We are on the Grand Canal again homeward bound, after over a month spent in Northern Anhui on and near the tual River. Except for a few stormy days the weather has been fine, ideal for itin-orating work in the winter. We have much of the time had frosty nights and sparkling days. The towns and villages seem less filthy at this season—one could hardly say cleaner where nothing is clean even at its best—and though to the eye they are as repulsive as ever, to the nose they are much less so than inthe spring or summer. Tu many of the farms and vill: we pass through @ person could almost imagine that the one object of the inhabitants was to violate every dictate of neatness, cleanliness, and order in the outward, as well as inward, arrangements of their houses and im, And yet theoretically the people be lieve in neatness and cleanliness. We have frequently heard approving remarks at the sight of some house or room or garden that was neat and orderly. Once in a while pica are so, even far from foreign influences, We have even seen temples and: ancestral shrines, sometimes, where the neatness and cleanness was very noticeable—at least by contrast. Why are not more places thus? Perhaps the main reason is that nineteen twentieths of the people are lazy, very lazy, when it comes to any effort that does not promise a direct retura of cash or rice, It does take time and labour to keep clean, as most sons of Adam have found out.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.