10th Aug. Just as the Nanking Road, thanks to a certain aggressiveness of character, and some advantage at the start, has won the proud distinction of being the Ma-Joo of all maloos, so the Bubbling Well -Road for similar reasons has become Known as the Road of all roads—the Road par excellence. Its position, the breath of romance in its name, and the select character of its original residents, combined to make it, literally and swciully, the West End of Shanghai's Upper-'en-dom. But what with farms nud factories, native houses and native traps, the road would scarcely call itself exclusive now-a-days, and it may be news to many a uew-comer to hear that once upon a time the dwellers in the West were on such good terms with themselves that for this and other reasons they fenced themselves in by means of a turnpike gate, his, in time, became such an unbearable token of Western privilege engrafted on Eastern freedom, that one night the gate vanished, and there be "potent, grave, and reverend signiors" in the settlements who, with a merry twinkle of the eye and many a chuckle, will tell of n party of rowdy youths who se successfully imitated Samson's exploit at Gaza, But there was pleasure as well as distinction in being "Road people" in those days. Land was cheap, and every house was surrounded by its own grounds, as every country house should be. Trees and shrubs grew in quick profusion, and the privacy was as perfect as that of Sir Someboly Brondacres in Broadacre Park, That gnburban abomination, the semi-detached villa, was unknown and terraces were almost undreamt-el.
The iden that His Excellency the'Lao-tai and their compradoric lord-and-ladyships, Ying and Yang, should invade the sucred territory, and there take up their residence, was as little expected as was the still more astounding that the Road should become " mere thoroughfare for native swelldom to and from its pleasures, So far, the prophecy which puts a foreign coachman on a native carriage has not come to pass, but the foreign horse may be the precursor of the foreign driver, and then possibly the cup of Celestial joy will. be full to overflowing.
Tt must frankly be confessed that of Into years the pleasures of road life have been wofelle vurse In summer, yoy could be evaded. The incessant ole of passing vehicles all through the night cannot, Add to this the clouds of dust, and then what with mosquitoes, noise, dust, and their. to the conclusion that the balance between weal and woe is on the wrong side, and to redress it goes off to Japan or elsewhere. But to the native, the Road of a summer night is paradise. He likes noise, he ignores mosquitoes, he doesn't mind dust. To him the is heaven, his city haunts hell, That he should avoid the one and rush to the other, so long as he can afford it, is but human nature.
But it is hard on the suffering foreigner, and those who are most in love with country life cannot fail to be affected by such drawbacks. Still there are counterbalancing advantages for those who are able to make use of and appreciate them. In the cooler months, the night traffic ceases, the bloodthirstiness of the mosquito is quenched, the windows are slut, and the house is once more habitable, Ihe ladies and children have come back sometimes with roses in their cheeks, but not always. Ihe pleasures of life once more show a credit balance. Walking, riding, training, bicycling, all in turn occupy the attention, brace up the body and invigorate the mind. resident on the road has a taste for horticulture, as many have, with a little love for scientific botany thrown in, then the pleasures of a well-kept garden are all at hand. Particularly should ladies "go in" for this most delightful hobby. With the ample time they have at their disposal they should cultivate plants, shrubs, and trees, not merely for the vulgar pleasure of outdoing ench other at the annual flower show, but for that highest of all the delightful kinds of knowledge, the knowledge of nature's own method of doing things. There should be scores of Indy" botanists in Shanghai, if only that there be secrets yet to find out, Woman is naturally endowed with a capacity for probing into seerets, Why she lets botanical se-crews x" severely alone, unless it be that nobody resents her discovery of them, or possibly. from an instructive recollection of the dire results of the botanical experiment of old mother Eve, is beyond the power of simple mate nature to tell. We do, however, know of some gardens iti the country whose owners derive almost unbounded. gratification from the experiments which they make in the growth not only of flowers, but of fruits, vegetables, shade trees, and other plants, and really, when undertaken with intelligence based upon a natural liking, it is difficult to imagine any more innocent and absorbing pastime:
There is another pleasure gifhe goes far fQuuifé aforesaid. It is swinmed up in one word—Birds. Not birds to shoot, but birds to watch, birds to listen to, and binds to make friends with. [t ne of the unexplainable characteristics of our nature that the keenest sportsmen should be the greatest lovers of birds, whom no keener shot exists. He tramps from dawn to dark when on a shooting trip and exhibits his bag with as much pride as any one, Yet he walked two miles out into the country to free a wounded quail he had cangth in the Public Garden. So, many a sportsman on the road has his fill of delight in the bird life by which ho is surrounded, He wants no Phil Robinson to tell him the secrets of the rookery. He has seen them all, or nearly all for himself. The air of proprietorship with which a young couple occupy a particular fork, the fights that sometimes ensue before in bird polities the occupation is held to be " effective," the building operations, the thievery, the laying, hatching, and bringing up of the brood. Each. and all of these have their interest; Then in old England the instinct for slaughter, excused by some probably mistaken idea that the rookery needs thinning, comes into play, and for a couple of days or so the crack of the rook rifle is heard in the land and the too great multiplication of Corvus frugilegus is prevented for another year. But the rook is nota frequenter of every garden; the blackbird is, 30 is the wild dove, so is the bulbul, and several tits, and various finches and other little birds, One of the earliest to breed is the blackbird, and if there be 2 more charming love song than his in this part of China, we don't know of it, 'I'he timorous, gentle dove, unharmed, unhunted, shakes off her fear and becomes as tame as cats and hereditary tendent cies will allow, Her nest is often not more than a few feet from the heads of podestrses walking along the road, and her gentle cvv-coo sounds like soothing. song. There are still to be mentioned suunmer and winter visitants, Shanghai lies also in the track of the groat migrate ing swarms of spring and anima, aul many a rare bird makes a Aoeting visit to the gardens along tha revi, tan often ie is to ba ferred unobserved, tha beautiful golden oriole, lyea'chers of various kinds, inclwling the particularly dainty little long-tailet species, known og Iuce's Paradise Flycatcher, and, wa believe, one species ut the oriental roller, in life a gloriously coloured bird, ate Known amongst the gardens and clumps of trees from the road to Jessfield and Sicawei. Ihe study of such delightful creatures is more fe ible in summer than in winter, albeit the foliage is much in the way. By the time the trees are bare our warm-weather friends following nature's im-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.