Work on the northern railway is going on 3 usual. The road bed, as far as the borders of Honan, is well advanced, but the bridges are atill awanting. The rails are being laid, and expected that trains will be running from the seven-mile creek outwards by about the end of the year. Some time must elapse before the line can bbe brought to Hankow. There is the difliculty of the seven-mile creek bridge, and a more serious one still in the fiot' that a f the land on the railway route ity of Hankow is claimed by French and other foreigners. Of the forty engineers who came out a short time ago to superintend the construction of the road, upwards of a dozen are already on their way home ogum, victims of the climate and other discouragements. This, however, is not surprising when it. is remembered that young men fresh from home are sent right into the interior to live as best they can, through a Central China summer,
one. If they knew English they would get without by Cee we speak 'a word to any on better, as English-speaking boys can always be had, but the French edition of that indispensible factotum hus not yet been manufactured.
FINE WEATHER, Our long spell of rainy weather seems to have come to an end at last. For a week we have had steady sunshine and pretty hot in consequence, Returning Kuling visitors have the pleasure of knowing once more what it is to be warm.
15th September.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.