ments of their human patients of the same great family, he examined
the poor mule with the inscrutable air of one to whom are unveiled the
mysteries of futurity, and he retired with his fee. The medicine came
later in a large basket, and consisted of an assortment of herbs so
varied that one at least might be expected to hit the mark. My Laohwan
paid the mule doctor, so he said, for advice and medicine 360 cash
(ninepence), an exorbitant charge as prices are in China.

On Friday, April 13th, we had another pleasant day in open country,
leading to the low rim of hills that border the plain and lake of Yunnan
city. Ruins everywhere testify to the march of the rebellion of thirty
years ago--triumphal arches in fragments, broken temples, battered idols
destroyed by Mohammedan iconoclasts. Districts destitute of habitations,
where a thriving population once lived, attest that suppression of a
rebellion in China spells extermination to the rebels.

On the road I met a case of goitre, and by-and-by others, till I counted
twenty or more, and then remembered that I was now entering on a
district of Asia extending over Western Yunnan into Thibet, Burma, the
Shan States, and Siam, the prevailing deformity of whose people is
goitre.

[Illustration: THE BIG EAST GATE OF YUNNAN CITY.]

Ten miles before Yunnan my men led me off the road to a fine building
among the poplars, which a large monogram on the gateway told me was the
Catholic College of the _Missions Etrangeres de Paris_, known throughout
the Province as Jinmaasuh. Situated on rising ground, the plain of
Yunnan widening before it, the College commands a distant view of the
walls and turretted gateways, the pagodas and lofty temples of the
famous city. Chinese students are trained here for the priesthood. At
the time of my visit there were thirty students in residence, who, after
their ordination, will be scattered as evangelists throughout the
Province. Pere Excoffier was at home, and received me with
characteristic courtesy. His news was many weeks later than mine. M.
Gladstone had retired from the Premiership, and M. Rosebery was his
successor. England had determined to renew the payment of the tribute
which China formerly exacted by right of suzerainty from Burma. The
Chinese were daily expecting the arrival of two white elephants from
Burma, which were coming in charge of the British Resident in Singai
(Bhamo), M. Warry, as a present to the Emperor, and were the offic