Changsha, Apr. 11.
Our hill "Yo Lo Shan" on the west bank of the Siang Kiang is now a blaze vf colour, for the red azaleas are all in full bloom. These range from brick red to crimson. In the distance the hillside looks quite red. "As one walks through woods the flowering bushes, intermingled with the tender green Jof the trees, make a perfect picture jof Spring." We may be forgiven we murmur " to be in England now that April's there", as memory's eye sees that little birchwood down the lane, blue with a carpet of blue. bells, that we last glimpsed four 3 ago. Our China thrush too, Browning's bird in the poem, igs each song twice over" for us, lest we miss "his first fine careless rapture". Chinese as well as foreigners cross the river, and return to the ferry, laden with their red sheave Last March in Hongkong a German botanist, who was lecturing there, told us that we were quite in calling these. flowers azaleas, he insisted that they are
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.