nnot be purchased.

All of our plates and films were sealed in air-tight tin boxes before we
left America, and thus the material was in perfect condition when the cans
were opened. We used plates almost altogether in the finer photographic
work, for although they are heavier and more difficult to handle than
films, nevertheless the results obtained are very superior. A collapsible
rubber dark room about seven feet high and four feet in diameter was an
indispensable part of the camera equipment. This tent was made for us by
the Abercrombie & Fitch Company, of New York, and could be hung from the
limb of a tree or the rafters of a building and be ready for use in five
minutes.

The motion pictures were taken with a Universal camera, and like all other
negatives were developed in the field by means of a special apparatus which
had been designed by Mr. Carl Akeley of the American Museum of Natural
History. This work required a much larger space than that of the portable
dark room and we consequently had a tent made of red cloth which could be
tied inside of our ordinary sleeping tent.

Our equipment was packed in fiber army trunks and in wooden boxes with
sliding tops. The latter arrangement is especially desirable in Yuen-nan,
for the loads can be opened without being untied from the saddle, thus
saving a considerable amount of time and trouble.

It was by no means an easy matter to get our supplies together, but the
Lane & Crawford Company of Hongkong pushed the making and packing of our
boxes in a remarkably efficient manner; as the manager of one of their
departments expressed it, "the one way to hurry a Chinaman is to get more
Chinamen," and they put a small army at work upon our material, which was
ready for shipment in just a week.

While in Hongkong we were joined by Wu Hung-tao, of Shanghai, who acted as
interpreter and "head boy" as well as a general field manager of the
expedition. He formerly had been in the employ of Mr. F. W. Gary, when the
latter was Commissioner of Customs in Teng-yueh, Yuen-nan, and he was
educated at the Anglo-Chinese College of Foochow. Wu proved to be the most
efficient and trustworthy servant whom we have ever employed, and the
success of our work was due in no small degree to his efforts.

We left for Tonking on the S.S. _Sung-kiang_, commanded by Harry
Trowbridge, a congenial and well-read gentleman whose delightful
personality contributed much toward making our week's stay on hi