s_, November, 1893:--

"Soon after this trial had passed away (the rumours of baby eating),
still more painful internal sorrow arose. One of the members, who had
been baptised three years before and had been useful as a preacher of
the Gospel, fell into grievous sin, and had to be excluded from Church
fellowship. Then a little later a very promising inquirer, who had been
cured of opium-smoking and appeared to be growing in grace, fell again
under its power. While still under a cloud he was suddenly removed
during the cholera visitation."

The China Inland Mission has pleasant quarters close under the city
wall. Their pretty chapel opens into the street, and displays
prominently the proclamation of the Emperor concerning the treaty rights
of foreign missionaries. Seven children, all of whom are girls, are
boarded on the premises, and are being brought up as Christians. They
are pretty, bright children, the eldest, a girl of fourteen,
particularly so. All are large-footed, and they are to be married to
Christian converts. When this fact becomes known it is hoped that more
young Chinamen than at present may be emulous to be converted. All seven
are foundlings from Chungking where, wrapped in brown paper, they were
at different times dropped over the wall into the Mission compound. They
have been carefully reared by the Mission.

At the boys' school fifty smart boys, all heathens, were at their
lessons. They were learning different subjects, and were teaching their
ears the "tones" by reading at the top of their voices. The noise was
awful. None but a Chinese boy could study in such a din. In China, when
the lesson is finished, the class is silent; noise, therefore, is the
indication of work in a Chinese school--not silence.

The schoolmaster was a ragged-looking loafer, dressed in grey. He was
in mourning, and had been unshaven for forty-two days in consequence of
the death of his father. This was an important day of mourning, because
on this day, the forty-second after his death, his dead father became,
for the first time, aware of his own decease. A week later, on the
forty-ninth day, the funeral rites would cease.

CHAPTER VII.

SUIFU TO CHAOTONG, WITH SOME REMARKS ON THE PROVINCE OF YUNNAN--CHINESE
PORTERS, POSTAL ARRANGEMENTS, AND BANKS.

I engaged three new men in Suifu, who undertook to take me to Chaotong,
290 miles, in thirteen days, special inducement being held out to them
in the shape of a rewa