the lawn into a swamp. A fast set or two did more to generate a cheerful out-look on life than did the only alternative exercise, a monotonous in badly flavoured walk. Even the dear souls whose consciences hindered them from making a tennis-court of their own came and fought on ours, and were doubly welcome. We planted trees, willows and oranges and mulberries, some of which almost while we watched. We ate of the fruit thereof in a very time, so rapid is production and fruition in the Turkish-seas on of South China. I being chief gardener, we grew $p finest and best tomatoes in the world: bathed, as they were, in intense sunshine.

We named our dwelling the White House; for it was white outside and too far away from its more famous namesake to seem impertinent. For years the walls inside were also plain whitewash, and against the dark shining floors and doors these did not look amiss, especially with a few water-colours to break the spaces. As time passed, we progressed, colouring and even painting our wails. The sting of whitewash lies in its having to be often repeated, and the mess made by the workmen, with their futile little brushes, appalled me, and lasted almost until the process needed to be repeated.

Soon after settling in the city, Sing Su disappeared into the country. I perforce spent the nights alone in the house, with the exception of my little simple-minded amah. In the middle of the night on one of these occasions I was suddenly awakened by blood-curdling shrieks. I listened intently, expecting to hear wild rushes to the rescue. Nothing happened, nobody stirred. So I too lay still, letting I dare not wait upon I would the shrill cries came again, I could bear it no longer, but up and went out on to the veranda, expecting that some misdeed was happening. It was a beautifully clear night a moon illumined the sleeping city, which evidently refused to share my alarm. All I could discern was the moving light of a lantern, carried by some person invisible to me walking along under the wall of our adjoining narrow street. Presently the invisible one again emitted the same weird cries, which, coupled with no other demonstration of alarm, reassured me. I decided to leave the solution of the mystery till the morning, and went back to bed, but my first question when Amah appeared was as to the meaning of the hideous sounds.

I was told that a Chinese gentleman near by had a son dangerously ill. To rid him of the evil spirits supposed to be the cause of his condition, the father had risen in the night, put everything eatable outside, and closed all the doors and windows of his dwelling, then had gone about the streets at midnight trying to frighten away the evil spirits by the sounds I had heard. He deserved to succeed.

There was no escaping the fact that, once in the city, real life began. Crowds, mostly women with their attendants, came daily and stayed half a day," that is, an interminable time. The rich were clad in silks and satins, their black hair was gummed down and neatly adorned with pearls, gold pins, and artificial flowers. Their faces, from which every misplaced hair had been plucked, by women trained for the purpose, were thickly coated with powder. Their lips were so carmined that one suspects the present Western fashion was adopted from theirs of forty years ago. On their fingers and wrists were often ornaments of solid gold and silver; for a Chinese woman's dowry was usually sunk in these items, which could easily be turned into cash again if required. A Chinese woman once told me she thought little of our foreign jewellery. Was it not often hollow, and was it not always made of alloyed gold or silver: unlike theirs, which, at its best, is almost pure solid precious metal?

There came to us also the poor, with unadorned homely faces. They were clad in clean cotton homespun cloth, and neat trousers. Nor were the latter always covered by the short pleated skirt of greater respectability. Rich or poor were alike in that all had, in different degree, the tiny feet which represented so much pain and suffering, yet of which they were proud. The smaller the better. Their shoes were hand-made and prettily embroidered, and were often the work of their own fingers, for a woman was useless indeed if she could not make her own sloes, soles included. It was an effort for many to walk up our easy bedroom stairs but they did it, bent on seeing everything. We had to disabuse our minds of the idea that an Englishman's home is his castle. And who knows what evil reports and rumours and real fears of the machinations of the "foreign devils'" were dispelled during those drawn-out visitations? Long afterwards we once called in a bricklayer to a smoky chimney upstairs. As I watched him at his work he turned with a grin:

"Twenty years ago I helped to build this chimney. What do you think we workmen said you would use such a dark hole for? 'To hide stolen babies in, and make medicine of them,' he announced. Was not electric light stolen from human eyes?

He could smile now, however, over the exploded fallacy, for he had apprehended. something of the True Light.

Once I went to visit our devoted Tsang-ling's wife. She had a visitor from the country. "Tomorrow I will take you to see as SW No's Muse," she presently said to her. Turning to me, she added, "To us your house is heaven."

As I walked home I put that remark into my stomach-as is the Chinese phrase digested it. I vowed that I would never again groan over the double rows of nose-marks on our newly cleaned windows, put there by those who feared to come inside, but dared to look. We represented sweetness, cleanliness, light-in short, ingredients of an earthly Paradise which was our accustomed heritage, but which was as yet unattainable by them.

About this time we made the acquaintance of a young man of twenty whom we learned to know well, and whose influence in the right direction became considerable. his home was a large house in a small family village tucked away, as so many lit, in a ravine in the hills. When Ah Shah first came to see us, he examined our possessions with the vigilance of a detective.

I was really concerned when he lighted upon our canteen, and I had taken the precaution to lock it up. The rows of shining steel knives therein displayed were palpably for diabolical use-on the babies stored in the chimney!

Nothing stopped Ah Shah. But when he took hold of the ornamental cover of our American stove, and it came off in his hand, he was terrified and dropped it like a hot brick. The bang ought to have broken the only nice thing about the stove, but did not. Ah Shah's companion urged the flight of time and the existence of other city joys. So at last he left but regretfully.

" I could take pleasure here all day," said he.

On Sunday Ah Shah went with us to church, to hear the strange doctrine. The bold foreign woman walked ahead, whereas she ought to have come toiling painfully behind bet menfolk on her 'two and a half inch golden lilies "-her bound feet. Unheard by me, Ah Shah asked Sing Su an embarrassing question. "What is the queer thing Mrs. Su wears sticking out behind? Our women don't It have it. Would it not look better in front?" he queried.

I never elicited the reply he received; but from that day my recently imported "dress improper," my bustle-then in vogue in England-disappeared for ever. I burnt the silly thing:

with difficulty, for the pieces of steel refused to melt.

I now began to know some of the women who became, as time moved on, my fast friends, Dear little neat, plump, round-faced Pai-loa Na-so called after her eldest son, Pai-loa-was a good soul who withstood every temptation to desert us or our cause. She and I have often chuckled together as site has told me of the bodily fear with which she first came to hear what we had to say, and of the dreadful possibilities her neighbours prophesied for her. They warned her that if she came once, we should give her medicine that would compel her to come again. This we did Before she learnt to trust the foreigner's one God, her fear of evil spirits led her a fine dance. As dusk approached, she would shut herself up in tier house, not daring to open the door till daylight, lest the demons lurking in the dark streets should rush in and destroy her household. She lost her terrors, because a Vision of the Holy One, Whom she described as "white and glistening," appeared to her, she said, driving away the evil spirits for ever.

Pai-loa's mother kept the faith until she died and life, no less than death, was robbed of its fears for her. She was a good companion to me on many a subsequent country journey. Paiba's father seemed of small account in the world. It happens so, sometimes-in Chinese families.

But all were not of Pai-loa Na's calibre. In the latter half of my first six months, just when the external machinery was complete and we were hoping for sure, if slow, progress, there arose the cloud which for years darkened our skies and poured many bitter drops into our cup. Persecutions may produce prosperity, and a riot do little but burn up old buildings; but what one great man called envyings, strife, and divisions worked havoc in our day as well as in his. And a so-called down-trodden Chinese woman was the head and front of it all! I had already given her the misleading name of Lydia, because she made cotton stockings for a living, and she retained the name in spite of everything that happened. A woman of fierce and determination when she took umbrage at some-is- of the congregation, she showed her resentment actively, both to them and to us. She ended by leaving us and the Italian diutch the other side of the city. In this of course she was at liberty to please herself, but that did not &&&Mace Dc-te all right efforts on our part, Lydia left no stone unturned to cause a declension in our numbers, and she succeeded in carrying away with her some twenty or thirty out thirty our small fifty. Some of them we grieved to lose, because we believed them sincere, and we thought they would have done well to remain in our fold, where they had started their new life.

"Lydia the stocking-maker did us much harm. The Lord reward her according to her works!" I was tempted to say.

One item at which she took offence was that at that time the Italian church gave a free meal every Sunday morning to all who attended Mass. Some of our congregation, not wishing to be left behind, urged that we too should try to increase our numbers by doing likewise.

"No," said Sing Su. "That plan of attracting attention b- been tried elsewhere, and failed. We do not want 'Rice Christians.'"

The method had been tried in Ningpo, with none too pleasant There, one Sunday, the crafty American finally told his congregation that on the following Sunday there would be no dinner, but that he would present each of them with a basket in which to bring their own!

Caring as we did almost more for the trust and confidence of our Chinese than anything else on earth, it was grievous when we began to feel they were suspicious of our motives. We denied ourselves many simple comforts in those days lest they should think, or say, that we cared more about our own wellbeing than about supplying needy Chinese with a free meal once a week. One incident reveals the state of my mind at that time. At the end of the week I asked Sing Su what I should arrange for our Sunday dinner, he having been longer on the spot than myself.

I am tired of feeble, skinny chicken," he cheerfully replied "buy a goose!

As matters were, this rather alarmed me. From the Chinese standpoint a goose was a luxury, though from ours not an extravagant one. The cost then, but not now, was about one and sixpence. However, I kept my objections to myself, and told the cook to buy the goose, carefully instructing him to prepare it all on the Saturday. I expected that thus it would be safely hidden away out of sight in our safe, knowing that our kitchen would be, as it usually was, a rendezvous for a number of our flock. Imagine my consternation when I saw at seven o'clock on Sunday morning that detestable cook proudly putting the finishing touches to the goose, and surrounded by an interested group of those whom I least wished to know of its existence.

We went to church, and after the service called in at the adjoining church-house provided for country visitors. Here, amongst others, was the distant, stand-offish Lydia. Here, too, was Z-loa, a friendless man we had taken on to our premises and nursed when attacked by typhoid, and who was out for the first time that day.

Is Z-loa staying here for dinner?" asked Sing Su, happy that Z-loa could thus go a-visiting after his illness.

There is no p'ai "-that is, "nothing to eat with the rice"-answered Lydia disdainfully, "for him."

We went home, and I felt discouraged to the last degree. I went upstairs, lay on my bed, and let the waters overflow me. At one o'clock the bell rang, and hungry, expectant Sing Su sat down at table and waited, but no Sz Mo appeared. Ultimately he sought me, and found me lying there, still in tears.

"What is the matter?" he cried. Man-like, he had been untouched by the things that had cut me to the heart.

It is that goose," I sobbed. "I will not touch it."

Then my meaning dawned on him, and sitting down beside me, he began:

"Now look! Don't be foolish. We cannot live like the people here, and we are not going to try. We shall do what we think right, and leave the consequences.

In the end I was persuaded to go down and partake of the ad-, than which bitter herbs had been more palatable. But it was a sobered meal, and at its close the remainder of the goose was cut into portions, and sent round to one and another s-se most likely to need it. This cheered me considerably. In after years, if I wished to illustrate to Western friends the hardly won confidence of our Chinese friends, I would exclaim:

"Nowadays, if I think fit to hang out half a dozen legs of n-non from Shanghai, I can do it with impunity!"

But the result of the various troubles was a defection, which we could ill afford, Yet a decrease may be the very best that could happen, though hard to bear at the time if the nucleus left be as small as ours was. when we gathered in the new church, which we then accounted large, the congregation was so small. and the atmosphere seemed, to me at least, so chilly and depressing, that I turned coward. Had we not better return to the small street chapel until our numbers increase?

I queried.

Sing Su treated this policy with the contumely it deserved. "What! Discourage the loyal ones in that way? Never.

The difficulties were increased a thousand-fold by the perfect understanding which Sing Su then possessed of the People mentality. It was incredibly hard, if not impossible, to reach the bottom of any happening. Privately we each asked ourselves if we, personally, were to blame for this apparent withdrawal of God's sunshine. The only cause I could of was the removal of the house from close, ill-smelling Petticoat Lane to a healthier, and vastly pleasanter, part of the city. If that were it, then the White House might burn. Had it been devoured by the fiery element which yearly destroys so many homes in the City-of-the-South, I should have rejoiced, and been content to live in any miserable building we could obtain. Such is the blessed abandon of youth.

Happily the house did not burn. Its occupancy has long ceased to disturb my mind, for it was certainly a great instrument in keeping us, and others too, alive to carry on.

The prospects darkened rather than lightened. when we left the city for the first time, compelled to visit Ningpo, one of us wondered as we walked down to our little s.s. Eternal Peace, on an October evening, if it were ever possible to wish to return to such a heart-breaking place and people. In a moment of deep despondency, even Sing Su exclaimed:

If Chang deserts us, I'll go home."

Then, as if ashamed of such faint-heartedness, he quickly added:

No! If he too goes, I will start afresh."

And Chang did not desert us; nor did we turn tail.

DO you ask who is Chang?

One of the best men that ever lived. He it was who, during the Riot, spent the night in prayer and a vain searching of the streets till, at length, he discovered Sing Su in the yamen where the official had compelled him to stay while the mob, undeterred, worked its sweet will on his premises.

When Sing Su went to Shanghai for change of scene, and to meet his future "anchor," Chang went too, and there on arrival I made his acquaintance. Now Chang was not as good-looking as an. many Chinese; but as he stood before me with the deferential air with which he always so mistakenly regarded me, I saw man who carried well his tall bony frame. He was clad in the orthodox loose garments, and was shod with the thick clothsoled working-man's shoes of China. Not only was his face clean-shaven, but the front half of his head also, as was the custom: and his unruly black hair, plaited into a queue or pigtail, was finished off with a black tassel which reached almost to his ankles.

His. face was plain and yellow, his cheek-bones high, his mouth wide. Indeed, Inland China was writ large on every line of him.

How we loved and respected him! Increasingly so as the years rolled on, revealing his worth and his unswerving devotion, not So much to us as to a cause he accounted great. Chang, or Gold, was his surname, and had we tried, we could not have invented a better, or one. more indicative of his nature. Even at first sight there was something about Mr. Gold which impressed me and gave me confidence. Was it the look of other-worldliness, the faculty of, as it was, appraising the value of things in this life in the light of the larger life? Yet later he also proved himself no mean judge of men or motives in this world.

Mr. Gold owed little or nothing to education or social standing. Indeed he was illiterate until he began to study Christian literature so far as I ever learnt, he had not a single relative in the world. In business he used to earn two hundred dollars a year, a respectable livelihood in those days. He had been a maker of the gold and silver paper money which, when burned at the. grave, provides money for the use of the departed in the next life. One cannot tell which to admire most, the ease with which the spirit world could be deceived, or the credulity of the devotees. These believed that their gilt paper money, made by the ton, and which no bank or person would accept for practical purposes, was by the mere act of burning transformed into valuable coin of the spirit realm. Nor do I know if it was the untamable discourses of Mr. Yang - Mr. Willow, in English or the short ones of young Sing Su that opened the eyes of Chang's understanding. What is certain is that, after a short period of listening, his spirit was so stirred by the new ideas that he found he could no longer make his idolatrous paper money. To continue would, metaphorically, be to burn his own soul also. The eventful day came when Chang with one bold stroke divested himself of his two hundred dollars a year and began life again: and as a pedlar.

But Chang had a young wife and her mother to feed. They, naturally, were up in arms against this summer madness which would assuredly bring the spectre of want to their door. If my knowledge of women is correct, they gave him a roasting which was far from metaphysical. In Mr. Gold's efforts to provide his inside ones with their bowls of rice, all pride of place and position went by the board. With bamboo tarrying-pole slung over his unaccustomed shoulder, from which hung the two baskets containing his simple wares, he made long journeys into the country on foot. Consider the hardship of it. In addition to these tedious journeys taking him out of his well-worn artisan city groove, his absences also deprived him of his much-needed spiritual sustenance. Working thus, long and late, he could only earn about sixty or seventy dollars a year. Yet he ever contended that, from a worldly point of view, he was now better off. When I earned more, I lost it in gambling and signaler vices," he said: which I personally find hard to believe from my experience of him.

The stars in their courses fought for Chang. About this time Sing Su needed help in his house. Not a Boy for the nicer work of the house, but a common coolie to wash the floors, sweep the yard, carry the water, clean the shoes, bring in burdens from the steamer-in a word, to perform every menial task in a house where there was nothing whatever "laid on," and in a land where coolies are literally beasts of burden because there are no other means of getting things done except by man-power. Believing Chang to be honest, Sing Su offered the post to him at the customary wage of fifty dollars a year, and the post was gladly accepted.

Thus, from being a respectable tradesman, Chang accepted duties in the service of the despised foreigner, in order to have die privilege of regular attendance at divine service. After wards; while living on the River's Heart, our own exigencies led to Chang's being promoted to the position of our cook.

"It is a shame to keep a genuinely good man like Chang biding his light under the bushel of our kitchen," said Sing Su gin day. "I want to send him out into the country as a colporteur."

No framed servants were to be had, and where to find another man wining even to attempt our foreign cooking we had no idea, Nevertheless Sing Su called Chang into our little room overlooking the river.

"Chang," said he, "we need a new colporteur. The wages are the same that you have as our servant, but the work is header often be dangerous, and you will have to bear will you undertake it?"

I had been there but a few months, and did not know enough of the language to understand what Chang replied. But I knew by the sudden light from within which glorified his face what the reply was in essence.

"What did he say?" I asked, when he had gone.

"He says that he rejoices to have the privilege, and will go into the Den of Lions if need be."

He had his wish, and was oftener there than was pleasant to us. We found a worse cook, and later, on one of their journeys together, Chang confided in Sing Su.

"It is difficult to be honest in a foreigner's kitchen," said he.

In the cook's hands was the buying of all that was bought. This carried with it the great opportunity of over-charging, or a percentage on every article purchased; which percentage varies with the avarice of the cook. We will not enter into the moral of squeeze." I have heard a Westerner defend it, on the ground of its being a recognized custom, a commission, a percentage, and consonant with inadequate wages. I know of a servant who, on being charged with it, retorted that were he serving a Chinese master he should do it to a larger extent; neglecting to state that under a Chinese master he received less than a living wage, and therefore squeezing was expected of him. I also know that every Western housewife in China strives to eliminate it to the utmost of her power, that with honest Chang it was a difficulty, and that its practice from the highest to the lowest Chinese officials has been, and still is, the bane of Chinese life. Of course, reasons can be given, and excuses, for it. During another epoch of rioting in the City-of-the-South-this time against their own mandarins-the wife of one of them came to see Inc, and during our talk told me some interesting things. One was that her husband only received as his salary eight hundred dollars, Mexican, a year. It was impossible for them to live on this. Hence the necessity to squeeze, and together we bemoaned the system that compelled it.

I do not know what first drove Sing Su into the countryside. Was it a sort of prescience or was it disappointment with the sophisticated city folk eternally set on gain? Certain it is he went thither as soon as his acquaintance with the language enabled him to avoid a few of the thousand and one pitfalls into which it invites the foreigner to fall. On those early expeditions Chang was his one constant companion. Together they went in every possible direction in boats, on foot, up hill and down dale. When distances were too great, they each rode in a three-piece mountain chair. This was made simply by tying three pieces of smooth wood together with string, one for the seat, one for a back-rest, and the third, with lengthened string, for a foot-rest. This provided a comfortable collapsible seat when hanging between light bamboo poles from the shoulders of a couple of sturdy hill-men, one in front, the other behind.

Together Chang and Sing Su shared the same drenchings, and ate the same local produce with a zest inspired by sharp hunger and long intervals. Chang was as much without the superiority complex as are some Westerners. To him the Good News was never a foreign importation, and lost none of its value because brought to him from a far-off country, and by the hands of a stranger. Whenever an inquiry came-and often without-the two would hie them to one or other of the villages of the plain or hamlets in the hills. A countryman out of curiosity would visit us in the city, leaving behind a suggestion that a call on him in his distant home would not be unacceptable. The slenderest human dues were eagerly followed. Some broke beneath the strain, but more often they ended in what was sought-an open-minded community responsive to the best that called to them.

Physically it was killing work. Not an ounce of comfort or a moment of quiet: except when on the road from one place to another. Life was a long working picnic, and Sing Su had enough picnics to last him the rest of his days. They had irregular meals, and little, sometimes no sleep. They needed tongues of silver and throats of brass when addressing those big, swaying, curious, pushing, noisy, and-it might easily be-dangerous crowds, in village streets or enclosed ancestral temples. Once Chang was out alone, breaking new ground. On his return I asked what success he had had.

~ "Oh, splendid," was his reply. "They would not allow me to go to bed at all!"

They had kept him busy the whole day and night, telling this astonishing story of God's love for every man. Yet Chang was no orator. Most of his knowledge was gained from his study of the Bible and hymn-book. When standing up to speak, especially in the city, he would humbly apologize for his lack of culture and ability, until at last Sing Su suggested he had better stop, or they would begin to take him at his own valuation.

Chang was selfless. I never knew him ask anything for him-self personal considerations lay outside him. I can picture him taking, deprecatingly, what was offered, and which was his just due. But never by any stretch of imagination can I imagine him asserting his claim to be put on a level with his young Elder Brother" and beloved friend, in any particular. Rather he would pray:

Oh, that I may be counted worthy to wash the disciples' feet!"

On persecution was too violent, no station too distant, to frighten Chang. When he became a regular in the Christian army, and a servant to his own people, the rule was three weeks in the country and one week at home. Again and again, on arriving in the city after an arduous time, Sing Su had to tell him that an imperative cry for help had just come in from some far away place in precisely the opposite direction. Without a moment's hesitation would come Chang's response.

"I must go there," he would say.

But you are tired, worn out," urged Sing Su; though, truth to tell, he knew of no other to send. To go himself would be to make matters worse very often, like flaunting a red flag in front of about. Chang would go home happily to a now sympathetic household-change his clothes, and be off again.

In one place, on Sunday, men stood with guns at each end of the village, threatening the lives of any who came to service. The people naturally said they were afraid.

" Come," said Chang, "and whoever hurts you shall first lay me low." Taking their courage in both hands, they came. Chang used the emollient of gentle persuasion, and once more the situation was saved.

Alas, at the end of five years a stop was forcibly put to his activities. One evening, on reaching the river, after a long tramp that tired him to the point of exhaustion, he found no boat to bring him back the further twenty mires to the city. After waiting some time he espied a water-barge crawling its tardy way city wards, where the drought had dried up the wells. He was granted a passage, but the only available seat was the narrow thwart on which stands the mast. The boat itself was full to the brim with water. A weary Chinese can sleep almost anywhere. So Chang in his recumbent position had no difficulty in that. Alack, the boat gave a jerk I Poor Chang found himself head over heck in the cargo of water. Drenched through, as was also the change of clothing he carried in the double-ended cotton bag which the travelling Chinese slings over his shoulder, Chang had no choice but to sit for hours in his sodden garments, facing the chilly night wind.

Inflammation of the lungs followed, consumption supervened. Sad the day and dark the forebodings when, for a month, Chang lay at the point of death. He won through and lived eight or ten year longer; but never again, spite of valiant attempts, was he able to do that which he loved best on earth. In his retirement he was still a tower of strength, and his little house was the rendezvous of those who needed wholesome advice or warm sympathy. Nor did men in higher positions disdain to visit him and seek his counsel. Many a mystery was elucidated by his knowledge and judgment. When Sing Su failed to fathom a perplexity he would wait till evening, then quietly find his way the the-by-ways to Chang's little domain; almost certain to receive there the guidance he needed. Once in our own house something went wrong There was a spirit, an atmosphere we 'fired nor understood. What could be the matter? Whilst we were puzzling, along came Mr. Midnight Chang-so because he rarely paid us a visit before. 10 P.M. or left before. Chang had sent a message by him.

"Get rid of your cook," he said.

We took his advice, and speedily the barometer rose.

No one entered the narrow gate into the church without his imprimatur, any disputes that might have grown to trouble some dimensions he settled. Yet withal, he was himself beyond reproach, and no breath of scandal or suspicion touched him. No marl or woman spoke ill of him, to the best of my knowledge. His enforced retirement was a terrible loss. In the course of the years, other and abler men came on the scene but his was the devotion and faithfulness that was eager for the laborious post, the forlorn hope, and when we badly needed such zeal. When the people at Crag Head attacked our newly formed station, destroyed the furniture, beat the Christians, leaving one on the ground for dead; and when none dared go from the city to gather the scattered flock together again, it was Chang who said

"let me go!

Though we cannot say Chang has, like the centurion, ,' built us a Synagogue," we can say that he helped largely in the founding and building up of forty: ten in each of four large districts.

Sad to say, Mrs. Chang died some years before him, leaving behind three little girls. One day he slowly toiled the well-worn road to Sing Su's study, and into his listening ears poured the tale of her long and tender nursing and devotion during his drawn-out illness. The tears rained down his thin cheeks as he detailed instances of hey devotion. When he followed her to the grave, their three young daughters came under our protection, and formed a nucleus for further expansion towards girls' education.

Dear Golden Heart had one lack, for which he could not be held responsible. he had no funny-bone in his mental composition no sense of humour. Life was too big and momentous a thing for laughter or jokes or light comments. Can one wonder? I have lingered over Chang and antedated some of the events by years, because Chang, Sing Su, and I began a new life together on the picturesque River's Heart. Moreover, his whole soul was with us his heart was as our heart, Those six months on the River's Heart together were, so to speak, a vestibule to the lively experiences on which we entered when we moved over to start our twenty-five years' life in the City-of-the-South.

AFTER a month in the City-of-the-Peaceful-Wave, that is Ningpo, during the late autumn of 1883, I for my part returned home to the City-of-the-South with a totally different outlook on life there. The reason was not far to seek. With us journeyed our infant daughter on the first of her many future travels up and down the great Flowery Land.

How the Chinese admired her white skin! They said:

"How white! White as snow, white as snow!" But of her little Anglo-Saxon nose they said: "How high is her nose! High than any grown woman's in our city."

Yet in the City-of-the-Peaceful-Wave I had temporarily an ad Chinese flume with a beautiful Roman nose. Where she obtained it is still a mystery ethnologically: but there it was.

We reached home on Christmas Eve, with no possibility of at was fare. To add to our joys, the next day I began to Slake with ague. Outwardly circumstance remained unpropitious, but with courage strangely reinforced by the presence of a helpless babe I could face them all. Typhoons of aggressive disaffection fl-it rage around us, the chilly blasts of indifference vex us. None of these things mattered, for were they not out-side our charmed circle and incapable of harming the love, peace, and joy which dwelt securely within?

The Chinese yield to none in the love of little children. They are far-gone in frenzy before they will harm a hair of a child's head. Rather they will over-indulge them; and so great is the intense interest a foreign child has created that it has, on occasion, saved its parents from violence. This happened in the proud, contemptuous anti-foreign City-of-Auspicious-peace near us. Some British friends used to find their necessary passage through this city of haughty scholarship anything but peaceful. They would breathe a sigh of relief when they succeeded in scurrying through unhurt. What a changed attitude when new Baby Olive accompanied them I Stones, curses, insults, vile names, applied alike to consul and missionary, were forgotten in the eager desire to look upon that marvel of their world-a foreigner's infant,

During the awful upheaval of 1891 the whole Yangtsze Valley was ablaze with the burning of foreign buildings, riots were the order of the day, and it was impossible for Western people to walk safely in the streets, An Englishwoman, with whom I had travailed out, was seeking to escape from an incited mob down a quiet lane, when a Chinese woman appeared at her door, infant in arms. Realizing instantly the Englishwoman's peril, she held out her child.

"Take it!" she cried.

The exquisite gift was thankfully accepted. Clasped together, the two found a safe asylum in the house of another friendly Chinese. Verily, it could be said of China that a Little Child shall lead her.

At home in the White House my small amah heard me say Darling" so often, that when the women asked the child's name she responded "Da-ling." And "Da-ling Miss" she remained: till this day to many of them. I did not correct Amah, knowing that none of the folk could twist their tongues round her English name: for there is no letter in our Southern dialect. Baptized "Dorothy" by the Veteran in our Service in Ningpo, that she was to be registered, Sing Su decreed, as a British subject in his own port of the South; and on arrival he communicated this wish to our consul. Back came the certificate of our country, duly stamped and signed, but inscribed Dorothea." We let it stand, as providing the young lady with her choice of names in the future. On meeting the consul, how-ever, Sing Su ventured to suggest that his instructions had been altered.

"Oh," replied the consul, "I thought Dorothea, Gift of God, the better name: nearer the original Greek, you know!"

But it was "Da-ling" that became the household word. When a little daughter appeared in golden-hearted Chang's household, she received the same appellation. Da-ling Chang and Da-ling Su in later years grew to know each other well. Later, two other small girls, daughters of our Chinese friends, were also so called.

In those days women servants-amahs-were particularly hard to find: and no wonder. Their bound feet unfitted them to cope with us "large-footed," striding Western women, whose ways without exception were peculiar and past finding out.

Doubtless fear had also much to do with their reluctance to come under our roof. The street cry of "devils and barbarians" might be founded on fact, and they themselves receive some unpleasant confirmation of it in their own persons. Me thought the little woman who first consented to serve us gave proof one day of this fear, then possessed by the majority. After she had been with us some months, I once raised my hand, but in a smiling big, playful, and wholly friendly gesture, intending to pat her affectionately on the shoulder. In a flash I saw my mistake. With terror written on her face, she shrank away-expecting a blow! Ever alter, I kept my bands to myself.

During the time this woman held office as nurse, Da-ling's skin became most irritable and red, and when I kissed her, she had a salty sharp taste. Pondering over this peculiarity, a thought 'frock me. I betook me to the puff-box in the baby's basket, and was amazed to find the contents also tasted salt and sharp Then the explanation burst on me. For days-the poor child had been liberally puffed with extra strong American baking-powder. And by myself as welt as Amah. The powder was beautifully fine, and the operation often performed at dusk. I invited Amish to accompany me to the storeroom cupboard.

"Show me," I said, "the box you took the baby's powder from last time."

She took down the little round tin of baking-powder, in size and shape totally dissimilar from the large square cardboard box which I had been at such pains to point out as the source of her future supply.

Perhaps this will be as good a place as any in which to admit that, from one aspect, my first seven years in China were a keen disappointment. Brought up amongst men, as I had been, I had come with possibly almost a masculine idea of doing work, of "making my presence felt," as I had so frequently heard said. Greatly hoping to do one kind of work, I was required to do another. what I actually accomplished was little more than the ordinary-or extraordinary-woman's lot of making a home, of staying there, and being the mother of two delightful children. Both language and climate proved an endless source of mental fled physical irritability, against which one had to fight with every inch of courage and every ounce of cheerfulness at one's command, or be reduced to the position of a nonentity, which is so displeasing to many women. And, oh, the lapses!

I succeeded in gathering the women round me in the study. Pai-loa's mother and Chang-he's mother were, of course, among them; and on these patient folk I practiced what I had learned of their speech and some that I had not I Doubtless some came out of curiosity, but a fair number never lost interest and were as regular as the sun in the heavens in attendance. On one of these occasions in came a girl of sixteen. In tier arms was a boy almost as tall as herself, his long legs hanging helplessly down to her own feet. Not liking the look of him, I called in Sing Su, who asked what was the matter with him.

He is just staffing with the Big Guest (smallpox)," said the girl readily. Measles, in native parlance) is the "Little Guest."

"Then you had better take him home, for we foreigners do not like to take that complaint," was Sing Su's suggestion.

Seated on my lap at the time was little Da-ling, but vaccination had already been performed on her. This had been done by a young amateur, a British member of the Customs, who was said to be efficient in this matter. But when the same operator vaccinated Sing Su from her, as was the method in those days, there was serious trouble. I greatly feared Sing Su would lose his arm, and for a week scarcely a bite passed his lips.

It was as difficult to find a HouseBoy as to find an Amah. We had to experiment. One of our failures was a tailor who thought he would like to see if serving the foreigner was easier than sitting cross-legged all day sewing. He it was who, when he cleaned a room, swept the dust into a corner, there to wait till the pile was thought large enough to remove. he returned to his trade, and the Bread-maker's nephew took his place. Now I had yet quite a few household gods, and in such immature hands these fared badly. It was break, break, break, until there threatened to be nothing left to break. I believe I stood the ordeal reasonably well until one evening when a lovely hot-water jug, soft pink and dull gold, was ruthlessly swept off the table and broken into twenty pieces by the callow youth. My mother had instantly bought it for me when I had admired it in the far off North-country shop, just before leaving for China. I confess I ducked my head and wept aloud. This emotion-not the breaking of the jug-roused Sing Su to wrathful expostulation with Ah Djang, cook and bread-maker, who proceeded to administer condign punishment, coupled with loud vituperation for our benefit on the careless wight. All of which failed to restore my pretty English jug.

We decided to give Pai-loa Na's youngest son a chance. He, pai-shi, had youth on his side, and he remained with us for years. He it was who escorted me to my first wedding feast. Anxiety lest my manners should bring disgrace on him led him, they to instruct me how to behave at table, as we walked thither. To the best of my recollection, my most serious faux pas would be to place my chopsticks awry on the table. When not engaged in conveying some morsel to my mouth, my chopsticks must be laid down close together, with mathematical precision at my right, and plumb with the edge of the table. But in those days, and in spite of so simple an example, Chinese etiquette seemed such a complicated and exact science that I won gave it up in despair. Sheltering myself behind my "out-side barbarian" ignorance of polite usages, I was excused much, and received courteous consideration.

One of my great perplexities was how to speak of, or to, a Chinese woman. There seemed to be a different appellation for her in every walk of life. She was to be addressed in the capacity of Wife of Teacher So-and-So, or as the Wife of Workman So-and-So. If she had a son, these distinctions shrank into nothingness, and she was spoken of by everybody as his Mother. Thus my good friend Pai-loa Na was styled the Mother, or Na, of &&&Pai4oa, he being her eldest son.

A woman servant I had in the house later was called by me just "Amah," or "Nurse." One day, being unwell, and seeing much of her, I thought I would shorten the weary hours by asking for a little light on this involved subject.

"Amah," I bravely began, "tell me, what is your name?"

For quite a time she giggled gaily at such an amusing question.

"I have none," at length she replied.

Then she added, as if it were something to be proud of:

"Nor do I know the year, nor the day, when I was born. I have never asked my mother. I only know it was somewhere in the twelfth moon-December-and that I am about thirty."

I was not to be put off in this way, so presently returned the charge.

But it is nonsense to say you have not some name by which people can speak of you.

Indeed it is true," she gravely replied. We Chinese women have no name.

Then I bethought me how I could catch my little woman with guile, and began again.

When your brother comes to see you, how does he greet you?"

As Ah Ts'a-Eldest Sister," she promptly rejoined.

If your husband were here and you were in the garden, how would he call you? "was my next. Now she had run away from him years before, because of bad treatment.

By shouting 'Come here!' "She mischievously responded. Nothing daunted, I persisted.

"When a woman has a little girl born, does she not receive a name?"

The little girl does not the mother."

Very well then, what name were you given when you were born?"

She coyly responded, "Siu-tung, or Winter-born."

"There!" I triumphantly exclaimed. "I knew you must have a name hidden away somewhere."

Oh, but," she quickly replied, "that is not my name now. That was only for when I was a child. It would sound very odd to call me ' Winter-born' now." She proceeded to speak of a curious custom they have in a neighbouring district, where they settle the question by styling their girls Number One, Two, or Three, as the case may be.

Before giving up in despair, I made one more effort.

What does Mrs. Dzang, your former mistress, call you?

Amah," she replied, smiling at my being so nonplussed.

But you are not her amah now," I contended.

It is all the same," she replied. I gave it up.

Apparently a Chinese woman could be designated in a dozen different non-committal ways. She was invariably some one else's something. Thank Heaven for Christian forebears who, at birth, had given me a Christian name that I could claim as my own down to the day of my death nay, even further, for it would be written on my coffin, and possibly engraved on my tombstone Surely we may claim that Christianity has at least given a Chinese woman a chance of a name of her own. I recently read, in this year of 1931, how it was only the girls who had passed through a mission school who registered a Christian, or front, name on the public register. The other women were always some men's something.

During Sing Su's early peregrinations into the country I remained at home, with no choice but to endure the solitariness, which the advent of the children afterwards delightfully mitigated. Being the only person who slept in the house itself, I at first closely barricaded my bedroom door with the heaviest piece of furniture I could drag along. I took care to replace this in its proper place before Amah came in the morning, lest it should give me away. For on one strong point Sing Su left me in no doubt as to his wishes. Whatever I felt, I must never, never on any account, show the slightest fear or alarm before the people among whom I had come to dwell. That were the unpardonable sin: anathema maranatha.

So I smiled when the rowdy or ill-disposed shouted after us in the streets, Kill the foreigner. Beat the foreign thief!" I smiled though their remarks were pointed with a stone or two, or when the fierce dogs snarled close at our heels. But the water-buffaloes, who deigned to give us the only fresh milk we had, were to me as terror-inspiring creatures as probably I was to them. They seemed the ugliest beasts God had made. To meet a drove of the huge dun-grey hairless creatures in a narrow lane, with necks outstretched as they snorted at us, and their protruding horns ready to gore us, produced in me spasms of tenor. These were heightened by the tales I had been told of their incredible speed when pursuing the luckless foreigner. Yet dare I do what every right instinct urged, which was to turn me and run for dear life? No. After one or two attempts I yielded to a greater fear, the contempt and upbraiding of Sing Su. I stood my ground; or, rather, I passed them quickly, taking Care to interpose as much of his person as possible between them and me.

Although not particularly nervous in other ways, I was more than a year in the City-of-the-South before I ventured alone through the Big Street. This street, about three yards wide, runs for miles the length of the city in a straight line, from the North to the South Gate, and beyond. On steamer or other busy occasions, it is crowded with foot passengers, who must always give precedence to burden-bearing coolies, and to sedan-chair bearers. The coolies come swinging along with their heavy loads of tallow, kerosene oil, bales of English cotton goods, or, in those days, baskets of copper money. But they are not quite as unceremonious as the chair bearers, who hurry by with their human burdens and do not hesitate to push foot passengers aside with a force that threatens to knock them to the ground.

The shops are mainly doorless and windowless, and at night are closed in with wooden shutters. Many of the good shops are handsome, according to Chinese ideas, the fronts being carved elaborately, and picked out with gold and silver and various bright colours. The lamp shops are the gayest, being well lighted at dusk. Eight o'clock saw the streets in complete darkness, as there was then no gas or electricity. Both beggars and dogs were important denizens of the street, and could not be ignored. We avoided contact with the beggars, who looked their part to perfection. They were most of them wretched opium sots, filthy and unsightly beyond compare, and more alive than they ought to be. Their methods were worth studying. They went into a shop, and importuned at the counter until served, were it five minutes or fifty, and their probable reward was a copper coin of which it took one hundred to make fourpence. Failing the odd cash, they would say:

"Then give me a big cash for a little one."

Beggars demanded rather than begged. They were protected by a guild, and had a "king," so woe betided the shopkeeper who ill-used one of them. He might have his shop pulled about his ears as the penalty for his offence.

At some houses we knew the dogs better than the people. Their bark was loud and fierce, and had a wearisome persistency. I have often had as many as six at my heels, vying with each other as to which could show his teeth the most, bark the loudest, or approach with impunity the nearest. A stick was therefore a necessary concomitant when out walking, for the dogs seemed to look upon us foreigners as their lawful prey. The owners occasionally called out that they would tae-sz-" beat to death "-the animals, but I never saw even the slightest approach to the doing of it, except with words.

Western women had to deny themselves the pleasure of making their own purchases in our city. It paid to let the servant buy. Occasionally a lady insisted on going herself; but before she had been in the shop two minutes, a motley crowd would press in after her, without let or hindrance from the shopowner, bent on seeing what she wished to buy, and ready to help her with friendly counsel. The shopkeeper would feebly protest. The lady would remind them that she must breathe to live, and that they were suffocating her. All in vain. For an instant they would fall back, but soon were pushing as before, until the would-be purchaser beat a retreat, vowing never again to repeat the experiment.

It was in December 1884 that I landed in Shanghai: the centre of trade in the Far East. Not for five years did I again see anything like a European town, or have the pleasurable sensation of riding in any kind of wheeled conveyance whatsoever. There was no such thing as a wheeled vehicle, not even a wheelbarrow, in the City-of-the-South. Sing Su also soon gave up his pony. There were no roads fit to ride on, nor was there even a blacksmith who could shoe a horse. The very horses, which the mandarins used, went without shoes

I SOMETIMES said it paid to go into the country, if only for the joy of returning home. In the hot weather, with what a sigh of relief and gratitude did we exchange the stony, arid, malodorous streets for our spacious lawn and our view of the hoary city wall, over which at night-fall crept the cool sea-breezes that preserved us alive. Inside those compound walls, too, stood the White house which young Sing Su had built. Its stark newness was soon mellowed by our mulberry and willow trees, which raced skyward at such high speed as if to see which could first reach the apex of the roof.

Roomy and pleasant, the White House sheltered some others, and us for decades. Its long French windows were also doors which stood invitingly open in summer. They led on to the wide veranda; with dark-red wooden pillars to support the upstairs veranda instead of the cumbrous brick pillars used by many builders as if with the fell design of excluding light and air from the rooms within. The doors, windows, and room floors, varnished mahogany red, shone, as did the furniture. Everything was simple and easy to keep clean.

True, as I have heard say, there is no such thing in South China as seasoned wood. Certes, there was little enough of it in the White House. Consequently, in the bone-dry autumn days we now and again heard small explosions, like the crack of a pistol. It was merely the shrinking and splitting of a door-panel. One evening little Da-ling left her bed, and creeping softly downstairs, stood gazing in at us through one of the apertures. Presently the Gift of God called out, in Chinese idiom "Mamma! The door open wide! "-as if the crack were another door, but not quite big enough to admit her.

And the furniture! It had been bought by Sing Su, mostly at sales in Shanghai, before I had time to reach China and stop him. Some of it had evidently done duty at a hotel, or men's mess, sixty years before. The dining-room had a red repp couch, two easy-chairs of sorts, and six dining chairs of the pattern orthodox in South China. The mahogany table was wide enough to seat, comfortably, at each end, two human turtle-doves: and was equally capable of being lengthened to seat over twenty which happened on state occasions. The sideboard was long and substantial, and had one merit: it was fashioned of hard teakwood into which the white ants could not easily set their teeth, whereas they gobbled up our ordinary local wood while we slept.

Sing Su saw my look of consternation at first view of these ancient worthies.

A coat of varnish will make them all right," he airily cried.

It certainly worked wonders. Nor were these antiques without significance. They recalled tales that had become legend in 1884; of the days when the foreigners boiled their ham in champagne." There was a tale of a man who invited a number of his compatriots to dine, but forgot the fact and stayed late at the club. When the guests arrived and found neither host nor dinner, they hied them to the roof of the one-storeyed building, and proceeded to strip it of its tiles. With these they pelted the Owner on his belated appearance. Episodes of this kind were usually associated with dining out. There was a tale of one host who, annoyed by the remarks of his right-hand guest, took up the pie he was serving, and turned it upside down on to the pate of that individual. Both these stories and others, reprehensible but true, were later to be told us by our genial old French Commissioner of Customs.

Our drawing-room suite had the doubtful merit of being brand-new, and consisted of the inept little chairs customary in those days, and a couch the spring and webbing of which soon gave way in our damp climate. I hit on the idea of replacing the webbing with native leather, because this would not rot. When a guest, however, sat down on the couch, leather and springs combined to emit a squeal, amusing to us but causing him or her to move uneasily. He wondered if he were a jack-in-the-box, and she if she were the subject of a practical joke. A few small tables, a chiffonier of great age, my water colours on the walls, and a carpet which perforce lived in a moth-tight tin-lined box Six months of the year, completed the tout ensemble.

Forgive these details because of my pride in this, our bit of 'semi-England planted in the heart of a Chinese city.

"Your home and God's grace are all the joy you can count upon to sustain you," said some one of such a house.

I began now to understand the remarks made about me by the man in the street, some of, which were pertinent.

I cannot imagine where she puts her rice," said one to his companion.

He was referring to the garments and small waist-line of those times.

"She is as white as snow, as white as snow "women would admiringly descant on my complexion.

They produced the desired pallor by plastering their faces thickly with white powder, sometimes with ghastly effect. But the well-dressed man who said nothing but showed his feelings by ostentatiously, and while at a considerable distance, covering up his mouth and nostrils with his long sleeve, and keeping them thus till he was well past me-he provided the unkindest cut of all. An Englishman once questioned a familiar Chinese friend as to the reason of this and similar studied insults.

"Tell me frankly," he urged; "have we really an odour all our own, one that you cannot abide?

After much hesitation the Chinese was induced to speak. "You foreigners do indeed small so much of mutton fat!" he admitted. And this, mind you, after a daily tub, or, rather, two or three during the extreme heat of summer.

After the back of the day's work was broken, we loved best of all a game of "beat the ball," as the Chinese call tennis. If wet ground prevented, it was a habit of most of the little foreign community to take an evening walk for exercise. Imagine our amusement as we stepped out together one evening, to hear this comment:

It is six o'clock. The foreigners are let loose."

One day Sing Su and I were walking outside the Hill-foot Gate. In the distance were two men hoeing in the fields.

Look at those two! "shouted one to the other." They are husband and wife, walking side by side. It looks all right for them, but wouldn't it look queer if we did it?

When out one evening we saw coming towards us a fine tall young man in Chinese dress. The setting sun was behind, and lighted up his tell-tale fair face and hair. Indeed, there appeared to be a halo of light around him.

"An angel approaches," quoth Sing Su.

A Viking," said his more mundane spouse.

It was a young Englishman. Eldred was en route for our house, we found, and had come from a city a hundred miles up the river. In the night, while his boat was anchored to the bank awaiting the tide, he and his boatmen were attacked by robbers who carried knives, if not pistols also. They threatened violence to Eldred and his men if they resisted, but contented themselves with carrying off all their money and belongings. He had been the only European in that city of Chuchow, and, being of a sociable disposition, bad become tired of the loneliness. He longed for the sympathy of fellow-countrymen. He was the only foreigner in that city because he preferred to wait until a certain congenial companion could join him. Alas! During the hiatus, after he returned thither from us, he developed typhoid. He wrote an incoherent letter down to the City-of-the-South, A Chinese helper was sent off with all possible speed in the absence of the foreign men, who were then away from home, but three or four days were needed to reach him up-stream. In his delirium, meanwhile, he insisted on setting out for Kinhuan four days' distance over the mountains in the opposite direction. He was so weak and delirious and helpless that his servants tied him in his chair, or he would have fallen out. How he survived the miseries and incessant joltings of that journey, God knows. But he did; for a few days. The pity of it was that if he had been laid in a boat and brought down to our city he might have survived, for down-stream the journey would have been made in two days, and in comparative ease. No one was to blame. Thus are we broken on the wheel.

The style of salutation in daily use interested me not a little. Instead of "How do you do?" it was "Have you eaten your rice yet?" A very sensible greeting. If you said you had, as most people did, that was conclusive evidence you were well. If you said you had not, then something was wrong and must be inquired into. It was in the country that I was first asked:

"Have you washed your face this morning?

Also a sign of well-being, for the proper thing was not to wash if You were unwell.

Best of all was the morning greeting of a Chinese Christian woman to her British male visitor, made in all innocence.

Have you said your prayers this morning?" she asked. A sure sign of spiritual life if he could answer in the affirmative.

I began, too, to understand the naive comments of our domestics. I must not tell tales out of school, but I was invariably down to breakfast an appreciable time before Sing Su. Remarking on this one day, the Boy accounted for it to that first little amah of mine.

"Sing Su remains longer upstairs to make prayer!" he explained.

No doubt of it. The amah in her turn confided to the Boy how extravagant she thought me.

"Does she not eat, two at a time, mind you, of our preserved eggs for her breakfast, and are they not sixteen cash each?

I have always liked the curious dark-coloured preserved Chinese eggs. And consider, I pray, how little there was for me to eat! At one season wee crabs cooked with Chinese soy were my standing breakfast: and most appetizing, served warm in a little Chinese bowl.

One clear starlit night Sing Su and I were returning home about ten o'clock when we were startled by an unusual blaze, which flamed up not far away. To our surprise it provoked none of the uproar which the devouring element calls forth when Chinese houses and property are its prey. So we turned aside to see what this strange sight might mean. In a large space we found two or three men feeding a big bonfire, around which were ranged various articles of furniture, an elaborate bedstead being the most prominent. As we stood there gazing, men arrived continually, bringing other articles such as trunks, a wash-stand, wardrobe, cupboard, large and small tables, a sedan-chair, a horse, a hat-box-in fact, everything a prosperous Chinese would need, even to opium and tobacco pipes, and men and women attendants. In addition came thirty or forty red boxes strung on a long pole, and full of gold and silver money. One after another, these objects were placed on the fire, the attendants also, and but a few moments sufficed to reduce every one of them to ashes. A man stood at a respectful distance, holding the burning trunks in position with his long pole.

What heaps of clothes there are in these boxes!" He ejaculated.

Some well-to-do person had died, and a holocaust like this marked the termination of a long series of rites which had been observed for his soul's benefit on every seventh day for seven weeks. If the family is poor, these rites are observed for a shorter period: perhaps three weeks. When an important member of a family, masculine or feminine, departs this life, every morning for seven weeks a bowl of cooked rice is placed before the censer in the centre room. This food is for the spirit's consumption, but as the departed one merely partakes of the essence, the bowl of rice grows no smaller, and ultimately finds its way to the mouth of some living member of the family who is well pleased with the substance.

When each successive seventh day arrives-how Biblical that seventh! -two or three priests are summoned. In the evenings they chant prayers for an hour or two, and more elaborate preparation is made. Six dishes of various kinds of food are placed ~ the departed spirit on the table before the censer or incense bowl. When the seventh day of the seventh week comes round, there are still greater preparations. By seven in the morning a Land of ten or twelve priests appear who are soon seated at their chanting in the centre room, and who continue chanting till mid-night, with intervals for refreshment. Food is provided for the spirit; but on this day it is all vegetarian, some of it afterwards being accepted by the priests in part payment of their services, if so arranged previously.

On the last evening, while this is taking place inside the house, the ceremony of burning, with which I started this tale, is being enacted outside, in a convenient spot. Ml the articles which the man or woman has been accustomed to use in this life are, by the transforming power of fire, sent into the next world for use there. But it must not be imagined that our practical Chinese friends burn the real furniture, the real clothes, the real gold and silver. That were folly indeed. All the objects I have mentioned were made of paper, though remarkably like their originals and some of almost life size. The horse, the chairs and tables, the money were all of paper, in the bright gaudy colours so dear to the Chinese heart. Even the servants, of the same tissue, were cast to the consuming flames. And how much less awful than the custom which formerly obtained in India, and China, and in prehistoric England-if we go back far enough when living attendants, or wives, were sacrificed on the funeral pyre!

It is supposed that the objects burned on these occasions become substantial in the other world. While the more intelligent laugh when the utter childishness of it is pointed out to them, yet training and custom hold all in bondage-until the fetters are snapped.

Despite low wages and poverty, the appearance of the ordinary folk is often clean and neat. Those women we met out walking attracted me. A working-man's garment would perhaps be well-patched; but artistically so. The patches would be fastened on with thick linen thread, and by large regular stitches on the top, in full view, not hidden as are ours. Now and again a man would appear with the sides of his working blouse smocked with a skill I envied.

The naivety pleased me. We had a Boy who desired to make his friend a wedding-present of a clock.

A new clock, of course," said I.

Oh, no," replied he. "If a clock has been used for some time by somebody else, you know it can walk! It would go. If it is new, you cannot be certain about it."

Sound reasoning, with the logical corollary that if the clock stopped, it was "dead" - sz-goa!

ONE day when he returned home from the country, Sing Su dropped a bomb at my feet.

"You are going to have two Chinese ladies to stay with you," he said, "a mother and her sick daughter."

Forgetting to make any sort of protest, three questions tumbled out of my mouth.

"Why are they coming? When? And where shall we put them?" They were succinctly answered.

They begged to come because the young lady was shortly to be married; and her married family-Ah Shah's of Plum Torrent-had insisted on the desirability of her first being cured of her opium-smoking. By this time Sing Su had earned a reputation for curing the victims of this terrible habit, which is often begun because opium eases, if it does not cure, many complaints. As to when, the sooner the better. They arrived next day I

Where were we to put them? That was the quandary. Their ways were not our ways, nor ours theirs. In many Southern Chinese homes the sitting-room and bedroom are a combined affair. The bed is an elaborate piece of household furniture, much as the sideboard or wardrobe is in an English home. The ladies, with their bound feet, would find climbing our stairs a hardship, especially as the younger was ill. After much thought we concluded that both mother and daughter would be happier and feel freer in a near-by room in our compound, arranged in Chinese style. I was sorry for the girl of eighteen. She looked ill, and had to be supported when tottering the short distance to her room: a sad object as a prospective bride.

Our treatment, I must allow, did not amount to much: but it did what was needed. Quinine was the chief medicine, with strong coffee-" korfie" they called it. This served to deaden the suffering following the loss of the regular dose of opium. I asked why this young lady began to take opium.

"Every day, at cockcrow, she was attacked by bad pains in the body," I was told.

The cure by opium, however, had been worse than the complaint. I remembered having cured a girl in my own family of similar distress by the application of hot fomentations. We did our best under the circumstances, and had the pleasure of seeing Miss Ting so improved, and free from the but, that in a few weeks' time she was fit to go home. But not before I had been adopted as her "Second Mother," which was gratifying. The cure of Miss Ting enhanced our joint reputation, and when the marriage approached, nothing would satisfy but that Sing Su should perform the ceremony and I accompany him to attend the wedding festivities. These were to be held at the bridegroom's home; and the happy man was the elder brother of Ah Shah, our friend of the dress-improver incident.

Another point was insisted upon. The portable little harmonium, which I had won as champion lady walker of our foreign community in a contest round the city wall, must accompany us, It was required to discourse sweet music on the auspicious occasion.

Both my attendant companion, Pai-loa's mother, and I had a fine time at the wedding. This was only my second genuine country expedition, and more adventurous than the first. We journeyed in a big row-boat up our river, called the Bowl because of the shape of the country through which for fifteen miles it flows. We landed at Under-the-Bridge, and there added to our little cortege some near relatives of the P'an family, also bound for the wedding. In our light mountain chairs we were cheerfully swung along by the Under-the-Bridge bearers. Their names were to become household words to us, but I added mischievous English descriptive cognomens, of which they were ignorant. This was as well, seeing that one was affectionately called" The Buffalo." Faithful and true were these men: and always engaged when Sing Su had a journey ahead of him, even if in the opposite direction from their homes. Naturally they were paid in excess of what their own countrymen would have given, and they had a much easier time, for the queer foreigner did what a native-born Chinese never did-walked much of the way, and always up the hills. Years after we left the City-of-the-South, when a little luck came to Sing Su, these good men received proof that he held fast to their memory and was still mindful of their arduous and loyal service.

On our way Sing Su had one source of anxiety which he concealed from me as long as possible. About a mile from our destination, Plum Torrent, was the large hostile anti-foreign village of Kue-yie. We were compelled to pass through it, or he would have avoided it for my sake. What might happen to us there, Sing Su refused to think. Moreover, there was no concealing our arrival, for, as our cortege descended the hill, we were in full view of Kue-yie spread out on the hillside opposite. In these mountain villages there is often great pride and fierce prejudice even towards each other. One of their unwritten laws is that no man shall pass through, other than humbly and on foot. On coming to one of these villages, even the lordly mandarin must alight from his chair and walk. Sing Su knew this, and had always done it; but he knew also that women were exempt, probably because of their bound feet. Anxious to be on the safe side, long before we reached the stream at the bottom, which we had to cross, he questioned the bearers as to the wisdom of my alighting from my chair and walking through Kue-yie.

Oh, no" said they with one accord. "A woman is not called upon to do so."

Seeing the people collecting ominously on the further bank of the stream, Sing Su again intimated that the Sz Mo would be more than willing to walk, and had really better be allowed to do so. The bearers were as insistent that I should ride, slung between two poles on their shoulders. The crowd let the two Chinese women in front of the party pass safely across the stream, but me they arrested midway. They seized my chair-poles, almost upsetting me in the violence of their onslaught. Others banged down at my hearers' feet heavy stones taken from the stream. The faces of the latter were pale enough now, perhaps from a mixture of anger as well as fear. Then up spake brave Sing Su:

Wherefore this uncivil treatment of ' guests ' passing through your village, my masters?

How dare she, a foreigner, attempt to ride through our village of Kue-yie?" they retorted.

If we have given offence, it is unwitting," answered he. "Is she not a woman; and doth not custom allow a woman to ride? Witness our women friends ahead I

"Woman or no woman, no foreigner shall ride through Kue-yie."

It is well not to argue with the nationalist spirit in the middle of a stream. Sing Su in English quietly counselled me to get down and go on.

"Lower my chair," said I to my bearers.

Being now near the bank, I stepped out on to it, and proceeded nonchalantly ahead, leaving Sing Su to parley with the foe and make plain his opinion of their conduct. Later he confided to me his greatest regret. Probably it was his fears on my account which caused him to speak angrily to them. Yet for the life of me I cannot, on occasion, help thinking of righteous anger on Sing Su's part rather as a virtue. On our return to the City-of-the-South I told in cocksure fashion how little alarmed I had been by this occurrence.

"Yes; you did not know your danger," a friend gently commented.

As I passed slowly up the river-bank at Kue-yie, wondering how those left behind were faring, a village urchin marched belligerently beside me. He sawed up and down his curved firewood knife. "Cut your head off? Cut your head off!" he kept crying at me. At him it was easy to smile. But a man, disturbed at his meal, came to his door with rice-bowl and chopsticks in hand.

"You had better go quickly," he said gravely.

I gave heed, hastened my footsteps, and soon overtook our two anxious waiting womenfolk. With never a word they sympathetically took each a hand, and thus we walked the short distance to Plum Torrent.

It were difficult to imagine a greater change in our reception. Here were smiles, cordial greetings, and the best possible arrangements for our comfort. This but one short mile distant from Kue-yie! It was incredible. The Elders were anxious to hear what had happened, for the night before a number of people from Kue-yie had been up to let them know they intended to kill us if we presumed to pass through their village.

"But they wouldn't dare!" added Ah Shah.

I am not so sure now.

Plum Torrent is in a narrow ravine between two high hills, and is singularly patriarchal and old-world. Though I never went again, I can still imagine the tiny picturesque village, and see its fellows reproduced in famous Chinese pictures. The wide footpath turns and twists up it: not a dwelling is on the level, every house being on a steep incline and on one side of the ravine only. Down this ravine during the rains the torrent must dash madly.

Ah Shah's family consisted of three patriarchs, two at least of whom had taken scholarly degrees, and their descendants. The three had each a huge house on the upper slopes of the ravine, which showed considerable skill in the architect and solid work on the builder's part. From the front doors of all three, one above the other, the occupants looked down straight on to the enormous tiled roofs of the house next below. Could any one invent a better check to curiosity than to be able to see nothing of one's neighbours but a sea of their tiled roofs?

The wedding arrangements were on a big scale, as was consistent with the dignity of the family. There were three days of feasting; and where all those people came from, it were hard to imagine. Many were from over the hills and far away.

On the wedding eve the bride arrived in state. She was borne hither in a gay red much-decorated sedan-chair hung with coloured lanterns. Just as she reached the house a small wood fire was kindled inside the front gate, over which she was carried in her chair-an act of purification. I wondered that the bride-groom's parents were not waiting to welcome her, but was told they had gone out at the back, to be "under Heaven," or the sky, at the moment of the bride's arrival, to ensure lasting amicable relations with the newcomer into the family. I forget whether the bride's scarlet gown was hired for the occasion, as is often the case. Her head-dress was a gilt, heavy red-and-green structure, a great weight for my gentle adopted daughter's head to bear.

The wedding ceremony in the guest hall in the evening was in the usual Chinese style, with the Christian element added, The harmonium contributed bravely to the singing of the hymns, and as prayer ascended, I was carried back in thought through the ages to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

During our stay Sing Su and I had our simple English break-fast in our room, and we provided it ourselves. At midday Sing Su always "feasted" with the men. On one of the three big days the midday feast was for lady friends and relatives only, in which t of course shared. Such a cheerful, well-dressed company these ladies were, in their gay silks and satins, that I felt a dundy-grey sparrow beside them in my cloth dress. But they were kind and considerate, and possibly did not expect much. The dish I enjoyed most during the whole time contained some delicious little dumplings stewed in gravy. What they were made of I was never quite sure; but they tasted like oatmeal or wholemeal. On this as on every other occasion the baby organ raised its cheerful note.

The lady of the house must have breathed a great sigh of relief when this distracting period was over. She was a capable woman, who not only superintended, but also herself did much of the cooking. One day I found her looking very hot and weary; and can one wonder, seeing that four hundred meals were served during that time? It was, I felt, particularly kind of her to admit us, strangers from a far-off Western nation, to her home on so important an occasion. She came to our room as often as her duties allowed, full of curiosity about me, my clothes, and our customs. I gave her carte blanche to examine me to her heart's content, thereby, I flatter myself, dispelling some illusions. I also told her of our ways. With a pleased smile she turned to her companion.

" Just like us, aren't they?" she graciously exclaimed.

I wish I could describe adequately the quaint function that took place one day at Sing Su's request. A coloured carpet was spread on the floor of the guest-room, and here, attired in ceremonial long robes and black satin hats topped with the scholar's coloured "button," the male heads of the family assembled to perform the ancient rite of "worshipping," or showing deference to each other. They took it in turn, these aged men, to stand on the carpet two at a time and opposite each other. When in proper position, each gravely bowed to the other, and then knelt and made obeisance the one to the other. This was repeated several times in great style by each pair, with no little grace and in order of age. It was the first, and last, time either of us ever had the privilege of witnessing this remarkable exhibition of the due courtesies to be paid by the several members of a family, each to the other. We were impressed and touched not a little.

On another state occasion the bride, wearing her wedding garment, performed the ceremony of herself, for once, bringing round to us, on a pretty tray, cups of fine Chinese tea. Its flavour would have been spoilt by the addition of milk and sugar. I suppose there was a meaning behind her action. Was it to indicate that she was now among them as one that serveth?

Equally interesting also was it when, on the day following the wedding ceremony, the bride and bridegroom, in wedding garb, were escorted in state into the guest-room. There they paid their respects to the senior members of the family. Each pair of seniors, husband and wife, in full dress, came in ordered succession, and stood while the bride and groom both knelt and kowtowed before them. In due course our turn came, and we received the obeisance a pleasing ceremony, when one ranks among the Elders

Our last evening came. Sing Su was out in the guest-room, having the usual feast of good things, with yet more men visitors. I remained in our room, the door of which I had carefully barred against stray intruders. Presently a little crowd collected on the veranda outside my windows. From their talk I gathered they were a contingent from Kue-yie! The windows were made largely of paper, and soon fingers began to poke peep-holes in the new clean white spaces. Possessed by a spirit of mischief, I began to cover up each hole as fast as it went" pop." Handkerchiefs, towels, clothes, anything I could lay hands on I seized, to obscure their vision. But soon my supply was exhausted. I enjoyed the by-play vastly behind my barred door, knowing they could not reach me. And so, I think, did they. A slight sound from the dim end of my lamp-lit room caused me to start and turn. There, advancing towards me, was a young man!

My heart sank. Here surely was the Kue-yie enemy at close quarters. But only for a moment. The youth's friendly manner and words soon dispelled my fears, He showed me the tiny door through which he, a member of the family, had come, and which I had failed to fasten. He asked what I was doing, and then realized the situation and saw my inadequate efforts in trying to cover up the numberless holes.

" There is a better way than that!" he exclaimed.

He proceeded to show me the concealed wooden shutters which were let down into the wall beneath the window. In a trice we were both hard at work putting these up into place and effectively shutting out prying eyes. There was merriment outside and in.

We came up to see the foreign woman, and she refuses to be put on exhibition!" those outside said.

The foreign woman's thought was, If you had treated her better to start with, then-"

Sometimes Sing Su would sit for warmth by the kitchen stove, quietly chatting with the Elders about China and England. It was amazing how those veterans, old enough to be his father, accepted what he had come so far to share with them.

Shortly after our visit, one of the three brothers, Mie-ang-sie, now a Christian, prepared his handsome grave, horseshoe in shape, on a hillside, near the public highway. On the whitened brickwork stood boldly the black characters, Still there is hope." Tersely it told the story to the passer-by of that faith in an eternal happiness, which was his.

We grieved to leave those scholarly, kindly, simple country gentlefolk. Moreover, we had again to run the gauntlet of the belligerents in Kue-yie. We were up before daylight, our pukai, or bedding, rolled up, and our breakfast eaten before the stars paled. We reached Kue-yie as the sun rose over the hill-tops, and the smoke from their rice-pans was beginning to ascend.

Also," as Sing Su remarked, before the evil spirit has had time to assert itself."

But as the years fled, a change of heart came over the dreaded Kue-yie. There remains now no hatred or threatened violence to the erstwhile detested foreigner. he is even welcomed. He stays, and he sleeps there.

How did it come about? The south wind blew the ice melted.

TEROUGIT all the welter of close or' two decades that have elapsed since the Chinese Revolution of 1911, is it possible, think you, to claim that more than one real virile ruler rose over the darkened horizon of China? Even Yuan Shih-kai, who many Westerners believed and hoped would strive with single heart for the salvation and unification of his country, after four short years of power split on the well-charted rock of Self. Among the uncountable horde of temporary rulers since Yuan, of all sorts and sizes, we have, in the words of Mencius, craned our necks searching in vain for the appearing of an effective saviour of the people. It has seemed sometimes as if soon there would remain little other to save than a land cruelly desolated by civil war, a people steeped in dire poverty

The lack of compelling personality in China's public men to-day, and disinterestedness such as was shown by Garibaldi, Cromwell, Abraham Lincoln, and a host of others, perplexes us all the more when we recall certain indomitable Chinese met in the more private walks of life. There are these Chinese men ready and willing not only to give their all, but to live as well as die for a cause they count noble.

Among our Chinese village Hampdens and Pyms three concrete examples leap to my mind. Ka-kung, Ding-er, and Pang-di were a trio of doughty champions of religious liberty. What-ever else these three men lacked, it was not force of character. They shone with it, severally and collectively. Each belonged to a different village, and each refused to be intimidated or deflected, either by their fellows or by their bitter opponents, the local mandarins. This letter had in their hands not only the sentence of life or death, but also the power to keep men suffering the horrors of the old-time Chinese prison for an indefinite period, even for the rest of their days. To my certain knowledge, many besides these three Israelitish Children risked everything, walked through the fires of persecution, and sometimes lost their lives in a cause they prized dearer than existence. But of these three I propose to write; for I am puzzled how it comes about, with such men, that there is now this dearth of heroes in the ruling ranks of Chinese life.

Ka-kung, Ding-er, and Pang-di all lived away up in Cedar Creek. A beautiful freshwater stream wound its way through circuitous valleys surrounded by glorious mountains which rival, if they do not surpass, those in the Scottish Highlands. Here, Nature is wondrous peaceful, but, sad to say, human nature is precisely the opposite. The folks who Jive in this lovely region are wilder, more arrogant, vindictive, self-sufficient, and more a law unto themselves, than any remote Highlander would aspire to be. The feuds frequent among themselves are bitter. That between Maple Grove and Crag Head lasted for years. The villagers would have no dealings with each other; nor would they condescend to intermarry. One night, because of some real or supposed injury, Pung-ling, or Maple Grove, rose in its fury and burnt the Crag Head people out of house and home. Up there men worked in their fields with their guns beside them; and entirely for protection against the human and not the wild beast. Twenty or more years after the time of which I now write, the magistrate of the City-of-the-South told Sing Su that already he had been sixty times up there to hold inquests on violent deaths, and the year had yet some months to run.

Sing Su admitted to me more than once that he went up the Creek with unhappy forebodings, knowing that he laid himself open to be shot at, perhaps from behind an ancestral grave.

How dare this impudent fa-nang-foreigner-walk our streets?" cried the villagers.

It was not to be wondered at that he turned a deaf ear to my urgent requests to accompany him to this delightful region.

They are far too ready with their guns for my comfort," he dogmatized; "and certainly it is not safe for you.

But though in all those five-and-twenty years I never reached Maple Grove or Crag Head, and envied the first white woman,

Mrs. Sea," who afterwards attained to them, the South Creek people who were interested in us could and did come to the city. There I welcomed them with an affection amounting to awe because of their fine achievements.

The introduction of a new ideal, a foreign one at that, into the South Creek district can only be likened to the bursting of a shell, with the accompanying flying fragments. The explosive force of the new idea was first carried to Crag Head by a native of that place who had it at Clear Streams, where he happened to be working as a tailor. Clear Streams is only ten miles from Crag Head, but the hills which interpose their bulk between are a formidable barrier. They rise some two thousand feet, and the steep pass connecting the villages rises fifteen hundred feet.

For some time this man, whose name I do not know, accompanied by two or three others, made the arduous journey between Clear Streams and Crag Head every Sunday. Then, lo, the young foreigner himself, the importer of these strange doctrines, appeared over the towering hill-top and on the scene. When visiting a place of any importance, it was Sing Su's plan to call first on the headman, exchange courteous greetings, and ask his gracious permission to speak not only then, but on any subsequent visits, in the Ancestral Hall. This hall is clan, that is, public property. If permission were granted, the next step was for him and those with him to go to the hall and there put his case before his curious, critical, and possibly adverse audience. He used every ounce of skill at his command, and language that was as good, as time went on, as their own. Indeed, they often said it was better than their own, because more cultivated.

Thus Sing Su behaved at Crag Head with its five thousand inhabitants. (The village is named after its Crag, which rises sheer five hundred feet.) He felt all the time very much as if he had projected himself into a den of lions, so adverse was the spirit.

Ka-kung lived at Crag Head, but Ding-er belonged to Maple Grove, six miles away, with its six thousand people. Both were small farmers, and both bad trained as pugilists: no school of humility or long-suffering, that Ka-kung arrived home one evening from working in his fields.

"A foreigner has come to Crag Head to teach us something," his wife informed him.

Has he? We 'll see," he scornfully replied.

After a hasty meal he set out, fully determined to stop the barbarian's talk by making a disturbance.

On reaching the Ancestral Hall he found it packed with people.

It was with the greatest difficulty," he used to say when telling the story later, "that I wriggled my foot over the high threshold-board, and inside the door."

Ka-kung listened, biding his time for the moment of attack. The foreigner was telling a story about a spendthrift wandering son and a wonderfully kind, forgiving Father.

I became so absorbed in the tale that I forgot the purpose for which I had come. The time for attack never arrived. At the end of the tale, to my astonishment, I found I had elbowed my way from the entrance, through the mass of the people, to the far end where stood Sing Su. And when he sat down, I longed for him to stand up once more, start afresh, and tell the story all over again

So indeed might we, could we but hear that story in its Eastern dress, which transforms it into a living drama. Before that day on which he heard it, Ka-kung describes himself as a violent and sinful man."

"When I left the hall," he continues, I did not know what had come to me. But one thing I knew: I was a different being. The fighting, cursing, and gambling that came so easy to me before were now impossible."

Something certainly happened. It was evident from his face and more than could be accounted for by the speaker's words. Perhaps one of our great biologists or psychologists can explain how the mysterious Power in an hour completely changed Ka-kung's outlook on life and his attitude towards his fellow-men. Ka-kung called it the love of God and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. In this belief he remained to the day of his lamented death.

But, as I have intimated, Ka-kung had a wife. She also was a power. She hated her husband's new faith like poison, and opposed it with all the ingenuity and arts at her command. For nine long years she led Ka-kung a dog's life in her efforts to wean him from this foreign belief, being encouraged thereto by her friends and neighbours. One of her simplest devices was to go and noisily call him out of church service, even as many as four times on one Sunday. Often, to pacify her and preserve the peace for others, he would quietly return home with her.

Before the year was out, severe persecution took place at Crag Head. The villagers attacked the Christians during service, and Ka-kung was knocked down and badly beaten. The leaders of the opposition drove the Christians out of their homes and sealed these up "by order of the clan." This added fuel to the fire of Mrs. Kung's enmity, which blazed still fiercer owing to the illness of their only but good-for-nothing son. Next, the son's only child died, and later, the son himself. Is it to be wondered at that the distracted wife joined in the public outcry?

"You have forsaken the gods of your own country. Thus do they avenge themselves upon us!

To such an extent did Mrs. Kung carry the incessant railing and taunting that only a Ka-kung could have stood "like a rock which the thunder is rending." One night he awoke from sleep to find her gone from his side. Receiving no answer to his call, and feeling alarmed, he made a light and went in search. To his horror he found the poor woman dangling from a beam in the room above, nearly, but mercifully not quite, dead. In her despair she was hanging herself because, through this perversion of her husband's, such troubles had come upon them I Yet, at long last, came another astounding change. Mrs. Kung ceased her tormenting and began herself to come to church.

"And," as Ka-kung quaintly put it, "when once she turned round, no need to remind her when Sunday came."

One cannot but believe that the patient gentleness, the forbearance, and the love for his wife which in our eyes were factors in helping to make Ka-kung great, also won to his side his redoubtable spouse.

His fuller reward came later, during the persecution at the neighbouring village of Vu-yoa, of which more anon. On learning of the brutal attack made on Ka-kung there, she showed her true regard for her husband. She set out at once to the hostile village, and on reaching the house where he lay in a semi-conscious condition, she tenderly ministered to him, though the crowd outside was still threatening.

Drag him out, hang him to a tree, and then shoot him like a crow!" they shouted.

They said they would make an end of him that night, and meant it.

"Save yourself and leave me to my fate," Ka-kung, somewhat recovering consciousness, entreated her again and again.

If I am killed, Mr. Su will not let you starve," he added pathetically. But no persuasions moved her.

They shall kill me before I'll let them kill thee," she replied. Then she sent down a peremptory message also to Sing Su!

Double up your fists," it ran, ' and have the miscreants who have so nearly killed my man brought to justice.

As a matter of fact, the three compatriots, Ka-kung, Pang-di, and Ding-er were all involved in the disturbance at Vu-yoa where Ka-kung was seriously hurt: nor was he the only one who suffered badly, and not for the first time. None of the three men belonged to Vu-yoa. It was the home village of a nephew of Ding-er's, and he was a young man who had made it known that he had imbibed his uncle's teaching and intended to follow in his steps. The great Dragon Festival provided the people with the desired opportunity of showing the young man their opinion of his detested foreign proclivities. "As one of us," they said in effect, "you shall not worship that outside barbarian god, Yi-su, and you shall worship on the other hand our own great dragon god, both for yourself and also as our representative "-the latter a ceremony he had never before been called upon to perform,

So great was the show of antagonism that, fearing heavy trouble, the nephew appealed for help to his uncle Ding-er. The result was that both Ka-kung and Pang-di, men of respectable positions, went with Ding-er to Vu-yoa, in the hope of reasoning with, and possibly winning over, the antagonists. Alas, their very arrival was the signal. Before they could speak a word, they were fiercely attacked by a band of roughs a waiting the occasion. As Ka-kung and Ding-er had both learned the gentle art of pugilism, no doubt retaliation in kind would have best pleased the old Adam within but milder counsels prevailed Also they were far outnumbered! The only politic course was, if possible, to escape. After cruel treatment, Ka-kung found a refuge in a loft, where his wife, as has been told, found him halt-dead. Ding-er, for once, escaped. He ran out by a back door, after parrying any number of blows with his old skill. But the youngest of the three, Pang-di, failed to evade the enemy. He was seized and sorely hurt with stoning. When they had reduced him to a fainting condition, they took him and with a long swing flung him out into the centre of a pool quite deep enough to drown him.

The sudden chill somewhat restored his senses. He succeeded in struggling and crawling out on the other side. When they saw him still capable of doing this, they ran round and attacked him again with renewed zest, though he was sore all over, bat-less, shoeless, drenched to the skin. Ultimately a good old man happened along and rescued him from their clutches, insisting also on helping him homewards. As soon as he could stand the journey, Pang-di, with the aid of his old mother, came down to the City-of-the-South; and was placed under medical care.

Pang-di is a tall well-built Chinese. His distinguishing characteristics are his gentle mien, his engaging smile, and, for an Oriental, his fair skin. He also has an enlarged foot, the result of elephantiasis, which, however, does not hinder good going when he is walking. When I saw him, the marks of the dreadful treatment he had received were covered up, but his face told all too plainly of the ordeal through which he had passed. It was that of one recovering from a long illness. We were in church and he was unable to stand. Probably his being surrounded by a company of sympathizers enabled him to remain through the service. It is never easy for the foreigner to know the right word on such an occasion as this, but probably my first impulse did as well as any other. "Ah! It was such as you the Master meant when He said,' Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake.'

A smile lit up Ms eyes. He nodded repeatedly, in instant joyful appreciation.

"Indeed it is. indeed it is," his near-by friends chimed in vigorously.

The moment Sing Su arrived from the country, he went to see Pang-di. He found the room full of folk, amongst whom were Ka-kung, newly arrived; also Ding-er, who was the only one of the three with a whole skin. At Sing Su's entry all rose but at sight of their friend poor Pang-di, overcome with emotion, sat down and covered his face with his hands in the vain endeavour to hide the drops which came rolling down his cheeks. It had been no light thing for these strong men to bear such humiliating treatment patiently. Before many more minutes had gone, there was not a dry eye in the room. But such scenes are too sacred to be reproduced in print.

Words of good courage heartened the company: and at the end, Pang-di declared his intentions to remain firm.

If my pains bring life and liberty to Vu-yoa, I can rejoice in them," he said.

(ii)

But that was not the end. As the result of representations made to the city magistrate, he sent up some time later two "runners," or policemen, to Vu-yoa to make peace. That they were ridiculously inadequate in such a state of affairs was a foregone conclusion. Yet what could Sing Su do more? On their arrival, no one would even direct the runners to the homes of the offenders against law and order. These had ensconced themselves in the house of the young man upon whom the trouble first fell, he having fled. The runners sent for Ka-kung to guide them to the instigators of the wrongdoing, but the very sight of Ka-kung was the signal for another more serious attack. In the presence of the minions of the law, a band of men headed by Ka-kung's own nephew set upon him like fiends, with chunks of wood.

It so happened that Pang-di's mother, after seeing her son in good hands in the City-of-the-South, had returned to her home at Chi-moe. But feeling unhappy about the mother of the Vu-yoa young man, she had set off there, hoping to encourage her in this new faith. Pang-di's mother was a feeble, weak-eyed old woman. Yet it would have fared worse with Ka-kung that day had she not stepped into the breach and stood bravely in front of him!

"I dare you to attack me-an old woman!" she denounced them. She did her utmost to ward off the blows. Yet despite her efforts, they dragged him by his queue from one room to another of the house, almost tearing off his scalp with his pig-tail. On reaching the front room, they bore him to the ground, and there beat him till he was bruised black and blue from his nape to his heels as Sing Su later saw for himself. It is likely the life would have been completely beaten out of Ka-kung had not yet another humanitarian, a comparative stranger, a passing fortune-teller, thrown himself down beside him and protected his head from the savage blows. This man had heard Ka-kung tell of the Doctrine in another village.

After the attackers had expended their strength, and not tin then, did the runners make a great pretence of giving aid likewise to Ka-kung. This is the occasion already referred to when Ka-kung's wife hurried to his succour. When the ruffians desisted, helped by the women of the place she did her best for him. On hearing what had happened, Ka-kung's own relatives and clansmen at Crag Head now thought it was high time they took a hand. In a body they marched on Vu-yoa and demanded that their kinsman be restored to them. This was strenuously opposed.

"All right!" they answered. "It is as you please. But if you do not give Ka-kung, our clansman, up to us 110W, we will go back, beat the drum, call tile clan together to the Ancestral Temple, and come again in our full strength, and make you

Here indeed were the elements of a clan fight big enough to set the whole district ablaze. Probably Ka-kung's relatives and friends liked his religious principles as little as did the men of Vu-yoa. But they also knew the present character and conduct of their man, and had no intention of allowing him to continue suffering as an evildoer. After long parleying, it ended in some of the wiser Vu-yoa elders advising the obdurate members. "You 've given him plenty to go on with! Let him go now," said they. Though this went sadly against the grain with the majority, Ka-kung was permitted to be carried home in a sedan-chair, more dead than alive.

The next significant action of the Vu-yoa folk was to make a feast, to which they invited gentry from other villages. They then pledged themselves not to allow the foreign doctrine in ally of their villages. In addition, if any of their clan were beaten, or killed, for being a Christian, no retaliation or demand for compensation was to be made.

It was a sad day for us when Ka-kung joined Pang-di and Ding-er and the other refugees in the city. They looked for help to the almost helpless young Westerners. For by this time young Sing Su had been joined by an even younger man, Sing He-" Mr. Sea." They themselves were counted as the small dust of the balance, and less than nothing, by the citizens of that Southern Chinese city. Daily in the streets they were stigmatized as foreign thieves, foreign devils, and outside barbarians. The very dogs were encouraged to snap at their heels with angry bared teeth. What power had they to help any one? The arm of flesh-as represented by Chinese officials-was dead against them.

Truly Sing Su and Sing He had thrust a sharp sickle into this mighty field: one, too, which could never be withdrawn. And the harvest has included many of China's noblest sons.

(iii)

But what of the third hero in this fight for liberty? In stature Ding-er was shorter than his two friends, Ka-kung and Pang-di; but strength emanated from his thick-set burly frame. And to what shall I compare his voice? The corncrake, or a bunch of "scissors-grinders," as we call the cicadas in the East. That rasping sound almost defies comparison, and was calculated to make a babe pucker up its face and howl in terror.

Ding-er was of the true bulldog breed. Once he had set his teeth into a thing, grim death could not loosen his hold. In defence of his new principles he feared not God-he loved Him-nor regarded man, who could only injure his body. I used

to tell Sing Su that Ding-er would never die in his bed. Yet in this year of grace 1931 he is still a grand old man, holding on to life, and still persistently holding forth the Word of Life. I am less concerned, however, as to how Ding-er reacted to the Good News as it raced through the countryside than with what happened after. The former I forget, but the latter made too deep an impression ever to be obliterated.

Ding-er was soon in hot water. He began to have meetings at Maple Grove. Every seventh day he had the temerity, in that neighbour hood, to expatiate on that grace which was shortly to be required of him I Naturally these gatherings gave dire offence to the anti-foreigners. The consequence was that Ding-er's premises were bombarded, and he and three other men of his village were rudely seized and brought down in a boat the thirty-five miles to the magistrate's yamen in the City-of-the-South. On what pretext J do not know; but they were clapped into prison and strung up in such fashion that, for a whole night, their feet could not touch the ground.

Having landed their prey in durance, the officials allowed our opposers to return triumphant to Maple Grove. Representations to the magistrate were made by Sing Su; and in consequence the prisoners were eased of their torture and next day allowed to put their feet to the ground. By the same means they were also brought to an early trial, rather than kept indefinitely for months in prison. In an old record of Sing Su's I find his version of their trial reminiscent of Pilgrim's Progress.

First, they were falsely charged with Ml manner of offences, and for five hours these four Christian men were bullied and threatened violently. During the whole of those five hours they were kept kneeling on the hard stone floor, and the runners, gauging the. attitude of the officials, denied them the relief allowed even the worst criminals-that of resting their hands on the floor. When the official could find nothing to lay hold of in order to torture them, or put them back in prison, he called for documents to be written out saying the prisoners acknowledged having made false accusations against the gentry of Maple Grove, that they had received back all their goods stolen from them, and that they promised to hold no more Christian services at Maple Grove. Not an atom of truth in any one of the items. They were then ordered to sign this document, and on firmly refusing to do so' the judge became exceedingly angry, threatening them repeatedly that they should be beaten."

Finally, the magistrate asked: "Does your religion allow you to smoke opium?"

"No, it forbids any dealings with it."

"May you gamble?" he continued.

"Decidedly not," they said. "And drink?" he asked.

"In moderation," was the reply.

Does it bid you pay your debts?

"Certainly," they agreed.

"Then," he declared, "you owe the Imperial Land Tax. Take them back to prison."

And the poor fellows, who had lost nearly everything they possessed in the world, were taken back to captivity again. The gaolers tied them up, each with a chain round his neck, passed beneath a pair of handcuffs and drawn together up to a beam overhead. Thus they were kept standing for eight weary hours. At midnight a bribe to the gaoler loosened the chains a few inches, and they were able to stand at least on their feet. But they remained thus till noon next day.

Needless to say, during all this long time frequent appeals for more humane treatment were being made to the magistrate. With regard to the Land Tax, one man, we discovered, owed nothing. A second actually had a balance to the good. The third owed a very small sum. The fourth, who had been seized with them, could only reckon up his debt to a couple of dollars. Payment for the sum owed, and bail for the prisoners, was offered by Sing Su and his friend Sing He, but in vain.

Happily we had in the City-of-the-South at this time a consul who, though younger in years even than ourselves, set himself valiantly to work. He drew the Taotai's attention to the fact that there were certain Treaties with Western Governments which might be right or might be wrong, but which his-the Taotai's-Government had made, and presumably with the intention of observing them. One of these Treaties ran that Christianity might be freely taught by the foreigner and as freely accepted by the people. The consul happened to be up the Bowl River on the Sunday when the four prisoners arrived in the city. Immediately Sing Su sent a messenger express after him, who found him ten mites up-stream. As the tide was against him, our young advocate at once set off and walked in to his consulate. Arrived at River's Heart, he put on his official dress, called in on us to let us know of his coming, and hurried thence to beard the lion in his den, that is, to interview the Taotai, our highest official. How anxiously we awaited his promised return. I still recall the look on his face as we almost ran to meet him at our door. As he came slowly up our front steps his blue eyes were clouded as he announced sad news. I can do nothing with the Taotai. He lies, he knows he lies, and he knows I know that he lies," he said.

His distress almost equalled our own; and the only comfort we had to offer him was some badly needed dinner.

But the case was not done with, and in one respect the consul's protests were effective. Ding-er's three companions were released in a few days. Ding-er was held for nearly three weeks more, when he too was set free, but in what Sing Su characterized as a most scurvy manner." He was brought before the Taotai's relative, a Wei-yuan, and by him bullied and threatened. The bamboos for beating him were significantly produced. A thousand blows were ordered.

Ten thousand it you wilt," said Ding-er to them; but I can never sign the document you demand."

This was again to the effect that all his statements were false anent his house being attacked, his household goods destroyed or stolen, and himself ill-treated.

Although the threat to beat Ding-er did not take effect, at the order of the Wei-yuan-pronounced Way-you-an-the runners seized him. They held him kneeling on the ground, whilst others of them stretched out his left arm to the full extent. Other runners similarly stretched out his right arm. Then a runner seized his clenched hand, prised open a finger, rubbed it with ink, and pressed the false document against it. In this way was he made to sign away his character Protesting vigorously that he had not signed the paper, he was set at liberty.

He went home. Once more the faithful met at his house, the rank and file of the place making 110 demur. Two Sundays passed quietly, and peace seemed assured. Then lo to everybody's surprise, runners again appeared on the scene. They seized Ding-er, carried him off, and once more clapped him into prison in the City-of-the-South. He was presently examined by various official representatives of the Taotai, confronted with the document which he was said to have signed, and asked why he had recommenced Christian services.

I let my house to Sing Su," was the crux of his final reply, and those whom he represents and the services are theirs."

Which was all true. When he refused to withdraw his permission for the services to be held in his house, he was thrown back into prison. This time it was the inner and worst prison and he lay with banditti, thieves charged with murder, and all kinds of bad characters.

Again our gallant young consul set to work; but finding that nothing whatever except the renunciation of Christian services at Maple Grove would content the Taotai, he finally appealed to Caesar. He sent so many missives relating to this flagrant breach of Rights regarding religious liberty to our Minister, the final British Court of Appeal in Peking, that I suspect he was entreated to be more merciful in his outpourings. Moreover, Peking was a long way off. The law is deliberate in every country, and for eight dreary weeks our clean countryman, Ding-er, lay amid the physical, mental, and moral degradations of a Chinese prison. Happily a certain laxity prevails in those places. It was possible, after making friends with the gaolers, for us to ameliorate Ding-er's wretchedness by sending food and changes of clothing. Ding-er's private compensation, however, was the unique opportunity afforded of telling his fellow-prisoners many things they might never have heard of otherwise. To us outside the waiting seemed interminable. The question would force itself on us: "Have we done all we can to set Ding-er free? Or are we contentedly letting him suffer, vicariously?" It was here our hero showed himself at his best. To the suggestion that he should be set free from prison at any cost, he begged that no short or doubtful cut to justice be tried.

"I am willing to remain in prison indefinitely," he sent us word; "nay, to die in prison, if religious freedom be bought thereby. Of that have no shadow of doubt in your mind."

His spirit was that of an earlier Great Man, who wrote Having wrongfully imprisoned me, let them come themselves and fetch me out, Ding-er could have bought his liberty any day by undertaking to hold no more Christian services in his house.

In the end he won through, gloriously. In answer to the appeals made in Peking by our representative there to the heads of the Chinese Government, a special Commissioner came down to the City-of-the-South from our provincial capital. He tiled Ding-er. In open court Ding-er told his story, and before a juster judge than before. At the close the Commissioner spoke

"I believe what you have told me. I think you are a good man.

In addition he ordered compensation to be given for the destroyed goods. The only reward our indefatigable consul received probably was to murmur to himself, a propos of the Taotai, "Let there be justice, though the heavens fall." But we did not hear him.

At the Chinese New Year it is the custom for officials to send presents to each other. Our Taotai conceived the happy idea of sending this year a live present to our consul, in the person of the man who had been the cause of such long friction between them-Ding-er. This he did on New Year's Eve, to await next day. Our consul, in turn, decided to keep Ding-er, and send him over to Sing Su as an appropriate greeting from himself on New Year's morning. But he counted without Ding-er, on whom the waiting hours over on River's Heart dragged heavily. Impatient of further delay, and unaware of the consul's kind idea, Ding-er took advantage of his restored and delightful liberty. Early on New Year's morning he escaped over to the White House. Seven o'clock saw him unannounced finding his way up to Sing Su's bedroom. "I couldn't wait a moment longer," he cried, rousing Sing Su from his slumbers.

In a trice the strange-looking pair, the Englishman in his pyjamas and with tousled hair, and Ding-er looking more like a bear than a man. So long had he been unshaven and unshorn were kneeling together at the bedside. They thanked God with grateful hearts and tears for a mighty deliverance.

Like Ka-kung, Ding-er also bad a wife who played no ignoble part during her husband's troubles. whilst he was in prison, she continued to live in their broken-down home. A rice-pan she borrowed from one friend, her chopsticks from another; her bed was of straw. The money compensation which, in the end, came to them was sufficient to build her a new house. But instead of using it for that, she and Ding-er gave the major portion as an offering to help in the erection of a church at Maple Grove I It is a beautiful building, one in which you, my reader, would be proud to say Our Father, and thank God for the inspiration received from three such Captains Courageous.

As for our chivalrous young consul, even as I write I learn that he is henceforth to be known as "Sir Harry" I Some may conclude that the King knighted him for solid work as Commercial Counsellor in China. Ka-kung, Pang-di, and Ding-er would gladly have bestowed the honour forty years ago.

IN our salad days in the City-of-the-South the greatest obstacle we had to contend against was the Mandarins. From the highest, called the Taotai, down to the smallest of the in-numerable throng of officials, they were dead against us. Nor can we withhold a measure of sympathy if we succeed in putting ourselves in the place of either mandarin or people.

Suppose, from a far-off country of which we had never so much as heard, there arrived in England a few people of the weirdest possible appearance. Suppose these people, after contriving to rent a dwelling by paying double what any of us would do, calmly settled down to live amongst us. We, being perfectly satisfied with ourselves, could only look upon these strangers as interlopers, and the queerest of the queer. For, instead of clothes made to clothe and hide their shapes, their apologies for garments were skin-tight, as was the fashion of last century, revealing rather than concealing their limbs and figures in disgraceful fashion. Those of their women were particularly offensive in this respect. Suppose, instead of black hair and dark brown eyes, such as we always have had, these creatures have yellow hair and horrid blue eyes, or others even have flaming red hair. Indeed, out of this idiosyncrasy arose the Chinese custom, in some places where they congregated in numbers, of calling their foreign utensils after this ridiculous-coloured hair. Thus they would speak of a "red-haired spoon," or a "red-haired knife and fork"

a, Strangest of all, these nobodies seemed to think they could teach us something. Us True, they managed to entice a few low-down ignorant coolies, by telling them stories of a countryman of theirs called Yi-su, who lived two thousand years ago, and whom they themselves must have despised, since they killed him by the zaih-z-ko process, the cross. Why I Had we not our own great Teacher, Confucius, who lived long before this Yi-su? There could not be any one as great as Confucius; so away with their outlandish teacher' Our mandarins, our mayor, our magistrates, all hate these intruders, and object to our having dealings with them. Indeed, we know the mandarins would like us to stir up strife and compel these barbarians to go back to their own land."

Is it to be wondered at that with this attitude towards the Westerners en bloc, we were derided in the streets, called "Outside Barbarians, foreign dogs and thieves"? In face of it, how then came Christianity to make any headway whatsoever in the City-of-the-South? At first it made little; but with patience, much self-restraint, and more patient sowing of the good seed, coupled with our faith in its self-propagating power, it did begin to make itself felt. First, of course, in the heart of a poor man here, or a poor woman there; among those who had so little of this world's gear that they risked nothing in believing it!

For years in our city the two ribands of life, the Eastern and the Western, theirs and ours, ran on as it were in parallel lines. Side by side they ran, yet as sharply defined and clear-cut as if scissors had severed them. Then surely, yet slowly, we began to arrive at more frequent, more enduring, and happier points of contact. On the one hand, we walked their streets, visited their temples, sought out their beauty spots. They, on the other, ventured to inspect us, our house and our compound, came to our church. often stalking about and refusing a seat. But they came to see us outlandish people, or hear some new thing.

Our foreign White House, in the street of the Tile Market Temple, had round it the usual high Chinese wall, ornamented at the top by a border made in tiles of the pretty open-work pattern we see in Chinese embroidery. In those walls were three doors. One of these, at the back, and more secluded than the other two, was always open, and through it slipped many a truth-seeker-as well as many a self-seeker.

Ah! If the walls of that White house could speak I What tales they would tell, as the years continued, of high courage, patience, endurance under bitter persecution, of grievous loss Awful tales, some of them of murder done, then laid at the door of innocent Christians, who at that time were the popular scapegoats; of men, too, who themselves were murdered because they had dared to become Christians; of wounds and bruises, of loss of household goods. Though now more than forty years ago, it seems but yesterday since the day I lay seriously ill and greatly needing quiet, but with restless little Da-ling in her cot beside me loudly complaining under the irritation of chicken-pox. "Amah," I complained, when that worthy appeared, why is there such a dreadful noise downstairs?

It is the Christians in from Ox-bridge, who are crying about their destroyed houses and weeping for the loss of their stolen farm-beasts," said she shortly, as if it were a matter of course.

And for upwards of fifteen years such was the normal state of affairs with us in the City-of-the-South. For Christians to appeal to the officials for protection was usually to appeal to those whose sympathies were all with the aggressors, and whose inclinations were to treat the injured as if they were the culprits. It was ever Sing Su's aim to keep away from the law-courts, and only as a last resort did he sanction an appeal by the Christians for their Rights, in this struggle not only for their own but for the religious liberty of a law-abiding section of the community. In most cases his policy was to appeal rather to the sense of simple justice amongst the best people of the place where the friction had risen. Often his confidence was not misplaced.

Indeed, in all this, if in nothing else, it would seem as if Sing Su, and such as lie, were public benefactors to the people among whom they dwelt. They were struggling for the same freedom to worship the one God which was accorded to the worshippers of many gods. But the sorest grief was that Sing Su, who had thrust in this sword, was not himself wounded thereby, save in mind and heart and, inevitably, pocket. Long-suffering-that counsel of perfection-was at times strained to breaking-point. It certainly was with one of our consuls.

"I should like to see a few cases of Christians fighting and resisting oppression," he informed Sing Su once, by way of a change from Christian endurance!

At last, after a surfeit of the anti-foreign, anti-Christian type of mandarins, there appeared on the scene a Chinese official who was neither antagonistic nor violently prejudiced. Into his hands, happily for them, came the cases of persecution of Christians. It seemed too good to be true.

Kwo was his surname, and Da-lao-yi - literally Great Old Grandfather - the appellation betokening his official rank just as we speak of a "Right Honourable Gentleman." When Mr; Kwo had a case of persecution put into his hands, Sing Su breathed a sigh of relief, for he knew the scales of justice would not be heavily weighted against the Christians. Mr. Kwo was a fine example of the old style Chinese scholar, flow nearly defunct.

How he stoops," I once remarked, covertly watching him out of a window, for women should not be too much in evidence on these occasions.

That attitude of humility is highly proper in a disciple of Confucius, and has been cultivated by him," I was answered. He wore big, round, heavy-rimmed spectacles, also considered scholarly, and his manners were extremely courteous. Two young Englishwomen who came to our neighbourhood had been much impressed in London by the courtly manners of the retired member of the British Consular Service who had given them lessons in the Chinese language. When they became acquainted with the Chinese in their own land, they realized, so they said, whence Sir Walter Hillier had learnt some of his great courtliness. It was partly from intercourse with such as the Venerable Mr. Kwo.

He became our frequent visitor, and one day said to Sing Su, "Will you teach me English?

"Certainly, and perhaps you, also, will teach me Mandarin," was the naive reply.

Lessons were begun, and it fell to my lot to preside over the tea-table on those bi-weekly occasions. This was the first time, doubtless, that Mr. Kwo had come into such close proximity with a foreign woman. The table was big, and I sat at the far end, and tried to be as little objectionable as possible. I never looked straight at him, and I handed His tea-cup obliquely-by way of Sing Su. Thus we both survived.

There sat the Chinese gentleman of sixty-odd, clothed in his dark, loose, silk robes, and wearing the close-fitting black satin hat, the only thing that was tight-fitting. It was topped with the coloured "button" betokening his rank, and beneath it at the back hung down his long black queue, its end finished off by a tassel of black silk braid. Close beside him sat the young Englishman, in his tight garments, and hatless, his dark head closely cropped, first acting as teacher of English, next as pupil to the mandarin.

My friends think I am foolish," said Mr. Kwo one day, for attempting to learn English at my time of life. But I love knowledge, and may perhaps gain something out of the attempt."

Sing Su gained more: a working knowledge of Pekingese, which served him in good stead when, twenty years later, he became President of the first Imperial University in China. But that tale is for a later chapter. Mr. Kwo's pronunciation, meanwhile, never became good, and I can still produce a smile and a vivid picture of the old gentleman by asking Sing Su to lend me his "pin-shil," or pencil.

About this time we had at the White House one of those feasts which ate often employed in China to signify the end of a dispute and the resumption of more or less amicable relations. Others call it burying the hatchet. The occasion had nothing to do with us, but related to two strangers, members of the German Alliance Mission, who lived and worked in a city a hundred and forty miles up our Bowl River. It was on a Monday afternoon, and, as far as I could learn, with no provocation whatever, save that of feeling a sense of overwhelming distaste towards these foreign invaders, that a mob surrounded the Germans' house and proceeded to attack the inmates violently, using homely but effective weapons, such as clubs and carrying-poles.

The onslaught was terrible, and, as did Sing Su on an earlier and similar occasion, the Germans sent message after message to the magistrate announcing the condition of things and appealing for lawful protection. The result was the same. No help was forthcoming by way of guards, policemen, or soldiers. For the two Germans it became a choice between being done to death in their own home or murdered while attempting to reach the magistrate's yamen through the ferocious mob. They essayed the latter. Big, powerful Mr. Klein led the way. He soon received such a shower of blows on the head that, had he fallen, he must have been killed forth with. Mr. Mantz, at the outset, wrested from one of his attackers a large stick with which he protected his head from the deadly Mows by holding it aloft in both hands and swinging it round. Picture him with his powerful aims, and the mob dodging to escape the flying circle. The two men reached the yamen doors alive, and lifting lip their voices, hammered thereon.

"Chao ming! Chao ming! -Save life, save life!" they cried. At last they gained admittance. Once inside, Mr. Klein, whose clothes were drenched in blood, collapsed. One fainting turn succeeded another. Indeed, so injured was he in mind and body that I doubt if he ever recovered sufficiently to remain in China-and risk another such encounter.

As neither apology nor satisfaction for the outrage could be obtained locally, the less injured of the two, he of the whirling club, Mr. Mantz, came down to the City-of-the-South, where he did little better. So he went on to Shanghai, where he placed the case in the hands of the German consul. There I also leave it.

It was because Mr. Kwo and Sing Su had acted the part of friendly mediators in this trouble that, when the matter was settled, the Taotai sent round to the White House the feast referred to-an acknowledgment of their services. It was an excellent meal, and, to that extent, in keeping with the Taotai's dignity. Feasts in China are often ordered in toto from a restaurant plates, dishes, chopsticks, everything included. On that evening about half-past six two men arrived at our house bearing between them a large basket. This contained the cold food already prepared and arranged on small dishes with mathematical precision. They also brought an enormous steamer in which other viands, neatly arranged in their separate dishes, were placed, tier upon tier. A portable stove was inserted below, and in this fashion the hot part of the dinner was heated.

A few minutes sufficed to set the table, which looked pretty. In those days a table-cloth was never used among the Chinese, but in our case-doubtless as a compliment to the foreigner-one was spread. Chinese dining tables in the South are square, and invariably made to seat eight people. If a Chinese is asked the number of his family, he often replies, So many tables "-be there eight, sixteen, twenty-four, or more members of the family under W~ roof-tree. These tables are higher than our Western ones, and at each corner were set three small dishes of dessert, consisting of green plums preserved in honey, peaches preserved in sugar, yang-mai-which we called our Chinese strawberry-also stewed in honey. There were French beans, almost raw, but attractively arranged in neat rows; oranges. quartered; and other comestibles, built up in neat pyramids and in little dishes.

Before each guest was set a small pewter wine-cup, of miniature dimensions, and a saucer which held small nuts and dried melon seeds wherewith to pass the time between the courses. At each right hand was a pair of ebony chopsticks. All these things were permanent, and remained on the table through the dinner, the centre of the table being left for the hot dishes, which were brought in succession. Of course, as at University dinners in Oxford and Cambridge and elsewhere, ladies were rigorously excluded from these feasts, though occasionally they have a feast on their own account. This time, had we so desired, Mrs. Sea and myself might have feasted on exactly the same fare, brought to us in a back room. We preferred to enjoy the fun without risk of indigestion.

At dusk our friend, the Venerable Mr. Kwo, and the Taotai's deputy arrived in their official chairs, carried by four men in uniform, and accompanied by a servant on foot. As soon as Mr. Kwo entered our drawing-room, Mrs. Sea and myself took up our coign of vantage on the side veranda, where, through the long Venetian shutters, half-closed for our private convenience, we could see all that passed within the lamp-lit room. We trusted to our invisibility, but were afraid lest our uncontrollable titterings should reveal our proximity. for we could not help being amused by what we saw. The stately old gentleman stood in the centre of the room whilst his servant divested him of one long silk garment after another. We began to think the unrobing process would never stop I Fortunately he could not bring himself to part with a lovely cream silk robe, at which the divesting hand was stayed. Each garment the Servant carefully folded.

Oh that our Western clothes were as easily folded," we whispered to each other.

Then there were laid aside, along with his official hat, his big bead necklace and top-boots. After all, he was only doing in the drawing-room what we relegate to the cloakroom.

Modesty compels that at Chinese feasts the chief guest requires much persuasion to take the seat of honour, which is at the host's left hand. Each guest makes a proportionate difficulty, and half an hour may be expended in putting every one into his proper seat. In deference to our less ceremonious Western custom, this was much curtailed, and soon the feast was proceeding merrily. The Chinese are prepared to devote three or four hours to a feast of such importance, and when one sees the bill of fare, one is not surprised that this feast took that length of time. The remarkable fact was that neither Sing Su nor his associate and friend, Mr. Sea, seemed one whit the worse next morning.

The hot dishes came on in slow progression the intervals were filled with conversation, with nibbling at the nuts, and possibly the smoking of a tiny pipe of tobacco. When wine is drunk, it is from the cup of pewter or porcelain, of "just a thimbleful" style. A servant goes round to fill up the cup from relays of warmed wine served in a pewter wine-pot, not unlike a tall slender coffeepot.

There was no written menu, but I can reproduce it-to engender in the reader either envy or thankfulness for what he has missed. The so-called large hot dishes were

Thirds'-nest soup,

Sharks' fins,

Fish-glue soup,

Pigs' feet,

Betches-de-mer,

Stewed chicken,

Fish balls,

Duck, fried whole.

The "small" dishes came alternately with these, and were Pigeons' eggs, Minced shrimps, Fish cutlets,

Kidney balls,

Chicken cutlets,

Water-lily seeds stewed in sugar,

Pi-pa and lung-yen stews (sweet Chinese fruits),

Stewed tendons,

Stewed eels,

Stewed fishes' lips.

It is the rule not to remain long after the feast is over. At the end Mr. Kwo's servant brought his master's brass washbowl, containing hot water. Out of this he wrung a small dean towel and presented it to Mr. Kwo, who refreshed himself by passing it over his hands and face. In hot weather I have heard of the hot cloth being passed over the back bared by a servant.

Most refreshing," said the Englishman who told of this, and who spoke from his own experience.

Sedan-chairs were called, and soon, after stately leave-takings, the guests departed. Mr. Kwo, the chief guest, left first. It was a great occasion, and we had reason to hope that a kindlier feeling between officials and foreigners was thereby created in our city.

Our own first serious attempt to dispense hospitality to our European friends was just as humiliating as this Chinese occasion had been glorious. We had been entertained so often by consul and commissioner that it was befitting we should ourselves now take a turn. I dreaded the consequences to our friends. Sing Su did not, beforehand. What every woman knows is that household management never presents the slightest difficulty to the best man on earth! Ah Djang was competent to make bread and satisfy our simple needs. But beyond that-well, I had my doubts.

A Western woman, however practical and competent, can do no more than visit her Eastern kitchen, to see that it is kept clean. Everything in it is different, and probably wrong according to her Western standard. Also her presence therein is unwelcome. She is in the hands of her Oriental servants, and often they acquit themselves remarkably well, in their own way. But a lunch fit to set before consul and commissioner, who had trained servants from Shanghai, was another matter. Grave fears assailed me as to our wisdom in attempting it, overdue though it was.

However, Sing Su would himself be responsible for some choice freshly ground coffee. As to the rest, it would arrange itself. He had bought a large second-hand coffee-grinder at a sale in Shanghai, and on the auspicious morning fixed it up, and with much ado succeeded in grinding the beans. One o'clock brought our guests, but no welcome tiffin bell. At one-thirty I began to be unhappy. When the clock reached two, I fully expected the guests to rise, shake the dust off their feet and say they bad business at home. At long last we sat down at table. We were waited upon by pock-marked Chang-loa.

To me the meal was one drawn-out agony, though the guests behaved charmingly. At last came our ckef-d'auvre, Sing Su's coffee, which was to atone for any shortcomings. We all sipped once: but no more.

That coffee tasted vilely of castor-oil," Sing Su burst out, when the guests had gone.

Then it dawned upon us that the coffee-mill had previously been used by a chemist in Shanghai wherewith to grind his castor-oil seeds. How we rocked with laughter I

Yet, coffee apart, in Chinese eyes there would have been nothing amiss in our prolonged wait. They come to a dinner prepared to spend an hour and more in pleasant anticipation and conversation whereas we arrive on the stroke of the clock, expect to sit down to table at once, and to remain chatting, after the gastronomical part is over, for the misplaced hour which I had found so fatal as a preliminary. We did not experiment again for some time.

To revert to the Venerable Mr. Kwo, the sad day came when we had to bid him good-bye. When the great ones in our provincial capital decreed Ms promotion and consequent removal to a post in the City-of-Restoration, something had to be done, though not by way of appeal against his departure, for that would have been useless. But those who had the greatest reason to be grateful for his administration of justice, the Christians, determined to show their sense of his probity in an approved fashion. They gave him a state umbrella.

An umbrella is not unknown as a gift to a man in England; but it bears no. resemblance to the gorgeous structure which the Christians presented to Mr. Kwo. His was a fine-weather umbrella, made of the most vivid red satin. It had three flounces attached to a round flat framework-the bones of the umbrella. The handle was ten feet long, enabling the bearer to hold it aloft, and at the apex of the handle was a large heavy pewter ornament. On the top flounce, and covering the flat framework, were tour large characters in gold.

"He looks on all with equal benevolence," they set forth.

The middle flounce hung round the framework, and said by whom the umbrella was respectfully presented to the Venerable Mr. Kwo; and there followed the names of the leading donors, Chinese and English. The third flounce, hanging further below, gave the names of the hundred and fifty places in the district which the donors represented.

when the presentation was made, the umbrella was proudly carried through the admiring crowds to Mr. Kwo's official residence. In addition there were carried aloft wooden tablets, the upper portions of which were covered with red woollen cloth and ornamented with black velvet letters edged with gold. They proclaimed that they were offered in respectful praise of the Virtuous Government of the Venerable Mr. Kwo.

To us these may seem peculiar ways of showing love and gratitude, but they were ways appreciated by both parties to the transaction. Mr. Kwo never returned to the City-of-the-South. Years later his daughter came back; and, strange to say, she became a teacher in the girls' school which I had founded.

ONCE, in our City-of-the-South, I set out with the intention of counting how many I met who were pitted with smallpox, but when I reached into the scores, they were too numerous, and I gave it up. I recall having heard it said that, from the dowry point of view, a woman who had had smallpox was of greater financial value, she being thus insured against contracting it again. The theory is that people should go out when they have the Great Guest, smallpox, but remain indoors when they have the Little Guest, measles.

The people believe that most, if not all, sickness is caused by evil spirits, and they have their own orthodox methods of dealing with them. Epidemics of cholera and typhoid are perhaps the worst visitations of evil spirits, and every year or two these grow out of hand and become rampant. Hundreds, nay thousands, die. Sometimes the coffin-makers cannot make coffins fast enough the death-wail is constantly heard, creating a terrible feeling of depression. The loud weird cries of women mourning beside the graves, or coffins, on the hillsides is so affecting that one longs for them to stop their wailing. One tries to comfort the soul with the thought that these public manifestations of grief are sometimes done as a duty.

In an epidemic of cholera, which usually happens in the autumn, evil spirits have taken possession of our city, and their anger must be appeased by feasts, gifts, and ceremonies. But the chief thing is to be rid of them and to hasten their departure the citizen's sung-jue, or Send a Boat. Three times do I remember this Sending a float. Each time the great religions observance cost thousands of dollars, and was largely contributed to by the rich. On the last occasion a banker subscribed a hundred dollars, and sums given varied from a hundred to half a dollar.

With part of the subscriptions is made a huge full-sized boat of bamboos. Into this are put the offerings of the people in the shape of models of chairs, tables, cooking utensils, besides rice, dried fruits, clothes, cash or copper money. Even a tiny opium pipe is. added for the delectation of the spirits. These objects remain in the Boat for the seven days during which the vessel stands in one of the chief temples: and the Boat looks very gay with its decorations of coloured flags and sails. Everything is of paper, both the float and its contents, except the bamboo framework of the keel. Whilst it is waiting at the temple, a contingent of twenty priests chant prayers and petitions there from eight in the morning till mid-night-expecting to be heard for to air much speaking, it would seem.

The last year a pathetic incident roused the sympathies of all. The eldest son of a widow took cholera, and when death approached, he called to his distracted mother.

"I know I am dying. My soul is already on the Boat," he said.

With streaming hair, token of deepest distress, the poor woman at once went to the temple, and kneeling down beside the Boat, cried aloud to the evil spirits.

Give me back my son's spirit!" she prayed. Give me back my son's spirit!

But, in spite of all her entreaties, her son died.

On the first of the seven days during which the Boat remains at the big temple, a number of the gods from other temples are invited to come there also. En route they are carried through those parts of the city supposed to be under their special protection. I had a full view of two of these gods in their large gaily decorated sedan-chairs. They were carved in wood, and grandly dressed in beautifully embroidered silks and satins. One god's face was painted bright red, another blue. Others had white or gold faces, but no green ones were in evidence, though I know not why. After the inspection of their districts these gods were taken to the Boat temple, where they remained for the seven days during which the priests were chanting petitions.

We were warned that the Boat would come along our front street on Saturday evening about eight o'clock, which meant that the evil spirits were then to be escorted out of the city in state. When the loud uproar announced the approach of the procession, Sing Su and I, with one or two others, stood outside our door, as much in the shadow as possible, lest we bring more evil upon them. We waited. Presently on came the great throng. Hundreds and hundreds of men marched along in a disorderly sort of order, about six abreast. Each held aloft a lighted lantern, and shouted the peculiar cry with which boatmen start their journeys.

As a rule the religious ceremonies we see in the City-of-the-South are disappointing. But on this occasion, helped by the thought of the dying hundreds, the sight of the vast multitude's evident sincerity and the sound of their piercing cries thrilled us through. On came the float, borne on the shoulders of many men. Next came four smaller boats, all alight with hanging lanterns. After these came the gods who had been the visitors at the temple. More men carried lanterns, and a large following of people completed this remarkable procession. Those who were not doing duty in it were sitting quietly in their darkened houses, without lights, afraid to watch the procession lest the evil spirits should know of their presence and injure them in passing.

This is the first time we have ever dared to do this thing," said the two Christian women who stood with us.

When the procession reached the outside of the city gate, with as little disturbance as possible the big Boat was fastened to two small boats. The people cried meanwhile to the spirits in the Boat after this fashion

We people of the City-of-the-South are a poor, wretched, miserable set, not worth attention. But a little distance down the river is a fine large city. There the people are much richer, and the women more beautiful and they invite you to go there and thoroughly enjoy yourselves!

One or two men then towed the Boat a mile or two down the river to the foot of a hill, where they set it on fire and burnt it. The people who formed the procession returned to the city. But before stealthily entering the gates, they carefully blew out the lights in every lantern, lest the evil spirits should again come creeping back with them. Once inside, with the big gates shut and barred, they relit their lanterns, and went home rejoicing in the belief that again the demons of sickness and death were exorcised from their homes and the city.

(ii)

The outstanding event of another year was the arrival of another Boat! This was the arrival of the then Admiral of the British China Squadron, Sir Edward Seymour, in his flagship. As this ship drew too much water to come up the Bowl, it was anchored about twelve miles below the city. Sir Edward and some members of his staff were to have lunched with us at the White House, but a message came that as it was Sunday the Admiral would spare his men, and only come up to tea in the afternoon.

Sit Edward was tall and thin and, though unassuming, of distinguished appearance and bearing. This need not be wondered at, seeing that almost without a break since the time of Henry the Eighth, members of his family had been officers of high rank in the British Senior Service. His manners had the simplicity of the truly great, and it seemed impossible for any save evildoers to stand in fear of him. On the other hand, his handsome Staff Officer filled me with seemly awe: so unapproachable was he in his gorgeous uniform and with his touch-me-not, ramrod style of dignity. I mentally beg his pardon for speaking thus of him, though he will never know either how much I admired him or loved his Admiral. Sir Edward at once was chatting with Sing Su about the progress of his work. Next, from me he wanted to know how we had managed to exist so long in this outlandish corner of the world. In satisfying his curiosity I had occasion to reply

I came to the City-of-the-South just after the Riot."

Presently, when he wished to date some other event, I replied:

But that was before the Riot."

He looked quizzingly at me, smiled, and retorted:

"But I do not know when the Riot was!"

It is a habit we have," I answered, "of dating our occurrences that way. It made so much impression on us."

The time came when he, the great sea-officer, who entered active service at the age of fifteen, also had both a time and a place from which to date events in China. Everybody knows of the first gallant, but unsuccessful, attempt to relieve the suffering foreigners besieged in the Legations in Peking in 1900. As Commander of the International Naval Brigade, Sir Edward set out from Tientsin to their help. Within forty miles of Peking, he found the Chinese forces arrayed against him so overwhelming that, to save his small army from extinction, for perhaps the first time in his remarkable career he had to turn his back to the foe. His indifference to personal danger was phenomenal. On this arduous advance on Peking in 1900, we learnt that it was with difficulty he could be persuaded to move at more than a walking pace under the hottest fire. It was only the assurance of his staffs that, if he walked, they must keep the same pace, that induced him to step out briskly.

I have wondered if that Retreat, the news of which was received with consternation by ourselves while we were in England, was not also an outstanding event from which he too, dated other episodes in his life in the Flowery Land. The relief of Peking had to be organized after that Retreat on a larger scale, because the Imperial troops had joined forces with the Boxers, and both alike were bent on the extermination of the foreigners, root and branch. Sir Edward, a very Perfect Knight, was in China in 1857, before many of us were born. But he died in his bed in England, in 1929, nearly &&&nearly years of age, honoured and respected by all - though a bachelor to the end!

(iii)

Meanwhile the work he had asked about progressed, although Sing Su on a certain day pronounced judgment on himself.

"I am lazy," said he. "It is easy," he continued further, "to set the ball rolling."

Is it? I asked doubtfully.

The difficulty lies in following hard after it," said he.

That is the rub. When a luau's work is at the ends of the earth, there is usually no one to follow him up, to bid him do this or that. He is left to his own initiative-or lack of it. He can make, or mar, both his work and his character at one and the same time.

I am not going into the country this week as I arranged," Sing Su would remark on a rare occasion.

I knew he said this partly to see what encouragement towards slackness he would receive from his outside conscience.

"Oh, but you are going, you know, all the same," I would calmly reply.

And the victim would meekly depart, reinforced by his roll of bedding, his food-basket, his medicine-box.

Yet why should he go? From the human standpoint there was nothing worth going for. The scenery he knew by heart. The people, with notable exceptions, were unlearned and ignorant men. Everything else was hard physical discomfort. Home was infinitely better. What or who, then, should prevent his remaining in the White House, there enjoying and employing himself with his books?

The secret of Sing Su's service lay hidden in the bygone years when, as a youth, he had made the Great Surrender than which nothing on earth is more mysterious and energizing. Powerful yet inexplicable, it shatters the self-made ambitious plans of life as already laid down. When this superhuman element gains entrance into a life, it can generate a love which far surpasses the love of women. It sends men, and women too, into lonely desert places. The Arctic regions know them, as do the islands of the seas where, because of it, some have given their bodies to be devoured by human beasts. This driving power comes in varying forms: perchance in the semblance of a dove, or as the gentle rain from heaven: or it may descend as a tornado, a mighty rushing wind sweeping all before it. Let it come as it will, it fills the house, the heart of the favoured one. Life is never the same again. He, or she, may live long enough in this bewildering world to doubt most things. My own father was led once in his old age to question the beneficence of Providence exhibited in his own trying circumstances.

But whatever happens now, I can never doubt the power that has worked mightily in me formerly," he confided to me.

As a youth in England, Sing Su was bookish, as befitted an embryo lawyer. Midnight would find him poring over his studies, and seven in tile morning saw him seated with a tutor. Late one night, hours after his father's busy household was hushed in sleep, he closed his books. On the table lay a magazine, and for a moment's diversion before retiring he took it up, idly turning its pages. This proved his undoing. The magazine contained an urgent appeal for a young man to go at once to the City-of-the-South, to fill the gap left by the previous young men who had fallen by the way. Swift as the arrow from a tight-strung bow did the conviction pierce to the very centre of Sing Su's being

Thou art the man I"

How hateful the thought! Never had the Celestial Empire with its shaven-headed, be-queued denizens done other than repel. The pictures of them in books were distasteful. He would hurry over the pages to find somebody or something more pleasing to his boyish fancy. No wonder, then, that he fell on his knees on the floor.

"Anywhere but China! Anywhere but China, Lord! he cried.

Yet here and now the needs of that distant City-of-the-South were being forced upon him with an insistence that no prejudice could withstand. True, there was still a chance that his sacrifice would not be accepted of man. Ah yah! Of the two who volunteered for the empty outpost, the lot fell on Sing Su. There was no escape. Ambitions, laudable in themselves, and dear to the heart of youth, had to go. College, scholastic attainments, university training, all had to be thrown overboard.

Sing Su left England in the autumn of 1882, expecting never to return. What made his going obligatory was the conviction that he possessed something worth giving to China, something worthy of her acceptance especially by the unsophisticated, simple-hearted, patient tillers of the soil, the farmers, whom the Westerners who know them best love to think of as the backbone and hope of China. Which attitude of mind twenty-five years of living amongst them but serves to accentuate.

Farming in England may be laborious, but it bears tie comparison to the heavy toil, the extreme physical discomfort which even now accompanies the cultivation of rice in South China. When ploughing his fields, the farmer goes barefoot over the rough hard soil. When he harrows it, he himself is the weight standing on the harrow. When he transplants the vivid green young rice from the corner of his thickly sown plot to his wide fields, his ankles are deep in mud and water. When he weeds the rice, he kneels in the same slush, and later goes verily like a beast of the fields clearing the roots with his bare hand, working his way practically over every inch of wet ground on his knees. If it is pouring with rain, or if he is under a blazing sun, he wears on his back a shield of plaited bamboo which covers him from head to tail as a protection from either. On beholding for the first time this strange shape thus arrayed, one asks in astonishment

"What can this new specimen of huge carapace be crawling on the ground?

For hard, unmitigated toil it is irrigating which takes the palm. It answers exactly to our idea of the treadmill. If the rains are insufficient to keep the fields well under water, the lack must be supplied from the freshwater canals, often near at hand, and by means of the water-carriage.' Otherwise the young rice will die. This machine, or "carriage," resembles a narrow flight of wooden steps placed slantwise in a long wooden box. One end of the carriage is put into the water the other is raised to the level of the fields needing the water. The steps in the box are connected together by an endless chain, which two or three men, standing at the head, keep in constant circulation by the movement of their feet. This forces the water up into the fields. The principle reminds one of the moving stairway at some London railway station, with this difference, that in China it is not electricity but man-power which keeps the stairs revolving. The unfortunate farmers who stand at this work all day beneath a burning sky become tanned to an African ebony.

Have I pictured Chinese farming at its most arduous? Certainly it was this class which called dumbly, yet insistently, through the pages of that magazine for knowledge of God to be taken to them. Or they might never receive it at all. It was the tillers of the soil who led to Sing Su's confirmed habit of regular disappearances into the country, and reconciled him to periodic absences from home for five-and-twenty years. Nor is this the place to tell how nobly he was emulated by the colleagues who joined him at intervals, after his ten years' service alone.

But Sing Su had different methods with the high and mighty, the officials with whom he had to deal in after years in the far north of China.

I notice you never try to impose your Western belief on us"' one such said to him.

No," he replied; "like your own Confucius in similar circumstances, I am waiting for a price-that is, until you want it." Offering a "price" means a desire for some object.

The official courteously replied "Some day you shall tell me about it."

Many were the redeeming features of those early incessant wearisome wanderings. On hill-tops, or in deep sheltered valleys, when the day's work was done, the shouting and the tumult died away, Sing Su would sit by the warm wood embers of the rice-pan fire in some country house, feeling at home with the kindly farmer, who on rare occasions was also a scholar with the coveted degree. He would answer his questions about the distant Island which had sent Sing Su to them. As the shadows deepened, their only light but a tiny flicker from the bit of wick lying in a saucer of local oil, they would confer together on the weightier matters of law and grace, and China's needs. The beautiful way in which some elderly men of whom I wot sat at the feet of the young foreigner in their craving for more Light brought him to their feet in affectionate gratitude.

Then would come the long journey home again. To accomplish it in one day often meant rising before dawn. There would be the quick tramp, with the dear "Buffalo" and his sturdy companion Si-ko, swinging the empty chair along like a plaything; the glory of the sun's gorgeous ascent over the mountain-tops; the pure air with never a breath of contamination, These were compensations of no mean order.

At certain seasons country work called a halt. This was when the folks were too busy and driven to listen; and, again, in the hottest season, so provocative of cholera and dysentery that living amongst the villagers was ill-advised. Such were the times when Sing Su could, with a good conscience, follow his natural bent and" enjoy laziness." On to our quiet eastern upstairs veranda, looking towards the ancient city wall, with the intervening houses shimmering in the blaze of heat, he got him a straight-backed deck-chair. On this, with feet up, he could work comfortably. Out of a piece of board he and the carpenter improvised an upright stand which held, in front of him, such mighty tomes as Williams' and Giles' Chinese dictionaries. On his right and his left hand were chairs holding numerous learned books of reference.

Thus would he sit, often motionless, so long that he might have impersonated a living Buddha, could he but have ceased the regular shaking of one foot I Silently he would weigh and ponder sentences, meanings, equivalents, in the Chinese characters. Offences, indeed, would come in the shape of interruptions. The Bright One, padding along the floor in his cloth-soled shoes, would intimate that Mr. Somebody from Some where wished to see him. Down he would go: to exchange the study of one kind of hieroglyphic for that of another-the human soul.

Nor were those beatific days of "laziness" unfruitful, despite the ejaculation I heard one day: "No one will ever use it."

This referred to the system of learning Chinese which he had evolved, and which he embodied in The Students' Pocket Dictionary. False prophet, he; for is there a student of Chinese who does not value and employ it, whether he hail from London or New York, Berlin or Tokio? Thirty years' use sees it in its twelfth edition.

Other hot seasons saw the romanization of our dialect, the translation of the New Testament into the same dialect, the writing of A mission in China, and the translation of the Analects of Confucius.

I could wish, Sing Su, that the results of my kind of laziness were equally fruitful. You little thought where the launching of your Spirit Boat would lead when you were set adrift from Western shores.

TIME and again I made my boast that never once during all the years had I been afraid of any Chinese, that is, singly though not collectively and in mobs. Then one day, ten years after my arrival, this self-satisfying delusion deserted me. From some deep crevice of the brain there sprang up in front of me, sharp and distinct, the picture of a solitary Chinese who. had made me afraid: horribly so. And because I had taken credit for courage, so I must humble myself now by admitting loathsome cowardly fear, which happened long before.

I had been eighteen months in our city. It was hot weather, and when evening came, every breath of air felt lacking in any quality except stagnant pea-soup heaviness, which hung about the White House and pervaded the city. The knowledge that Sing Su was indefinitely held up by callers led me to take the unusual course of setting off alone, in search of a breeze. I first walked through the quiet streets to the foot of the hill, up which I mounted. I passed the picturesque temple bowered in trees which overlooks the city. Half-way up I turned along the narrow path which winds pleasantly round the hill to the opposite side, and on until it ends in the grass-grown battlemented city walls. Over this I should find, I knew, outspread far below, a fine view of the Bowl winding ifs way for circuitous miles down to the Island of Jade Ring and the sea. Thence-blessed thought -would blow in our cool. reviving wind for a few hours. Half-way round the green wooded hill was a little shrine, built so close to the narrow footpath that any worshipper before it filled the path. Impeding my way stood a respectably dressed Chinese, offering incense and bowing reverently before the small god enclosed in the quaint brick-built tiny structure. He and I were alone. Though I did not enjoy the situation, it never occurred to me to show the white feather by turning round and hurrying back to the city side of the hill. I soon wished I had done so.

When I reached the shrine, the man, instead of standing aside to let me pass, displeased me by at once leaving his devotions and coming and walking closer at my side than was polite. He looked queerly at me, talking all the time. Neither did his appearance reassure me. was certain he was not an ordinary normal decent Chinese. To make matters worse, I was totally unable to understand what he said and, even if I had done, my Chinese was far too immature to enable me to send him about his business.

I was terrified: especially as I had no expectation of meeting any other Westerner on the hill at this hour. My one hope lay in the knowledge that, some distance further and close to the city wall itself, stood another temple. Alas, never once had I seen its doors open I Always they had been shut, and the place apparently deserted. Why should they be open now for my particular benefit? All that I dared hope was that the unwanted companion close at my side would allow me to reach unmolested those closed doors. On them I would hammer for dear life, if haply there might be some one inside to respond, though I doubted it.

Truly my guardian angel, which a dear old blind friend long dead in England had promised to be, stood at attention that day. Behold, on coining into view of the temple, who should be there for the first, and last, time in history but a priest I He stood outside the open door, as if awaiting somebody: I hesitate to say myself. With the man still at my heels I marched boldly up to the priest, and pointing an accusing finger at my companion, said emphatically in Chinese:

Keh-kai nang fu hoe I Keh-kai nang fu hoe!-That man not good" Or, as we should say, He is a bad man.

The priest saw my perturbation, and the man: and at once grasped the situation. What he said I could not tell, but with commanding gesture he vigorously, yet quietly, uttered sentiments of such a nature as, without a protest, sent the other down the hill in the direction ordered by the priest, the opposite of that from which we had both come. Yet the leering creature turned his head more than once before disappearing over the brow of the hill, to see which way I was going in the hope of again waylaying me.

I, too, must now move away; but I dreaded leaving the priestly protection lest the enemy reappear. How I longed for the priest to say he would escort me safely back round to the city side of the hill, when all danger would be past. He did nothing of the sort; so, gratefully acknowledging his help, yet with limbs still shaking, I set off alone, the spirit gone out of me. On reaching home, I had barely enough self-possession left to tell my tale before breaking into uncontrollable sobs to the utter consternation of Sing Su. Yet I knew he thought I had exaggerated the situation. I had not. Never to the best of my knowledge did I see either villain or priest again. But neither shall I say I was never afraid.

It is no uncommon thing for a Chinese woman when in distress to assail high heaven with her cries. Once I myself claimed that privilege. It was in the autumn of 1887 on the China Sea. Then I lifted up my voice, and called for my mother.

Over two years had elapsed, and again we must make the two-hundred-mile voyage to the City-of-the-Peaceful-Wave, and for the same reason as before. We had no doctor equal to the occasion. On going aboard our old tub, Eternal Peace, I was first rowed over to the River's Heart to bid adieu to my friend, the consul's wife. Was it unutterable weariness or foreboding which wrinkled my face into tears. as I strove in vain to speak farewell?

In addition to Da-ling, now a sturdy two-year-old, we had with us Ah Djang, the yeast and bread maker, and his kindly pock-marked wife. She continued to serve us as amah for six necessitous years of our history.

The Captain of the Yung-Ning was a tall and handsome Dane who spoke excellent English.

Better even than Danish now," he said. His father was a dean of the church at home: which one could well believe.

The first mate was English, and the engineer was of course Scotch. Indeed, it is a hackneyed saying that if you put your head outside your cabin door and call Mac I "you are certain of a response from the engine-rooms along the China Coast. Everything went well until we steamed out of the Bowl River mouth and into the open sea. Then the Gift of God,' began to kick in Ah Ujang's arms.

I want to get out and walk," she insisted, Amah was already prostrate with mal-de-mer in the regions below, and I saw her no more till the end of the voyage. We were evidently in tied a bucketing. The long cane chair on which I rested was tied fast by the thoughtful first mate.

My ropes and knots always hold, however near the ship comes to rolling over or standing on end," said lie.

Everybody who could he was deadly sick, including Sing Su. He came aboard tired out with his multitudinous arrangements for enabling the Chinese to carry on in his absence.

I longed to remain on deck all night, fearing the close cabin, but at dusk Sing Su, the captain, and first mate came in a body to insist on conducting me safely across the pitching deck to the cabin. The consideration and kindness of those men was beyond words. The captain impressed on me how impossible it was that I should be pitchforked out of the well-boarded berth he had given up to me. Because of the storm he was out on deck all night; but he came into the cabin for something he needed about two in the morning, a huge grey woolly figure looming up in that tiny place.

Captain, have you any chloroform?" I asked.

No, but I have some laudanum," he replied, and speedily brought me a dose, adding," Take this and you will feel better."

Sing Su, taking what rest he could on the couch under our port-hole, also had the worst time of his life, what with his own suffering-and mine. We reached Montague Rock about five in the morning, and there, into this tempestuous world of wind and waves, was ushered a brown-eyed, black-haired elfin boy. No doctor or nurse or woman at hand, black, white, or yellow. In fact, no anything. Even my trunks had been stored below and were impossible to reach in this awful weather.

The babe's Knights of the Bath were Sing Su, who is English, and Archie the Scotch engineer, who brought water to the cabin door. When I protested that the jorum of water, big enough to drown him, in which it was proposed to lave the poor infant, was "rusty boiler water," Sing Su hotly maintained that it was "all right" I On reaching finally the river of the City-of-the-Peaceful-Wave, a flag for medical assistance was hoisted and it brought to our aid instantly the port doctor, a tall young Irishman.

Thus England, Scotland, and Ireland presided over the nativity of this scion of Neptune. In addition he was born in a Chinese steamer, oft the China Coast, and in the cabin of a Dane. What could the most ardent internationalist ask more of any mother or son?

My method of leaving the ship was also of the strangest. Attired in one of Sing Su's white shirts, and then swathed in blankets, I was carried by the stalwart Irishman to a long cane deck-chair, which was fastened with ropes to the big iron hook of the crane used for the lowering of cargo. Then I was swung boldly out, to clear the ship's side, and lowered into the Chinese sampan waiting below.

"Don't be afraid, don't be afraid!" reiterated the friendly lint mate, who presided over the unusual performance. "I went over the same way when I broke my leg."

I am not afraid," I had to laugh in response; "for I know if I fall in you will fish me out."

Our destination was a mile away, the house of our Veteran. On arriving, the good doctor, distrusting Sing Su's strength, himself carried me up the steps from the river, along the garden-path, and up the wide stairs to the room prepared by our kind hostess, with never a halt and only a little hurried breathing and redness of face. For two days all went welt, and then began the worst illness any one could suffer, and survive.

My head! My head!" I cried, like the Shunammite boy.

Yet live I did, after a terrible experience. What is more to the point, "Sea-borne" lived also. That was thanks largely to the generous Yorkshire woman who, because I was too ill, nobly allowed him a share in her own babe's pure sustenance.

It was in this fashion that on the far-flung Eastern front a handful of Queen Victoria's loyal subjects celebrated Trafalgar Day in the year of Her Majesty's Jubilee, 1887!

I must end this chapter of accidents with another catastrophe. For some reason our handsome captain lost his post. He drifted. Ultimately he fell into the toils of a fellow-Scandinavian who proposed that he should captain a ship filled with contraband arms, which together they would run to the Achinese, then in rebellion against the Dutch in Java. The two were caught red-handed, and sentenced. The worst offender was sentenced for only eighteen months; our captain for three years. During his imprisonment in that Dutch prison near the Equator, to our grief he died.

All we had left of him who had been a true friend in time of need were the silver christening-cup he presented to the babe born on his ship, and whom he sometimes affectionately called his "little ship's boy," and a small dog named Arabi, after the famous Pasha of that day, whom he gave to the children. Arabi became an integral part of our household, retaining me as his slave, even to the extent of my rubbing him with ointment and covering him with little jackets during mange. Arabi was a renowned beggar: people dubbed him "the dog who was always hungry." He long outlived his unfortunate former Danish master, and was never content unless he knew the exact spot where I might be found.

It was good to reach the City-of-the-South again with the two children, though even then all was not always serenity. Our small maiden, Da-ling, was such a bundle of vitality that I found it difficult in our circumstances to keep pace with her demands for activities.

"What can I do next?" was her recurrent cry.

Two of old Mr. Yang's schoolboys were dear intelligent laddies, and came to school so clean and tidy that I welcomed them as playmates for her. The father of the two boys had a barber's shop in our back street, and here, doubtless, the sorry mischief originated. The elder boy stopped coming. Next Da-ling developed a skin disease which concentrated itself in a virulent attack all over her sweet face. The sight of the child sickened my heart and distressed my mind beyond words. Shockingly disfiguring were those fearfully deep sores: and who could tell the results? Our old friend, the American, prescribed. No improvement happened. Then it was told me that the absent boy had the same complaint. But to my surprise he, by name Studious Virtue, reappeared after what seemed but a short time, completely cured.

what has done it?" I asked of Amah.

IF it fell to my lot to keep Sing Su with his forehead to the grindstone, our two yearlings were equally effective in pinning me down to the City-of-the-South. Sometimes I wearied of the solitary monotonous routine shut in and shut out as I was, year in and year out, from the interests and pleasures of the great outside world. An occasion arose, however, when I was able to escape, thanks to the kindness of an English girl. She counted it a privilege to have for ten days the companionship and care of two small English children.

They are adorable," said she. Was it because there were no others with whom to compare them?

I was more anxious for adventures than Sing Su possibly because I experienced fewer. I had wanted to visit Rainbow Bridge long before the chance came, and here it was. I began preparations for the starting on the Friday evening. Sing Su came in on Thursday night.

So you think you are going to Rainbow Bridge, do you? be said.

Being of the cautious Yorkshire temperament, I hesitated to commit myself, and replied that I had thought so.

I am sorry to say I don't think you are!" he answered; and you can imagine my chagrin.

"Why?" I queried.

Because I have just heard that Sunday will be market-day. The market is held thrice a month, and for all the district. Thousands of people will be there. If you are present also, far more people will come to church than we can accommodate and there may be the dickens to pay

Though most unwilling to forfeit my trip, I admit the prospect disturbed me, Big unmanageable crowds haunted my waking and sleeping hours; thoughts of an unprofitable time for Sing Su-if no worse-because of overwhelming numbers of those merely interested in staring at the foreign woman these disturbed my conscience. To go or not to go, hung in the balance. We slept on it, and decided in accordance with my secret wishes, We would risk the consequences, not know-jug when the opportunity would come again.

Late on Friday evening, food, bedding, and ourselves were aboard the comfortable house-boat on which we slept. During the night we slipped down river with the tide for an hour, then anchored till next morning. After breakfast and delicious incomparable toast made over our simple clear charcoal fire, we left the house-boat, walked a short distance, and stepped into a small boat on the canal.

The waterways of South China are wonderful. Some of the canals are as wide as our English rivers, run long distances, and are often beautiful. We sat in the bottom of the little boat, our bedding making excellent back-rests, being so arranged by our youthful attendant, the Bright One. The canal carried us "past twenty towns and half a hundred bridges." At one o'clock we stopped outside the temple of The Narrow Gate, where we ate our lunch and obtained boiling water for our coffee. I wandered round the temple, wherein were numberless gods and many priests. One of the latter made an old-world bizarre picture in his long coloured patchwork gown: a veritable Joseph's coat, quaint and clean. In front of the temple was the remains of a huge tree completely hollow, but inside the empty shell had sprung up a fine tall strong tree: the living from the dead.

At three in the afternoon we reached the City-of-Clear-Music-Ngoh-ts'ing. When I say "city" in this connection, pray do not visualize Liverpool or Cincinnati or Dusseldorf or even a small English country town. This city had little in common with such. There were no railways, cars, cabs, horses, or carts; no mills, gas, or electric light. Nothing but the long rows of one-storeyed dwellings, plenty of empty spaces, and several fine canals. Round the whole was a high ancient broken stone wall.

We found our way to the building Sing Su had rented, which was small, but clean, The caretaker was out, news-hunting. The man in charge at once informed us we could go no further. News had just come that Rainbow Bridge had been looted by a horde of over a hundred brigands, who had swooped down on it from the hills at eleven o'clock that very morning! Did we need proof? Two dissevered heads had already been brought to the yamen-Clear-Music being the head magistracy of the district, despite its poor appearance.

Here was a poser, worse than the market-day. I seemed fated never to reach Rainbow Bridge, and all our Chinese friends were doing their best to dissuade us from running our heads into such a noose. Yet the thought of turning back now was ignominious. Sing Su himself had no such intention. He could not disappoint those who, even in these circumstances, might expect him. But I was an appendage, bent merely on the pleasure of going to look-see." A brilliant thought struck us. Now that the brigands had already been to Rainbow Bridge) it was one of the safest places in the world I We salved our consciences with the idea that if matters were as terrible as reported, it would still be possible for me not to enter Rainbow Bridge, which is a small unwalled town, but to turn aside at Cove Bank, where lived one of our assistants.

Before we left Clear-Music the big drums in the yamen were being beaten-calling in soldiers from the fields, or other occupations. We had ample proof as we proceeded that much of what we had heard was true. We walked a large part of the way, to spare our chair-bearers. The roads were narrow, often mere paths, with barely room to pass. Soon we met a little fellow over whose shoulder hung the usual bamboo carrying-pole. In front, as balance, hung a big stone. Only when nearly past did I see what was suspended at the back end of his pole a Chinese black-haired head, which had been severed close up under the chin It was a ghastly object, slung by the queue. I shuddered, but the earner of it did not appear to mind, for he turned repeatedly to look back. Probably he was wondering what we ourselves were doing at such a time, and no doubt was also congratulating himself that he had one more villain put out of action.

By and by we met another man, a traveller, hurrying along, with a sword in its sheath hanging at his back, He was greatly excited.

Don't go near the place! Keep far from it I he cried out, guessing our destination.

Presently we met a cavalcade of men whom we were obliged to pass at close quarters on the narrow road. Between them was a living brigand. He was a sad sight-a tall upstanding man in middle life, and of a fresh complexion for a Chinese but one half of his face was bruised and bloody. Before I knew, lye was within two yards of me, and instinctively I shrank as far away as I could. But the wretched man could harm no one now, for his hands were tied behind his back with the thick straw ropes with which they drove him along. He looked at us-and never shall I forget his look of appeal. Did he by chance connect us with another Man, of whom he might have heard, who was also led to the slaughter "-for a very different cause? he could hardly stagger along, swaying from side to side as if utterly exhausted. Probably he had been travelling over the hills all the previous night. Then came the morning raid on Rainbow Bridge, where he was caught red handed. And now this was the last lap, a painful four or five hours' tramp to Clear-Music, where he could expect no other than to have his head cut of the moment he arrived. Drops of blood were on the roadway, whether from the living or tire dead I know not, A brigand's life is to be shunned!

Soon another batch of men appeared in sight, this time with a brigand of twenty in tow, whose face was disfigured. The man who held him knew Sing Su and spoke to him, whereupon the bewildered prisoner seemed as if he too would appeal to him: but to our relief refrained. What could Sing Su have done, who also stood for law and order? His captor proudly told how he had captured him.

I seized him round the body, gun and all, and stuck to him He was taking him to the yamen, where I expect he would be rewarded. The Bright One had seen two other decapitated heads being taken thither.

After two more hours on the road, we had to hire a boat on a canal which was so narrow that we were poled along for miles. The longed-for dusk approached. We met a few other boats, but none going in our direction. All were headed for Clear-Music, and carried a number of captive brigands who lay trussed like fowls in the bottom of the boats. On nearing Rainbow Bridge we had a startling encounter. A boat suddenly pushed out from an opening in the canal, to prevent us going further. Rusty matchlocks were thrust into our faces.

Who are you.?" an authoritative voice demanded.

Now Sing Su had cautioned our boatman not to volunteer the information that we were foreigners from the City-of-the-South. If questioned, he was to say we were visitors, "guests," from that city. But the point-blank question

was too much. Sing Su took the words out of the boatman's mouth.

I am Sing Su," he replied.

"Oh!" was the rejoinder. "If you are Sing Su, you can go forward."

"This," declared Sing Su to me, "is the proudest moment of my life. They distinguish me from the brigands."

The nearer we approached our destination, the greater our anxieties increased, largely on my account. How was I to escape observation in an uncovered boat? I tried to hide by putting on Sing Su's long wadded gown, and thus encased, lay huddled in the bottom of the boat like a sleepy Chinese. Sing Su tried to hide us all by putting up his umbrella, then realized this foreign importation would attract, rather than distract, attention. He took off his foreign felt hat, but he had no pigtail or shaven front head, and I longed for the orthodox round black satin Chinese hat for him.

Many were the curious glances cast at us from the banks and bridges. It was a relief when we arrived at half-past seven in the evening, unmolested, at the back of our quiet compound, where we found a number of Christians waiting to give us a cheerful welcome. First of all, the new premises called for inspection. They were remarkably clean and tidy, and worthy the pride which the good folk had in them. Be it remembered that here soap, and even hot water, are luxuries costing money which accounts for much in China. The room prepared for us delighted me, knowing what I do of the usual conditions. The furniture was simple. The tsung-pae, or bed, was a framework of unvarnished wood like the outline of a door, across which was laced a network of brown coir string. On this, without fear of pests, we spread our wadded quilts and bed coverings. A couple of chairs and a table completed the suite. And

wonder of wonders !-here was the first stained floor I had ever seen in a Chinese house. "To put paint where it will be walked on is indeed the height of splendour," remarked a woman to me once.

After a meal we went into the church. If I had wished to see the new building, and the place, how much more the people? Many of their names were household words, yet some of them I now saw for the first time. I looked at Sie-sa, the ex-opium-smoker, almost with reverence. When he decided to cut off opium, he determined to do it at home, without medicine or help. He suffered so horribly that his own wife, the greatest victim of his habit, believing him to be dying, brought him his opium pipe.

"Save your life, and take a few whiffs," she begged.

No; if I am to die," he said, refusing it, "I 'II die now, having the approval of God and my own conscience. If I yield, opium will be the destruction of me, body and soul." He endured, and soon the worst was past and here he was.

I found also the young man dubbed by us Nicodemus, because his usage was to come stealing in at night and sit with his back to the preacher as if paying no attention. But as he also appeared the next morning, I hoped he had advanced a step. I liked the bright-faced youth whose grandmother had tried hard to induce him to take Wife Number Two: which boon he as steadfastly resisted. Of unique interest was the old ex-pugilist, formerly a terror for miles round. None dared to thwart him or resist his demands. When out of funds, he had the charming way of picking up a lump of stone, going into a shop, and banging it down on the counter.

I want a dollar for this," he would assert.

He duly received it: though I somewhat hesitate at disclosing so simple a method of replenishing one's pocket I If not actually thieves, both he and his wife were known to receive stolen goods. Yet here they were now, respected members of society.

(ii)

I have left to the last the most touching and pathetic figure. At home amongst these poorer folk was a dignified old country gentleman of eighty-one. With his blooming great-grandson, he had walked the fifteen miles necessary to bring him, the day before, to Rainbow Bridge. Yet he refused to admit that be was tired. But this is far from the only reason why this man is a marvel.

He had a son and a grandson, both smokers of opium. On visiting the City-of-the-South, the son was so attracted by what Sing Su and his friends had to tell, that he not only asked for services to be held in his own house, but he came regularly to the monthly communion service at Rainbow Bridge. Soon he felt he must stop smoking opium, and started out for our city with this objective in view. Half-way he called to see a friend, a respectable man, who persuaded him to stay and be treated by him, as he had been successful in cutting off the opium of many others-after Sing Su's method. Doubtless the ordinary medicines were given, principally quinine but in three days the patient was dead. That was the first blow for the old father. The people of the place threatened vengeance on the man who, they said, had deliberately killed the son.

Not so," said the father, and at once set off for the house where his son lay. He insisted that such statements were false, and that the threats must cease. Nor was this all. he continued the long journey to the City-of-the-South, and there pleaded that he and his family should not be deserted in their sorrow. On the contrary, he asked that regular services be established in their village of Vu-yoa, offering his own guest-room for the purpose. Needless to say, the offer was accepted, and all went well for a time.

Then the leaven worked. The dead man's only son, the old gentleman's grandson, also became pricked in his spirit. He too must needs make the fatal journey to Jerusalem, and cut off what he felt was a vice. Naturally, and as we should have done, both his wife and his mother besought him not to venture, to remember the fate of his father. For months he yielded to their persuasion. But the inner compulsion was too strong, and hearing that Sing Su was to hold teaching classes in the autumn, he could endure it no longer. He came to our city, with the double purpose of attending the classes and cutting off that devastating opium, making a stern fight for manly freedom.

The gallant fellow succeeded in both, and was so delighted to be free from the spell of opium that he at once retraced the long slow fifty-five miles homewards, to show himself and relieve their fears. In a few days' time he came joyously back, eager to learn. Two nights before the classes ended, when he was to have gone back home for good, he was in high spirits and enjoyed himself in right boyish fashion. Had he not good cause: freed from the slavery of opium, and in possession of a pearl of great price?

He retired to rest in the same room with two other men. About eleven o'clock he began to breathe heavily-in his sleep his companions concluded, so for a short time took no notice. A foreboding caused them to call him, and receiving no answer, they struck a light. To their horror, he was unconscious. In terror they fled across to the White House. Sing Su and the doctor ran back with all speed. They found him gone-beyond recall.

It was terrible. And in more ways than one. Not only were we left lamenting a great loss, but we were also full of dire apprehension. The death of two grown men in one family! Only foreign diabolical magic could cause such awful deeds. Less sinister incidents had caused riots, with destruction of life and property. To that family any dealings with us had indisputably carried death, and we dreaded the results. Think, too, of Sing Su's heart-breaking task of sending the old father the tidings of this second blow. All he could do was to write to his capable henchman, Tsang-poa, or Mr. Summers, and set him the miserable task of going and breaking the sad tidings to the family as best he could.

"I am overwhelmed, and mourn for Shue-sa as for my own brother," wrote Mr. Summers in reply.

His letter ended with doleful words, quite in keeping with our own feelings.

"And the cause is certainly dead at Vu-yoa," he said.

All honour we paid to Shue-sa's body. A goodly coffin, which the Chinese appreciate as much as or more than ourselves, was provided. In it Shue-sa lay in state in the schoolroom in the White House garden. Late on Saturday night relatives arrived to take the body home, and received every consideration it was in our power to give. On Sunday afternoon the funeral cortege passed out of our compound-the first that had ever done so, and, so far, the last. Many joined tile procession to the river's bank outside the North Gate, the chief mourners wearing squares of white cotton on their heads. Solemnly they filed out through the big front doors.

The city friends of the deceased, whom we sent to accompany the body of Shue-sa home, were wholly in the dark as to the kind of reception they would receive from the family or the villagers of Vu-yoa. It was no small act of bravery to go at all, and they went prepared to suffer. Had the whole of Vu-yoa risen en masse, driven them out, and next wrecked the church at Rainbow Bridge, neither they nor we would have been surprised.

Mercifully our fears, like our hopes, are not always realized. Instead, on their approach to Vu-yoa they were met by the stricken, yet great, old grandfather, followed by the rest of the family. They came out to escort the funeral procession to the house. They treated our representatives with great honour, and thanked them for their kindness and what had been done for this member of their line.

This is the will of God," said the old gentleman, and it behoves us to bow in submission."

Even the widow had no word of anger or upbraiding. It was marvelous in our eyes. All they asked was that Christian services should be continued. Was greater faith ever found it Israel? Our relief in heart and mind was intense.

Is it astonishing that in the midst of such examples of faith, character, and magnanimity even the large horde of brigands ceased to appall? We were in the presence of bigger things, and forgot them, at least for that sacred hour with those wonderful people.

(iii)

Later we learnt the particulars of the raid. At eleven that morning a band of a hundred and twenty armed men had descended from the hills and at once set about looting Rainbow Bridge, which is well-to-do. Some shops were stripped entirely; others escaped, or suffered little. When a number of the robbers had seized as much or more than they could carry, they left, but finding so much spoil burdensome, they threw part of it by the roadside. Had they kept together all might have gone well with them, but they made the fatal error of breaking up into companies. A number also stayed late behind, their deprecatory instincts not yet satisfied; which gave the inhabitants their chance. Seizing the stragglers, they executed summary justice upon them, which is allowed by Chinese law when robbers are taken red-handed, thereby saving much delay! They cut off the heads of seven in their yards with hatchets and carving-knives. A goodly umber of prisoners were escorted to Clear-Music where, we were told, the magistrate cut off heads till he dared no more, lest his superior take him to task for wholesale slaughter. The brigands killed only one man: and him more by accident than design.

Warning of their coming had, indeed, been given, but as it was said that they were" only coming to attack the Christians," the people neglected all precautions.

"Let the Christians suffer!" said one man. He was left, later, bemoaning the loss of a hundred dollars!

The robbers passed our church that Saturday morning. The door was open, and two went in and looked round. Then one pulled the sleeve of the other.

Come on," he said. And off they went.

Sunday morning dawned bright and clear. Christians, some from long distances, came pouring in. They filled every seat, and the space at the back was chock-a-block with I Outsiders," or non-Christians, standing. The church seated two hundred and fifty, an ideal number for China, thought I. There were no pews, only benches with backs, and instead of a pulpit was a graceful open-work reading-desk that seated four people. Down each side of the building were five big windows; the roof was panelled in unvarnished wood. The loveliest place on earth to many present-including ourselves.

Sing Su held forth, attired in his long blue silk wadded dressing-gown-or was it the flannel one?-a much-approved garb for these occasions more seemly than the pyjamas in which the exigencies of a flood once compelled him to take a country service. Of course brigandage pointed the moral and. adorned the tale of his discourse. Men had come to rob and steal with violence their reward was death-by violence. The text was written in large Chinese characters, and hung on the reading-desk. The Chinese symbol for sin is a net I How eagerly they listened, drinking it all in from a past-master in their dialect now, foreigner though he was!

Both services ended without disturbance, due probably to the counter-excitement of the raid. Immediately the second service was over, at three in the afternoon, the countryfolk hurried off, anxious in such parlous times to reach home before dark. The far distant ones carried paper lanterns hanging from slender long sticks. Most of them also carried their

Holy Book," or Bible, and hymn-book carefully folded in coloured handkerchiefs. I watched them as they traversed the narrow meandering paths, until the distance swallowed them. But at half-past six came news that put us all in a tremor.

There are a thousand bandits on the hills," came the rumour. Only a portion of them attacked Rainbow Bridge. The rest are but a few miles off, and at dark are going to make another fiercer raid-to avenge their slain companions."

Great was tile consternation, for no mercy would be shown this second time. It was now our turn to be entangled in a net.

I would like you to leave at once," Sing Su urged me.

Where can I go?" I asked. If I start back home with the Bright One, I shall be unendurably anxious about you and you say you cannot and you will not leave. I prefer to stay where I am rather than travel without your protection in a boat in the dark, or on lonely roads alone."

Around us the people were hurrying themselves and their possessions off to other places. Women and children left for distant villages.

I shall soon be the only woman left," I thought.

Guns were popping off in every direction, doubtless as a warning to all whom it might concern that now Rainbow Bridge was on the defensive.

At noon to-day, Sunday," the Bright One informed us, "I myself saw seven headless bodies lying in a boat on the canal close by."

After these years of waiting, to be cornered thus in Rainbow Bridge I Naturally my chief concern was for the two helpless infants in the City-of-the-South. If they lost us, who would see them home to England and foist them upon their uncles?

for I had no sisters, only brothers. It would certainly require the aid of aunts to see them through to adolescence. If the brigands came, we must fly to the open fields. What then would become of our gentleman of eighty-one? His concern was not for himself, but for his homestead left in charge of womenfolk. We could not solve that problem. All we knew was that never would we abandon so great-spirited a man.

To be sure, these people must have their evening service though the heavens fall! It was the most interminable I ever attended. How Sing Su could preach, and those people listen, was beyond me. But they did. Spite of the threats and the incessant rattle of shots in the immediate neighbourhood, they sat listening intently, as if transported into another world, a spiritual ream into which I, in the circumstances, found it hard to follow. Bed or sleep seemed impossible. A lovely moon:

and in its light Sing Su and I paced the yard till tired out, puzzling what we should do if and when the attack came. In the sloping-roof at the back of our bedroom was a small window. Our idea was, that if they came to the front of the premises, we should escape through this window, dropping to the ground. If our limbs remained unbroken, we were to make for the open fields as best we could, but much had to be left to the spur of the moment.

Ten o'clock came, and I was persuaded to go upstairs and he down, Sing Su having appointed several watchmen who would give warning when the need came. I kept on my clothes, and even my shoes, but having worn the latter for two whole days, my feet ached so badly that finally I took them off. I placed them close against my head, to seize them instantly, for any prospect of running shoeless over the rough upturned hard fields was hopeless. Not expecting to sleep a wink, I was fast asleep before I knew. But the night was a broken one. The best we could hope for was to be carried off and held to ransom,

as so many foreigners have been since those days. At two in the morning a loud hammering at the door caused me to start up.

They've come!" I cried out.

A false alarm. It merely announced delegates for the church meeting next day Firing continued all night. But, to our deep thankfulness, Monday morning dawned quiet and peaceful. With it came a man from the City-of-the-South carrying our borne mail. Soon we were immersed in half a dozen Shanghai papers which told us that Western civilization still existed and letters which said our loved ones were safe, how-ever doubtful was our own case. Staff in hand, our old gentle man started for home early, anxious about the welfare of his family. He dwelt in a beautiful Chinese house, at the foot of the hills whereon the brigands were said to be. The great-grandson remained behind. Perhaps the attractions of the Chinese pastor's daughter, to whom he was affianced, were more powerful than his fear of robbers.

The church meeting seemed absorbing to the company. I was on the qui vive every minute, and the pop of every gun made me jump afresh. My keen desire was to escape from the place at the earliest possible moment now, though I dared not say so for greater fear of the leader of the expedition I At long last the moment of departure arrived. We were late in starting

three o'clock. To the very last minute the Chinese clustered round Sing Su like bees, with such a host of questions that I was amazed at the saint-like patience with which he listened and explained.

Never did II turn my face homeward with greater pleasure or more intense relief, though uncertain as to what would befall en route. We went past the house in the town where the man had been killed, and we could see his relatives "watching "inside, and hear their piteous wails. As our little cavalcade marched up the long quiet street, it was hard to realize that only two days before such deeds of murder and looting had been done. As we hurried through the bare rice-fields, a company of soldiers in the scarlet jackets of those days, bearing long flags, came marching along. With them was the military official in a big sedan-chair, carried by four bearers. he stopped, and as Sing Su was walking past, held out a skinny hand with claw-like nails for him to shake.

"Do you come from Rainbow Bridge?" he asked. "Is all quiet there? I am going thither ' to protect the peace..

The besotted opium-smoker had waited two days before moving.

"All is peaceful again," Sing Su assured him: and on that he proceeded.

A heavy price was demanded for a boat, but by the aid of a Christian we borrowed one! Soon we were being poled along in the quiet moonlight, only a cicada breaking the silence with its grindings. In an hour, cramped with sitting, we began to walk along the lonely path, when suddenly a band of twenty men, armed with guns. loomed out of the dusk. The path was so narrow that in our efforts to keep a respectful distance we both were pushed into the field. Strangely ignoring us, the stalwart figures went striding silently along: to our satisfaction, for an attack there would have been awkward for us. They were men evidently not to be played with, and we could only suppose they were returning from the yamen at Clear-Music whither they had personally conducted more robbers caught on their own particular hills.

It was nine o'clock when we reached Clear-Music. In spite of a violent desire to push on, we were so hungry that we sent our boat round by canal outside the city walls to a certain gate, with explicit injunctions for the boatman to await us there. Meanwhile we went to our place in the city to fetch the food prepared for us. We piled the boiled rice into a pie-dish, and, after making coffee, set out through the now silent streets with these in our hands, intending to eat on the boat. The gates of the city were shut, but our caretaker had a key that opened the little gate where we had told our boatman to wait. Re was not there! We waited, we shouted, and set off to another gate to seek him. Still not there, and the process was repeated until the sleeping city rang with our combined shouts. Rice and coffee were growing cold. I was "hungry to death," as the Chinese say, and could wait no longer. Behold me drinking my coffee out of the teapot spout, and eating the plain boiled rice with my fingers I

It was now ten o'clock, we were comparatively safe, and the relief and the ludicrousness of it all seized me. I laughed till it hurt. No boat appeared, and as it seemed we might wait till morning, we hailed yet another boat, and went in search of the strayed one. We encircled almost the whole city on that wonderful canal which was one hundred yards wide. The moonlight row was beautiful beyond words. We passed under a splendid ancient stone bridge, beyond which, in the middle of the water, uprose a picturesque temple dedicated to the god of literature. The hoary old city walls, overgrown with ferns and mosses, were reflected in the water, though broken in places, and never, I trow, to be rebuilt.

We found our stupid boatman at the last possible waiting-stage. He was quietly waiting on events, and prepared to do so till the crack of doom. We settled ourselves in his boat as best we could, finished the rice and coffee, with a few added comestibles, spread our bedding in the bottom of the boat, and slept the sleep that comes when nothing but sleep matters. Early next morn we alighted, walked the short distance to our Bowl River, where our own roomy house-boat lay waiting us, Then we dared openly rejoice; for we were once more at our starting-point, on our own good river and out of danger. If it had been possible to apply a physical test, I should have been found to consist of a solid lump of thankfulness. Very little of the tide was left, thanks to the delays, and do what they would, our boatmen could not make the city on the remnants. Rather than wait a tide, Sing Su and I walked the few miles in to the beloved White House, to find all in stain quo, and as if such folk as brigands were non-existent. Rumour had, of course, been busy, in which we played an important part.

Always, on nearing the city after a country journey, Sing Su's first act was to look and see if the White House still stood. He wanted to know that it had not been consumed in his absence by one of the devouring fires which are a constant menace, not only in the City-of-the-South, but in every Chinese city.

Once again, it was standing, and with friendly doors open.

IN those far-oft years we had no refuge near by from the tropical heat of summer; but we could, and we did, claim a share in the house on the hills above the City-of-the-Peaceful Wave. Only, however, when compelled by the condition of one or other of us did we face the terrors of the deep in the Eternal Peace, and the labour on land that must be endured before we could reach that high and beautiful district. Rather we profaned to stay at home and press on with our work. But some summers I had to take the two children and go to those hills alone, because Sing Su, being the only foreigner on that work for nearly ten years, said he could not leave it. who was I to hinder, even if I could not help?

Two of those pilgrimages to the hills were dreadful punishments; journeying miseries! The first was undertaken on my account. I had become the victim of large troublesome boils, or blains, which remained stationary too long, refusing to advance or recede. Accompanying me on the journey were Da-ling, a toddler. of two and a half, and Sea-borne, aged six months. I had to carry off the Bread-make, which left Sing Su cookless, and his wife, to help with the children. These two were the only people we could trust on so serious an expedition. We had such a rough two hundred miles of pitching and rolling up the coast that my solitary fellow-passenger, a young English Customs officer, en route for England, showed his apprehension by coming to my doon

Don't be alarmed," he said, "the Eternal Peace won't turn turtle." From which I concluded he thought there was every prospect of it.

Arriving in the City-of-the-Peaceful-Wave, I obeyed Sing Su's instructions, and at once sent off his letter asking a friend to receive us and forward our journey. We waited aboard in the heat till evening. No response arrived, and Sea-borne became justifiably fractious, crying in my arms with weariness. Happily a good Australian, a major who had fought under Gordon during the Taiping Rebellion, came on board and took pity. He put us into his own boat, escorted us across to his house, and there loudly called for his wife, a Chinese lady. She soon appeared, arms full of cushions on which I was made to rest in the boat. She also insisted on going with us to our destination, fearing, I think, we might find no one there. On arrival we found that the letter, through .carelessness, had not been delivered But we were now in good hands. Our friend was alone with one Boy, his family being on the hills. Food was forthcoming, and, best of all, we were, to some extent, put to bed. I had enough life left in me to notice that our host him-self spread the clean cool sheets on the big bed, drawn close to the veranda door to catch a stray breeze, and on to which I soon blissfully sank. After that heat, that voyage, stuffy cabin, and the endless waiting, could Heaven itself contain anything better?

Such was the first stage of our journey. We had three more, which ought to be made at the earliest possible moment for dear life's sake. That same night our host bestirred himself, and a house-boat was ordered to be at his riverside steps at half-past seven next morning. He also sent oft a Chinese messenger-chop, chop, quick, quick to arrange for the two stages beyond. The result was that next day and the following night we travelled comfortably on the canal. At eight on the morning of the second day we left the house-boat and walked over to a mountain stream up which we were to travel on rafts, the water being too low for the ordinary boats. These rafts, necessarily, were small and light, and each could take so little weight that we required almost a fleet. Myself and the children and our two Chinese servants were ample for one, or ought to have been? At the moment of starting I saw that our boatman had placed at the stern of our raft a huge coarse bag holding two or three hundredweight of rice. Fearing this would greatly impede our progress, even make it impossible, I told the Bread-maker to say that we had engaged the entire raft, and would he please remove it. This the man refused to do; whereupon followed a battle of tongues. But no arguments availed. The man declined to leave behind the superimposed cargo; I refused to go with it. At last I told the Bread-maker to go to the village and find another raft.

Nobody will come," he returned to say, "as the rafts were specially ordered the night before by the Chinese pastor, who lives in a house on the bank close by"

Go and tell him about it," I persisted. Again Ah Djang came back.

"The pastor is ill and cannot come out," he informed me.

This was true enough, for as we obdurately stuck there, losing the precious coolness of the morning hours, out came the sick man leaning on the arm of his daughter and on a stick. A still fiercer storm of words assailed the air, the pastor heaping reproaches upon the boat in an, and both gesticulating violently. Nothing, however, but an earthquake would move the sturdy boatman. The poor sick pastor could endure no more, and he left us to our fate.

Punish him by refusing to pay at the end," was his last Parthian shot, tottering indoors.

The boatman verily had us in a cleft stick. Beaten and crest-fallen, we started, and I was determined to follow the advice about the payment.

The stream was more stones and boulders than water. So low had it fallen that we were dragged along the bed of it. By lying on the raft the children could dip their hands in the

pretty water" between the interstices of the bamboo poles of which the frail craft was fashioned. We three older folk sat on the cane chairs we had brought with us. Again and again, in the scorching midday heat we dipped our white umbrellas in the stream, then held them over our sun-helmeted heads, gratefully letting the drops trickle down us. One lady who had gone up in advance told me later she had only bean able to tolerate the heat by sitting in her vest under her wet umbrella. Wee Sea-borne thought my lap the most restful place, but how an angry boil contested his right there! The raft that carried our luncheon basket would ordinarily have travelled alongside, but the delay in starting left us far behind it. Da-ling became so ravenously hungry that when she saw our boatman snatching mouthfuls of very unappetizing rice-cakes she begged one, which he gave her.

That Chinese boatman worked like a veritable fury. Never have I seen anything equal to the fierce human force he put into the continuous effort of poling us over boulders, stones, and the grating river-bed. Oftener in the water than on the raft, he. literally heaved us along for between three or four hours, under the broiling midday sun. Every heave seemed to say:

"I 'll show you what r can do-rice-bag included!

When he landed us triumphantly at the head of the stream, and the time for payment came, he received the whole sum, and with never a reminder of his bad past: rather in my heart a deep gratitude for his sustained efforts and a profound admiration for his prowess. He gave so much, and he received so little-in comparison.

Here we were met by the Veteran, who had brought down mountain chairs. After some refreshment in the house of another of those sympathetic members of society, Chinese pastors, we started at two in the afternoon for our last lap. Every step now lifted us up into a new world, fresh and cool, through woods and fields, our bearers sing-songing as they jaunted us nearer the skies. Five o'clock saw the little tired party at the desired haven. As our chairs were set down in front of the house, and the happy, care-free, healthy-looking group of women and children clustered round to welcome us, it was more than I could bear.

Let me inside quick," I urged.

I fled to my room out of sight, where I lay on my bed and wept! Such worn-out travel-stained wretches we were in comparison that I almost felt ashamed.

Next day I crawled out and sat in the pine-wood close by, hardly able to enjoy the soughing of the wind among the trees and the sweet smells. Then a doctor, who fortunately was on the hills, came and lanced the boil on my thumb. But in a couple of (lays I was seriously ill. A letter was sent down to catch the Eternal Peace, urging Sing Su to come by return. I have never quite known what that illness was, but rigors would seize and shake me horribly, as a dog does a rat. The thoughtful doctor came and slept in the house, and since that time I have believed in hypnotic powers, for on two separate occasions I then had the benefit of them.

It is coming again twice in the doctor's presence I cried meaning the horrible rigor.

Without a word he made passes down my body outside the bed-clothes. On both occasions the paroxysms subsided, dying away and out at my heels. I felt them go.

It was a fortnight before Sing Su could reach us, by which time I had so far recovered as to be able to go a little way down the hill in a chair to meet him. Instead of a dead wife, a living one smiled at him. But the poor man had physical distresses of his own which drove him straight away to the doctor's before even calling at the house.

Up there on the glorious hills we were among hill-men, magnificent specimens of humanity, especially some of the chair-bearers. Whilst I clung to the chair-poles, they would dance me up almost perpendicular slopes, then sheer down into corresponding depths, enjoying these exhibitions of their strength. Alas! They were a quarrelsome lot, ready and desirous to fight with the men of neighbouring villages if these seized a portion of the carrying and fetching for the foreigners. At times they also were threatening to the foreigners, who had brought them profit. In the end most of the Westerners declined to remain the victims of their turbulence, and betook them to more peaceable hill-tops elsewhere.

(ii)

Under the Manchu Dynasty, beneath which we survived during most of our time in China, there was in Peking a Board of Punishments" which, I expect, functioned actively. As far as the parental Board of Punishments in our household was concerned, there was little doing. On the one or two occasions when I chastised Da-ling, it was invariably at the wrong time. I know this, because Sing Su informed me. I chuckle as I recall the solitary instance when he used physical force to either of the children, and then on the one least worthy of his prowess, tiny Sea-borne. A dose of castor oil was deemed expedient. As we had had ample proof that illness by no means subjugated an iron will, Sing Su declared himself the right and proper person to administer it. Great preparations were made. The crucial moment. arrived. I held Sea-borne's struggling hands, Amah his kicking feet, while Sing Su pinched his nose-trying at the same time to insert the table-spoon. True, he did contrive to put a goodly portion of the nectar into Sea-borne's mouth; but, despite dexterous manipulations, the indomitable babe hermetically closed his small throat. Then he proceeded to breathe out the delectable fluid 3.11 over his own face-and his father's trousers. Extremely provoking, one must admit. Sing Su eased his feelings and upheld his dignity by the further administration of a few smart slaps. Then he left Sea-borne to his mother, who nearly died, dissolved between laughter and tears.

a

Though inured to living in the midst of alarms, I do not mean that we were doing it daily, or even yearly, but spasmodically or periodically. Five or six years after our Riot of 1884, there was a terrible time in China caused by a powerful Secret Society called Ko-Zao-whai. The whole country seemed living on a volcano. There were riots and uprisings in many places but none in the City-of-the-South, the Yangtsze Valley being the centre of the storm-cloud. There two young Englishmen, Green, a Customs officer, and Argent, a missionary, were barbarously done to death. But a few years later, we also had a risky time in our own city. On this occasion the people were a angry, not with us foreigners, but with their own officials, and for three reasons. First, they believed the officials were selling large quantities of rice to Formosa-which was probably true. This was against the law, seeing that the City-of-the-South needed what rice it could grow for its own use. To deplete the stores in the public granaries would leave the people short, and make food costly. The second cause was a threatened rearrangement of the sale of opium. This in future, it was said, would be sold only from one central depot, which, it was feared, would put opium out of the reach of the poor man. The third reason a was a new tax, that on land. Rumor had it that the Emperor's

instructions were that this tax was not to be unduly pressed where it would entail hardship on the poor. These instructions were being more honoured in the breach than the observance.

The "runners," who formed a species of unofficial policemen, on demanding the tax from a brass-worker in the Big Street dealt hardly with him, as was the manner of runners.

If I have to pay so much, I shall have to close down my

a

business," he protested bitterly. Very narrow is the margin of profit often in China.

The runners seized his goods, threw them into the street, and marched him to the yamen. In indignation and sympathy, the whole street, a mile long within the walls, dosed its doors, refusing to do business. This is as serious a state of affairs as when a bank in the West closes its doors.

So great was the ferment that Sing Su insisted that I leave everything, go over to the River's Heart, an informal refugee, and leave him and his new colleague, Mr. Thanks, in the White House waiting on events. In the afternoon the silent protest of closed doors turned to violent action. The outraged people rose in their strength and went in a large body to the yamen or official residence. There they destroyed every piece of private property belonging to fl]e mandarins that they could lay their hands upon. I was told it was sad to see the French clocks and similar foreign treasures wantonly destroyed. They even burnt the sedan-chairs of the officials. Of course the officials fled. Only one person defied the rioters, the wife of a mandarin, who himself hid in a tall hemp-field not far off. The brave woman barricaded herself with her boxes in her room. The rioters came.

"Open!" they demanded, "or we will drag you out and behead you on the doorstep

That would be an honour!" she retorted; and remained where she was.

But notice that all the destructive efforts were expended on private, not government, property. That was held sacred. Next the crowd, exhilarated by their performances, went to the new opium depot, and ravaged that.

By this time the few foreigners had arrived at the conclusion that on this occasion they were to be exempt from attack, and in the afternoon walked unmolested through the streets. Sing Su and Mr. Thanks saw some curious sights during the looting of the opium depot. Opium was far too precious to be wasted. Behold, here a man running homeward with a tiny wine-cup full of it I Indeed every kind of vessel was utilized. There, another man had actually taken off his shirt and with it was 'flopping up as much as it would absorb; and then ran home as fast as he could, holding the dripping garment. I ventured back into the city the same evening to learn how easily we too might have been involved.

Cod has been good to us to-day," said my amah.

Yes," I agreed" but how exactly?

"Well," she continued, "you don't know the dreadful things they have been saying." We've involved ourselves in sore trouble, so now let us get all we can out of it,' is how they have been talking. They said that those wooden boxes which the steamer is always bringing for the foreigners are full of silver dollars. 'Let us go and seize them. What a fine haul for us!

But apparently the wiser heads had said

No, our case is bad enough without adding that to it."

And so we escaped. What a sore disappointment those boxes would have been! They contained mere household commodities from Shanghai, groceries and such like.

But our hope that the people had settled down again was rudely disillusioned. On Sunday morning, before seven o'clock, we were roused from sleep by the biggest uproar I ever heard. The officials, as a palliative, had put out a public notice that at ten that morning a store-shop of rice, six minutes' walk from us, would be opened for the sale of cheaper rice. By half-past six a host of folk from the whole city gathered at the shop. and without delay proceeded to loot the entire supply without paying a cash. Next they went to the General's yamen, a short distance in front of the White House, and there demonstrated their ire. The old General came out and exhorted, but empty words failed to allay them, and they began to attack the yamen itself. The guard of soldiers fired. They used blank shot, at which the people jeered. As they persisted, the order was given to fire ball shot, which, alas, killed outright two or three all of them only sons, I was told.

We stood on the veranda, asking ourselves "What next?

So again I was ordered away. As I was the only foreign woman on ~r premises, I realized that for the two men's sakes I ought to obey. With no woman's petticoat to hamper, they could escape far more readily if it came to dropping from the lofty city wall-as had been done before.

Ah Djang, the bread-maker, hastily brought us tea and toast.

We took a mouthful while packing a handbag with title-deeds, toothbrush, and sleeping-clothes, and oft we set for the island once more.

"Do not bother to come to the boat at the North Gate. I shall be all right," I said to Sing Su. "You had better stay here with Mr. Thanks."

Very stubbornly he answered, "I shall see you into the boat." And very glad I was of his presence. At the North Gate a curious crowd had gathered: the human bats and owls had come out of their hiding-places.

"They are running away!" they said as we passed by.

when we left the White House by our back door, there was quite a crowd there too, some of whom had been among the demonstrators at the yamen at our front. One man was holding his arm, which had been shot.

"Go into our yard," said Sing Su. "I shall be back shortly, and will dress your wounds."

All that Sunday morning Mr. Thanks and Sing Su were kept employed binding up wounds. My appearance at the consulate meanwhile in time for breakfast was a surprise: for they on the River's Heart knew nothing of the doings in the city. Soon the rest of the community arrived, some in great trepidation. One European wife complained that she had not only had to dress herself but her trembling fat husband also!

Again was the River's Heart a refuge in time of danger. The long day through I watched for the smoke of our burning buildings to ascend; however, in vain. Monday passed so quietly that in the evening, when Sing Su appeared and reported that all was well, I announced to our consul's wife that she would have one less to care for, as I must go home. It took time for the officials to regain authority; but they did it. Amah told me that one of them went round in plain clothes, exhorting the principal people.

"Be good children," he urged parentally, "and all will be well." This promise did not save a number of the ringleaders from having their heads cut oft. That Board of Punishments functioned!

LIFE in South China can never be all beer and skittles, if from no other cause than weather. In addition, from 1882 onwards-when our experience began-and in every period known to living man right down to the present year, 1931, there has been a variety of causes calculated to make life in China a Great Adventure to the foreigners who live distant from the protected areas of Shanghai, Tientsin, etc. But the disturbances have one merit they save us from monotony.

By far our greatest peril lay in the deadly epidemics of cholera and dysentery. Both of these crept through our back door on to the White House premises fortunately with no fatal results to any of us. Almost certainly our immunity lay in the fact that, after a very severe warning to himself, Sing Su followed the worthy example set by Isaac, and digged another well." This well was within our own walls, and thus possible of being preserved from evil influences in other words, from contamination by the terribly insanitary conditions around us.

Not so in Madam Grace's compound. There four Westerners died of cholera and were under the sod in less than a week consigned thereto, sadly enough, by Sing Su. In spite of the long distance apart, our lives were so closely interwoven that perhaps those four need not have died but for a murderous attack made by the White Lily Society on peaceable foreigners living three hundred miles south of us. Kucheng is a hill country, and these defenseless people were awaked from their slumbers before dawn by a band of fiends secretly gathered together in twos and threes from the surrounding villages. Not a word of warning was given, or a moment in which to flee. In less than an hour a British missionary, his wife, one of his children, an Irish nurse, and six zenana ladies were atrociously murdered with swords, tridents, and knives. Others were maimed for life some were burnt to death in their houses. A poor babe of thirteen months had its eyes violently removed, besides being hacked.

When the tidings of these outrages reached the City-of-the- South, there was tension and horror. No wonder that our consul, the- same who had worked so hard for the release of Ding-er from prison, feeling his responsibilities, at once rounded up the Westerners under his jurisdiction. Finding that two ladies with a baby were away at their cottage at the moue of the Bowl River, he sent stringent orders to recall them to the presumably greater safety of the city. They had, perforce, to obey their country's representative, but unwillingly. They feared the White Lily Society, or Ko-lao-wkai, less than the cholera which was then at work in the city. And not, alas, without reason. The lovely babe, a little bit of heaven in appearance, was the first to fall a victim. I kissed it as it lay in its little coffin. Then the father, arriving for its funeral, also succumbed; and next a husband and wife in the prime of life died, and were buried in the same grave. A umber of Chinese girls in the school adjoining also passed away. So many coffins passed out of that compound that the Chinese neighbours, whether regretfully or not I do not know, said:

The foreigners are all dying."

It was a time to discover the gaps in one's courage: and it found them in mine. When the last two were to be committed to the grave in our simple little damp God's acre outside the East Gate, my heart sank lower than ever before; and partly -because Sing Su had to do duty in the infected compound which seemed a charnel-house.

Need you go inside the house itself?" I urged. "Cannot you have the funeral service on the open veranda?

"I'll see," he said; but I had no confidence, and when he went, once more lay me down and wept. If Sing Su contracted "It," then our compound would be a centre of infection, and who could tell where "It" would stop, or if a single one of us would be left to tell the tale. On Sing Su's return I ventured, fearfully enough, to ask:

Did you go into the house?

"Yes t" he unrepentantly answered, "How could I leave those two poor women in there alone, or ask them to come out side on to the veranda for the service?

Thus he had to be brave for both of us. Sure enough, he

thought he. had taken the cholera two days later. Lady in the morning he came into my room.

I am shivering with cold. Get me hot-water bottles, and ask for the doctor to call on his way to Madam Grace's." I heaped on him a mountain of clothes.

"If I get worse," he said, treat me with the usual remedies if unavailing, let me die." This latter because one of the victims bad begged the doctors to stop trying new methods, such as saline injections, and let him die quietly. The port doctor came, smelling of brandy, which was excusable in the circumstances, and made suggestions which seemed feebleness itself in face of so terrible a foe: and went on. Strangely and providentially, we had more doctors at once in our little port during that hour of need than ever before or since I

In an hour Sing Su began to shiver and shake violently. Whereupon we could, and we did, laugh aloud in our relief. We knew he had an attack of malaria, not cholera! For the first time we thanked God for malaria, though it can be unpleasant enough. Once when it attacked me in the night I felt so deadly cold that I dared not put my arm outside the bed-clothes to pull up the rug from the foot of the bed; for if I did, I feared my arm would freeze stiff.

At the outbreak of cholera amongst us, our own young doctor had courageously taken up his abode at Madam Grace's, refusing to risk infecting us by returning to the house which Sing Su had built for him next to the White House. When the Destroyer appeared to have stayed his hand, a serious question arose. What were we to do about the lady who had lost her all, her babe and husband, the young lady her friend, and the doctor himself? Danger from infection was not yet past. One suggestion was that the three should go down to the cottage at the mouth of the Bowl until danger from them was gone. This they were quite willing to do possibly not caring where they went. But Sing Su refused to sanction it. "They might all be dead before we could reach them," he objected.

Finally it was settled that the three should take up their abode in the doctor's own house in our compound, there to remain in strict quarantine till the infection was past: a privacy surely most welcome to their benumbed hearts. Well do J recall watching those two tragic women in black as, with bent heads, they walked slowly up the path from our big front gate to the doctor's house. The remembrance of them still brings grief. I often went to talk with them, through the window and marveled greatly at the Strength which sustained them.

(ii)

The cholera season, usually September and October, was included in our four or five months of glorious, rainless, autumn weather. Our Christmas Days were perfect, and our hard game of tennis was joy enough for most of us. Sing Su began to study Chinese music, and became competent enough to lecture on it. Instead of taking the usual afternoon siesta, he would ching, or invite, a Chinese musician to give him lessons on his two- or three-stringed violin, and the flute. The notes would float gaily upstairs to me. One day our teacher brought in for ~r delectation a musician of note. he sat and sang Chinese songs in a high falsetto voice, with trills that excited in us wonder and admiration. On the Westerner Chinese music has differing effects. Some long to flee from it, hands to ears; others love and cannot hear enough of it, when it consists of something more than the common beating of drums and the clashing of cymbals. That song-singing soprano man and his ravishing trills moved Sing Su to his soul.

(iii)

Our isolated condition led us to make lifelong friends among the Chinese and the Europeans. To-day the returned Anglo-Chinese have no greater pleasure than to meet again and tell old tales of their life in out-of-the-way ports. But we all have our own ideas of our happiest ameliorations. Mine were, quite naturally, watching Chinese lives ripen and fructify, often in surprising fashion.

Amah and I stepped across the road one day to the first hospital which Sing Su built, and we were met at the door of our classroom by a smiling youth of eighteen. Not a word did he speak but as he politely stood aside to let us pass in, his beaming face spoke plainer than words.

I know you, if you do not know me," it said.

It is part of my programme to learn to recognize strange faces, so I felt a shortcoming creature as I murmured to myself

Who can that be?" I felt I ought to know if I did not.

Our gathering over, I looked round, and behold, here was another countenance that defied me. It was that of a weak-eyed middle-aged woman. She was exceedingly neat an(.l clean, but adorned with none of the powder, paint, and artificial flowers so dear to the heart of the better-class women of our city. In her hand she carried that sine qua non of an inside-teaching one," a hymn-book. To avoid alarming her, I passed with but a brief word of welcome, though I had not done with her. Inquiries elsewhere brought forth the pleasantest story I had heard for some time.

The weak-eyed woman was the smiling boy's mother, whom he had that afternoon led by the hand to my weekly gathering. In the seventh moon of the previous year this boy came to the dispensary to be healed of fever and ague, our ever-present scourge. He was attracted by what he heard, and bought a copy of a small book called "The Ten Commandments," which also contained a resume of the teaching of our Lord. The matchless love of God, as revealed by His Son, so filled Yung-ko with delight that when he returned to work at the stocking-shop, both his book and the story must needs go with him. Strange the effect which such news has on different mentalities. What bad brought surprise and joy to Yung-ko roused nothing but the deepest anger in his master!

If you believe that foreign stuff, out you go!" was his emphatic pronouncement.

On Yung-ko maintaining that there was nothing but good in all he had read and heard, the threat was summarily put into execution. Yung-ko was sent about his business. Nor did he receive more encouraging treatment at home.

If your master does not want you, neither do I," scolded his mother.

You cannot stop here if you have become entangled in that good-for-nothing barbarian religion," protested his stepfather.

Whether in a spirit of humility or of proud youthful independence I know not; but Yung-ko took his parents at their word and quietly departed, possessed of nothing in the world but the clothes in which he stood. He knew not where to turn, but in the end found his way to the dispensary, and there told his tale, and his straits, to the gatekeeper. Between them the two hit upon a plan. Fortunately Yung-ko was weaning one good garment when he left home. This he pawned for a small sum with which he bought a knife and ten sticks of sugar-cane. The latter he cut into lengths and sold in the streets, making just enough to feed himself each day not on beautiful rice, but on cheap dried sweet potatoes. At night he shared the gatekeeper's bed and covering. When Sunday came, as he did no work, neither had he to eat I But his new friends came to his aid. The keeper gave him breakfast, and the amah in charge of the women's ward saw to dinner for him.

Time passed, but no repentant Yung-ko returned home. His mother grew uneasy about the boy, and went here and there seeking him. After a fortnight, and as a last resort, she also found her way to the dispensary.

My son left home with no money, ' she said to the gatekeeper) "and I fear he has starved to death, or gone for good. Can you help me?"

Thus she discovered his whereabouts.

"But who has fed you all this time?" she asked the boy.

Heaven!-T'ien!" he replied with all the earnestness of solemn conviction.

I don't believe it," she retorted.

"Come to church next Sunday and hear for yourself, Mother," he urged. She went. And the boy had his reward.

Come back home and tell us more, my son," was her verdict Anger and displeasure vanished like clouds before the sun.

In a few weeks the stepfather also was disarmed. Yet even before that, he had tried to save his wife's bound feet by bringing her dinner to church on Sundays to eat between services.

"People told me the foreign doctrine was bad," he apologetically explained, "but since I have beard for myself, I know better."

Yung-ko did not regain his place at the stocking-shop. At home, they told me, he worked like a. Trojan, making mats. Next he earned something by labouring as a coolie on our enlargement scheme. On Sunday this boy who turned his parents round was a study as he sat drinking all in. Now and again a smile of appreciation would light up his otherwise plain-featured face. Compensation of no mean order! One wondered how many more similar instances there were among our friends, one helping another with no thought of reward. On several occasions it was borne in upon rue that their faith and practice approximated more nearly to apostolic times than did my own.

(iv)

And compensation we needed. For a fortnight in the June of 1888, for instance, we had the most terrific heat I ever felt, either before or since. Inside the White House the thermometer registered only 104 degrees, but that was no standard wherewith to gauge our Turkish-bath atmosphere. That summer we had hoped to stay at home, although Sea-borne had again been attacked by another of his mysterious complaints of which we could make nothing. What we did know was the cause climate. One day he had been unconscious, and so like death that I lay beside him, holding him in my arms, to give him what courage I could when the dread moment came. He had always clung so to my guiding finger that it seemed a betrayal of confidence for his mother to suffer him to find his way alone down the Valley. As we waited on Death, I could actually see the babyish figure wending its solitary way along a dim tunnel until the distance swallowed him. Could I myself have handed him straight from my arms into those of the Good Shepherd I should have felt less despairing.

But by a miracle Life, no less than Death, had hung on to his tiny coat, and won. What fanned the flickering spark into a feeble flame we never knew; certainly nothing we had done. We were at the end of our resources. Then, after an encouraging interval, came that devastating heat, with the result that our skeleton again stalked through the house, proclaiming that Sea-borne could patently not survive another long summer.

This was more depressing than any outside cataclysm could be. So intense was the furnace that the mosquito net in our west bedroom smelt as if it had been scorched. Doubting the evidence of my own sense, I called Sing Su.

"True enough," he said.

The hot wind was a veritable sirocco from Gobi. At night we wandered from room to room seeking lesser degrees of misery. My bed finally came to a standstill on the upstairs landing. Even good old Ling-fu, who never would admit there could be anything wrong with God's weather, crept into our hall and laid his gaunt frame on its smooth dark surface. I took Da-ling on my knee. She slid back to the floor.

"It is cooler down here, Mamma," said she.

Hurriedly we packed, and this time had the relief of Sing Su's help, for indeed the journey would have been too much for me alone. How we reached the hills I cannot tell; but once there, our prime effort was to make little Sea-borne better. Those were the days of ignorance: before scientific feeding. We tried everything we knew: goat's milk, flour boiled hard, then scraped and cooked. Nothing availed, and the little one was reduced to the smallest bag of bones any one ever saw alive. I thought my heart must break. One day I went to hide my-self in my room. This, then, was to be the end of the struggle. We must let him go.

But I was amongst true friends. There came a tap at my door, and a tender sympathizer entered, albeit childless herself. Kneeling at my side, she urged that not yet must I give up hope.

"We have been consulting together," she said, "and have a plan whereby we believe Sea-borne may yet be saved. We are going to scour the hills for a good chow-chow amah-a foster-mother. If we cannot find one here, we will fetch one from Ningpo."

Like a drowning man, I caught at this last straw. The search soon ended, for the very person we needed was found in the village below. A pleasant respectable young Chinese mother came, pleased to play her important part in mayhap saving the life of this pitiable Western child of eighteen months. The result was an immediate improvement, and once more hope revived. Alas, the little rogue! The moment he ceased to die, the old Adam in him reappeared. He did worse than turn the cold shoulder on his benefactress. he did it with violence.

I'll starve first," he said in effect.

An English friend suggested her firmness with him would succeed where my weakness had failed.

"Do try," I begged. She did. For a solid half-hour, growing hotter and redder, she held this uncompromising wisp of struggling humanity in tile place where he refused to be.

lie has beaten me," she admitted, finally returning him to me. He would not be compelled to take what was flow evidently as nauseous to him as that former dose of Sing Su's castor-oil. The only method left was to catch this monster of ingratitude with guile.

To-night," said I to our willing Chinese friend, "you shall wear my foreign sleeping-clothes and take my place in bed. When Sea-borne awakes, do not utter a word. Draw him gently into your arms, and perhaps, in the darkness, he will think you are myself and take the life-giving food he needs."

He awoke at eleven, and I, listening breathlessly, heard the dear soul carefully obey instructions. For a minute all went well, and then, for some unaccountable reason, the protesting refusal began afresh!

But the stars in their courses fought for Sea-borne. My room had a door, and on the other side of it was the self-same English woman who had portioned out to him a share of her own babe's sustenance when he first arrived on this planet and I was ill. Fortunately, in the nick of time, she had at the present moment yet another of what I called her queen's babies, so fine were they. On the eve of our experiment this beloved Auntie nobly spoke.

If he still refuses, bring him to me, and he shall again have a share."

So, when our deception failed to deceive even an infant, I spoke to Sea-borne in Chinese

Will you have Auntie's ' na-na '" I asked. Emphatically he cried in the same language

Wait! Wait!" -i.e. "Please, please!

I took him next door, and there was simple acceptance of nature's bounty, followed by inward peace and complete satisfaction-to him and me. The end was periodic visits next door, and the restoration of a measure of health to Sea-borne. This time he owed his life to the loving kindness, not of one but of two. The English woman completed what the Chinese woman began. Nor has the object of our care ever upbraided us for thus saving his life.

Not that our worries over the egregious young man were over. They lasted till he left the country at four and a half years; after which, physically, he never looked back. Our cold season had its terrors. Then he was the victim of complaints beyond Sing Su's skill, excellent quack though the exigencies of our situation had made him. We were armed with a library of medical books, allopathic and homeopathic, and found the latter useful-and safe, on many a trying occasion. Once, for a long while, Sea-borne slept neither day nor night, but spent his puny strength tossing from one shoulder to another in my arms with the regularity of a machine. Fearing brain fever, Sing Su after "inch search lighted on an aid homeopathic book, in which was an exact description of these curious symptoms:

and, best of all, the remedy. Fortunately this we had. The first dose acted like a charm. When Sea-borne awoke and made

-oh, heavenly joy -his almost forgotten pretty natural baby noises in the short interval before sinking again to sleep, the relief was beyond words. We knew that once more it was well with the child.

At another impasse we sought the help of a friend, an old American doctor, who might know better than ourselves. He prescribed a quietening dose, and said, "If he wakens in the night, repeat it." Sea-borne awoke. I took up the second prepared dose. Then something stayed my hand. "No," I thought, "if he will go off to sleep again without it, he shall." And he did.

All next day Sea-borne lay on my lap in a semi-comatose condition, with upturned eyes and white immobile face. At five in the afternoon, without a word to me, Sing Su rushed off to our friend.

"How many drops did you say we might give?" he asked.

Let me see," he ruminated; "how many did I say? Is anything the matter?

Sing Su explained, and the two returned together. The prescriber made no comment, but offered to remain the night,

if it would be any relief to us." There was, however, nothing to be done, save wait-and pray.

Sea-borne's cast-iron constitution survived even an overdose of narcotic; but had my outstretched hand not been withdrawn, that second dose must have proved fatal.

Such are a few of the exigencies of foreign service. Yet I speak of them without fear. Difficulties never deter the dauntless.

IN the entry, or passage with the double turn that led to our back door, lived several families whose doors, but not windows, opened on to it. One summer I used to listen, a]most as a matter of course, to a woman out there. At midday she raised her shrill penetrating voice, and for half an hour declaimed to high heaven and the wide world certain information, which she was determined, they should have.

what does she do it for? I inquired of Amah, thinking it might be some special form of worship.

"She is cursing the thief who has stolen something from her and she has a picture of him on a board, into which she drives a nail every day," was the reply.

Once curiosity led me out into the street that way. Sure enough, though the old lady had finished her maledictions and retired behind her closed door, there, on the wall nearest the street, and for all who passed by to see, hung the board with its rude drawing of the human frame. Into the different parts of it she had driven many nails: into the right hand to-day, the left to-morrow, and so on with feet, eyes, ears, following with the various organs, especially the heart.

Daily, for I know not how long, she continued to curse the delinquent in every possible particular: from his cradle to his grave, from his rising up to his lying down, in his basket and store. Every imaginable, and from our standpoint unimaginable, misery of mind, body, and estate she called down, not only upon himself but on all his ancestors and descendants, world without end. Whether her daily effort was merely an outlet for her spleen, or as an aid to the restoration of the stolen articles, I do not know. Perhaps both, for there were cases, I was told, when this procedure had been effective in restoring the articles. Believing, as so many do, that this and similar methods are powerful magic, even a thief may have an expectation that the nails will somehow find their way into his hand or foot or other parts of his body, unless he make restitution. Thus the system has advantages, both for prevention and recovery. We know the terror that existed in our own land long ago of being " cursed with bell, book, and candle." Against this I can pit the fear engendered by a vituperating, cursing Chinese woman. As the work of a distorted imagination, her achievement was inimitable.

(ii)

Living also in the passage that connected our back door with the busy street was another little old woman and her grown-up sons. A low door in the far corner was their only opening into the passage. Indeed I remained unconscious of their existence until the evil report of one of the young men was brought to me.

"Aloa is a thief, and the torment of the rest of the family," proclaimed Amah. " The other sons are steady and hardworking. But he is lazy, refuses to work, gambles, and smokes opium."

In fact, he ran the whole gamut of Chinese vices, which do not differ greatly from our own.

For years Aba's mother had shielded him, as many a Western mother has done. She surreptitiously yielded to the money extortions wherewith he gratified his evil tastes. At length, however, even her patience gave out, and she found it impossible to meet his increasing demands. Failing her, he began to prey on the household goods, which the family shared in common. Twice he perpetrated the enormity of stealing the family rice-pan, without which they could not cook a meal. Next his old mother's wadded bed-quilt disappeared. Once, when passing out, I saw a big hole in their wall, which bore witness to his attempt during the night to break through and steal.

Endless bickerings were, naturally, the outcome of these depredations. These by no means conduced to the peace of the neighbourhood; nor the comfort of the foreign woman living so near them. At last the sorely tried mother was reduced to the drastic measure of " cursing " her incorrigible son. She went outside, and there of set purpose rent the heavens She called down upon him the most awful penal ties which the unregenerate heart can conceive. The pains of Western excommunication were light as thistledown compared with the anathemas which that aggrieved dame hurled in public at her quondam well-beloved son. Sad to say, these failed to frighten or reform the depraved Aloa.

I will burn the house down about your ears," he menaced. He went so far as to warn our old schoolmaster, Mr. Yang, whose house was across the narrow passage, that if he valued his life he had better speedily remove elsewhere I

It was as a threat to our own safety that Aloa was brought to my notice. If he put his ideas into execution, which seemed possible, then the White House would be in danger. Though personally unknown, Aloa became somewhat of a nightmare to me, especially as Sing Su's distant country engagements necessitated my being half the time alone, night and day. The climax came. I had heard loud quarrelling all morning, and in the afternoon Amah came into the dining-room.

Aloa is getting his deserts at last," she said with repressed excitement.

"How?" I queried.

"Oh! His mother has insisted on his taking opium, and he will soon be dead,"

"Where?" I asked.

"In their own house, where he is fastened up," was her reply. Probably I looked as I felt-incredulous; for presently she ventured:

"You might like to go and see for yourself."

I had no taste for horrors, and this suggestion did not at all appeal to me. Also I was slow to believe that any mother would dare to arrogate to herself such power of life or death over her son, even in China where parental authority is writ large over the lintel. So I tried to persuade myself that my best policy was to ignore the whole matter. I sat still, and went on with my sewing.

Yet my thoughts persisted in wandering to our back door. I began to wish Sing Su were at borne to do something. Next, the idea forced itself could I thus lightly rid myself of responsibility for the unnatural deed, seeing that I was on the spot and Sing Su was not? A sudden impulse found me outside the back

door of our house. there I caught the Bread-maker as he was hurrying out, evidently greatly perturbed.

I will go with you," was all that passed between us.

Tit a moment we were both standing in front of the low door in the entry corner. At that instant the door opened and a well-dressed man passed out.

Let him die " he casually remarked as he went about his business. " It is the best thing that could happen to the use less good-for-nothing."

We were not to have it all our own way. Inside the still open door stood the old mother herself, determination to suffer no intruders expressed in her every line. With arms outstretched she barred our way.

You cannot come in you shall not come in," she reiterated.

Encouraged by having me at his elbow, the Bread-maker forthwith poured out the biggest torrent of entreaties, reproaches, threats, and even promises of reward that I ever listened to in my life. Without the slightest effect. She stood there, obdurate and impassive as a stone. When she saw we had no intention of retiring, but were trying to edge ourselves inch by inch along her lobby, her anger was so great that she looked as if she would take me by the shoulders and force me out. Fearing to do this, the sorely harassed soul did better. She went down on to her knees.

Leave us to ourselves," she pleaded with uplifted hands, and go away to your own business."

Realizing that the entreaties were unavailing, she rose from her knees, and with a despairing look turned away. We passed into the front room. It was empty, but it led to another, which we entered. There the most gruesome sight met our eyes. The room was of the ordinary rough and ready type; dark, with unplastered walls, low roof, and earthen floor. Near the centre was a wooden pillar, and to it was fastened the ne'er-do-weel; in the throes of death, as far as we could judge. His feet rested on the floor, but were bound to the pillar by strong cord. Another rope, passed round his arms and shoulders, held him fast to the pillar. He was unconscious, and only an occasional convulsive movement showed that the lamp of life still flickered.

It was dreadful. He had evidently been bound fast before the opium had been given, for the dregs had dribbled from his mouth and the dark stains discoloured his face. He could not have been more than twenty years of age, and the spectacle he made as he hung there dying was too horrifying for words. We gazed in awed silence.

"He will soon be finished," remarked the only other occupant of the room. The west of the family, save the mother, had apparently fled the house.

How much has he taken?" I asked.

A hundred cash worth" This was enough to kill more than one person.

Can nothing be clone? '' I asked.

It is too late now," was the response.

Without another word I rushed from the house, and the next moment found me bursting in upon our newly arrived young doctor. He was sitting quietly in his study.

Doctor!" I cried. "Do you know what they are doing? Killing a man at our very doors I Surely we must not stand by and see that?

A few words of explanation sufficed, and I soon conducted the doctor to the scene, where I was only too glad to leave him alone with the culprit-or victim of this summary justice. It seemed a hopeless case, but, in spite of further protests, the doctor cut the man down, gave him a powerful hypodermic, insisted on keeping him moving incessantly, and in time had the satisfaction of pronouncing his life saved.

Meanwhile I was learning what particular circumstances had led to such a desperate denouement. It was the proverbial last straw. The young man had stolen the garments of a neighbour, and the quarrelling I had heard earlier in the clay was caused by the injured party making known the grievance and demanding restitution. This was an additional disgrace to the already humiliated family. The wretched culprit had disappeared, but two of his brothers went in search of him. And, as if to exasperate them beyond endurance, he was discovered sitting unconcerned amongst the crowd at a play in a neighbouring temple I

The sight of him laughing and enjoying himself there whilst they were smarting under the shame he had brought upon them added fuel to the fire of righteous auger. They waited till the play was over. Then, with the aid of a friend, they seized and dragged him home. Here a sort of family court martial was held, at which they decided no longer to permit him to make their lives a burden. In the end the unfortunate mother agreed to assert the prerogative, according to Chinese law, of life or death over her son. A choice was given him. Either he would be sent to the yamen and given over to the mercies of the relentless officials, or he must take opium and die. he chose, possibly, the lesser evil, which was to take opium. he was bound fast, the opium sent for, and then the mother with her own hands held the fatal draught to his lips, and he swallowed it.

If Aloa had been a terror to me before, he became doubly so afterwards. I feared he must know of the share I had had in his escape, ant the idea of meeting and perhaps being thanked by him was painful. So for a long time I avoided the convenience of the back door as if I had been the sinner. Christians talked with and exhorted Aloa, and he consented to go to our opium refuge and there try to break off his opium habit. I wish I could end my true tale by adding that Aloa became the pride and joy of his mother, but this was never the ease. While in the opium refuge, articles belonging to other inmates were stolen and though his guilt was not proven, Aloa was strongly suspected of being the thief.

Later our soft-hearted Bread-maker helped to pay his passage to that resort of the impenitent-Shanghai. There by hard work he earned a good wage, a large share of which, alack, went down the pipe, to which he had returned. A year after, I was told he bad died of cholera in Shanghai. Of this his mother was kept in ignorance, by request of the other sons, and when I asked why, was told

Oh! She loves him so, they dare not tell her.''

When acquaintances returned from Shanghai, she immediately questioned them as to her son, and they were ready with an answer.

He is well and prospering."

Then why does he not write to me?"

Oh, his opium takes his spare time and money.'

Apparently mother-love is as paradoxical in China as Europe. In that we are like-minded.

(iii)

By far the most engaging and least perturbing of our neighbours hi that passage with the double turn was our old pedagogue, Mr. Yang, and his small household. The joy of Mr. and Mrs. Yang's heart was their orphan grand-daughter, Ngachiae, or Quiet Fairy, aged nine. Mr. Yang was Sing Su's first, but by no means last, teacher, 'rime and experience aye required when the "foreigner" desires a past-master in Chinese, one capable of guiding him along the thorny path of the sacred Classics. In Mr. Yang's day, as neither understood the other's language, a hiatus would frequently occur. Mr. Yang could neither explain, nor Sing Su understand, the meaning of a particular term. What was to be done in such an impasse? Mr. Yang knew. he gaily suited the action to the word. he would lie down on the floor, stiff as a board: he was dead. ' He would roll himself over and over he was rotatory." If motion were required, he would do his old best to hop, skip, and jump.

Mr. Yang was too simple-minded to harbour any superior notions in his relations with the foreigners. But he could and he did effectively dominate the young urchins into whom, later, he strove to instil the rudiments of Chinese learning in the room inside our back door. That was after he was superseded as Sing Su's teacher. Though small of stature, he put the fear of man into the boys in a way that amused us, by the vehemence with which he smote the table, white wearing the huge horn rimmed spectacles so dear to the Chinese scholar. The day came when his feeble strength failed even in this, and he had gently to be put on the shelf.

Then Mrs. Yang, old, but less old than he, took the helm and carried on the work admirably. A dignified, highly self-respecting person she always neatly and suitably attired, with a reputation for excessive cleanliness.

She is so particular," said her neighbours, " she actually washes her rice-bowls twice I Once after the last meal, and again before the next.''

If you could have seen her kitchen! No chimney, and the rafters encrusted with smoke small wonder particles of dust would fall upon the basins.

Dressed in her very best, Mrs. Yang came into the study one day to interview us in state. She started oft by congratulating herself, and tacitly Sing Su too.

I, you know," she exclaimed, with a proud note, attended the Zing-si church when the congregation consisted of straw-sandals '-that is, poor folk. Nowadays, shoes and long gowns -respectable people are more the order of the day!"

This was introductory, the preliminary to a piece of serious and delicate business. Mrs. Yang had courageously undertaken to conduct it herself rather than relegate it to the " middle man or woman, as is the universal custom in the City-of-the-South. Probably the desire to keep secret from her neighbours so revolutionary a procedure as she contemplated also weighed with her.

Mr. Yang and I are now old,'' she went on, and it is high time Quiet Fairy's future husband was chosen." She paused. You know," she soon continued, the great respectability of the Yang family, the care with which Quiet Fairy has been nurtured, the ceaseless vigilance we have exerted to keep her from contamination with the vulgar world. She is an unstained lily, and a fragrant rose." She paused again. What better course, then, could be adopted, and what more excellent arrangement made, than that Quiet Fairy be forthwith betrothed to your son, Sea-borne? Despite the difference in age, he being under four, such an alliance would be admirable in every way, the future well-being of the young people assured, and the elders need suffer no further anxiety on their behalf.''

Such was the problem which unexpectedly blew in from the passage entry that morning in the person of good Mrs. Yang. How to tackle it passed the wit of one woman. I incontinently fled, and left the study to Sing Su and our visitor.

We thank you very much indeed, Mrs. Yang," said he (so he reported later), for your most gracious proposal. Quiet Fairy is indeed the gem you say and more. She is charming and beautiful in our eyes. But alas, there is one great, one insuperable obstacle to Quiet Fairy and my unworthy son being betrothed. You know how terribly strong is the power of Old Custom. In our unworthy land, to which Sea-borne must shortly go, to be trained in Western learning, we never by any chance betroth children of the tender ages of himself and Quiet Fairy, partly because of the uncertainty of the future. More-over, in our distant land-the Great Brave Kingdom-it is never the wise experienced parents, or guardians, who select the future partners of their children. With us, so important a matter is left-wisely or unwisely-to the time when the young people are considered old enough to select their own husbands and wives. It is a custom they value highly, and they would strongly resent the bare suggestion that these be chosen for them, and before they were old enough to have any say in the matter.

Each system, yours and ours, has advantages. But ours at least puts the burden of choice on to those who are likely to suffer most if a mistake is made. You see, therefore, how difficult, nay impossible, it is that we can entertain so beautiful an idea. Our Western custom forbids. Nevertheless, please accept our best thanks, and we are sure your natural anxieties concerning Quiet Fairy's future will soon be relieved."

So, with expressions of mutual esteem, the interview ended. And though Mrs. Yang had to go back to Mr. Yang and tier home with her brilliant idea shattered on the rock of Old Custom," she was not altogether disconsolate. She had another string to her bow I Quiet Fairy was one of Da-ling and Sea-borne's pet playmates but her two and a half inch golden lilies" effectually forbade any romping and racing about with them. She was always the sedate, smartly dressed maiden. Her coal-black hair was neatly coiled round her ears in summer, and her head was encased in a scarlet hood, which hung halfway down her back, in winter. To our youngsters she was, doubtless, the personification of young elegance.

But Quiet Fairy failed to move with the times. When our other Chinese girls toot the step-a very bold step it was in those days-of casting off their foot-bandages, she clung to hers. Why? Because, forsooth, the young man to whom she shortly became engaged objected, and desired her to follow another Old Custom, that of the pernicious foot-binding. Quiet Fairy suffered in consequence. It is only fair to add that her crippled feet did not prevent her from becoming the mother of six daughters after she had married the obdurate young man! He, I am bound to confess, was at the time our doctor's capable assistant and ought to have known better. Yet even he, in the end, bad to yield to a New Custom-for it had become the fashion.

when I visited the City-of-the-South twenty years later, I found that in not one of his numerous daughters had been perpetuated the two and a half inch golden lilies " of Quiet Fairy. For which Heaven-and possibly a few foreigners-be thanked

MANY of our early Chinese friends and acquaintances had so much time on their hands that they were prodigal of it, and lavished much on our little family at the White House. Hence arose the need, not for one, but for two studies. One was upstairs, sacred to the lore of the Classics and Chinese Literature generally. The other, downstairs, was devoted to the study of Chinese human nature. To me, I confess, the latter was by far the more absorbing, and much easier to fathom.

The downstairs study was placed conveniently near our secluded back door, which led out through the twisting passage, over the narrow filthy canal., and on to the cobbled street. To it came all sorts and conditions of Chinese men-and women too. Sing Su and I was born of progenitors who loved their fellow-men. Hence we liked to feel it possible for our visitors to gain something of value in their contact with us. But here, in the study, we soon realized that we also had something to learn, and that wisdom had neither been originated nor cornered by us. Whether we liked it or not, we had to put on our Chinese spectacles, to see life as they saw it-to the extent of our human fallibility.

A frequent visitor to our downstairs study was the stonemason, a man for whom we had a great respect. Not because of his eloquence. He rarely opened his mouth save to expound Holy Writ, as he understood it. Not for his beauty, for his eyes were not set straight, and he was short.

One day he came in at a critical moment, and sat waiting, while Sing Su hauled over the coals a fellow-countryman of the mason's who had not risen to Sing Su's standard in some monetary transactions. when the crestfallen delinquent had departed, came the mason's turn. He proceeded to tell Sing Su that he was now the owner of a house which he wished to offer as a dwelling for some poor brother in the faith. He likewise wanted Sing Su to hold the deeds of this property, and to preserve them from the acquisitive fingers of an unscrupulous son. Sing Su was delighted with so generous an action.

But are you quite sure you can afford it?" Sing Su cooed, knowing him not to be wealthy.

When the preliminaries were settled, Sing Su asked

And who would you like to be the first occupant of your house, Ah Yao?

"The man you have just been talking to," was the ready, if startling, reply

He then went on to tell of the difficult circumstances in which this particular sinner laboured, and the many excellent reasons there had been for his faulty administration of money committed to him. Sing Su sat silent, if unconvinced. But here was a man whose chief thought was, not how just should he be, but how kind. Which attitude, I ask, was the more God-like?

Will the Eastern and Western nations ever arrive at an equal standard for life and conduct? Answer who can.

One day in my nursery three-year-old Sea-borne said," Amah, is Mamma going out this afternoon?

She promptly replied, " No, she is not."

He thoughtfully but silently accepted the statement. I was pained at my very heart It seemed such an unnecessary bare-faced lie, and" so bad for the children." I felt obliged to tackle her about it. When we were alone, I began as best I knew how

Amah, whatever made you tell Sea-borne I was not going out?" I asked. " You knew very well I was! We foreigners would say that was not speaking the truth," I added gently.

Oh!" she retorted unrepentantly. "I was but deceiving him a little I " She might have added, For his own good to save him a heartache." Which was the only kind and proper spirit to have.

Here was Amah's standpoint to avoid giving pain. There was mine truth, and presumably at all costs. Can the twain be reconciled? As if wantonly to confuse the issue still further, Amah asked leave soon after to go over to the River's Heart to collect some money she had " lent out " to people there.

"I'm not at all sure I shall get it," she grumbled," though they promised to have it ready for me to-day."

Then she didactically added " That 'S the difference between you and us. If an Englishman promises to do something, he does it. We don't."

Would that this witness were trite

Only on one occasion did my trusty amah make it clear that she regarded me with suspicion, if not disapproval. Sing Su was away in the all-engulfing " country," digging foundations:

I was alone. when her nightly duties to the two infants were done, Amah was free to betake herself to her room in the yard. One evening, the hustle of tile day being over, for some reason, letter-writing probably, I did an unusual thing. I shut myself in the downstairs study, and remained there, busy, absorbed, silent, till close on midnight. Next morning, with set face and coldly aggressive manner, Amah thus addressed me.

Mistress, did you go to Madam Grace's house last night?

No, I didn't. "I replied. Then, roused by the dead silence that followed, I added, "Why do you ask?

Welt" site countered brusquely, " I sought you all over, and you were nowhere to be found."

I was in the second study the whole time, and you certainly did not look there," I retorted. I added, " I heard you go upstairs." Indeed not even a deaf-mute could have failed to hear her footfalls, heavy as an elephant's, as she thump-thumped on each step: one of the results of lack of spring, caused by foot-binding.

Nothing more passed but I was left wondering what mischief she imagined I had been doing. Had I been roaming secretly through the dreary streets, perpetrating some evil design in the darkness? And how was one, with tile best will in the world, always to avoid giving offence? Convinced Of no, Amah had to be satisfied.

You English speak the truth,'' she had said. Let her now accept my bare word.

Some two or three years later, on (lie sad eve of leaving Da-ling and Sea-borne behind in England for six long years, I gathered them to me. With, I fear, oppressive solemnity I told them that during our absence there was just one thing they must never fail to do. You must always speak the truth," I urged upon them. Even. if you have done wrong and know you will be punished, still you must speak the truth.''

Impressed doubtless by my manner, the poor infants wept in chorus wondering, probably, if they could have expressed themselves, why such a to-do about a seeming nothing. I hope I also told them there really was nothing to cry about.

But there was the Truth, the sacred, inviolable Truth we pride ourselves so much upon speaking, which must be maintained at all costs, however icy-cold and petrifying it may be to the recipient or victim. What a cruel parent! '' ejaculates some tender-hearted, child-loving Chinese mother.

(ii)

As it happened, I loved and appreciated our Chinese women, were they of high or low degree. They deserved it, although they live in a land where the generic She is said to be born with a weak nature, like a mouse, and where a woman must not use her own judgment, but must render reverential obedience to man." With a powerful Dowager Empress-Old Buddha-on the very throne of China, could any dictum have been more hopelessly out of date even so far back as 1887?

One Saturday evening, through our back door, and into the study, came a quaint personage a Chinese woman of fifty, and old at that. But most Chinese women are content to count themselves old at that age. tier dress was countrified, of the simplest description, made of blue, coarse, homespun cotton, and probably woven, dyed, and stitched by her own toil-worn fingers. Yet it was clean and tidy withal. Her feet were large only when compared with the more compressed tiny

golden lilies'' of her city sisters. Her weather-beaten yellow face was devoid of beauty, and none remained save that which shines from the lamp lit within.

She hailed from a village hidden out of sight among the hills twenty miles off, called Rushing Water Ravine. Her husband was dead, she was childless, and so had little for which to live. Her errand to our City-of-the-South was to consummate the most daring act of her monotonous existence beside which

any so-called brave deeds of mine are not worth mentioning. She had the temerity to desire publicly to ally herself to the faith of the despised fa-nang-the Foreigner. And oh, the scorn and derision that could be put into the/a I

Of course she was questioned as to her reasons for such a wish, and also as to the hope that was within her. Equally of course she explained

I am stupid in the extreme.''

She expected that excuse to cover a multitude of shortcomings and ignorances.

As a matter of fact, the simplest question on the Attributes of God reduced her to chaos, and the Divinity of Christ completely routed her. Was she then as tang-ge-stupid-as she said? That were a short-sighted conclusion. She was only nonplussed under such a terror-inspiring ordeal. Wily Sing Su, though born only the day before yesterday compared with her, had already learned that sometimes one must dig for gold.

Just sit on one side here, and wait, will you?" he asked quietly.

When the study was almost empty, be began a conversation.

Have you ever told anybody about your belief?" he inquired.

Yes, to be sure," was the quick response. I did to-day, coining in the boat. Indeed, I 'it' all of a shake yet with the fright I had. The boat was too full of people, and the water came in, nearly upsetting us. Everybody was dreadfully frightened, and I cried out at the top of my voice, ' Lord, save us! Lord, save us!' And a woman sitting beside me said after wards, It certainly was your Saviour that saved us to-day.'

And if the boat had foundered, where would you have gone? asked the inquisitor. Again she was confounded, whereupon Sing Su relented.

Never mind," he said. I might have been frightened myself in such circumstances."

He then inquired if she ever cursed now, or acted in similar incompatible ways.

Oh, no '' In chimed a bystander with information how nobly she had borne galling abuse; how her house had been broken up and her life made a burden because of her steadfast refusal to give up her profession of faith in a despised foreign man called Yi-su.

Seeing that she was truly a living epistle, and as there appeared no just cause why her desire should be refused, she received the assurance that next day she too would be acknowledged as an inside-teaching-one. When the questioning was safely over, she came nearer to Sing Su, and with a pro-found bow held out to him a packet.

I have a small present for yell," she said.

Oh, no," said he, putting it away with his hand, ''I do not wish any present."

But you must take it. One ought to do it. It is the right thing," persisted she. Reluctantly he yielded. She put a little heavy parcel into his hand, and Sing Su, rather than disappoint her, ceremoniously took it, as if it were gold. He had not the faintest idea what it contained.

Late in the evening, when we were alone, Sing Su handed the packet to me. With curious but reverent fingers I opened it. On the outside was a wrapper of red paper, on which was written in Chinese characters Lord of Heaven and earth, Heavenly Father, Our Father." Then followed the names of the two foreigners, Sing Su and Sing He, and the doctor's, after which came these words Grace upon grace, blessing upon blessing, be upon our thirty-two churches."

It ended thus

This humble woman, who lives at Rushing Water Ravine, now joins the Church of Christ, and follows the doctrine of the three gentlemen whom she takes as her teachers."

Inside the thin red paper was a coarse yellow one, neatly folded, and containing a red string or one hundred cash, or copper coins the total value being about fourpence-halfpenny in our money. Each cash bad been burnished bright. Never had I seen our dirty cash shine so brilliantly.

Nor was that all. Neatly folded hi another bit of paper lay--a solid silver dollar.

This inner little packet had been tied with a thread of red cotton to which a needle was attached and stuck into the paper. Red is the Chinese colour for Happiness, and the name for Needle is exactly the same sound as for True. Thus Needle and Thread were used by her as emblems of the Truth to which she had stitched her Faith and abiding Happiness. Small wonder that we often accepted a Chinese woman's estimate of herself with a large grain of salt. Bang-ge-stupid, indeed!

Though never, from our Western standard, having had a chance in life, this extremely stupid " woman could yet live valiantly, act uprightly, and symbolize in the beautiful way I have thus described. She was poor living probably on sweet potatoes for most of the year. For her a Mexican silver dollar, about two shillings in our money, was a small fortune. Was she not a worthy successor of an earlier widow who cast two farthings into the Treasury? One who knew said they were all her living.

(iii)

On one of Chang's, or Mr. Gold's, early visits to the village of Under-the-Bridge, among his many listeners he had a lady. Her husband was a Bachelor of Arts, and a man of parts, but his life and patrimony, as everybody knew, had been devastated by opium. Mrs. Ting was a tall gentlewoman of fine spirit, and she was deeply affected by what she heard.

How lovely Oh that my husband would accept what you say I " she exclaimed, with tears.

Some one ventured to suggest that perhaps the speediest way of convincing him was for her to accept it first. Which she did. A few months later, Sing Su was informed that a person outside wished to speak with him.

Show him into the study, "came the usual formula.

when he joined his guest, he was aghast at the object which stood before him a thing hardly worth calling a man. A mere skeleton, ill-clad, on whose face tile deathly pallor proclaimed the confirmed opium-addict, and so dirty withal that Sing Su hesitated before begging him to be seated.

I am Ting of Under-the-Budge," this wreck of humanity replied, on being asked his honourable name. At first Sing Su could scarcely credit it. Though he knew that Mr. Ting was an opium-smoker, he little expected to find a mail of his family and standing fallen so low.

As the two sat and talked, little dreaming how close a connection would afterwards be forged between them, Ting told the story of his life. He was a studious your, and after taking his B.A. degree became a schoolmaster in his own village of Under-the-Bridge. For some reason, possibly because of the difficulty of making a living in so poorly paid a profession, he left it and became a geomancer. A far more intriguing occupation this, than that of hearing sundry small boys '' back their books ''-that is, recite their memorized lessons with their backs turned to their masters and so preclude all cheating, as was the Chinese custom.

Geomancy, a pseudo-science of tire phenomena of nature, is believed to affect closely the lives of the people, their health and prosperity, also those of their children, and even of their animals. A Chinese will not build a house or temple, nor will he dig a well, without first employing a geomancer to find out whether the proposed site will interfere with the spirits who are believed to be ill charge of each locality. The contour of the land must be carefully observed, to decide whether any hill or mound, or stream of water, or rather tile spiritual force beneath these outward semblances, will have any inimical influence. Still more important is it to discover a required site where the positively good influences will act, and be directly beneficial.

It is eminently desirable to have the new house or building face the right way, in order that all the best influences come to the front of it, and all the bad or doubtful go towards the back, which can more easily be protected against them by a high blank wall. Especially is this position important in selecting a site for a grave. If, for instance, parents are buried where disturbing influences flow into them these will be reflected in the unhappy condition of their survivors. There will be bad health, want of success iii business, inferior harvests, hi fact everything relating to mundane existence. To such an extent is this cult practised that, if a family suffers grievously in any way, another geomancer may be called in. (Geo means" land," and mancy" divination.") He will possibly discover that a forebear's grave he in a direct line with the evil influences, and it is these which have caused the distresses. Thus necessity is laid upon the descendants to find a site where the bad influences will be deflected and their place taken by the good. 'The coffins are at times taken tip and reburied elsewhere, in the hope that Ute spirits will now be appeased and the ills cease.

The tyranny of the dead hand was once tiresome to us at the White House. Some very close neighbours kept a number of pigs. The awful effluvia of them and of their sour grain food, which was obtained fl-on' a brewery near by, came ever the wall. It would send us flying to the other side of the house till the wind changed, and reduced us to wishing we had never been born. Never in all this world dirt anything smell so vilely. So poisonous was the odour that unless something could be done, we might even be compelled to pull up the stakes of our beloved White House and leave. Our site had indeed been badly chosen. However, by paying handsomely, we arranged through a middleman for the pigs' removal to some distant spot. On inquiring why this took so long a time, we were told that the geomancer had already been at work for a fortnight, doing his best to find a lucky day on which our porcine neighbours might safely be escorted to their new estate.

This roving geomancing commission led Mr. Ting far and wide, into all classes of society. Alas, it also led to his undoing he began to smoke opium. In course of time he sold everything on which he could lay his hands: all except his wife went down his pipe," as they say. Plot after plot of inherited land took the same disastrous journey. Step by step he sank deeper into the mire. He even sold his clothes to buy his close. In addition he was in debt to any one who would lend. No wonder the unfortunate Mrs. Ting cried

Oh that my husband would believe what you say!

Happily before his brain became too bemused, Mr. Ting came under more vitalizing influences than those of the spirits of the wind and water. he was still able to realize the depths he bad plumbed and knew nothing could be done with an opium-smoker-till he ceased to be one. So, presently, into this conversation with Sing Su in the study he plunged the question:

Will you cure me of my opium-smoking?

It was in the early days, 'and Sing Su was startled.

"I have never yet tried to cure any one," he replied, and am not anxious to experiment, or to take the responsibility."

"I beg you to take me. I cannot go on living like this Try me I am sure it will be all right," urged Ting.

A stone might have resisted his despairing entreaties. Not so pitying Sing Su, who finally undertook to provide the medicine-quinine mostly, and good food. Mr. Ting promised to relieve him of the odium if serious sickness supervened. The patient stayed on our premises for three difficult weeks, enduring misery and torture. The end found him a conqueror, a free man.

There is always the fear, at least for a time, in the cutting off of opium, of a return to the drug. This never happened with Ting, and to the end of his days he religiously abstained.

Geomancy was now also beside the mark, and he had perforce to shoulder the burdens which he had made for his own back, with their heavy disabilities. Fortunately at that time we needed a teacher for our small boys' school. Mr. Ting accepted the post, though we knew his abilities went far beyond it Everybody in China also knows that at the end of the year, positively before New Year's Day dawns, you must settle your accounts and pay your debts or your particular heaven will fall and bury yon under the debris. For a few years the end of each year was a terrible ordeal for Mr. Ting, driving him to distraction. His old creditors came clustering round and stung like wasps, dunning him mercilessly, the more so because he was now known to be in steady foreign employ. But, simply, he had not the money to pay.

One New Year's Eve Sing Su was told of his pitiable condition but his informant received no encouraging response save words of sympathy. We could not, if we would, pretend to begin to pay sinners' debts for them. True. But what was to be done? What happened was that under cover of night ,'L muffled-up foreign woman sped along the empty streets to where Ting lived. She asked for him, and when he appeared, with but few words put into his trembling hands a small roll of hard silver Mexican dollars just a sufficiency to make the wheels of his old world turn round a little less painfully. Then the messenger of goodwill went scurrying back whence she came, no one a penny the wiser-save Ting.

In those early formative years Sing Su pinned his faith on the sincere but unsophisticated countryfolk, who were much despised for their small learing by such scholars as Ting the Geomancer. Hence his constant disappearances from the White House. Realizing that he could reap nothing where none had sown, he more or less cheerfully, half his time, left the comforts of home, and his wife and children, and lived away up among the countryfolk-if living it could be called, where not one ounce of comfort, in our ordinary acceptance of the term, was to be had, either for love or money

A servant carried his three-tier provision-basket slung at one end of a carrying-pole, and his bundle of bedding at the other end. This made him independent, save for such trifles as a roof to cover him at night, or a fire wherewith his man could cook rice and make tea. Of course the white House did all it could; but prepared food would riot keep more than a week, and usually l)e was away ten days, a fortnight, even three weeks on end. Two articles of food went, and returned, with clock like regularity: a tin of Oxford sausages and a tin of sardines

-iron rations, to be opened only when local produce failed. Sometimes we tried to calculate how many thousands of miles these two small identical tins, representatives of England and Prance, had travelled!

Once I expected him back on Friday evening, so at six o'clock Arabi, the dog, and I set off to walk along the bank of the river, hoping to espy his boat coming down-stream. There had been heavy rain, and as I went along the bank, close under the out side of the city walls, I did not like the look of the water. The wide river was a terrible current, sweeping down with frightening irresistible force, and with hardly a craft on its broad bosom. Darkness compelled me to return home. Sing Su appeared neither that night nor all Saturday, and I began to be alarmed. It would be the easiest thing in the world for his small boat to be swamped by that mighty flood and no one to know it. I knew he would have come if he could, for there was only himself to take command at the church on the Sunday.

When Sunday morning dawned, it was beyond me to sit still any longer. I insisted that some one must start in search. Nobody wanted to walk the necessary fifteen miles up to Under-the-Bridge. No boat could make an inch of headway against the cruel downpouring. Yet only by going there could we learn if he had even reached Under-the-Bridge, where he must take boat for the city.

Sing Su has only been delayed by the floods. You must relax your heart,' " the Chinese tried to reassure Inc.

That was precisely what it was now out of my power to do. I could not help picturing my sad fate if he were for ever lost and I left alone with two tiny children. Early on Sunday morning the faithful Z-loa obeyed my insistent commands, and set oft to seek some sort of news. With a heavy heart I went to church, wondering if without a preacher there could be a service at all. But though Sing Su was not at the Zing-si, Mr. Ting was and him the people with one accord invited to fill the gap. He preached for the first but not the last time by a long way.

In those days there was no such thing as public speaking or lecturing among the Chinese. It was an unknown or a lost art. But here was Mr. Ting, to the manner born I He at once sprang into repute as a noted and polished speaker, surpassing any other Chinese who had yet been heard in the City-of-the-South. Sometimes we styled him our Dr. Joseph Parker, being of similar prophetic style, and always he could command an attentive, eager audience. He would stand before our seven or eight hundred people of the congregation-for the little one had become a thousand I Often he spoke with eyes closed, a remarkable figure. Eloquently and forcefully he enunciated great truths. Gone for ever was the worn-out opium-smoker's look. In its stead appeared the Chinese gentleman, with a strong, yet gentle face that no longer repulsed by its sickly pallor.

After that service I returned home. And it was not long before the object of my deep concern walked in. Never before had I seen him look so bedraggled. His white suit was well-nigh a black one; his hair was dishevelled, his face was red and weather-beaten. His tout ensemble suggested that of a footballer after a scrimmage. He had had an adventurous journey before reaching even Under-the-Bridge. He had been away through the valleys, and up over the mountains of West Stream, 'where he was marooned by the fierce downpour in a village, fifteen hundred feet high. There he remained weather-bound until Saturday morning, when, the rain ceasing to come down in strings," he set off down the narrow mountain path that led to Hill Root, a village where dwelt a company of Christians. Here he found that the West Stream, over which he must cross, had now become a roaring impassable torrent. Drenched to the skin, he was lucky in finding his bedding fairly dry; so, casting oft his wet garments, he put on his pyjamas, in which he took evening prayers, also an early service next morning.

" We never before saw you so elegantly dressed I " the people remarked in all seriousness.

By noon next day the flood had somewhat subsided, and the King's business required haste. With the willing aid of half a dozen strong men, he was carried in his light mountain chair almost dry over the stream. This was made possible by the six men who accompanied him across wading in water up to their waists, and holding with might and main to the chair-poles, three on each side. Without these men the two ordinary bearers, one in front and one behind, would have been swept off their feet, the occupant upset, and all three carried away by the torrent and possibly drowned. Once across, the rest was plain sailing. At Under-the-Bridge Sing Su found a boat which bore him the fifteen miles to the city in record time, almost as swiftly as a stone shot from a catapult, so rapid was the flooding river.

Seven and a half years in the heat and humidity of South China claimed their toll of me. In the spring of 1892! took Da-ling and Sea-borne to England, where they were to be left. Sing Su, loth to leave his newly arrived English colleague with-out a modicum of help and companionship, stayed behind till the late autumn, when he followed us home. As his steamer left the City-of-the-South on the Sunday morning, an early service was called at which Sing Su was to bid farewell to his many dearly beloved Chinese friends.

It was then that Mr. Ting completely forgot himself. In a Voice broken by sobs he commended his foreign friend to the care of their great mutual Father on the long journey across the seas. Weeping bitterly over his and their many shortcomings, he besought Gold to help them to live better lives, more after the pattern of the one much, so he said, had been lived among them.

Before he had finished his prayer, the whole congregation was in tears, and many were sobbing. Thus they parted, for a time.

Some years ago now, Mr. Ting passed to where beyond these voices flier is peace." It would therefore be the more gratifying to leave him in the frame of mind in which he has just been depicted. But that is not a complete picture, and far from the whole truth! Blunt Oliver Cromwell insisted on hawing his wart painted into his portrait, and set an example for all time. And Mr. Ting had more warts than one. Seine were so very prominent they threatened to obliterate other features. Whether his failings were inherent or born of his former opium habit I wot not perhaps a mixture of both. He could be, and often was, arrogant almost beyond human endurance. Easily offended himself, his own sharp sayings often hurt others. A. good chair-bearer coming out of Ting's house at Under-the-Bridge was heart muttering to himself.

Again angry; again angry I " he said.

More than once, because be could not have his own way, he furiously resigned his post. The last time he did so, the resignation was regretfully accepted-for a period. His scornful haughtiness often made him difficult, alike to native and foreigner. We have to remember the school in which he had been trained, that of the scholar, the proudest in China. And perhaps, at heart, his failings rather endeared him to the human frailty of those of us who were not called upon to suffer too keenly from them

A photograph of Mr. Ting lies beside me, which, years later, he bestowed upon his favourite, Da-ling. Though taken thirty years ago, the crude craftsman did not succeed in obliterating the shrewd old face softened with years that looks out at me, and on which I gaze, and gaze, with slightly critical, yet wholly affectionate, appraisement.

SOME study stones-all true as gospel-are forgotten. Others are too pathetic, or appalling, to be told, A few cut too deeply to find for themselves words. Still more are so beautiful in this search for the Holy Grail that to translate them into my feeble language is like brushing the golden dust from a butterfly's wing or the bloom from a purple grape.

Ling's wife saw the inside of the study oftener than any woman other than myself. She came there with regular irregularity. A gallant soul! With half a chance she would in the West have been a candidate for any good public work, including Parliament. Nor, I imagine, would even the Upper House have affrighted her, for her courage was rooted in conviction, and of the kind that refuses to be deterred by selfish considerations or bodily ease.

I know a goodly number of Chinese women who are better men than their husbands. It happens so sometimes: in China. Ling had nothing in him, mentally or physically, save the common sense to admire his wife. Even that was done more by looks than words. As likely as not she adored him: in private, for never publicly did she make her boast of him. It is the ambition of most, if not all, Chinese women to become the mother of a son, but this honour was denied Ling's wife. So she had to be content with being merely the du-ser, or wife, of Ling. She had never so much as a name, Jemima or Mathilda, to call her own.

Ling earned a precarious living as a hawker of sweets, or something equally inept. Her mother, in their unenlightened days, helped to keep the wolf from the door by begging. As the little family progressed on the high-road to self-respect, this was abandoned as unseemly. What Mrs. Ling herself worked at I have forgotten. Probably she plaited the cheap straw sandals worn by coolies. Forty years ago there were few opportunities whereby a woman could ease the family straits to the extent of earning a penny or two a (lay. Now, in our City-of-the-South, conditions are greatly improved. toads of charming fancy handkerchiefs and beautifully wrought drawn-thread articles, all the work of women and girls' fingers, go regularly to Western lands; and the pay relieves the exigencies of the poor. The head of the concern is one of our own college students. Women and girls are now also largely employed in the preparation of tea for Western binds. I saw both concerns in 1926, and was delighted with the remarkably good conditions under which they were run.

Mrs. Ling bad her chance when she came and listened and yielded herself a willing captive to the Great Idea. Such a God as the foreigner's was first a revelation, then a mighty inspiration. A Deity who could love was beyond her wiliest dreams, though there were countless gods in the temples and shrines around for her to fear. In order to know more about Him, site set herself to learn to read, and between listening and reading, acquired a good working knowledge of Him for herself, and a generous overflow for others. For twenty years I knew Mrs. Ling intimately. During that time she defrauded me, for never once did she give me the chance to exhort or reprove her, unless it were not to kill herself outright with excessive country work. Neither, so far as I ever discovered, could any one else put a finger on a fault. Doubtless they could have put ten on mine, had they been so minded.

She developed into a great-hearted propagandist, delighting to dwell on Sovereign Rights, but they were the Rights claimed by a Sovereign not of this world. Nor did she hesitate to stress the duty of the obligations and responsibilities due from His subjects to the rest of the world. Mrs. Ling had a masculine strain; and it stood her in good stead when she faced dangers and death.

Three strange women once journeyed forty miles down the river to consult the doctor. Mrs. Ling invited them to her house.

It is very hot," they pleaded, but do come back with us to Greenfields, and tell us all about your doctrine."

You would riot understand me, the dialect is so different.''

Oh yes, we should," they responded; " only try us I

I am too young. It would be improper for me to travel alone," came next.

We'll see to that," was the response.

Another older, childless woman volunteered to go with her as

chaperon. Thus every lion in the path was slain, and from that time Mrs. Ling became a power with which to be reckoned. Let it no be forgotten, but placed to the credit of both the indifferent husbands of these two women, that they acted nobly. They house-kept for themselves, as most Chinese men can do, with never a grumble, even when their better-halves were absent from home for months at a stretch.

On this first expedition to Greenfield Mrs. Ling was away three months, during which she visited seventy-three places! Their names she recorded, and in addition were a number of villages whose names she forgot. In every place she gave public addresses, often speaking three times a day and walking long distances.

But were you not often weary and footsore?" I urged, thinking of her bandaged feet.

Yes, I was but I walked as well as you could have done.

she brightly retorted. Then it leaked out that months before she had stripped off the loosened bandages from her feet to increase her walking powers. Seeing my look of surprise, she proceeded to convince me by turning down her cotton-cloth stockings and showing me her unbound feet, which of course were permanently crippled. Can you spare me a pair of your English stockings?" she asked, as more suitable to the altered conditions of her feet.

From this time on, Mrs. Ling and her companion, whose sobriquet was The Countrywoman, never looked back. Her women friends believed in her to the extent of sharing with me and paying half the modest expenses when the two fared forth To the plains they went to the high hills, to the islands out at sea, and to the wee hamlets perched so tip-aloft that the best way to reach them was to scramble up on hands and knees," as Mrs. Ling laughingly described the process to me-clawing the air with her hands in imitation of their movements.

Though now freed, the feet of &10th women had been bound in childhood, and would remain only half-feet, as it were, to the end of their days. Even so they excelled me, trudging many thousands of miles, and only when exhausted hiring simple mountain chairs in which to be carried. Mrs. Ling and her friend were not dainty as to what they ate or where they slept.

They were punctilious only in paying for it. The one favour Mrs. Ling asked was to be permitted to speak, which she did in temples, in houses, by the quiet roadside, or in the noisy crowded street. In time this told on her vocal chords, as it does on foreigners with similar usage. In the end she could only speak in a peculiar, muffled, but arrestive voice. Well, I was once preaching the Happy News against an east wind," she would explain.

She was in great demand. Wherever the two went, she taught and enlightened the people, with The Countrywoman as aide-de-camp. We heard this, not on their own, but on the testimony of men I knew and questioned, who often followed them and were thankful to have had their path made straighter by the women's efforts.

Madam," once a courteous scholar remarked to her, after listening attentively, you speak well. But why do you dwell so on Jesus Christ? Let Him alone. Only tell us about God."

Sir," she asked, what should we know about God were it not for Jesus Christ?

Occasionally she would be dubbed a foreign woman.

I have never been to a foreign country," she would reply. I am from the City-of-the-South, and have only come to bring you some good news."

Now and again listeners would congratulate her on her speaking.

The God I have come to tell you of helps me.," she would reply.

God certainly does help you," was the usual response.

Sometimes the difficulty of the different dialects confronted her.

Do you understand?" she would ask.

If some said they did not, her plan was to bow her head and pray, Holy Spirit, help me to speak, and them to hear.'' " After this," she naively added, they always understood."

Usually the people listened eagerly and were kind. But at one of those first seventy-three places she narrowly escaped a beating. There, at Ch'ie-tsing, lived a woman who, because she had dared to become a Christian shortly before, was beaten so repeatedly and severely by her husband that she died.

Twice Mrs. Ling visited her. The second time she was sent for by the elder brother because the woman was at the point of death. Mrs. Ling stayed to help perform the last offices, during which a younger brother arrived from a distance, and with every intention of charging the husband with the murder of his sister. The presence of Mrs. Ling further inflamed his anger.

If we do not beat this woman," he exclaimed, she will certainly take out our sister's heart " He forthwith called in the relatives, expecting them to help in seizing Mrs. Ling by the head and administering a sound beating. He stood in the house, loudly proclaiming his intention. But four of the women, not all of them Christians, made a ring round Mrs. Ling.

We will not let you beat her," they avowed. " It is a good doctrine she has conic to teach us."

I was not one whit afraid,'' our brave friend commented to me, even though in the house at that very moment lay one who had died because of the treatment she had received for the cause I stood for. I simply covered my face with my hands and prayed for help, and that the unbelieving spirit might be east out of him!"

Baulked of his design, the young man went outside, but instead of finding sympathy he met another non-Christian relative who showed his disapproval of such unseemly conduct. He not only beat the would-be beater, but' also insisted on his speedy departure I When he had gone, they buried the poor victim of man's inhumanity, in peace but not in despair.

Such was one of the plain and unvarnished tales to which I listened in the quiet of the study.

Once when Mrs. Ling and her comrade tried to fit in a kindness with their other work, they had a narrow escape from death. A friend in the city had not seen her mother for years, and her heart yearned for a sight of her face. Her father had died when she was a child, after which her uncle had sold her mother to a village in the hills, seventy miles off; nor had the daughter since had word from her. She longed to go and find her if possible, but dared not go alone. No one was willing to accompany her on so uncertain a quest. For eight long years she nursed the idea in vain. Then she heard Mrs. Ling was going in the right direction.

But you will go with me now to find my mother, will you not?" she entreated.

Who could resist the plea in such a cause? The promise was given. First Mrs. fling and her comrade spent some weeks in the City-of-Auspicious-Peace, which boasted of having given more officials to the Empire than any other city in the land. To their surprise, our two women were kindly received there by some wealthy families whose menfolk held high appointments under the Manchus.

Teach its how to speak to God," some of the ladies in one of the homes said. About this Mrs. Ling had not the slightest difficulty.

At the time arranged our three adventuresses set out, not, like Japhet, in search of a father, but of a mother! A day and a night they spent in a boat on the river. Then they reached 'Tsing-de, or Greenfields, and from there they started on a twenty-mile tramp inland. By the time they reached &&&0-low it was, as they expressed it, "inky-dark," and their first aim was to find a shelter for the night. Alack! All doors were violently slammed in their faces, and they realized they had projected themselves into a nest of human hornets. A mob of a hundred strong, made more terrifying to the defenseless women by the blackness of night, soon gathered round them.

You women have come to sow evil spirits among us," they cried.

At first they were dumbfounded, and at a loss to account for this grave charge; but they were not left long in doubt. They were told plainly that they were in the employment of the foreign devils," who paid them to go about secretly disposing of little clay images two inches long, and dropping these into all sorts of quiet nooks and corners.

After you go, in a week's time," they were told, " these images will grow in size and turn into devils capable of producing pestilence and death. We know you are paid a dollar for every seven images you dispose of thus!"

Is it to be wondered at that the deluded folk objected to the presence of such women in their midst, and proposed drastic measures? The very mildest of these was to seize, bind them, and sell them away into the distant hills, where they could do little further mischief.

Protests were in vain, and the women's hope of much-needed food and shelter small indeed. Then Mrs. Ling's mother wit suggested a way out of the impasse.

We want, we beg you to search us. You will find we carry no images on us " she cried.

The people jumped at the suggestion, and proceeded roughly to ransack their property and their persons. Only when they began to pull their precious books about did our women raise objection.

Do not insult our Sacred Books," they said.

As no images were forthcoming, and as two people in the crowd were bold enough to profess belief in their possible innocence, they were conceded the favour, not of entering a house, but of having some rice cooked, Ah me I During the process, the son of the house came home. He was highly incensed that so much had been granted. He made a terrible scene, and all the talking and persuading had to be repeated. It was long before the re-aroused suspicions were allayed; after which, and when they had eaten, our three worn-out women told the people who they really were, what their errand, and that they were would-be messengers of life rather than sowers of demons and death. This was all very well, and appealed to the people's sympathies, but not one person dared let them inside his house. As a great concession, they were allowed to sleep on an open veranda. One more kindly disposed person brought some of the rude screens used in the drying of sweet potatoes, and put these around their meagre shelter.

They were awakened before daylight by people wandering around, carrying lanterns with which they searched every yard of ground near them for the embryo demons I

I saw one of the three cast down an image," declared one man,

They found nothing, how ever, that could by any wildest flight of imagination confirm their fears. The women bravely stopped there till noon next day, talking, teaching, and making friends as best they could. Here at 0-low they discovered that the lost mother's village was still a long distance inland. So great were the difficulties and dangers of going further that even the daughter of the lost one agreed that the search must be postponed.

All the twenty miles back they were greeted with cries of Pestilence Sewers " The idea seemed widespread in that district. A crisis was reached when they arrived at the large village of Da-chang. Again they were set upon by a big crowd of exceedingly turbulent men and women, who proposed nothing short of their immediate death. Again were they charged with carrying those small but evilly expansive demons, and Mrs. Ling once more appealed to the women to examine then. So keen was the search that their belongings strewed the road, their bags were turned inside out, their books thrown into the dust and only rescued with difficulty.

It was a fearful ordeal for our trio. One dreads to think of the consequences bad the slightest article been found which the excited imagination could construe into an attempt at demon sowing." I have said that Mrs. Ling had courage; but she admitted to me in the study that at this point her heart sank. What could she say or do to appease those inflamed minds? Tile position had to be faced, and she faced it like the brave creature she is. Mounting a slight eminence, she begged then to listen to her. As she heed the mob of angry jealous country men and women, whom a wrong word or look would incite beyond all restraint, her nervousness was great.

My book actually shook in my hands " she told me. Lest they should see it trembling, I seized a favourable opportunity and shut it up.

Realizing that the lives of all three were in jeopardy, she poured forth from a fast-beating heart the story we know so well of goodwill, not ill-will; of love divine and not hatred. To a large extent she calmed the multitude; but receiving their imperative orders to quit; the trio proceeded on their way. They were followed by a crowd of irate women whose one cry was:

Let us seize them! Let us kill them! Let us beat them to death

Thankfully they escaped with their lives, and found their way once more to the river at Tsing-di. Here the other guests at the inn asked to hear their wonderful story. Fearing to annoy the landlord, they begged his gracious permission first, which was readily given, and to a late hour they told of the things they had learned, and the benefits they had received. A notable day

The following morning they left. In the crowded boat they were plied with questions the whole clay, and the following night also, and until they reached the City-of-Auspicious-Peace. On arriving home in the City-of-the-South, they were ordered a week's rest, and when I last saw them, they each laughingly held up to me a bottle of the doctor's tonic!

I fear me the lost mother was never found. As to how the Chinese of that period evolved the idea of Westerners

Sowing Demons," I can only add what I saw stated elsewhere at that time:

There are several books being published by the Chinese Government, and sold at cost price to encourage wide circulation, in which foreigners are said to practise this Black Art,' for unspeakably vile purposes. And it is remarkable that up to this date none of tire representatives of the foreign powers have effectively remonstrated with the Chinese Government, and made it clear to them that the Chinese Government is itself chiefly responsible for the anti-foreign and missionary troubles of the time."

OUR hearts sank, like stories to the bottom of a deep well, when we know our beloved Tsang-poa, T.P." for short, had gone. He, a man of the mountains, died suddenly of cholera out at sea, on the large lonely hilly Island of Jade Ring, which with its scattered hamlets stretches north of the wide mouth of our Bowl River. Alone there he died, save for the few friends of his own faith who, broken-hearted, were with him at the end. In his coffin they brought the fallen warrior in from the sea, as far as the City-of-the-South.

Only once in our chequered lives were we truly sorry for ourselves. It was now when the main pillar in the temple we were toilfully building suddenly collapsed, felled to the ground by one sharp blow from the remorseless axe of death. To this hour the poignance of our sorrow at his loss wrings our souls. His place in our lives, in our scheme of things, never could be and never was refilled.

"I would gladly have given my right arm to have kept T. P. with us," said Sing Su.

We knew that ultimately we might have to return to our own country for good but he, the only indispensable, would remain. Alas for our poor scheming. The order was reversed. He went and we remained, and for a time were well-nigh in despair.

No one knew the inside, and outside, ramifications of the study better than T. p. For years he practically lived there, easing Sing Su, as only a native-born could, of the burden of work in its many increasing departments. Without him these might have proved too much, even when other foreign colleagues came to our help.

Though never a smoker of opium, T. P., as we called him, was yet an offshoot of Sing Su's opium work, which began with Mr. 'ring but did not end with him. The fame of many subsequent cures brought to the city six men from Crystal Lily, a pretty village among the hills of Inner Western Streams." These men on returning home declared for Christianity, and began Christian worship in their village. They likewise invited exponents of the faith to visit Crystal Lily. When I went on a visit I was interested and amused by their primitive method of gathering the scattered hillfolk to church. A Chinese with good lungs blew vigorously into the mouth of a large shell or conch. The sound went echoing and re-echoing melodiously far and wide among the hills. To produce such glorious sounds was not as easy as it looked as I found when I essayed to do it. It was during these visits that T. P. and Iris father first became acquainted with tire tenets of tire Christian faith.

Summers " was his Chinese surname. He came from a respectable family, and was pure Chinese but there was an element foreign in them to Crystal Lily, as was proved by their name. This was Hsia-"Summers''-whereas the rest of the people bore tire name Hsu, and had belonged there from time immemorial. Not being members of the Hsu clan meant that the Summers family bad no clan rights that is, they could claim no share in the Ancestral Hall with its obligations, sacrifices, endowments, or privileges. In spite of this they survived and prospered, according to local standards. How long the Summers family had lived at Crystal Lily, or where they origin-ally came from, history does not say.

T. P.'s father was a silversmith. A country silversmith such as he does not as a rule have a shop in which to display his goods. Rather, as in our old troubadour days, he travels from village to village, riot offering goods for sale, but going to the families to which he is called '' or invited, for tire express purpose of fashioning silver ornaments. These are usually for betrothals and weddings, and consist of silver, or silver-gilt, hairpins, bracelets, and rings important articles of a bride's trousseau.

T. P. received the best education the village could give, after which he learned Iris father's trade, and as both were skilled craftsmen they were greatly in demand. But to T. P. that call from a fellow-craftsman, a Carpenter of Nazareth, came with an insistence that brooked neither denial nor delay. He not only responded himself, he must also win response from his fellow-countrymen to the universal invitation. So at twenty-one, behold him in the pulpit, a lay preacher as yet.

Of course a few regarded him with veiled or open criticism. Mr. Ting, for instance, the man of scholarly family and a scholar's degree, regarded T. P. as a forward youth. Was he not likely to make a damning error in the writing of Chinese characters, and was he rot lacking in the social standing he him-self possessed? Critics such as Mr. Ting were referred to St. Paul, who had a similar case on hand in the beloved Timothy.

"Let on one despise thy youth,'' quoth Sing Su.

In course of time T. P. gravitated cityward, and to a seat in the study, where he was indefatigable. He was the brightest and tire best of helpers; indeed the only really efficient Chinese aide-dc-camp Sing Su ever had. Never weary in well-doing, be more than once brought himself to the verge of the grave with his incessant work. An occasion came when we felt so anxious about him that we isolated him in one of our own rooms as the best and only way of ensuring him rest, peace, and restoration to health.

When he came on to the regular staff, as a matter of course he followed the rest in their journeys into the country, which, with its towns and villages, always called for more men than could ever be poured into it from our city. There he founded more churches and preached more sermons than any other, foreigner or native. Devoted, sufficiently scholarly, yet sagacious, his name became widely known and held in high esteem not only by Christians of all classes, but also by hosts of non-Christians, especially of the upper classes. Officials did not disdain his aid. Some of them, on a critical occasion, offered him through their intermediaries a large sum of money if he would use his influence in their favour. But this proved no temptation. In addition to his excellent organizing ability, he was a remarkable instance of devotion to his Lord.

To my satisfaction, T. P. had also that human touch which appeals to East and West. If not a dandy, he liked and saw to it that he had good clothes and he had a preference for clean personal possessions. These standards, particularly in country places, were hard to maintain for the Chinese had not then learned how to make soap other than a poor substitute, which looked like a mixture of coarse chopped straw and some other dark substance. Indeed the composition looked far more adapted to destroying than cleaning clothes, and was impossible for personal use. Normally the hard-working farmers had more than enough to do to supply their families with wadded bed-quilts in the winter, and how could they then provide for recurring and welcome week-end visitors? Sing Su took his own rolled-up bedding, and appropriated my house coolie to carry it slung at one end of his pole, with the provision-basket at the other end. But many of the Messengers of Peace trusted to Providence for bed-quilts I Of such was not T. P. He followed the foreigner's example, and had a coolie who carried his roll of bedding: and small blame to him for desiring so necessary a luxury. That apparently simple sign of hospitality, moreover, a clip of tea, weak and minus sugar, is of cost to the countryman. It is not the easy product of a fire of coals and a kettle always on the boil. It can be had in South China only by making a fresh fire of lie grass and twigs which have been laboriously scraped from the hills in the dry autumn weather, and which, at best, only produce a quickly expiring flame. T. P.'s coolie, like the foreigner's, made his tea for him.

Recently I read that the Chinese love Secret Societies. There is much to justify the statement, yet to our knowledge we never personally knew a single member of any Secret Society; nor did we wish to do so. Yet we also knew that in those days the land was riddled with them. Some officials were said to belong to one or other of these dreaded camorras. They were anti-dynastic or anti-foreign, and some were probably both, and I have told of the ravages on the foreigners at Kucheng and elsewhere by the White Lily Society. The Chinese are often called a peace-loving people, and that his is true, we could abundantly testify. All with whom we came in contact as friends were eminently peaceable. But it is equally true hat over the whole country in those days certain devastating, war-like, murdering, and ferocious folk banded themselves together who gave the lie to the idea that the country was entirely law-abiding and peaceably inclined. The year of fury, 1900, provided a notable exhibition of this. Westerners call its instigators the Boxers, as the Chinese belonging to the Society styled it The-Fists-for-Justice-and-harmony-Society. It was impossible for us to claim the Chinese as a peace-loving nation in those days. Nor has it been my happy lot to know a China wholly at peace within her wide borders from 1884 to this year of grace, 1931. For complete peace we still wait, with such hope and patience as we call muster.

It was singular that in 1900 the oldest and, presumably, the most seasoned members of our little community were absent from the City-of-the-South. Sing Su and I were in England during that period of awful strain and danger. Unknown to those whom she intended to destroy, the Old Buddha-as the Dowager Empress was called-issued an Edict to her highest officials, the viceroys, governors of provinces, and taotais, ordering them " cruelly to exterminate " every foreigner, or Occidental, within their jurisdiction. This Edict, we rejoice to know, did not meet with entire acceptance. Two of the highest officials in the capital, Peking, risked, and lost, their positions and lives. They dared to alter the word kill" to " protect the foreigners, and in consequence they themselves were slain by Her Majesty's orders. But in Shansi province the governor obeyed orders, slew with the sword fifty-six men, women, and children, mostly British, in his own official residence, and countenanced the killing of another hundred in the province. The governor of the next province, Tuan-fang, of gracious memory, acted differently. He sent for his missionary friend, Moir Duncan, took him alone, and secretly told him of the Edict ordering him to have them all killed.

I can keep this to myself for three days," said Tuan-fang to his British friend, "but no more. Tell your fellow-countrymen and go at once. To-night! Haste you!"

They did, and readied Hankow alive, after various dangers from Boxer soldiers en route. Later, Moir Duncan went down the river Yangtsze to Shanghai, thence up the coast by steamer to Tientsin, and on to Peking, which was then occupied by Western troops of every nationality. American, French, British, German, Russians, Japanese had been sent by their various Governments to relieve the Westerners besieged in Tientsin and Peking by the Boxers with the connivance of the Dowager Empress. Helped by some of her officials, she had shrewdly diverted the Boxers, who were primarily anti-Manchu, from the destruction of the dynasty to the extermination of the foreigners. One day in Peking Moir Duncan saw a number of foreign soldiers-not British, I am happy to say trying to force an entrance into a large Chinese house which was shuttered.

You must respect that house," he called. The owner saved our lives in Shensi."

When they would have ignored him, he communicated with their officers, who ordered them to desist. The house belonged to Tuan-fang: and in his turn Moir Duncan saved his property

Alas, the kindly and great man was later killed in West China by his own soldiers. One of the Chinese interpreters with the Chinese Labour Corps in France, whom Sing Su and I were some years later to entertain in London while they were on leave from France during the Great War, then told us he had himself witnessed the cruel deed. When Tuan-fang could not satisfy their unreasonable demands for money, the soldiers seized him and commanded him to kneel down.

I kneel to no one but my Emperor," he sturdily replied, whereupon they slew him: to the grief of the many Westerners as well as Chinese to whom he had been friendly, and some of whose lives he had saved.

All unknown to the handful of white people in the City-of-the-South that year 1900, the Dowager Empress's Edict to kill them lay there a fortnight Every official was in favour of putting it into execution except one. But, mercifully, he was the highest, and his will could not be easily overridden. Otherwise woe betide them At the peril of his own life, he resisted the importunities of the rest of the officials and said No." Even the effect of opium-smoking had not deadened his sense of right and justice, nor blinded him to a suicidal policy.

Instead, he, the Taotai, ordered the foreigners to leave the city anti seek the refuge of our beloved island, River's Heart, which, sixteen years earlier, after the riot of 1884, had sheltered Sing Su and myself. Though ignorant of the fatal Edict against them, the placards on the gates of our compound that they were all to be killed," coupled with rumours that the Boxers were nearing the city, decided them to obey the Taotai's instructions.

I had barely time to tumble a few necessities into a box or two," Mrs. Thanks told me later. And I could very well believe her when she wrote the following about her house, built a few yards away from the White House:

"It was heart-breaking to look round my bonnie home, knowing that the love gifts brought from England six months before would in all likelihood be burned or destroyed."

Mr. Thanks bravely spent the first night alone in our coin-pound in the city, and we can well imagine Mrs. Thanks slept little on the River's Heart. There, in the empty consulate, sixteen of them were marooned, and crowded together. They slept on the floors, six or seven in a room, using boxes and open umbrellas to support the net curtains necessary to protect them from greedy mosquitoes. One tiny wash-bowl served for all, and they were grateful for it. A newly married couple, after two days' honeymoon, had now to turn their attention to the saving of their lives. The suspense and uncertainty as to what was about to happen to them was the worst hardship they had to endure.

But the fears of the foreigners were light as thistledown compared with the sufferings and terrors of the Christian Chinese and those suspected of being friendly to the foreigners. The country places were the abodes of unlicensed cruelty. I can only mention a few of the deeds that were committed. In the City-of-Auspicious-Peace six of the Christians were, on demand of the Boxers, seized by the official. This man, however, did his utmost to spare them, and instead of yielding to the demand for their lives, he only beat each of them six hundred blows At White Springs they burnt the church, and beat the pastor almost to death. Indeed they would have killed him outright had it riot been for the protection of an influential man. Here also at White Springs fifty Christians lost their homes and their goods, and barely saved their lives by a bribe of three thousand &Aians-three hundred pounds; though how they scraped together this sum, enormous for them, was to us a mystery.

All the little churches in the South Creek were demolished, except at Maple Grove, our old friend Ding-er's place. There some of the gentry lent a hand in protecting the Christians, although formerly they had clapped Ding-er and others into prison for holding service on Sunday. Sad to say, we lost ill this region a most useful man. Usually a cheerful, hardworking, tall, strong fellow, he had been very ill for some time, and when the folk avowedly went to kill him, the shock proved too much, and he died. His place, too, was hard to fill. Many others were severely beaten. It was impossible for Christians to remain in the North Creek district, and they fled far afield.

From West Stream came the same deplorable story. There five little churches were destroyed, and the Christians robbed. One old woman was " beaten to within an inch of her life." T. P.'s own home at Crystal Lily was in this district, but happily escaped, in spite of threats. (It was the cleanest Chinese country home I ever saw, and it was creditable that it was so kept in Chinese circumstances.) In other directions conditions were equally bad. In one place all the homes of the Christians were destroyed. In yet another both church and boundary walls were destroyed, and in addition numbers of the Christians were dreadfully beaten, doughty Mrs. Ling among them. Concerning others, no one knew whether they were dead or alive. Many fled, suffering much in their flight, especially women, some being days on the hills without food. Others sought their relatives, who were afraid to receive them lest the Boxers should hunt them down and involve them all. Others, again, came to the City-of-the-South, but finding that place apparently little better, hurried still further away.

Here is the tale T. P. told when writing to his trusty friend, Sing Su, then in far-off England.

Our city is like Jerusalem at the time of the destruction, and the people are in great fear, though we know the Boxers can only kill our bodies, not our souls. It does seem as if God were trying us by fire. The refugees here in the city go to and fro weeping I do my best, bit find it hard to comfort them. Were it not that the Taotai has been good to us, we in the city would all have been killed before this."

Continuing his sad letter, he refers to himself.

I have rest neither night nor day. I am not trusting in my own strength, but with God's help I will certainly stay in the city. If it means death, we Christians will die together. If God protects us--well if He will that I should drink this cup, His will also be done. In the latter case, I only beg you to help my children."

When the foreigners were segregated on the island, T. P. heroically took on to his own shoulders the burden of his distracted countrymen. For them, alas, no such relief came as to the company of foreigners on the River's Heart. Having no telegraph or possible communication with the outside world, history repeated itself. How eagerly they watched, as Sing Su and T had done years earlier, for the steamer to find its circuitous way up the river I And they were just as uncertain as we had been as to whether it would come at all.

Arrive it did, and punctually for once! Their joy and gratitude knew no bounds. On board also was that admirable representative of orderliness, a capable British consul, armed with instructions to remove them. For it was totally impossible to protect them from the mob, who might exterminate them, since their lives hung upon the will of but one man, the Taotai, which might be set at naught. They had no option but to go; yet it was like the dividing asunder of soul and body. But for wonderful T. P. it would have been well-nigh impossible for the men at least. In the foreigners the sad Christians saw their one earthly hope of possible protection from their own barbarous ignorant countrymen. The officials, they reasoned, were bound to make an effort to protect this, if only through fear of consequences. Surely they might hope for some shelter under their wing, little guessing that but for the Taotai even the fate of the foreigners had been sealed, and all in one red burial blent," as happened in Shansi. It was when they clung about their foreign friends, particularly Mr. Thanks, begging him not to leave them, "like sheep without a shepherd," as they said, that T. P. again stepped into the breach.

Do not detain the foreigners," he counselled, with truly sublime courage and magnanimity. "We shall be safer without them," he tried to hearten them by saying.

This meant that on him alone, a man of thirty, would rest the whole burden of listening to the harrowing stories of the beaten, dispossessed, and homeless; of counselling them; of the labour of dispensing the monetary help, to provide which some of the foreigners stripped themselves bare, and which they undertook to supply regularly. What it all meant I can but faintly indicate. No wonder T. P. wrote " I have rest neither day nor night." And, physically, he was not a strong man.

The consul at once took command of his nationals, ordering them aboard the steamer that was to take them away-for how long, or if for ever, they knew not. The distraction of leaving behind such suffering was terrible. As the steamer dropped down the river, leaving the city wall behind, their hearts were unspeakably heavy and disappointed. Some of them had come up the Bowl River but a few short months before, full of bright hopes of the good they might do, and with few misgivings.

In that fatal 1900 China once more, over the whole land, lifted up her heel against the strangers within her gates, many of whom had placed their lives at her service. Again she inflicted shockingly wanton injury on her guests. But in consequence sire was herself a terrible and the worst sufferer. In our old world are stone walls the written and unwritten laws of civilization. For the last hundred years or so, our distressful China has wasted the strength she could ill spare by butting her head blindly against these walls, hurting most of all herself.

Months passed, bringing with the aid of the force majeure in Peking a measure of safety over the country. The irrepressible foreigners also returned to the City-of-the-South. Sing Su in England had offered to return when first the troubles began, but was refused consent.

Why place another life in jeopardy? "he was asked.

As soon as possible he went back. But meanwhile, whoever else came or went, T. P. remained. To his influence we attributed the fact that the city was saved from riot and bloodshed. He ministered. to the Christians who fled there by the score. It wag he who, along with Mr. Thanks, not only piloted the compensation claims of tire Christians to a satisfactory conclusion, but patiently struggled to have them reinstated in their own distant homes. During this epoch Sing Su wrote to me, left behind in England:

We are now fighting bravely the most dangerous circumstances we have ever yet passed through. The officials, in 1901, will do almost anything for us; the Christians know this, and some would love to take advantage of it,"

Who can blame them, after what they had suffered, for wanting to bask a little in tire sunshine of unwonted official favour?

But," added he, we are successfully resisting this spirit, which is largely due to T. P."

Would that now I could lay down my pen, saying, All 's well!" But the beginning of this chapter showed that this was not so. Again and again T. P. had bidden us adieu in the study before departing to the country work, to which he took an ardent spirit. Two brief years after the Boxer Rising, in September 1902, he said good-bye to Sing Su for the last time, He was due at Jade Ring, then our most distant outpost. Cholera was raging over the whole district. Later it was estimated that six thousand had died of it in the City-of-the-South, and twenty thousand in the countryside, during those two months of September and October. Sing Su expostulated with T. P., and tried to detain him.

Early September is too soon to start country work, T. P.," he urged. Wait a month. Give the cholera a chance to settle down before you venture. It will be over by October."

But T. P. declined to listen.

I am due there," he said, and the people will he disappointed if I do not keep the appointment. I do not know when the opportunity will come again. You know yourself how filled up is my time."

Then, as if to settle the argument he added:

Besides, I was born in this climate, am used to it, and can stand it better than you foreigners."

So, armed with the chlorodyne with which he had saved the lives of other cholera victims, but could not save his own, he set out on what proved to be his last journey.

When the funeral cortege from Jade Ring reached the City-of-the-South, our foreign custom would have brought the coffin to the city church for a service. But Chinese thought was adverse to this. Daily, coffins were carried out of the city. but full ones must not be brought in, lest the ghosts of the departed arise and trouble the inhabitants. So the procession halted, and a service was held on the bank of the wide river, outside the busy North Gate of the city. A huge crowd of Christians and non-Christians gathered. They listened in hushed silence while Sing Su told of their fellow-countryman's self-sacrificing life, laid down at thirty-two, after ten years spent in the highest interest of his people. It was an impressive occasion there on the river's bank. Then the big boat, with its light burden, was slowly rowed across the river, past the River's Heart, to the other side then away up the beautiful South Creek to the quiet grave among the hills which encircle Crystal Lily, where T. P. rests till the dawning.

What nobler tribute could be paid to T. P. than that which Sing Su paid in his first burst of grief?

We cannot entertain selfish aims and interests while such as he is gasping out his life so far from his loved ones. A dozen men could be better spared, and no three men can fill his place. To lose him-well, I am not sure it would not pay to lose me rather. He bad my warmest admiration, and how we are to manage without him I cannot think. And yet, thank God, T. P. was always as anxious as we were to make us independent of any one man, with the result that, outwardly, we seem to be in as good working condition as ever.

Among many others, for one thing alone we owe him a debt of gratitude that, do what we may, we can never repay. His devotion and faithfulness during the Boxer upheaval of 1900 were beyond reward.

Was T. P. then, perfect? Recalling the vagaries of my own human heart, I would unhesitatingly say No.

If, on rare occasions," said Sing Su, " admonition was called for, T. P. always received it in a chastened spirit never, so far as I knew, with pride and resentment. He learned by his mistakes."

But a Greater than T.P., the Master of the exacting demands, said, "Be ye perfect." judged by that incomparable standard, would T. P. stand or fall? We thankfully resign the office of judge into the hands of One who also loved this young man, and with a love that was Perfect. As for us, we shall not look upon his like again.

The study door is closed.

IT was evident I could not take our two young children to England without help from sonic one for a sharp attack of pneumonia had reduced me almost to the point of extinction, and this after our passages were booked. Sing Su would go with us as far as Hong-Kong, but could leave his post for no longer, he said. What was to be done?

An idea occurs to me," he suddenly said. The Bread-maker, Ah Djang, shall go with you as amah! Why not? His devotion to the children is beyond dispute."

Indeed we had often said it was a pity Ah Djang and his wife could not exchange places. But, alas, Amah could not cook, though Ah Djang could nurse. When this original idea of his accompanying us was mooted, be readily consented.

When I lose Da-ling and Sea-borne, I shall buy a child," Amah decisively announced to me shortly before our departure.

A boy, of course," I rejoined.

No," she emphasized strongly, I shall buy a girl."

What for?" I queried, knowing the supervalue of sons in China.

Because a girl will look after me when I am old," she predicated.

Buy a girl she did, for the sum of half a crown. We did not refer to this when her pretty little maiden joined the happy throng that clustered round me when I began life afresh as a schoolmistress.

Before our departure friends brought us wonderful, if curious, presents. To Sea-borne was given a Chinese official hat ready for when he became a mandarin. To Da-ling was given an elaborate Chinese lady's toilet-box, made of fine wood. This is now in the possession of her little niece, Sea-borne's daughter, whose delight it is to pull out the small hidden drawers or open the brass entwined fishes with which the box is closed. To all of us were brought cakes, eggs, and sweetmeats: provision for the journey !

It was evening when we embarked on the s.s. Eternal Peace, accompanied thereto by a large company. Some of them, to enhance the occasion, carried long flaming torches, plaited strips of bamboo dipped in kerosene. "Do take caret," I cried to one who had flung his torch perilously near somebody's thatched roof abutting on the roadside. We did not wish to go off with a flare of burning buildings. Loud resounding crackers heralded our departure-to the terrorizing of Da-ling, who was always cowardly in the matter of gunpowder.

From Shanghai to Hong-Kong was terribly stormy. We were driven hundreds of miles out of our course, it was said. So ill was I that I wondered how I could possibly survive the remaining" ten thousand miles." In Hong-Kong came the sad parting with the close companion of nearly eight years. He was to go back to country journeys, duty, and diligence. But, be it noted, the wander-lust was not dead. Sing Su returned to Shanghai by way of Canton, Swatow, and Amoy-a circuitous route I

On our P. & O. liner were only two Chinese. Both were following the devious fortunes of trusted Western friends. One was Ah Djang; the other was the servant of the British consul who was in the City-of-the-South during the 1884 Riot, and who was now en route for his new post in Burma. The consul, Mr. E. H. Parker, was a great scholar who afterwards became Professor of Chinese in the Manchester University. Both Chinese asserted they could get nothing to eat. The English stewards did not want them, and they in turn objected to feed with the lascars.

"Those lascars," remarked the Bread-maker disdainfully to me, "are so barbarous they eat with their fingers!

In the end the consul, with the Chinese in tow, sought an interview with the purser, who asked what their requirements were.

See how moderate is my needs I " proclaimed the consul's man. " Rice and eggs are all I ask."

The Bread-maker required only rice and fish to keep him in life. I trust they achieved this simple diet. As I dared not ask, I never knew, for I could do no more for them myself.

Before leaving Hong-Kong, Sing Su advised me.

If you feel equal to the strain, you had better let the Bread-maker return home from Colombo, the half-way house to China. England is a difficult place for one who speaks no English. You will not need him in Yorkshire, anti he would feel lost in London."

Already Ah Djang was realizing the unconscionable distance fast piling up between himself and the City-of-the-South. Sing Su cautioned me:

"If you decide to dispense with him, immediately you arrive in Colombo, find out a missionary and ask his kind permission for the Bread-maker to stay on his premises for the fortnight that must elapse before a China-bound P. & O. steamer can pick him up again."

Easier said than done. The instant we reached Colombo I took a carriage; and tire whole family, including the Bread-maker and his chah-la, dress-basket, set out in search of a Messenger of Peace. Alas, there was an unseemly dearth. Not a solitary missionary could T find. We ended at the post office, and in the directory I searched for the addresses of people in Colombo there for the benefit of others than themselves. Not a single person of that ilk was tabulated as living there. True, there were some living in outlying districts, but I had no time to go after them, as our steamer left in a few hours.

Glancing in despair further down the page, behold, writ in large capitals was this:" Salvation Army Barracks" and in Colombo too. I was ready to leap for joy, and no wonder, with a non-English-speaking Chinese on my somewhat frail shoulders. We soon found the Barracks, which was no misnomer for the building. The friendly Chinese ill charge told me the " Major " was out, but if we would return in half an hour he would be back and all would be well. As we drove about the town, back there came to me that smell of the Far Fast which had first assailed my nostrils in Colombo in 1884. Sir Walter Lawrence speaks of it as an odour of turmeric; but to me it rather bespoke the concentrated essence of too great an abundance of salt fish!

Suddenly there appeared before our wondering gaze a vision of beautiful angels. Never, thought I, have I seen such heavenly visitants from an ethereal world walking on earthly roads. Two fair-haired, fair-faced women, enveloped in semitransparent draperies of soft apricot shade, floated into view. Who could they be? Surely the satellites of an Oriental potentate.

Salvation Army lassies," we were told, to our astonishment, when we inquired. Never before had I seen figures so appealing to the imagination.

On returning to the Barracks, I was taken upstairs into a perfectly bare room, where, seated behind a table, was the Major, a lean-faced, tanned Englishman resplendent in a gorgeous red jacket. He rather chilled me. Listen he did to my tale of difficulty, but with no encouraging word or smile when I appealed for help. He made amends, for at the end be quietly said he would do what I asked.

Your man can stay at the Reformatory here tin his ship comes.

"Oh!" I cried, but he is a perfectly respectable man. I could not leave Ah Djang in the company of thieves, even reformed. And he has good clothes, you know.

I had noticed that" Reformatory for Thieves "was placarded large on a building as we had driven about the town. There was a convenient small square hole cut in the bare floor, and the Major called down it.

Is that room near the front door empty?

No, but it will be at midday," came up the answer.

The Major then said that our man-servant could stay ill that room.

A man shill go with him to show him the market, where he can buy his food. When the steamer conies, we will escort him to the ship. Please, however, warn him about one thing. There are thieves all over the world, but I verily think bigger ones in Colombo than anywhere else Warn him never to leave his room without locking the door."

In a short time the Bread-maker's fate was settled. When I asked the Major how much I might have the pleasure of paying for this undiluted milk of human kindness, he replied

You will pay nothing."

And though, in distress, I begged to be allowed to acknowledge such service in the only way open to me, nothing would move that stubborn Englishman to take my money.

Sorrowfully enough we left the Bread-maker there at the front door of the Barracks, chah-la and all. When I told him of the need to keep the door of his room locked, he cried

"I'll never stir outside till I go to the ship."

This vow, needless to say, was more honoured in the breach than the observance when the strangeness had worn off. But the parting with our faithful old servant-friend seemed like severing the last link between us and our dear home in China. I gladly forgave his impertinence when, with overflowing eyes and tremulous voice, he actually said to me: Mistress! You will take care of the children, won't you?" I knew what he meant. They were what mattered most in his, in both our eyes

Faithfully the Salvation Army Major redeemed his word. How can he not for ever after hold a high place in my esteem and in the Bread-maker's? When the day came, members of the Army not only escorted him to the ship, but sought an interview with the captain, inviting him to take so important a passenger under his own wing. From me the solitary Sing Su received a letter, peremptorily requesting him to send that Major or his successor as big a cheque as the exigencies of our purse would allow. Nor was it returned.

One delightful episode during that voyage was the gracious act done by a great lady, the Marchioness of Lansdowne, then on her way home from India. To give happiness to the children, she one day presented each child with a handsome toy. Da-ling was the joyous recipient of a Japanese lady, in full costume. It still exists somewhere, in its glass case. But think of the additional labour of carrying along a case of toys for children one had never seen, nor would ever see again

Our landing at Dover in March 1892 was the acme of discomfort. It was bitterly cold and drizzling, and I thought we never should disembark from the small cross-Channel boat. We might have been criminals, so tiresome and prolonged seemed the Customs inquisition to us travel-worn passengers. Once ashore, I rushed with the children into the Lord Warden Hotel. That, too, felt cold, so I hurried the lambs and myself off to the warmest place I knew, our beds. In the morning I was informed a gentleman wished me to know he had arrived in the middle of the night, and would await me downstairs.

Please light a fire, or I shall never get out of bed," I said to the chambermaid. As close up to it as we could stand, I managed to make Da-ling and Sea-borne presentable; then sent them down, holding each other's hands, to find their unknown Uncle. On joining them I found a brother, of sacred memory, engrossed in making love to the two little people, and doubtless trying also to discover what queer effect their having been born and bred in such a peculiar land as China had upon them. The Bread-maker had parted from us aliens from across the seas with tears in voice and eyes. The Englishman greeted us in precisely the same manner. Which helps to prove that East and West are akin in that important factor, the heart.

We were escorted north by the same generous-hearted brother, and deposited safely in the old home from which I had gone forth nearly eight years before. It had seemed then an adventurous journey. Three out of the five brothers among whom in tomboy fashion Iliad grown up gathered round the happy tea-table, making it cheerful with their jokes and laughter. To the venerable dear grandparents the children, despite the lack of anticipated pigtails, were the greatest wonder of all; and they remained their delight for the short span of time that was left to them.

I have called it the old home," but Oak Tree House was both old and new, its history being closely interwoven with the fortunes of the district in which it stood. The first Oak Tree House had what, in my childish days, seemed an enchanted garden. Nowhere else were there such big rhododendron bushes, or with finer blooms; this despite the harsh climate. Huge trees, which were rarities in that neighbourhood, grew exceedingly tall. They provided sympathetic gloom for my chagrin in their leafy branches when the band of brothers refused to take me with them on their nefarious and punishable escapades because I was a girl, forsooth!

When it was discovered that a seam of stone ran under the house and garden, their fate was fixed. Down came the trees, also the house, the latter to be rebuilt near by on land that had already been delved, or emptied of its stone. This land had been remade, that is, restored to its original appearance by the same earth being tipped back into the chasm. Much of the land round about. had been remade in this fashion, and was considered good enough for most purposes. Certainly it proved capable of upholding the weight of such buildings as the new Board Schools when they became the vogue. For economy's sake, much of the old stone was used in the building of the new Oak Tree House, which gave the house a semi-aged appearance. But even so, the rooms were large and comfortable, and it was no mean abode.

A new garden replaced the old, but there was never anything enchanting about it in my eyes. Big trees and rhododendrons declined to flourish on such man-made soil. The greatest charm was the prospect-the local name for a view. Below us, on clear days, from our front door, it resembled a far-reaching, wide-stretching amphitheater, rising gently to the horizon. On this were sprinkled distant villages and towns, amongst which we proudly counted thirteen tall church spires. Our summers were rarely warm enough for us to dispense with fires, and our winters were rigorous. How the wild winds blew; and how glorious it was to go racing out on a dark night, to be searched by them, and almost blown to pieces by their fierce onslaughts!

We towered eight hundred feet above the old town, and for many years the Bank was the only road from it to us. It was tortuous and extremely steep a corkscrew. The weekly drive to town included walking half the distance of two miles. Only the driver, my mother at this part of the road, was allowed to retain her seat in the high two-wheeled trap as it crawled slowly down the mountain-side, or Bank, its speed held in check by nothing but the strength of the horse's legs. The ascent was even harder, and was accomplished by the steed slowly zigzagging and dragging the trap, with its self-same occupant, up to the top, where the rest of us remounted and drove happily home. I believe I could recognize to-day the upward-toiling stranger who, sixty years ago, stood stock-still in amazement and admiration. His eyes followed my mother's every movement as she guided her horse round that last precipitous turn at the bottom of the corkscrew Bank. A change all this from the semi-tropical City-of-the-South!

On a plateau at the summit of the hill stood Beacon Pan, a raised iron structure with a basket for fire at the top of it, My mother would tell tales of how the old town celebrated the Crimean victories when its heroes came back "from Russia." Oxen, whole, were roasted in the streets of the town below, and at night a great fire flared far and wide from Beacon Pan. In those days, though, Beacon Hill was covered with trees and verdure. Now, alas, mill chimneys, chemical and other works in the busy town, have marred its visage. The hill is as bare as a board, with scarcely a blade of grass to relieve its grey ugliness. On the brow of the hill, for about a mile and in the direction of Oak Tree House, were a few scattered stone-built houses and grass fields enclosed by stone walls; then the beautiful prospect, and the beginning of another long but less sharp descent into another Bottom. Our way home from the top of the Bank passed by the wind-swept house which Emily Bronte made the prototype of Wuthering Heights. We were as a city set on a hill. Every departure therefrom entailed a descent; but the Bank was the worst. And yet even it fell into desuetude. For there is one lesson which the returned traveller learns to-day, and that is that his own country is not standing still, any more than the land of his sojourn. He comes back and perceives the changes and improvements to which those on the spot have already grown accustomed. And when his own kin have helped to bring about these developments, he realizes the value of good family stock.

The town fathers wished to bring us under their rule and governance by making us a ward in their township. To render this palatable, they offered to cut at the town's expense a wide brand-new road, which was to slope gently round the face of the mountain, down into the town. The offer was accepted after much discussion. Ever after, only a few hardy pedestrians went the old way. We came across a little belated urchin one evening who expressed his preference for the new but longer route.

"The Bank shakes my belly so I " he reasoned, without mincing his speech.

We were more than a village we were a wide district-a big shoulder thrust out from the backbone of England, the Pennine Range, over a corner of which ran the remains of an old Roman road. Buried in that shoulder ran valuable and tremendous seams of beautiful stone. Indeed, there the only plenitude was stone, and by it and from it my forebears and their descendants earned their livelihood. Nor was it an obscure calling. Blocks of their stone found their way to Lancashire for the making of chemical cisterns to London, for public buildings like the General Post Office to continental cities, for similar purposes. Its flags paved the Thames Embankment, and are there to-day, glistening in the rain. Its setts no doubt still sett the streets of Lima, in South America. Nay, the enduring threshold steps of new quadrangles in this old university city of Oxford come from those bold quarries. Only now, when the natural product is superseded at times by handsome-looking but less permanent substitutes, made stone," does one realize what a remarkable occupation had the quarry-owner and stone-merchant. He leased, often for a generation, land which he knew or suspected contained stone. He paid perhaps a couple of guineas a yard for the privilege before he began operations.

Nor were the men who wrought the stone featherweights, either in stature or character. I overheard a harassed quarry-owner's complaint one day.

All quarrymen are difficult, but ours seem the most awkward of all! "said he.

I never heard what the men said of their masters, but I know they wasted no outward signs of deference upon them. A young lady visitor who drove round to some of the quarries with us uttered indignant protestations.

Fancy! "she said, shocked. Those men call your father by his Christian name, without either a Mr. or a Sir.

Drink, unfortunately, was the bane of too many of them, and on it their wastage, in time and pocket, was grievous Perhaps the carters were tile worst sinners. It was pitiable and past bearing when they kept teams of beautiful patient horses standing with empty carts by a public-house door for hours at a stretch while they drank. I remember as a girl going out into the centre of the road to escape a number of our own quarrymen as they came reeling along the causeway after a long sojourn at a public-house. They noticed my pronounced attitude.

"That's Charles Farrar's lass," stuttered one to the others "shoo 'a flaid o' Us."

You are right," I thought. I am indeed afraid of you."

Probably it was the same man who, on these occasions, invariably referred to his wife as our old bed-stocks,'' that is, " our old bed-posts!" Possibly this was a term of affection, implying reliability on her part.

But among these quarrymen were others of a different calibre. Undoubtedly when given a chance, Grace makes havoc of original sin. From a quarryman I have listened to a sermon as chaste and beautiful as one could desire. During the Great War the fear of one young man was not lest he be killed (which he was). But he feared lest he become contaminated by the bad language common in the camps.

These huge men were specialists in their own way true quarrymen who had learned their trade as bearers, delvers, hewers, and quarry-hill men. They wrought with iron chisels and round hardwood hammers, either on the quarry-hill or in the open depths below. They split by hand the rough blocks to the best advantage. Then they chiselled and wrought upon them till they were as smooth and level as a board; fit for a place of honour in the buildings to which they were assigned.

When a new quarry was to be made, the bearers were the first on the spot. No weakling could be a bearer. Theirs the heavy task of digging and removing the earth and shale till the stone was bared. They might dig and shovel to perhaps a depth of a hundred and fifty feet before a particle of the hidden treasure revealed itself. With the aid of wheelbarrows the bearers filled a truck with the soil, which was sometimes loosened by blasting, and the truck was then attached to a massive chain hanging from the crane above. An engine, balanced perilously on the edge of the crevasse, drew the truck to the surface, after which it was emptied into some convenient tip or dumping-ground. The deep rents and gashes made by the quarries into the breast of Mother Earth were wild, cruel, and shapeless, and sometimes left so for all time. How such labour, such tremendous efforts as were required could be made to pay, is a mystery. Often they failed to pay. Most of the stone had also to go down the fearful corkscrew Bank to town and rail. The biggest blocks were chained fast on to the heavy four-wheeled waggons, drawn by glorious horses, the strongest horse being put into the shafts. Indeed the long-suffering creature was sometimes forced on to its haunches in a noble effort to hold back the huge weight pressing on it from behind down that Bank. An iron slipper placed under a back wheel was all that could be used to impede the descent. Though it was sometimes a hair-raising spectacle, we never suffered a serious accident on the Batik, as far as I recall.

Such was the neighbourhood into which I introduced the two little strangers from China. It was there we left them on our return to that far-off land, and they too learned to love the click-click of chisel on stone.

They have fallen among thieves," said my father, and soon indeed did their beautiful English show it I

Oi'll poise tha," I found Sea-borne practising one day, which means "I'll kick you!" I stood him with his face in the corner.

But times have changed: and for the better. Compulsory education created for the time being two languages: one in the elementary schools, spoken by the children to their teachers, the other for home consumption Landmarks have been removed. From the high wall in the main lane the stocks have disappeared. About 1866, when I was a small girl, I saw a poor daft young fellow sitting with his legs imprisoned therein for some unknown offence. Gone, too, is our Witch of Endor. Once my girl cousin pointed to an old woman standing at her cottage door.

She is a witch," said she.

"How do you know? I queried.

Every night at eleven she stands at her door and calls Tom, Tom! to her witch's black cat " Proof indisputable. What fearful joys my children had missed

Gone, likewise, are the hard-drinking quarrymen and carters. Near our biggest quarry was a public-house, where, on wage day, the men formerly went, and remained till half their sturdily earned money had gone down their throats. Recently a new landlord was required, and a candidate came to view the premises and make inquiries. It was wage day. when he discovered that there was only one customer that day, and he merely for a packet of cigarettes, he concluded that The White Horse would be a bad speculation; and left it.

China had changed during those eight years; and England had changed too-and for the better. And while my father and brothers had brought the good stone to the surface and trimmed it and sent it to the service of man, had we not, those many thousand miles away, found good stone also: fit for the City whose foundations are sunk on a Rock? Nor can either sort of stone be had without labour and intelligence, and sometimes heartache.

SING SU was an adept at setting people to work. I never knew his equal in telling others what to do; it usually ended in their wishing to do it! On the two of us returning alone to the City-of-the-South, he was not backward in informing me what he expected of me, and I fell into the trap.

People in England," he reasoned," are exerting themselves in bringing up and educating the two little folk we have so confidingly entrusted to them. What is more fitting than that you should show your gratitude by caring for the neglected girls of our Chinese city?" Such was the origin of my Girls' Day School the first of its kind in the neighbourhood.

But for it," said a Chinese city magnate at a public meeting thirty years later, " we should not have any such day schools in our city

Golden-hearted Chang's three young orphan girls were my nucleus, the only boarders. How I loved that seat of learning, the big airy pleasant whitewashed room, which ran alongside our green lawn! My difficulty was to be functioning inside it at nine in the morning because of other and domestic duties. But it was still harder to leave it at half-past one, when imperative messages would come across from the White House, saying that Sing Su demanded my immediate presence at the belated tiffin. In the afternoon I handed over the jurisdiction to a fatherly pedagogue, who introduced the girls to the intricacies of reading and writing" characters"; a better term for which, or so it seems to me, would be hieroglyphics.

What then was left for me to teach them? Much! To read and write the vernacular, their mother-tongue, for which there were often no equivalent " characters." As I have already said, Sing Su had reduced the dialect, the spoken language, to writing with the aid of our English alphabet, thereby giving the unlearned a new and easy method in which to express them-selves in writing. This method many rapidly and joyfully adopted. For the first time in their experience they could write what they spoke, a delightful revelation to the men, women, and girls connected with us, and no less so to me. We began school dictation thus.

Write down: 'Nyi va ch'ih ba mi? ' "I would say to my damsels, it being their commonest saying, meaning, " have you eaten your rice?

This they would do almost straight away, and correctly, according to the spelling they had learnt from Sing Su's primer, and which he had arranged phonetically to suit their sounds, though not in the same order as our English alphabet. Then I would call upon True Cloud (Tsang Yung) to read aloud what her little fingers had written. She would do this clearly but mechanically, not comprehending what she had read. I would look at her, and repeat the sentence.

Well now," I would ask, " what does it say? You know it well enough!"

The light of comprehension would slowly steal over her face. I believe she would have danced if she had known how, for joy at the great feat she had accomplished. For the first time, not only in her own but in the existence of her forebears, she had written, read, and understood a sentence she spoke every day of her life.

In this dame's school simple arithmetic was inculcated. But perhaps the lesson they most needed and found most difficult was how to sing. It is impossible to imagine sounds more nasal than those which our young girls emitted. Our Pilgrim Fathers could not begin to compete with them. Sometimes I tried to teach them how not to sing nasally by imitating them. My efforts were at least provocative of laughter. I wonder if this form of singing, excruciating to us, had its origin in their idea that all singing should be falsetto. When Edie Thanks, aged six, returned from England and went to church for the first time, she hid her face on her mother's arm and wept with fright as the volume of awful sounds tore the air when the singing began. But a couple of weeks found her lustily adding her small quota to the rest of the congregation. The girls improved greatly, and soon were able to play a helpful pad as choir on Sundays, when, so far as the general congregation was concerned, every man's voice was in direct opposition to his neighbour's. Early one Christmas morning this girls' choir came and serenaded me with " Christians, awake I Salute the happy morn." In the afternoon at church they sang "Hark! the herald angels sing," so sweetly in time and tune that Sing Su could not refrain from crying out in English.

They sing like little angels !

Sewing was also part of our curriculum, and came easier than singing. When China New Year arrived and every one ought to wear, according to revered custom, some new garment, each of them could proudly don a coat of tier own sewing. I also obtained patterns of the beautiful drawn-thread work for which South China was already noted. In view of their hand-to-mouth existence, I longed that they should be able to earn more than the thirty to seventy cash, or penny-halfpenny, a day which was all that the ordinary woman-worker did earn at straw-sandal plaiting, almost the only outlet for her industry. Their skill with the needle went far beyond mine. Their butterflies and their spider's webs I never attempted. During the sewing-hour I one day saw a big girl, Siu-iang, crying over her piece of work.

What are you crying for?" I went and asked her.

"I cannot do it," she sobbed, like any other girl in the world. Bring it to me, and let me see if I can do it," I valiantly.

proclaimed. In reality I shook in my shoes, fearing my inability would put me to shame before my whole school. She obeyed, and to my relief it proved easy. I showed her how it was done, and dismissed her in lordly fashion.

There, take it, and never cry over any work again.

I fear me, she may have done.

Later Siu-iang produced the most elaborate drawn-thread work, the proceeds of which helped to keep both herself and her mother-in-law from want. For Siu-iang's fiance died, and she became a widow before she was a wife.

In former days it was a good working principle for the Christians to be even stricter than their neighbours in the observance of local ordinary customs. So, as it was considered undesirable for young girls to be much in evidence on the public streets, we avoided it as much as possible by giving them their midday meal at school. It was no light task filling forty rice-bowls twice or thrice over but two girls were told off at a time, and accomplished it with the supervision of the school amah, It was wonderful during that period at what little cost it was done, and gratifying to hear of the girls saying how much more they enjoyed that meal than any they had at home!

I had only one rule in the school. Every mother who came to ask permission for her daughter to attend received the same answer, whether Christian or non-Christian.

Yes, certainly, but you know the condition. I cannot take any girl whose feet are bound."

The promise to send the girl with " heavenly" or unbound feet was readily given. One or two of the girls had pastors for their fathers who were in full sympathy with the anti-foot-binding movement, then in its unpopular infancy. One of the girls would sometimes come to my side,

"Precious Pearl and True Cloud have their feet bound again," they would whisper. I would nod in silent acquiescence, not being sure whether I ought to rebuke them for telling tales in school. But too much was at stake, and presently I would retire into an outer room, taking Precious Pearl with me. I would speak as kindly as I knew how.

I hear you have your feet rebound, and you know it is not allowed. I want you to take off your bandages and give them to me."

Off would come the yard-long narrow strips, and I never gave them back. Indeed, I made quite a collection, till they ceased to supply. Yet even the daughter of a" reformer " rebelled at our ruling!

True Cloud," said the girl's mother, "herself insists on her feet being bound. When I refuse to do it, telling her that her father would be against it, the child retires with angry tears into a corner, and with pieces of cotton tries to bind her own feet!

"Oh, why? "I asked.

Because one morning, coming to school, she heard the workmen on their benches calling to each other, ' There goes a girl with her mother's face and her father's feet.' " Verily the supply of bound feet had been in exact ratio to the demand from the men, at whose doors, therefore. the sin of foot-binding rightly lies!

Afternoon school ended; the girls on fine days were invited to come out on to our green lawn, and there disport themselves in all sorts of lively games. If you had seen them as they gambolled about me, or if you could have peeped at them playing long-legged stork, catch-who-can, oranges and lemons, fox and geese, or exerting all their strength and tumbling over each other at tug-of-war, you would realize, as I think they did finally, the beauty and value of "heavenly" feet. So great was their enthusiasm that one day, on going out to give an eye to them, I found they had enticed our great-hearted doctor to join tile merry crowd. There he stood, arms outstretched. Each hand was firmly grasped by a girl who, with the aid of a long tail of companions, was struggling against the united force on the opposing side to pull him over the line I More than once, when I went out to demand less noise, I remained to play, and to hide my diminished head for if the doctor could withstand their efforts to pull him over the white chalked line, it was more than I could do. It was Da-ling, who visited us from England for a couple of years, who instituted these games. When she joined in their singing, too, they learnt what life could really hold of youthful vim and gladness. They had to be driven away to their uninteresting dwellings.

It pleased me to think we were making history in those early endeavours. I magnified my office.

Once a girl has learned," said I, " to read and write and say Our Father,' she surely will never be content unless her girls and boys can do as much, or more.

She, too, who had had the full use of her feet was never going to submit her daughter's pretty little ones to be painfully crippled for life. She who had romped and skipped up and down our lawn for joie de vivre could never quite forget the zest of it. Never, while the world stands, would she cease to demand as much for her children. As if in comment, this last year the women of Hupeh, in Central China, issued a public declaration. " No longer will we submit to oppression," it runs. I make no comment, only smile.

But the objective I took most seriously to heart was the conducting each week of two women's classes, besides which the school was child's play. One assemblage was held in the girls' schoolroom at the foot of our garden. The other was held away, just inside the thickly populated West Gale, a couple of miles distant. Two classes a week sound easy enough. My difficulty lay in the strange medium: the unknown tongue in which I had to present my case, and which I could not as readily as did Sing Su adopt as my own. When speaking of Holy Things, it was undesirable to make of oneself a laughing-stock, as, for example, when one day I said, I am the true Vine: we are the gimlets." So easy to fall into are these pitfalls that one wonders if in South China the foreigner ever quite escapes them, To the credit of the Chinese, never once did I see them laugh at my mistakes or anybody else's. In that they were perfect gentlefolk.

All my thinking and careful writing out and committing to memory had to be done daily and before nine o'clock in the morning. Then school began and quietness was unobtainable. Many of the women were older than myself. If ignorant of the truths with which I desired to enrich them, they had a hardworking experience of life which earned my warm regard and sympathy. I wanted them to like me as much as I did them. Out to the less formal and sedate West Gate meeting I took my tea. Eagerly they fussed to see that the water was properly boiling Sometimes while I was speaking a man would creep in at the door behind us and listen for a while to the foreign woman. One day it was bad weather.

It is too stormy for you to be out in this," they kindly said. I ventured because I wanted to meet with you," I replied. One of the women rushed to a distant group.

"What do you think of that?" she cried. She says she has come because she wants to see us!"

So I had.

Variety was necessary to keep them interested. After the Gospels, the Old Testament stories and the detailed history of the children of Israel made absorbing appeal to their Oriental minds, and supplied us with any number of afternoon studies. The plagues which troubled Pharaoh they eagerly learnt, every one of them, by heart I There was Joseph, whose little living prototype they saw in his gay patchwork coat every day in their own streets. There was Moses, the lawgiver and the great leader, whose fatal solitary lapse into anger appealed to them. Had they not always been taught that Anger is a sin, and not merely a slight failing?

It was the women of these two classes who contributed half the expense of sending Mrs. Ling and her companion into the country. She was their messenger rather than mine.

A man once presented himself at one of these assemblies with a live duck for sale. Every enticement to buy left me cold.

But," be finally urged, "it is seven years old, and therefore extremely nourishing!

It never nourished me, to my knowledge.

I did not fail to present myself at the appointed time, unless illness or absence prevented. Then I would send an accredited substitute: perhaps a spirited or a favourite pastor in from the country, and to them doubtless a welcome change. For six years I filled my empty hands, and not unhappily, by working away at school and class. It is not a bad way to pass the time. I can recommend it to other European or American women who find themselves in Eastern lands.

TWENTY miles up river, Sing Su and myself! We started at ten in the morning, and breathed a sigh of relief when

the scurry and hurry inseparable from any up-country journey were over. At such times there would seem no end to our necessities. We envied the Chinese traveller, whose abundance on these occasions consists in the fewness of his wants. He sets out with his small bundle of bedding, a bag of rice, and odds and ends of pai or rice accompaniments, such as salted fish or salted vegetables. We want our tea and coffee, bread and butter, sugar and milk, tinned meat, live chickens, books, bedding, towels, soap: this host of luxuries which have with long usage become necessities.

As it had rained for six months more or less, and rather more than less, we bad also to provide ourselves with changes of raiment in case of a drenching. The beat of summer, too, was certain to be upon us before our eleven days' trip was over, and to the extent of 90 or 100 degrees in the boat. We had to see that some of our thinnest clothing was put in, if life was not to become an insupportable burden.

We could buy little or no food on the way. Ah Djang had a busy time the previous day, baking bread, making butter-from the cream of buffalo milk-and the oatmeal biscuits which Sing Su loved. Whilst he had been thus engaged, we had been busy with another kind of Leaven at our new little hall outside the West Gate of the city.

Last, but not least, boatmen had to be found who were not opium-smokers, if we wished to reach our destination at the appointed time. For this journey Christians usually came down the forty miles from Greenfields to row, and tow, and sail us up there. So we put off engaging others till the last moment, in expectation of the former suddenly appearing round the corner. For once we were disappointed; with the result that on the morn of our departure our coolie, the Bright One, had to rush all the way to the West Gate to try and hire other Greenfields men, these being the only ones to be depended upon to navigate a large boat as far up the Bowl as we wished to go. He returned with victory at his prow, but displeasure on his brow. There are Marthas amongst the Chinese, and they are frequently of the masculine gender. But most things are reversed in China He bad secured the boatmen.

But the Boy, Pearly Glory "-aged fifteen-" has been guilty of going to the boat empty-handed, and left me to convey all the chattels," he complained. He held up a salt-cellar no bigger than a thimble. '' See,'' he said with. solemn visage, "he has not even taken this! Or this!" He produced a tiny milk-jug.

Never mind," said I, unable to rise to the enormity of the situation, "leave it to him."

"That would never do," the Bright One firmly replied. "What sort of a going into the country would it be for you without a salt-cellar?" He tucked it and the jug somewhere inside his loose garments with a martyred air.

Eventually we sallied forth; but not before Sing Su h ad greeted and collogued with people in from an island out at sea. Fatigued with my labours, I went out to the boat in a sedan-chair, carrying on my lap, and for Sing Su's exclusive use, Dr. Giles' huge Chinese dictionary. Almost as big as a pagoda, we called it mockingly our pocket edition. 'this burden the Bright One eyed with disfavour, and suggested he should carry it.

It is no heavier than a child," I sighed. He grinned and acquiesced in my keeping it, evidently deeming such burdens wholly female.

At last we were under way, though not sure of reaching our destination to time, for there was a tremendous, freshet in the river, and the water tore down between the banks. However, from 10 A.M. to 8 P.M we made twenty miles, helped by a favouring wind. Our wide Bowl River had overflowed its banks in parts, and we took a free passage over submerged rice-fields. The day was grey. The clouds rested low on the hills, which journeyed with us on both banks all the distance. We were relieved there was not a glaring sun, The rains had given a beautiful soft appearance to the hills, whose blended reds and greens recalled to my feminine mind a rich shot velvet I had seen in a Shanghai shop a year previously.

Men were busy in the fields as we toiled slowly onwards. Some were up to the knees in mud and water, planting out the young rice in mathematically straight lines. Others, again, were ploughing with an antediluvian plough and a small bullock. One ploughman had an interesting attendant in the form of a heron, perfectly white except for a yellow head and a green mark down the centre of its back. It strutted gravely in front of the man. At one part a long sandy reach tempted us to disembark and stretch our limbs; but after walking quite a distance, we found it was easier to alight than to re-embark. We had both to be carried through mud and water on the shoulders of a boatman. This excited nobody to laughter except myself. The others bad seen it too often. At dusk our boatman gave the signal for lowering the anchor.

Very well," said Sing Su;" but remember we must surely be at Greenfields by to-morrow noon.

As everybody knew this was impossible if they finished work for the day at this stage, they took the hint. They cooked some rice to cheer their drooping spirits after a hard day's toil, and then went on till S P.M., to an anchorage where we rested for the night. Next day, Saturday, our men noisily cooked their rice at "daybreak."

"Daybreak is seemingly at 2 A.M.," said Sing Su grumpily to my inquiries as to the time.

They rowed on till eight, when we stopped for breakfast. This Sing Su and I took on the bank, out of consideration for my boat-squeamishness for Chinese boatmen rock and roll their boats the whole journey, and attempt no sort of smooth passage. It could not be called a comfortable meal. Our table was at an angle, tire bank was exceedingly wet and slippery, yet it was a great relief to be once more on terra firma, or some approach to it. Of course a group of women soon gathered; and a red-letter day it was to them seeing our very simple table spread. One little girl, who stood close by, was just healing up after smallpox. We had to hasten away; but, you may be sure, not before inviting them to go to So-bu-Sand-stage next day to hear some Interesting News.

At one place the men climbed out to tow the boat, four of them, including Pearly Glory. Great fun it was at first to watch them laughingly slip and slide along the sandy slope; but Pearly Glory had to be warned to keep some of his strength for the four-teen-mile hard walk he had still in store that day. We reached the city, Greenfields, by half-past one, after a terrible amount of labour: towing, pushing, poling, against a fierce current and rapids. We saw two men pulling at the tow-line of another boat; and though they were straining every muscle and had their heads bent almost to the ground, they could scarcely move the boat a foot. We had a better breeze than the previous day, or our journey would not have been completed in time for us to set out for the ultimate destination, which was a village called Great-Pass-Behind. We spent half an hour at Greenfields talking to the faithful about a Christian who had been beaten almost to death recently in an ancestral temple.

Early in the afternoon, fearing rain, we set out, knowing the journey would take till long after dark. The rain started soon after ourselves, and poured down the greater half of the way. We arrived wet through, but thankful that neither had the river drowned us nor the precipices engulfed us; for this journey to Great-Pass-Behind is one of the most impressive in our neighbourhood, and I never weary thinking of it. After leaving the boat, we at once began to ascend the first Zing, or "pass "-mostly by steps. When we consulted our aneroid at the top, we found we had left the river and the city on its further bank six hundred feet below. At the head of the pass stands a heavy stone gateway, built for defence during the rebellion of forty years earlier, when the Taipings swarmed over this part of the country but were ultimately subdued, with substantial help from General Gordon. On and up we mounted, over five great passes, one after the other, until we reached a height of 2359 feet above the river. A region of towering hills lay about us, countless, billowing like the waves of the sea, but more beautiful because of their infinite variety in form and colour.

Then began the descent, mostly by paths little better than ledges cut round the hills; often dangerous. The breaking of a chair-pole or of a cord, the slip of a foot, must have precipitated us hundreds of feet, and dashed us to pieces. At one spot the path was so narrow and broken-down that I begged my bearers to let me walk over it. They insisted on carrying me over. I called to Sing Su, heavier than myself, to walk this part; which advice he of course disregarded. Looking back in fear, I saw one of his bearers03-2-10 slip at the crucial part, and instinctively I let forth a terrified cry: which was also disregarded.

It was a relief to reach our stopping-place: as usual, the last house in the village. But we received a hearty welcome to the farmer's dim residence. A mud floor, so saturated with wet as to be slippery, was our portion; but it was their best, and soon we had changed our sopping garments and were at supper and remarkably cheerful. After a little service, greatly desired by the people, there was bed for me. But Sing Su was held in talk and consultation till a late hour. Seeing he could only visit this out-of-the-way station twice a year, there were arrears to be made up and inquiries as to the progress made. The Christians, too, were glad of the chance to pour forth their forebodings into a sympathetic ear. Their enemies were breathing out threatenings and forging their thunderbolts in expectation of scattering the little flock and reducing them to the condition of social outcasts.

On Sunday the country people wakened us at the hour, luxuriously late for them, of 6 A.M. Busy sounds of life were around us. In the adjoining room a young boy had evidently been told oft to amuse the baby. Most efficiently he performed this time-honoured office; but with considerably more expenditure of lung power than seemed necessary to us, for only a thin wooden partition separated us from him. Christians were singing hymns in different detachments, and in different gamuts too. Not one of the tunes could we recognize, though they had learnt them from us. The key was always minor, and more in the style of a dirge than a joyful lay.

We dressed under difficulties. No sooner did we open a window-that is, a wooden shutter, for glass had not yet found its way to Chinese homes-to permit of our finding our garments, than the aperture was immediately filled with a dozen pair of eyes-men, women, and children's. The only way was to collect our clothes, shut the shutter, then scramble into them under the protection of darkness. We opened the shutter again while washing our faces and combing our hair, so as to satisfy curiosity within limits. The Bright One brought us breakfast, and immediately after we went into the large house-place, where services are held. It was already filled with sound as well as people. each man bawling his loudest. The house-place is the principal room, and in this case was long and low. The various sleeping-rooms were ranged down the length of one side, being partitioned off with rough unpainted woodwork. With the exception of a corner at one end, which was partly boarded off as a kitchen, the entire side opposite was open to the dripping hill against which it was built. This arrangement gave the inmates any advantages to be derived from free admission of wind and weather.

There is very little in common between a Western and a Chinese oh-tser-ha, or kitchen. Here there was no chimney; so, during the cooking, all the smoke from the dried grass and wood used as fuel escaped into the house. This accounts for many of the sore eyes and much of the grime and cobweb which have become second nature and hardly noticeable. The cooking-stove was a structure of brick, with a big shallow iron pan fixed in the top for the boiling of rice underneath was an aperture for the fire, which is made of dried grass and brushwood cut from the hillsides in the dry autumn weather. The good wife's kitchen bellows amused me greatly. When she wished to fan the embers to a flame, she took a hollow bamboo stick, inserted one end in the stove and the other in her mouth, and blew.

But there is always much sickness among these poor people. This their foreign friend, Sing Su, found once again when he dispensed medicines after the service at the modest charge of ten cash, or a halfpenny a patient!

In spite of continued wet there was a fine congregation of sixty. The text was My peace I leave with you," and the subject the kind of peace which could be given by a Man on the eve of crucifixion. Very attentive were those countryfolk, a large number standing through the service, and seventeen of them partook of the Bread and Wine at the end. But in China children too often are quite unchecked. No attempt was made to keep the children here in order, and half my time was spent in trying to subdue a lively youth of four, who answered to the name of Chao Sing, or Saving Star. There was such a crowd of patients that Sing Su had to come into our bedroom and have them in one by one.

Let the eighteenth now present himself!" our faithful chair-bearer, the Buffalo, who appointed himself on guard, would call.

Meanwhile I had the honour of being introduced to a musical genius. No stringed instrument was said to be beyond her skill. Indeed the lady contemplated a journey to the City-of-the-South in order to attack the foreign harmonium I A portly dame of forty, she kindly favoured me with an exhibition of her skill on her two-stringed violin, also promising to sit by my side and play all evening if I would only stay another night. Her father had taught his daughter music.

Not," she explained, that it is of any monetary use, but it gives pleasure to ourselves and others."

A dear old chatty body whom T visited in another part of the premises looked with disfavour on our Western style of hairdressing, so rough-and-tumble compared with file well-oiled tresses of the daughters of Cathay. She opened a drawer, and after fumbling about in it for a long time, drew out a very suspicious-looking comb. This she then offered me, pointing at my front locks. I hope the profusion of thanks with which I declined the kind intention eased any hurt to her feelings.

After tiffin I talked with the women, of the Burden-Bearer. Sympathy soon drew forth the story of their hardships and trials. I still commiserate one little mother.

I have so many, many children," she said, I really do not know what to do I

Verily life is much the same 'ill the world over.

(ii)

After another service and a cup of tea drunk with our loins girt, so to speak, we left for 0-ko-die, or Summerfields. For three or four miles we wound up what Sing Su called our Kicking Horse Canyon. It is a long lonely gorge, with beetling crags hundreds of feet high hemming it in. The narrow path is cut in the hillsides and zigzags in and out, up and down, following the curve of the hills. A rushing torrent, breaking now and again into cascades, and fed by streams from the almost perpendicular hills, filled the bed of the canyon. Lovely white flowers, wild gardenia, huge dog-rose, and jasmine there wasted their sweetness, in the companionship of delicate ferns and maidenhair. We ascended a considerable height, but had a still deeper descent on the other side. So precipitous was it that we literally could not see our way for more than a dozen yards at a time, and often less. It was all I could do to avoid slipping out of my chair. Down, down, well-nigh straight down, with truly a curious sight on either side. In close proximity there were, not the hanging gardens of Babylon, but the hanging rice-fields of China. With infinite patience, immense labour, thousands of little terraces had been built up and carved out of the solid hill, each one carefully prepared by the husbandman, then inundated, and now waiting for the young rice-plants.

Though Sing Su and I were the first foreigners who had ever been to Summerfield, the villagers were remarkably courteous. Few followed us to our goal, the small homestead perched on the very edge of the hill, difficult of access. The low cottage had but a few yards of standing-room in front, and of this no small share on either side the door was monopolized by what in China is tantamount to the ashpit in the West. On our way we had heard glowing accounts of the great efforts and remarkable provision made for our accommodation. I shall not be far from the truth if I say we slept in company with the pigs, for our bed was divided from them by a boarding over which we could peep, and which did not reach the low ceiling. The two families of porkers might as well have been in the same room with us. Every snore and every movement was heard, and one must admit that the smell of pork is more agreeable roasted than raw. This chamber at Summerfield had also the further distinction of a large and damp rock which jutted out of the mud floor. But we had been more provident than the Patriarch Jacob: we had brought pillows with us.

The house-place, where we attempted to eat our meal, was a mass of closely packed faces all about us. Fortunately we were invited to the house below to hold service, and there a quiet attentive audience listened while Sing Su held forth twice over, by request. Afterwards we came back to the now quiet hill, where eight candidates for entrance into the church were examined, and approved. One of these was a bright-faced old lady. Though seventy-six, she had walked two hard miles to service, and had the honour of being the first of her gender to accept the New Doctrine in that locality! About ten o'clock, for the first time the Sacrament was celebrated in this weird outlandish spot; and was most solemnly partaken of by the light of the lantern we had brought with us. Shadows lay thick about the little room. I, near the door, could see the dark black wall of hills facing us on the opposite side, and catch the gleam of water in the narrow valley between, hundreds of feet below. Then the little company dispersed, each bearing his long strip of flaming bamboo as torch, without which it were dangerous to life to stir a step in the dark.

So the long day ended. It had held three services, two Communions, eight baptisms, forty or fifty patients, a visit to a local mandarin-after the morning service at Great-Pass-Behind, and six miles hard travel, much of it on foot.

(iii)

On Monday we were wakened at five. Our alarum was the near cry of a pheasant; and before seven we had left our high-perched eyrie, though not before Sing Su had given medicine to a score of people. These knew the practice, if not the proverb, of the early bird catching the worm!

From then till two in the afternoon we passed rapidly through another portion of this vast region of ten thousand hills and valleys, the beauty of whose ravines and gorges no feeble words of mine shall defame. After the long rains nature was particularly verdant. The heavens were a canopy of blue, save for a few fleecy clouds which still resisted the rays of the increasingly hot sun. To the two of us, denizens of a malodorous insanitary city, no small part of the charm Jay in the pure and illimitable breathing-space: and in the spirit of all-pervading peace and restfulness. Gradually the discordant notes in our hearts were toned to silence, into unconscious harmony with our surroundings. Here it were easy indeed to cease from man for as far as the East is from the West, so far seemed city dirt, strife, and squalor. We were alone, save for our bearers, amid a vast solitude, a world within a world. Every turn of the path revealed fresh ranges and yet deeper valleys-all, until now, untrodden by barbarian feet. Numberless rills streamed down the mountain-sides and formed themselves into a torrent whose voice, as we passed by, was more resonant than our own. Yet once and again a note was struck which instantly carried me away to an English wood: it was the voice of the cuckoo.

The Chinese have their own legend of the cuckoo. In ages long gone by a certain farmer neglected the call of spring in his fields. When he sowed, it was too late. The winter came and found him foodless, He paid the penalty of his idleness and died of hunger. As a warning to others the gods transformed him into a cuckoo; and now he and his descendants must for ever cry to the laggard farmer, "Kue-kung! Kue-hung! Kue-kung! Work on! Work on! Work on!

At times we were at giddy heights. I learned how hardened one may become, even to the extent of riding for half a day on the outside edge of precipices in a chair slung between two bamboo poles, with the additional excitement of being suspended over an abyss at every corner we turned. Our last descent must have been two thousand feet. Here and there the path twisted like a corkscrew, placing me at an angle of fort-five degrees in my chair. We wound too much to have a view of the bottom from the summit, but when it came into sight, it was of a frightening depth below. At one spot stood a fine fir tree more than half burnt through, to extract the resin, The tree seemed no worse for the cutting. It would not die, we were told, though it would never refill the sad wound in its trunk.

Before leaving Summerfield Sing Su had astonished its inhabitants by his method of shaving, which had to be performed in the open.

He rubs over his f. ace a little silver brush, and it is done in a moment I '' said they to the belated visitors The little silver brush was a safety-razor, a boon in such circumstances.

As we swung down the hill, I walked beside my chair,

"You have followed our custom, and plaited your hair into a pigtail," remarked one bearer approvingly. "It is much cooler done into a knot behind, too, as you have it; we know that!"

At two in the afternoon we reached Little Creek, where we were disappointed not to find our boat waiting. We were to learn the reason later. The inhabitants were greatly exercised in mind as to our appearance, and crowded round to suffocation.

Do you ever comb your hair? they wanted to know of me.

Did I do this, did I