'We had a splendid month in the market-place. Chinese and Mongols in plenty, both to preach to and to heal. One Mongol betrayed a most intimate and full knowledge of Christianity. The drought gave good opportunity of speaking of many things, and in most cases we had respectful attention. It was a _hard_ month's work. Seven till noon or a little after was our market time; the afternoon private patients, the evening inquirers, makes a very long day, which begins at daylight and does not end till after the second watch of the night has been set. The Chinese usually secure a rest just after noon, but frequently just then some patient would turn up, and put an end to quiet. In most cases the strain is relieved by holidays through rain and storm; but even this was wanting this time, so we had almost uninterrupted work. 'I am more than ever eager to have the medical work given over to a medical man. One day in Ch'ao Yang a man came swaggering across the open space in the marketplace. People pointed towards him and laughed. He was laughable, the ridiculous part of him being a straw hat which was an imitation, caricature rather, of a foreigner's hat. I could not help laughing. It was no laughing matter, though. He was a messenger from the cavalry camp just outside the town. He had come to take me to treat two soldiers who had received bullet-wounds in an encounter with Mongolian brigands. I had never seen a bullet-wound in my life, but I knew I could do more for the wounded men than any Chinese doctor; so I went. The wounds were then forty-eight hours old, and I dressed them as best I could, paying a daily visit for about a fortnight. Two wounds, though deep, were merely flesh; with these I had no difficulty. The third was a bone complication. I knew nothing of anatomy, had no books, absolutely nothing to consult; what could I do but pray? And the answer was startling. The third morning, when in the market-place attending to the ordinary patients, but a good deal preoccupied over the bone case, which I had determined should be finally dealt with that day if possible at all, there tottered up to me through the crowd a _live skeleton_, the outline of nearly every bone quite distinct, covered only with yellow skin, which hung about in loose folds. I think I see him yet--the chin as distinctively that of a skeleton as if it had bleached months on the plain. The man was about seventy, wore a pair of trousers, and had a loose garment thrown over his shoulders. He came for cough medicine, I think; if so, he got it; but I was soon engaged fingering and studying the bone I had to see to that afternoon. I was deeply thankful, but amidst all my gratitude the thing seemed so comical that I could