pin The success of Kuling is assured. The season, has passed with few hitches in the management of the Estate, and expe-nonce has proved the place to be healthful and health giving. Many foreigners from all the ports along the Yangtze, and from the interior of China have been attracted tothe mountains, and most of the houses begun this spring are finished and occupied. Many. new: ones are going up. From the foothills' rest-house to the Kuling Gap, the Trustees have completed a splendid mountain road while the stone steps and culverts along the steep ascents display successful engineering. There are about eight hundred of the former along one reach from Waterfall Bridge to the Gap. The roads inside the Estate have also been cut. Added to these may be mentioned the rest-houses, whose excellent appointments refresh the weary traveller on the way to the top. At a popular meeting held on the 27th of August, the hearty thanks of the community were extended to the Trustees for their wise and efficient mangement of the Estate, Some of the points of interest around Kuling are The Cave "—a good place for afternoon picnics; The Waterfall" about six miles from the estate in the direction of the Poyang Lake; and the Dragon Pool"—-a mile below the settlement. A trip to the Waterfall requires pretty tough muscles and a fairly steady endurance. The Pool is a-busin of pellucid water ten feet deep, and a plunge to the pebbly bottom is most refreshing and invigorating.
There has been some. sickness, chiefly diarrhoea, among the foreigners at Kuling this summer, which after enquiry, we find to be the efforts of nature to counteract surfeits of wholesome food injudiciously taken into the stomach. Voracious appel tites, superinduced by the fresh mountain air, in the hot months of July and August must be in some degree" sternly repressed. For although nature abhors a vacuum, she will not be crammed with impunity even though it be with beefsteak, fried chicken and summer fruits.
At the meeting of the landowners referred to above, a Municipal Council of nine was elected to serve for one year. They ar Dr. John, Messrs. Adams, Longden, Grei Houston, Orr-Owing, Kranz, W. V. Drummond, and Geo. Mobsby. Of these six belong to the Board of Trustees. Dr. Geo, A. Stuart, of Nanking, was elected Health Officer. The Municipal Council have appointed Mr. J. L. Duff, Secretary and Superintendant of the Estate, and will Kruling at the next meeting of the lot resent certain rules for the government of holders.
The Trustees have donated $500, and a lot for the erection of a church to cost $3,000. The rest is to be raised by private subscription. This church will probably be completed by next spring. It is to be built of cut stone with a seating capacity of 350. Our congregations this summer at the morning service would average about 150. The Sabbath School in the afternoon has been a success. Over sixty children attended, nnd we can testify that so far as we know, there is no Sabbath Schoo extant on this planet whose scholars are better versed in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. a To meet the expenses of sanitation and protection the lot holders agreed to a ground tax of ten dollars per annum for each original lot, and a tax of twenty-four dollars for every house. Each lot and each house secures 'a vote in the Municipal Council Meetings. The.sum realised by
salary "f the Superintendent and native these taxes will be sufficient to py the police who will remain on duty every month in the year, and thus preclude the necessity of individual caretakers and at the same time insure better protection.
od's best gifts to man are free, and Kuling is one of them. Those of us, missionaries and laymen alike, who have for years endured the poisonous heat of Chinese summers, appreciate the blessing to the fullest extent. The bond of a common interest in this lovely spot is pretty strong, wud we believe that kindlier and friendlier feelings between the two have been generated by daily contact with each other, and mutual admiration of the wonderful works of God in the shining, star-spangled heavens, of the rock strata—result of some awful, prehistoric revolution—and the dashing water at this Magic Settlement. It may be the latitude or the imagination, but we never saw Vega, Arcturus, Altair and Antares—in fact all the summer fixed stars, twinkle so brightly. Venus has been like a large electric light fastened in the eastern heavens, just before the dawn, and the race between Jupiter and Mars has been most interesting. The children too, have realised their little song:
Boats sail on the rivers, and ships sail on the seas But the clouds that sail upon the sky are prettier far than these.
There are bridges on the river as pretty you please But the bridge that arches heaven is prettier far than these.
Samvet I. Woopprwer.
On Board Yuentwo, 1st September.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.