A LETTER FROM CHINA.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 313, 28 September 1908, Page 3

A LETTER FROM CHINA.

We "are permitted to publish the following . extracts'-* from ,'a letter, written by a ladj travelling.'in China to her daughter in Wellington.",;; She had spent some days' time in ' the Empire, landing at Hong-Eong and going ,to Peking, .-thence - up the river to : Cnefoo, and back across to Japan. "We.are now on board a Japanese steamer half'-the tonnage of the Nikko Maru. As regards passengers, there are only ourselves, an ilrish schoolmaster and his son, a boy .of -eleven'. or; twelve;' from ... San Francisco,, and a Japanese officer.-. Tho captain is able, to -speak; very little English. The saloon is small—just two-tables, with seating capacity fprabout seven each, "a small pantry on each side}' then three cabins on. each side, and bathroom at tho end, all on deck, so there is good ventilation. Tho food is very good ana varied with plenty of fruit, bananas, loquats,- yellow; juicy things, with' "ple'ntee'atones inside, small apricots that look nice and are not bad if ■ you have finger bowls, and. pears that aire like' juicy' turnips. These we have':had. all tlie way from Sydney, and this ship has the best brand of prunes and nuts. . Tho soups aro a. specialty, very creamy and rich. — ' "We left Tientsin at 9 a.m. in a smart little tender, -expecting.'to get on board in a couple of : hours; as we heard the' bar had been removed' to' enable steamers to come up. However,' we were really seven hour's, and we;must have done sixty miles.' It (was a lovely day; the river.banks were quite close, the ' village scenes interesting, and. we watched barley ajid rice being threshed by, a donkey 'or mule going :rOun'd with a: stone roller.' The-junks on the ; river are loaded down to the water's edge, and are sometimes towed by seven or. eight' men, punted by men, walking; the deck, or rowed with two,men to. each oar, one standing on a projecting . plank over the water. . : The ' youths ful" population were mostly bathing, some Blithering .along .on the mudbanks and 'en-', joying themselves immensely. We also saw. several ,inodes' r .'of; irrigating .the-fields ,of Indian'corn, milletj and other crops, the most novel being Jiy a double, rope's held-by.two'rinen' like' a'skippipg rope. They threw 1 the water.: .'out. of the -river on to /the land. or into; boa js .to be' taken up small-creeks. Tho .fishing is done from large and small; boats—much, of it .by hand. : Men were, wading Out two miles from , the shore with, hand. nets only, which they threw in front-of them a few yards.

"I|ext morning, at 10 a.m., we found ourselves at Chefoo, a little place that 'ooked very pretty 1 from the water, with a hill close.to the sea on which the consulates are placed—all of it very clean and green.) Silk and 'lace were, what wo wanted, ,so we made for M'Mullen's store. ■ The streets abounded with men with bundles wishing to' sell. One man .uncovered ;a basket disclosing some nice fresh strawberries, but we did not look at Buch forbidden, fruit in China a second time. We-found ourselves in the wholesale store, and a young- Englishman in a nice pongee Buit (in charge) offered to tako us to'tho shop-where we purchased a piece of 20 yards of nice ' thick coraed silk lor 455., and a piece' each -of, dark blue, nice, even-looking, firm"-silk, for less thanls. a yard. Rowing, bathing, and tennis are the chief amusements of Chefoo; no dancing, as there are so few ladies there.. "We have met several nice, temperate young Englishmen, all wonderfully young to bo doing big things out hero. One of them is starting to put up.,big electrical machine shops some miles from Hankow, where there are no. English people. /The Chinese are wonderful mechanics, and the comparadores employ contractors to do the work. • "Wherever we go we'ask for boilfed water, and get 1 it. The steamers and hotels serve it iced in nice clean bottles, and one feels it is all .right. , Most men are very temperate—l won't say teetotallers,. as ■' that' is one of the difficulties of society everywhere, but more so in the East. It means health, however. One man was told forty years ago that he must drink .whisky by three friends, who have all died, but he has lived in China all those .years without whisky. "At Vladivostok lovely, chocolate can be bought with -stoneless plums inside—such a dessert!; We had some to'day at Nagasaki, where we had Jfciffin at a friond's house. "The Japanese are in a very bad way. , The want of money and, the boycotting by the Chinese is having a serious effect, some cotton mills in Nagasaki being now shut ' down for want .;of ra;v material. The , Japanese have behaved very badly, in Manchuria about the .railway, yet they are a wonderful .little people. < The rainy set son is said to stop after July 2, and after raining deluges for three weeks in Nagasaki it did..: Nagasaki looked' 'So clean and pretty : with ■ sunshine ■instead of rain, and no dust, and.the babies were : ; very - much. in.': evidence, with their mothers." ■ " 'V- '