nd of meeting any difficulty that arose.

To my surprise I was able to buy oil for our lanterns on the street
here. One does not think of the Standard Oil Company as a missionary
agency, but it has certainly done a great deal to light up the dark
corners of China, morally as well as physically, by providing the people
with a cheap way of lighting their houses. Formerly when darkness fell,
there was nothing to do but gamble and smoke. Now the industrious
Chinese can ply his trade as late as he chooses.

I was sorry to say farewell to my kind hosts, but it was good to get
away from the trying heat of Ning-yuean plain, all the more oppressive
because of the confined limits of the mission quarters set in the heart
of the city. The only escape for the missionaries during the hot months
was to a temple on one of the surrounding hills. I was glad to learn
that land had been secured at a little distance from the present
compound for more spacious accommodations. People at home do not realize
the difficulty of getting fresh air and exercise in a Chinese town.
Walking inside the walls is almost impossible because of the dirt and
crowds, while near the city all unoccupied land is usually given over to
graves. In Ning-yuean really the only chance for exercise short of a
half-day's excursion, perhaps, was on the city wall, where I had a
delightful ride one afternoon.

It was the morning of April 29, when we finally started, my caravan
being now increased to seventeen men, as I had advanced the interpreter
to a three-bearer chair and given his old one to the cook, who as a
Szechuan man should have been able to walk. But he seemed hardly up to
it,--in fact he gave me the impression of an elderly man, although he
owned to forty-one years only. It needs a trained eye, I imagine, to
judge of the age of men of an alien race.

On passing out from the suburbs of the town, charmingly embowered in
fruit orchards, we struck across the open, treeless plain. There was
little land that could be cultivated that was not under cultivation, but
as yet the fields lay bare and baked in the burning sun, waiting the
belated rain, as this part of the valley cannot be irrigated, owing to
the lie of the land. Rain fell the first night, and after that neither
the soil nor I could complain of dryness. Our first stop was at Li-chou,
a small, comfortable town at the head of the valley, with a bad inn. It,
not Ning-yuean, which lies a little off the main trai