The following are extracts from a letter received from Chungkiny by a correspondent, dat.d March 4.
"We are short of coolies: we had to stand on the landing to preven them oeimg taken by the military for the country. Most of the mer are away and some ten have been j killed in the fight at Chichiang.
"Last night notices were posted up after dark saying that Kueichow men would be here soon and order-
Foreigners who have come in contact with them, speak very highly of the Yunnanese soldiers. They are subservient to discipline and behave very carefully in their dealings with the people, who make few complaints against them.
The Northerners are accused of many misbehaviour. These may be due, to some extent, to the fact that the people do not understand their dialect. Difficulties thus oocur in business dealings and then the northern man has lost patience and settled the matter to his own satisfaction.
Owing to such troubles, the people have treated them meanly, by refusing to sell to them, or by shutting up their shops when they were in town, or serving them only partially cooked food.
The Government troops also fired upon a Red Cross party of foreigners from Suifu, on the revolutionary side. The party were out looking for dead and wounded. The revolutionaries have played so many tricks upon the Government troops, enticing them into ambuscades, ete.. that it may have been that they ing all the natives away 20 li from Haitainchito, a point below our new buildings, as they would want this point for action against the city. It is evident that the northern me: have had a bad time. The Yunnan aeroplane paid us a visit yesterday and dropped into the city and on the camp in Kiangpeh messages to the troops and city. It did not stay long. Two days ago the northern aeroplane came down and the man is not expected to live." inal from ik
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.