the joyous Burma sun smiled upon all, and at midday poured its merciless heat down upon all mankind, unheeding the weary wanderer whose tramp was now near done.  At night the tropical moon turned all this riverine world to the likeness of a very fairyland.  Lying in a long chair in the dak bungalows one drank in the scenes which succeeded one another in bewildering succession, and felt himself thrilled by an almost fierce appreciation of eastern beauty.  It was good to meet again an Englishman, a sturdy, firm-featured Englishman, whose love of the East, like mine own, was a veritable obsession.  The sun glare of the tropics had parched the color out of our white skin, and despite the fact that malaria came back again here to taunt me, yet I was again in the East that I loved, that had scarred and marked me ere my time mayhap.  And yet I, with many such of my own countrymen, despite her rough handling, worship her.

* * * * *

In three days I was in Bhamo.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote BF:  i.e. New Year, New Year.]

[Footnote BG:  i.e.Great Man.  “Ding” is my Chinese name.]

[Footnote BH:  I believe personally that the main object of the Yuen-nan provincial government in employing two American engineers, who at the present moment (August, 1910) are surveying a route from Yuen-nan-fu to the Yangtze, is merely official bluff.  It is preferable to pay two men a monthly stipend if the official “face” can be preserved and the Chinese dogged official procrastination be maintained, rather than to allow foreigners to come in still farther.]

[Footnote BI:  This was of course written long before the Four Nations Loan was signed, and Tuan Fang appointed Director General of the Railways in May, 1911.  We should now see a speedy reformation of Railway matters in China if Tuan is given an absolutely free hand.—­E.J.D.]

END OF BOOK II.

[Illustration:  THE SWITZERLAND OF WESTERN CHINA

To travel in China is easy over country like this, granted that the traveler sticks to the main road, sample of which is seen at lower right.]

[Illustration:  RED CROSS WORK IN CHINESE REVOLUTION

Red Cross workers at mass graves of men killed during the the Chinese
Revolution.]

[Illustration:  TEA FOR FOREIGN COUNTRIES

Coolies carrying tea packed for export; picture was taken in British concession of Hankow.]

[Illustration:  TEA FROM NATIVE DISTRICTS

Picture shows native tea dealers at Ku-kiang bringing in tea for transport to the great tea factories in Hankow, where it is prepared for export.]

[Illustration:  AUTHOR ON NANKING CITY WALL

Taken during the Revolution, when Author was acting as war correspondent for world-wide news agencies.]

[Illustration:  AT HANKOW—­THE CHICAGO OF CHINA