Harry Caldwell, with whom we were to hunt, asking us to come to his station two hundred miles up the river, and we passed two sweltering days repacking our outfit while Mr. Kellogg scoured the country for an English-speaking cook.

One middle-aged gentleman presented himself, but when he learned that we were going "up country," he shook his head with an assumption of great filial devotion and said that he did not think his mother would let him go. Another was afraid the sun might be too hot. Finally on the eve of our departure we engaged a stuttering Chinese who assured us that he was a remarkable cook and exceptionally honest.

If you have never heard a Chinaman stutter you have something to live for, and although we discovered that our cook was a shameless rascal he was worth all he extracted in "squeeze," for whenever he attempted to utter a word we became almost hysterical. He sounded exactly like a worn-out phonograph record buzzing on a single note, and when he finally did manage to articulate, his "pidgin" English in itself was screamingly funny.

One day he came to the sampan proudly displaying a piece of beef and, after a series of vocal gymnastics, eventually succeeded in shouting: "Missie, this meat no belong die-cow. Die-cow not so handsome." Which meant that this particular piece of beef was not from an animal which had died from disease.

The first stage of our trip began before daylight. We rode in four-man sedan chairs, followed by a long procession of heavily laden coolies with our cameras, duffle-sacks, and pack baskets. The road lay through green rice fields between terraced mountains, and we jogged along first on the crest of a hill, then in the valley, passing dilapidated temples with the paint flaking off and picturesque little huts half hidden in the reeds of the winding river. It was a relief to get into the country again after passing down the narrow village streets and to breathe fresh air perfumed with honeysuckle.

A passenger launch makes the trip to Cui-kau at the beginning of the rapids, but it leaves at two o'clock in the morning and is literally crowded to overflowing with evil-smelling Chinese who sprawl over every available inch of deck space, so that even the missionaries strongly advised us against taking it. The passengers not infrequently are pushed off into the water. One of the missionaries witnessed an incident which illustrates in a typical way the total lack of sympathy of the average Chinese.

A coolie on the Cui-kau launch accidentally fell overboard, and although a friend was able to grasp his hand and hold him above the surface, no one offered to help him; the launch continued at full speed, and finally weakening, the poor man loosed his hold and sank. This is by no means an isolated case. Some years ago a foreign steamer was burned on the Yangtze River, and the crowds of watching Chinese did little or nothing to rescue the passengers and crew. Indeed, as fast as they made their way to shore many of them were robbed even of their clothing and some were murdered outright.

Our first day on the Min River was the most luxurious of the entire Expedition, for we were fortunate in obtaining the Standard Oil Company's launch through the kindness of Mr. Livingston, their agent. It was large and roomy, and the trip, which would have been worse than disagreeable on the public boat, was most delightful. The Min is one of the most beautiful rivers of all China with its velvet green mountains rising a thousand feet or more straight up from the water and often terraced to the summits.

Perched on the bow of our boat was a wizened little gentleman with a pigtail wrapped around his head, who said he was a pilot, but as he inquired the channel of everyone who passed and ran us aground a dozen times or more to the tremendous agitation of our captain, we felt that his claim was not entirely justified.

The river life was a fascinating, ever-changing picture. One moment we would pass a sampan so loaded with branches that it seemed like a small island floating down the stream. Next a huge junk with bamboo-ribbed sails projecting at impossible angles drifted by, followed by innumerable smaller crafts, the monotonous chant of the boatmen coming faintly over the water to us as they passed.

When evening came we had reached Cui-kau. The sampans in which we were to spend eight days were drawn up on the beach with twenty or thirty others. Right above us was the straggling town looking very much like the rear view of tenement houses at home. Darkness blotted out the filth of our surroundings but could do nothing to lessen the odors that poured down from the village, and we ate our dinner with little relish.

Our beds were spread in the sampans which we shared in common with the four river men who formed the crew. There was only a mosquito net to screen the end of the boat, but all our surroundings were so strange that this was but a minor detail. As we lay in our cots we could look up at the stars framed in the half oval of the sampan's roof and listen to the sounds of the water life grow fainter and fainter as one by one the river men beached their boats for the night. It seemed only a few minutes later when we were roused by a rush of water, but it was daylight, and the boats had reached the first of the rapids which separated us from Yen-ping, one hundred and twenty miles away.

In the late afternoon we arrived at Chang-hu-fan where Mr. Caldwell stood on the shore waving his hat to us amidst scores of dirty little children and the explosion of countless firecrackers. Wherever we went crackers preceded and followed us--for when a Chinese wishes to register extreme emotion, either of joy or sorrow, its expression always takes the form of firecrackers.

There had been a good deal of persecution of the native Christians in the district, and only recently a band of soldiers had strung up the native pastor by the thumbs and beaten him senseless. He was our host that night and seemed to be a bright, vivacious, little man but quite deaf as a result of his cruel treatment. He never recovered and died a few weeks later. Mr. Caldwell had come to investigate the affair, for the missionaries are invested by the people themselves with a good deal of authority.

We spent that night in the parish house just behind the little church, a bare schoolroom being turned over to us for our use, and it seemed very luxurious after we had set up our cots, tables, chairs, and bath tub; but the house was in the center of the town and the high walls shut out every breath of pure air. The barred windows opened on a street hardly six feet wide, and while we were preparing for bed there was a buzz of subdued whispers outside. We switched on a powerful electric flashlight and there stood at least forty men, women and children gazing at us with rapt attention, but they melted away before the blinding glare like snow in a June sun.

That night was not a pleasant one. The heat was intense, the mosquitoes worse, and every dog and cat in the village seemed to choose our court yard as a dueling ground in which to settle old scores. The climax was reached at four o'clock in the morning, when directly under our windows there came a series of ear-splitting squeals followed by a horrible gurgle. The neighbors had chosen that particular spot and hour to kill the family pig, and the entire process which followed of sousing it in hot water and scraping off the hair was accompanied by unceasing chatter. Boiling with rage we dressed and went for a walk, vowing not to spend another night in the place but to sleep in the sampans.

On the whole our river men were nice fellows but they had the love of companionship characteristic of all Chinese and the inherent desire to huddle together as closely as possible wherever they were. On the way up the river to Yuchi every evening they insisted on stopping at some foul-smelling village, and it was difficult to