There seemed an absolute dearth of anything like vegetables and fruit and we failed even to buy a loaf of bread—all sold out. There were no ricshas though the ground is very level and just adapted for such. Three disreputable sedan chairs were in evidence. By no stretch of imagination could they be described as worthy of a Foreign Settlement. There were 200 Chinese soldiers in the place dressed in miserable uniforms with the Chinese characters for Tong-King stitched on their jackets. Several of them were drinking tea in" a teashop and we joined them. One of then was loud in his grumbling saying he had shang-ta-tang"( in joining the French regiment. Tt struck us as rather amusing that we should be interviewing the French military in this way. We Were rather expecting to be
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.