e themselves with a good deal of authority.

We spent that night in the parish house just behind the little church, a
bare schoolroom being turned over to us for our use, and it seemed very
luxurious after we had set up our cots, tables, chairs, and bath tub; but
the house was in the center of the town and the high walls shut out every
breath of pure air. The barred windows opened on a street hardly six feet
wide, and while we were preparing for bed there was a buzz of subdued
whispers outside. We switched on a powerful electric flashlight and there
stood at least forty men, women and children gazing at us with rapt
attention, but they melted away before the blinding glare like snow in a
June sun.

That night was not a pleasant one. The heat was intense, the mosquitoes
worse, and every dog and cat in the village seemed to choose our court yard
as a dueling ground in which to settle old scores. The climax was reached
at four o'clock in the morning, when directly under our windows there came
a series of ear-splitting squeals followed by a horrible gurgle. The
neighbors had chosen that particular spot and hour to kill the family pig,
and the entire process which followed of sousing it in hot water and
scraping off the hair was accompanied by unceasing chatter. Boiling with
rage we dressed and went for a walk, vowing not to spend another night in
the place but to sleep in the _sampans_.

On the whole our river men were nice fellows but they had the love of
companionship characteristic of all Chinese and the inherent desire to
huddle together as closely as possible wherever they were. On the way up
the river to Yuchi every evening they insisted on stopping at some
foul-smelling village, and it was difficult to induce them to spend the
night away from a town. Moreover, at our stops for luncheon they would
invariably ignore a shady spot and choose a sand bank where the sun beat
down like a blast furnace.

The Chinese never appear to be affected by the sun and go bareheaded at all
seasons of the year, shading their eyes with one hand or a partly opened
fan. A fan is the prime requisite, and it is not uncommon to see coolies
almost devoid of clothing, dragging a heavy load and with the perspiration
streaming from their naked bodies, energetically fanning themselves
meanwhile.

Mr. Caldwell was _en route_ to Yuchi, one of his mission stations far up a
branch of the Min River, and as there was a vague report of tiger in that