The journey to Haiphong took three nights and two days. When we finally started we found that no Hong Kong money (Hong Kong has a coinage of its own, being British, and admits no other) would be accepted in Indo-China, and that we must re-bank there before starting inland. Haiphong is a most dull and unprogressive little French town: an intelligent young Frenchman at the custom-house told us that red tape rules everything and makes progress impossible. We were obliged to stay there two days, the bank not being open on Sunday. The train only runs by day up to Yünnanfu, and starts at a very early hour: the carriages are primitive in the extreme and badly arranged. There is only _one_ corridor coach for first-, second- and third-class passengers, the first-class being in the middle and the passengers for the others passing to and fro through the carriage all the time. Besides this one coach there were a number of seatless luggage vans, in which were herded large numbers of fourth-class passengers, with their belongings. Their legs might frequently be seen dangling out of the unglazed windows. The line was opened in 1910, and is about 150 miles in length. The scenery was fascinating and varied during our three days’ journey to Yünnanfu. At first it was sub-tropical, passing through forests with great tree-ferns and bamboos, or ricefields where water-buffaloes toiled. Lovely rose bushes and brilliant canna were the chief flowers visible, and tall trees full of crimson blossom. From seven in the morning till 8.30 p.m. we travelled slowly towards the Chinese frontier, and spent the night at Laokay, in a not too bad little French hotel. There was food served on the train, but we mostly relied on our own provisions. The frontier town was quite attractive, at the junction of two rivers; we were supposed to have our luggage examined, but both French and Chinese let us off, and I had time to sketch from the dividing bridge while our less lucky interpreter, Mr. Li,[5] underwent searching examination. It is most difficult for any Chinese to get passports for going through French territory, and you can never foresee what difficulties the officials will put in the way, even when everything is _en règle_. Li was taken off to the police station and put through an elaborate interrogatory. We had been rather anxious about our own passports, as Sir John Jordan was not able to authorize our having them from Peking, on account of the political division between North and South. He very kindly arranged that the British Consul at Canton (if he considered it safe for us to prosecute our journey) should supply us with them, and we experienced a great sense of relief on finding them awaiting us at Hong Kong. As an illustration of the strictness of French rule, no one is allowed to take more than two dollars out of Indo-China in their coinage; at Haiphong we had obtained Chinese dollars suitable for the province of Yünnan.