Your correspondent came to Chefoo some weeks since for a summer at the seashore, after nearly three years of interior isolation, anda very comfortable feeling it is to be once more within the bounds of civilisation and hear again the whistle of a steamer. The only steam whistle we hear in Chinanfu is that of the arsenal, which, being some miles away on the banks of the Yellow River, sounds so far away that it seems an echo from a far distant region of civilisation. In coming to Chefoo we followed the canal route, about which I have written your in private letters, going on board small native boats at Chinanfu on 2 Monday morning and reaching the port, Yangkaikou, on the seashore in almost exact three days and nights of comfortable travel. After one day's delay we here took the steamer Kuangchi and were in Chefoo on Sunday morning, six days in all from Chinanfu. The ommer overland trip from Chinanfur to Chefoo takes almost two weeks, and is an extremely trying one by either mule-litter or cart. This new water route is thus an immense improvement both in as the rate for freight is less than half by the matter of travel and for sending: freight, water as compared with the land route.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.