From Changteh we went by passenger boat to Changsha, and had two little cabins which we converted into one for the voyage. The whole of the roof was covered with third-class passengers and their belongings; at night they spread their bedding, and in the daytime squatted about or wandered round the very narrow gangway outside the cabins, a proceeding which left us in a darkened condition. Yao managed to prepare us savoury meals in some minute nook, having brought the necessary stores and a tiny stove on which to cook them. The day after leaving Changteh we crossed the wonderful lake of Tong Ting, a lake more than two thousand square miles in extent during the summer, and non-existent in winter. This strange and unique phenomenon is due to an overflow of the Yangtze, and in the summer there is a regular steamship service across the lake, connecting Changsha with Hankow, two hundred and twenty-two miles distant, by the river Siang and a tributary of the Yangtze. Eventually they will be connected by a railway, which is to run from Hankow to Canton, and of which the southern part is already in existence—and also a short section from Changsha to Chuchow; this is only thirty-eight miles and is mainly valuable on account of its connexion with a branch line to the Ping Siang collieries. Changsha is an important city, the capital of Hunan. It is large and clean, the centre of considerable trade, and one of the newest treaty ports, opened in 1904. The variety of its exports is interesting: rice, tea, paper, tobacco, lacquer, cotton-cloth, hemp, paulownia oil, earthenware, timber, coal, iron and antimony. I was anxious to buy some of the beautiful grass cloth for which it is noted, and was taken by a friend to some of the big shops, but found them busily packing up all their goods, in case their shops should be looted by the approaching Southern troops. Such doings are by no means uncommon, and all Americans and Europeans seemed to take it as a matter of course. Arrangements were being made to receive terrified refugees into mission premises, and the Red Cross was extremely busy preparing for the wounded. The rumours as to the Governor fleeing varied from hour to hour, and it soon became plain that the city would be undefended. Our kind American hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Lingle, were having little Red Cross flags made to put up as signals on places of refuge, and he came in to tell us how the tailor who was making them had just appealed to him for help: a retreating soldier thought to make hay while the sun shone, and was taking possession of the sewing-machine, demanding that it should be carried away for him by the tailor’s assistant. Mr. Lingle also prevented another sewing-machine being stolen: evidently they were in great request.