The country houses along the river are much poorer than in our Province of Hanchow, and the cities seem older and more dilapidated. The river annually overflows the low grounds from April to August, and as it often rises 50 feet above its winter level, the people build only rude huts. The missionaries at Hankow inform me that for months they are compelled to use canoes for travel on their streets. It was the busiest season (May) when I reached Hankow, which until recently was the most interior treaty port of the Empire. It is separated from Han Yang and Wa-Chang by the Yang-tse-Kiang and Han rivers, and each of them is an immense city. There are some two hundred foreigners here. The Bund (River) St. has houses only on one side, and is the finest in China. It stands 50 feet above the river, which for half a mile is faced with splendid stone masonry. It offers the busiest and most _Chinesy_ sight yet seen in this country. Fourteen steamers were lying at the wharves. There is a great rush to get the first new tea into the English market. The fleetest steamers are chartered at fabulous prices: $32 per ton is paid for transportation, and $1,600 for river pilots, on the round trip from Shanghai to Hankow and return—a trip of one week. This year the season opened on the Sabbath, some taking advantage of the fact that others were at church to begin lading. Neither heat, night, nor anything else checks the work. The Russians do the biggest business. They deal chiefly in the coarsest and poorest qualities of tea. Stem, leaf, and often extraneous matter, are ground to powder, steamed and pressed into bricks of convenient size for transportation, and these are used for money in Mongolia and Siberia. Hankow is a filthy city. Wa-Chang is much better in this respect, has fine hills, and a lofty pagoda from which a magnificent view of the surrounding country is obtained. I was hospitably received, not alone by the missionaries, but by many outside the mission circles, who as a rule do not show much kindness to us. I saw much of the mission work, and found that it was not given exclusively to the natives, but extended to the sailors in the various ports. Ancestral worship, which is the religion of China, is one of the chief obstacles to the reception of Christianity. A pigeon-English-speaking Chinaman to whom a zealous sister had given a book said, in answer to her question, “How did you like it?” “That book talkee fool pigeon. I no can leave father; no can leave mother.” He meant he could not cease from worshiping them.