The number of Chinese officials who, like Wang Yüeh or Yüan Shu-fang, have been glad to divest themselves of the cares and honours of office under Government is surprisingly large. Disappointed ambition; constitutional dislike of routine employment, official conventionalities and "red tape"; a passion for the tranquil life of a student; a love of beauty in art or nature: these, or some of them, are the causes that have impelled multitudes of Chinese officials to resign office, often early in their careers, and seek a quiet life of scholarly seclusion either in their own homes or in some lonely hermitage or some mountain retreat. Even at the present day retired magistrates may be met with in the most unexpected places. I found one in 1908 living in a little temple at the edge of the stupendous precipice of Hua Shan in Shensi, eight thousand feet above the sea-level. He was a lover of poetry and a worshipper of Nature. Ting Pai-yün was for some time a resident in but not a native of Weihaiwei. His personal name and native place are unknown. It is said that he obtained the doctorate of letters towards the end of the Ming period. His first official post was at Wei Hsien in Shantung. Subsequently he took to a roving life and travelled far and wide. When he came to Li Shan near Weihaiwei he was glad to find a kindred spirit in one Tung Tso-ch'ang, with whom he exchanged poems and essays. He devoted himself with the utmost persistence to the occult arts, and succeeded in foretelling the date of his own death. He practised his wizardry in the Lao mountains,[48] and people called him Mr. White-clouds. Wang Ching, Ting Shih-chü, Kuo Hêng, Pi Ch'ing and some others receive honourable mention among the Weihaiwei worthies for their kindness and benevolence towards the poor during various periods of famine. Some writers are apt to assume that pity and charity are only to be met with among Christian peoples. The mistake is serious, but perhaps it is not an unnatural one, for we do not in Oriental countries see anything comparable with the vast charitable organisations, the "missions" to the poor and vicious, the free hospitals, infirmaries and almshouses, that we see in Western countries. As a partial explanation of this we should remember that in countries where individualism is supreme there are more people who "fall by the wayside," lonely and helpless, than there are in countries where the family ties are indissoluble. The people of Weihaiwei consist of peasant-farmers--very poor from the Western point of view: yet there is not a beggar in the Territory, and if an almshouse or an infirmary were established there to-morrow it would probably remain untenanted.