to all other open ports, who is a supporter
of missionary effort, is pleased to find that his preconceived notions
as to the hardships and discomforts of the open port missionary in China
are entirely false. Comfort and pleasures of life are there as great as
in any other country. Among the most comfortable residences in Hankow
are the quarters of the missionaries; and it is but right that the
missionaries should be separated as far as possible from all
discomfort--missionaries who are sacrificing all for China, and who are
prepared to undergo any reasonable hardship to bring enlightenment to
this land of darkness.

I called at the headquarters of the Spanish mission of Padres Agustinos
and smoked a cigarette with two of the Padres, and exchanged
reminiscences of Valladolid and Barcelona. And I can well conceive,
having seen the extreme dirtiness of the mission premises, how little
the Spaniard has to alter his ways in order to make them conform to the
more ancient civilisation of the Chinese.

In Hankow there is a large foreign concession with a handsome embankment
lined by large buildings. There is a rise and fall in the river between
summer and winter levels of nearly sixty feet. In the summer the river
laps the edge of the embankment and may overflow into the concession; in
the winter, broad steps lead down to the edge of the water which, even
when shrunk into its bed, is still more than half a mile in width. Our
handsome consulate is at one end of the embankment; at the other there
is a remarkable municipal building which was designed by a former City
constable, who was, I hope, more expert with the handcuffs than he was
with the pencil.

[Illustration: THE AUTHOR'S CHINESE PASSPORT.]

Our interests in Hankow are protected by Mr. Pelham Warren, the Consul,
one of the ablest men in the Service. I registered at the Consulate as a
British subject and obtained a Chinese passport in terms of the Treaty
of Tientsin for the four provinces Hupeh, Szechuen, Kweichow, and
Yunnan, available for one year from the date of issue.

I had no servant. An English-speaking "boy," hearing that I was in need
of one, came to me to recommend "his number one flend," who, he assured
me, spoke English "all the same Englishman." But when the "flend" came I
found that he spoke English all the same as I spoke Chinese. He was not
abashed, but turned away wrath by saying to me, through an interpreter,
"It is true that I cannot speak the for