rive some idea of the city itself as I saw it in 1908.
Lanchow stands on the right bank of the Yellow River, which takes a sharp Northerly bend soon after—_leaving the valley in which the town stands. This valley in ite narrowest part is some 2} to 3 miles wide and in hemmed in to North and South by law broken hills, on the Southern side reaching as high as 1,800 to 2,000 feet. The town is different from most Chinese cities in not being square. Lanchow is long East to West and narrow from North to South and has good, solid, defensible walls, the Northern of which actually borders the right bank of the river. A road only separates them. The width of the Yellow River as it passes Lanchow is some 130 yards. It to-day spanned by modern bridge, when I visited the town the only methods of crossing were over @ bridge of boats in summer; on the ice in winter: and by ferry boat during the interim when the ice broke up and the bri-of boats was replaced. In Feb-rusty, the month of my arrival, the ice, though broken up, was still pil-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.