The chair-bearers have had their bowl of rice. They have seized a handful of peanuts which lie in little mounds on the table, and are hastily cracking their shells, and as they pick their kernels out they propel them with a jerk into their mouths. Finally they fill their diminutive bamboo pipes with tobacco, and after three or four good long whiffs, they call out in a cheery voice, "Now let us go." The chair is swung up on to their shoulders, they shuffle their feet until they get into step, and then, with a steady trot, they start for the next stage that lies two or three miles ahead. Our way lies across a plain that is thickly dotted with villages. These at a distance have a very charming appearance, and remind one very much of similar places in the homeland. They are nearly always embowered amongst great stately trees, that the forefathers planted when the foundations of the new home were laid. They have grown since then, and now beneath their spreading branches only a pointed roof or a whitewashed gable can be caught sight of through the rifts in the foliage of the trees. The plain is a populous one, and the road on which we are travelling being a great thoroughfare, little market towns have sprung up on it. If there is one thing more than another that these impress upon a stranger from the West it is the absolute want of taste that the Chinese show in the building of their houses and in the laying out of their streets. Broken-down shanties, badly kept houses, streets that reek with smells, people dressed in an untidy and slovenly manner, and with hands and faces that very rarely become acquainted with soap and water; these are the common sights that meet one wherever he travels in this great land of China. The country has an old and worn-out look about it, and seems as though it needed whitewashing and renovating; whilst the people as a whole require washing and scrubbing and a liberal use of "Sunlight Soap," to remove the grimy, dusty accumulations that rest upon them wherever you meet them. Our journey so far has taken us through a very fertile district, and luxuriant crops of rice testify not only to the excellence of the land, but also to the skill of the farmers in the wise methods they have learned to employ in the cultivation of the land. That they succeed so well is no doubt due to the long and assiduous care that the nation has given to agriculture. From time immemorial the farmer has held a high position in the estimation of the nation. One of the most honoured amongst their ancient kings was a man that was taken from the plough, and was made a co-ruler with a man that, for the probity of his reign, has always been spoken of in the annals of the empire as a sage.