In the evening, after dinner, long chairs are taken out on the bund and many assemble there in silence, betrayed only in the darkness by a continual popping of corks and glowing cigar-tips, to catch what little air there may chance to be, and to watch the lightning in hopes that the oft-threatened storm will burst and break the heat. I remember at Kiukiang the daily temperature rising to over a hundred degrees in the shade for nearly three weeks at a stretch, culminating in one hundred and seven, when a break came which, at any rate, saved _my_ life and practically ended the summer. Many a time, when too hot for sleep, have I played whist till three o'clock in the morning. Selecting the corner of an upstairs verandah where there might be some possibility of a faint draught, and having cigars, whisky and iced soda well within reach, we would take off our white jackets for greater coolness and sit perspiring in singlets round the table between guttering candles, when with bare heads and naked arms we must have had the appearance of desperate gamblers, though only playing the regulation twenty-five cent points with longs and shorts and a dollar on the rub, so that the damage could not be very extensive. The winter in this locality is very much on a par with that in England, only shorter, there being generally some frost with a good deal of snow and occasionally enough ice for skating. Dinner-parties are very numerous, being the chief method of entertainment. The _menu_ is, as a rule, excellent, and the import duty being almost nominal, wine is both plentiful and good. After a few mental twinges endured by leading personages consequent on somewhat exaggerated ideas of precedence, the company is seated, and a good dinner, aided by a lively flow of chit-chat, makes the evening speed pleasantly and well. But, you will ask, what besides amusing themselves have these Anglo-Chinese to do? British steamers swarm throughout the China seas and up the Yangtse for a thousand miles to Ichang, and it is in controlling the working of these vessels, in importing and selling manufactured goods and opium, in buying and exporting tea, silk and other products of the country, as well as in filling positions in Government services or any professional calling that agents, merchants, officials and the professional classes find employment, so that if in exile we surround ourselves with such luxuries and enjoyments as are reserved for the wealthy at home it is because they are ready to hand at but little cost, and that they serve in a degree to compensate us for the sweet pleasures of home-life which are forfeited by those who leave Old England to push their ways in distant lands. CHAPTER II SERVANTS AND TRADESMEN On your first arrival at an out-port, and as you are crossing the pontoon which leads from the steamer to the bund, a most beaming celestial meets you and presents an open letter, which runs something like this:--