se, you can slip in between mountain and river and find yourself
at Yunnan-fu, the provincial capital, after a railway journey of only
three days and a half from Haiphong, the port of Tonking.

When first planning a visit to West China, I set my heart on going in
from the west, for I had long wished to see the wild, picturesque
country that lies between the Burmese frontier and the Yangtse. Years
before, I had looked across the border and promised myself that some day
I would find out what lay on the other side. But when the time came the
difficulty of securing a Chinese interpreter in Burma forced me to go
to Hong Kong, and once there, lack of time made it necessary that I
should choose the shortest route into West China, and that was by way of
Haiphong and the Red River railway. After all, there were compensations.
Even a fleeting vision from the windows of a railway carriage gives some
idea of what the French are doing in their great Eastern colony.
Moreover, there could be no better starting-point for such a trip as I
had before me than the free port of Hong Kong, and the comfort of
arranging an outfit in a place where East and West meet untrammelled by
custom-houses is not to be despised. As a rule it is a mistake to bring
an elaborate outfit from home. Generally each place has worked out just
the devices that best serve its particular needs, and much of Western
travelling equipment does not fit in with the conditions of Eastern
life. Shoes and saddles the traveller from the West wisely brings with
him, and of course all scientific apparatus is best provided in Europe.
But in the main I found all that I needed, whether of Eastern or Western
manufacture, in Hong Kong, and at surprisingly low prices. Interpreter
and cook I had secured from Shanghai. The former, a Kiangsi man, was the
product of mission schools and a year in an American Western college. He
spoke English fairly well, and was sufficiently at home in the various
forms of Mandarin to get on in Yunnan and Szechuan. The cook had come
down the "Great River" from Chung-king with an English family returning
home, and was glad to work his way back, even though by a roundabout
route. Although he spoke no English, he understood European ways and was
quick to comprehend my wishes. And he proved a faithful, hard-working
fellow, and a very passable cook.

By the end of March my preparations were complete. The boat for Haiphong
was to leave at nine o'clock on the mor