Three days before his arrival at Yunnan, capital of the province of the same name, as the English explorer was taking his lunch _al fresco_, he was, to his great surprise and delight, accosted by a Frenchman, an unfortunate missionary, who was bound for the same place, and was nearly wild with joy at finding another European in this remote district. An eager conversation began in Chinese, but as Margary could speak French, the native language was soon exchanged for it. Margary tells how the two sat down to the same "table," and were to share their meal, but the missionary was so badly off for provisions that, in the end, the Englishman gave him half his beefsteak, with all the bread he had. Then he had an omelette made for his guest, and gave him a glass of spirits. From the eagerness with which the food was consumed it was evident that the poor fellow had been almost starving. The meal over, Margary told his new friend of the way in which he had been insulted at Chen-Yuan, and the Frenchman replied that most likely the magistrate had taken the explorer for a Jesuit father, or a Lazarist, that is to say, a follower of Saint Vincent de Paul. However it may be in the future, the people of Central China had in Margary's time no toleration for Roman Catholic missionaries, and there was little chance of their doing anything to promote civilization amongst the natives. Had the magistrate looked at the Englishman's passport when the latter first landed he would have been very differently treated. It will be traders, not preachers of the gospel, who will be the first to introduce European ideas. Even manufacturers and engineers who elsewhere often achieve so much success have little chance in China, for the people are as content with their own systems of mechanical production and their clumsy primitive modes of working their salt and mineral mines as they are with their religion. [Sidenote: A FRENCH BISHOP]