Szechuan is evidently advancing, and steady march of Western civilisation undoubtedly making inroads in, these wilds, as well as in other parts of the of this liege Empire show thst Obiaa'ie at Flowery Land. Accounts from all parts last moving, and has made up its mind once for all' not to be in the backwash of other nations any louver. This great movement, too, emanates from the only source that augurs succoss—from the people, not the Government.
To Ghungking itself, for instance, an observer can see that the ni desire more and more fat Western learning, and ideas, and they are being rapidly educated, seemingly unounously 80, to be exigent of things that, been identified solely with ut foreign things ery description, and feom what leaned when in conversation with a godly number of thera they would the day that directed them to begun to bui of themselves, houses precisely on the forei principle, and this desire for a house. built on the foreign style is spreading here apace. At present several erections on the foreign style are being got on with. There ix the new Custom House thatis rapidly rising close to the Tai Ping Méa, and has now almost reached i's second storey; when compl-ted it will be a real boon for the Indoor Castoms Staffup here. The ramshackle building they are now in is a disgrace to the great Customs Service, and is highly objectionable. both from a hygienic and a topographical point of vi A new native hak in the foreign "tyle on a site adjacent to the new Custom House ix, also, being built; and a new hong for t 0. M. S.N. No. Sites have alre: dy been chosen by many other woulthy natives on which to erect foreign-built houses.
Again, several meetings have taken place here, convened and numerously attended by many of the merchants of this city andi vicinity for the purpose of considering the advi-ability and feasibility from a monetary point of view of con. structing a railway, in the firs from Chungking to Chengtu, and in the second, from Chungking to Ichang. The inaugurators of these two railway schemes came to the conclasign, nem. oon., and without delay, that railways in this provines were an urgently: pres ing need, and already several thousands of Taels have been subscribed by people locally. I hope to give you more tion on this
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.