Wesleyan Mission came through overland from Changsha, and from Liu-yang to Changsha, but they did not know much news of the war front. They were on their way to Shaoyang. They had to pay coolies eight dollars each from Changsha to a ten li point from here on the Siangsiang road. Coolies asked eighteen dollars from here to Siangsiang.
We were able to telephone the railroad engineers at Tsichiang yesterday, and found that west Hunan is progressing well with the railway which is to proceed to Chungking instead of Kweiyang as was the plan and which has been surveyed to the loiter place. This seems to be a new plan for connecting up the unoccupied areas The railway staff having moved away, we no longer have the electric alarm nearby, and have to listen for one from each end of the city. We have grown rather accustomed to air alarms, but now after some serious bombings they seem to be more terrifying than before.
Lately the Japanese have been using more and more incendiary bombs and setting whole cities on fire, but here none seems to have appeared so far.
Primary schools have closed or have opened with small enrolments in the country. The Rev. T. W. Mitchell started for Shanghai a few days ago and got as far as Kweilin, when he was phoned for and returned, arriving in Siangtan just at the time of the greatest excitement, when it seemed as though the enemy might be on us at any moment Our dugout is a whizz It has three doors and is well built thanks to the railway engineers, who have been here and have built it.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.