Rates of interest are very high in China, especially on small sums where securities are not the best. Mr. Evans informs me that two per cent per month is low and thirty per cent per annum is very commonly collected. Such obligations are often never met but they do not outlaw and may descend from father to son. The boat cost $292.40 in U. S. currency; the yearly earning was $107.50 to $120.40. The funeral cost $43 and $43 more was required for the wedding of the two sons. They were receiving for the services of six people $1.29 per day. An engagement for two weeks or a month could have been made for materially lower rates and their average daily earning, on the basis of three hundred days service in the year, and the $120.40 total earning, would be only 40.13 cents, less than seven cents each, hence their trip with us was two of their banner days. Foreigners in Shanghai and other cities frequently engage such houseboat service for two weeks or a month of travel on the canals and rivers, finding it a very enjoyable as well as inexpensive way of having a picnic outing. On reaching the hill lands the next morning there were such scenes as shown in Fig. 82, where the strips of tree growth, varying from two to ten years, stretched directly up the slope, often in strong contrast on account of the straight boundaries and different ages of the timber. Some of these long narrow holdings were less than two rods wide and on one of these only recently cut, up which we walked for considerable distance, the young pine were springing up in goodly numbers. As many as eighteen young trees were counted on a width of six feet across the strip of thirty feet wide. On this area everything had been recently cut clean. Even stumps and the large roots were dug and saved for fuel.