The roads have been worked, many new paths opened and fresh water springs have en found. No case of serious sickness is a good health record. Pale-faced children go down with rosy cheeks, tired mothers walk with new el Some who came un with languid smiles descend with a disposition and the ca paci ty to laugh heartily. There will soon be issued a revised prospectus, handbook, or manual. The next season promises to see the largest number of visitors ever known here. The Chinese Imperial Post Office has collected and delivered a daily mail, everything going vii Hangchow. Next year, the Association will have fast passen-zer and mail boats between Danghsi and Sanjaoboo, thus saving a day in transit.
The Visitors' Dues have also been reduced. Hereafter one dollar per year, paid at the rest house, will defray road-tax, Association fees, and all incidentals. The house tax and lot-owners assessment is also very low as compared with other places. Arrangements have been made by which the Association Sec retary at Huchow, the Rev. J. T. Proctor, will attend to stamping Chinese title deeds, defraying the Imperial rice and silver taxes, ete., ete.
Li parties who hold original deeds writ ten in Chinese already stamped will send copies to Mr. Proctor at Huchow, they will make matters easier for him and more satisfactory to themselves, besides ducing the probability of complications with the yamen. A little intelligent attention to a small matter like this now will avoid a mountain of trouble later on, especially if the original foreign purchaser has re-sold any of his holdings.
It is reassuring to know that first purchasers who have paid the Imperial taxes do posess excellent titles, and it merely remains for subsequent purchasers to assure themselves.
A circulating library is proposed for the use of summer visitors, a lot being already available for that purpose near Union Church.
The scenery at Mokanshan affords abundant scope for Kodak, brush, or pencil.
For lack of something better this letter closes with a word sketch of A Tahsan Sunset.
The party lingered over afternoon tea until the glare was gone. A climb, a scramble, and a shout brought us to the summit of Pagoda Peak. Our glasses swept north, east, south and west under the slowly fading sunlight, We noted new sights, fresh -vistas everywhere, Meanwhile the vaulted sky bent low on slanting rays. Just then the south breeze stirred. Noon-scorched, sun-bleached clouds in formless mass set sail for sunset glows. A stealthy haze drifted down across the sun's enlarging disk. Silent shadows crept out from dwarf to giant forms from eastern slopes. Smoke wreaths started up from supper fires far down the darkening valleys. A rift in the west let floods of light stream through the cleft in sheets of purpling flame. All colours, every hue and many luminous shades leapt harmonious into billowed mist and cresting cloud-bank. Exquisite tinting blended with the flare of spreading gold. Moments flew as silently as the soundless motion of the skies above. Soft greys grew darker yet beneath the heavy gilding. Here and there ink-tints followed fast and faster. Toppled masses spread strata-like throughout the rare and down tadenser air. A jutting crag impaled the sinking sun just as the full moon lifted clean from "the extended eastern plain. A golden day had melted into silvery night.
16th September.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.