coffee and there seemed to be many more courts leading on
one behind another as they do here, sometimes fourteen or more, with
chains of houses around each one.

As for the dinner, I forgot to say that the cook is a remarkable man,
Fukien, who gave us the most delicious Chinese cookery with French names
attached on the menu. Cooking is apt to be named geographically here.
Most everyone in Peking came from somewhere else, just as should be in a
capital city. But they seem to keep the cooks and cook in accordance
with the predilections of the old home province. They have adopted ice
cream, showing the natural sense of the race, but the daughter of our
host told me that they do not give it to the sick, as they still have
the idea that the sick should have nothing cold.

They are now thrashing the wheat in this locality. That consists of
cutting it with the sickle and having the women and children glean. The
main crop is scattered on the floor, as it is called, being a hard piece
of ground near the house, and then the wheat is treaded out by a pair of
donkeys attached to a roller about as big as our garden roller. After it
is out of the husk, it is winnowed by being tossed in the breeze, which
takes the time of a number of people and leaves in a share of the mother
earth. The crops are very thin round this region and they say that they
are thinner than usual, as this is a drier year than usual. Corn is
small, but there is some growing between here and the hills where we
went, always in the little pieces of ground, of course. Peanuts and
sweet potatoes are planted now, and they seem to be growing well in the
dust, which has been wet by the recent day of rain.

PEKING, June 25.

Simple facts for home consumption. All boards in China are sawed by
hand--two men and a saw, like a cross-cut buck-saw. At the new Hotel de
Peking, a big building, instead of carrying window casings ready to put
in, they are carrying big logs cut the proper length for a casing.
Spitting is a common accomplishment. When a school girl wants excuse to
leave her seat she walks across the room and spits vigorously in the
spittoon. Little melons are now ready to eat. They come like ripe
cucumbers, small, rather sweet. Coolies and boys eat them, skins and
all, on the street. Children eat small green apples. Peaches are
expensive, but those who can get the green hard ones eat them raw. The
potted pomegranates are now in bloom and also in fruit in