The line was only begun in 1903 by a French company, but the Chinese have bought it up, and it ought to be increasingly valuable, chiefly for the transport of coal, in which product Shansi is specially rich. How well I remember in the old days seeing the long files of donkeys, each laden with basketfuls of coal, slowly wending their way across the plains and over the hills; whereas now the railway taps some of the chief coal-mines in the Pingtau district. The seams are from eleven to thirty feet in thickness and quite near the surface, and the coal is of excellent quality. The length of the line is only one hundred and fifty-five miles, and we did it in nine hours, whereas on my first journey we were more than nine days travelling up by mule litter and on horseback! The railway station at Taiyuanfu is outside the great city wall, and we saw as we approached it fine new barracks—Governor Yen has had a macadamized road built to reach one of his barracks, leading through a gate which has been closed over three hundred years. The account of this wonderful man and all his varied activities is set down in Chapter II. The penalty of greatness is seen in the fact that in this famine year refugees from all the surrounding provinces poured by thousands and thousands into Shansi. Relief work was rapidly organized, but it meant a heavy strain on the resources of every one. After spending ten days with our friends, we went back to Peking, starting in a heavy downfall of snow, which made the Chinese rejoice; it is considered a sign of great prosperity before the approaching New Year. There is so little rain in Shansi and irrigation is so difficult that a good fall of snow is essential for the crops. We found it extremely chilly, however, waiting for three hours at the junction in the middle of the night, without any shelter. The Hankow train was delayed; when it did arrive it was full of Chinese soldiers and others who occupied all the carriages, though we had bespoken sleeping-places in advance. We had to spend the rest of the night in the corridor—a cold and weary time. In the morning a Chinaman came out of a sleeping-carriage and took pity on us, giving us his coupé; but it is a great mistake that the railways are so badly managed, and the military are allowed to monopolize them free of charge whenever they please. Later on in the year they were for some weeks entirely closed to civilian traffic.