Taihienlu May 9. NE of the strangest requests we have ever had came the other day from an, old Chinese-lady 84 years of age.
We have often been asked to adopt children, run schools, open a clinic, store valuables, subscribe towards public funds interview officials,. put cut fires, institute a fire brigade, send cablegrams to Lhasa, entertain incarnations, put up wild game expeditions of all descriptions and give hospitality to missionaries of every known and unknown denomination; but the most extraordinary request we have ever had came from this old Chinese lady.
The old Chinese lady who made the request the other day is anxious about her bones.
She is very old and feels she can't last much longer, hence her request to be buried somewhere in the mission compound, Her husband is buried up in Sian, being a Laoshan, and as the old lady cannot be buried beside him, she would like, if possible, to have her bones laid to rest in the safety and quietness of the mi One of China's great highways is slowly reaching the Tibetan frontier. Known as the Chengkang highway, stretching from Chengtu to Kangtin this great road will bring the border and the new province of - Sikang within two or three days of Chung= King, the present capital of China. The'new "highway Is nearing the bridge at Luting and some work has already been done on this side of the river, Work on the road Is" now being carried-on 30. miles east of Tachienlu and there is talk that the highway may be completed at the end of this year, "Engineers on the construction work, however, are not quite s0 optimistic.
may be that cars will get. through to Tachienlu by December, but only very rough and dangerous roads. The new road comes up through Tien~ Tienchuen the Tung gorge, leav ow, and follows up the Wash g to Tachienlu. The road from here to Wasikow is only 20 miles yet the hardest bit of work ies along this stretch. When Mr. Caimneross, the young Canadian engineer, and personal road adviser to the Generalissimo, was up here some years ago he estimated that some 250,000 tons of rock would have fo be removed between the two towns. There is a drop of several thousand feet between this city and the Tung at Wasikow and this bit of and will call for some very" skilful engineering, [years ago the authorities forbade the fentranee of yak into the city.
Mr. Ralph Holder from Texas, apart from his activities on behalf Of the American Bible Society, has Introduced a young foreign bull calf to the Tibetan frontier. "As he tells the story, Mme Picot and her party travelled with the bull calt; this however was a bull calf complex, a Mme Picot, wife of the French Charge Affaires, and her party very kindly allowed the calf to come along with them, This is the second time a foreign bull calf has been Introduced to the border. In 1926 Dr. Hardy took one into Batang from \Chengta snd the day after its arrival in that distant outpost it completely and mysteriously disappeared. Mr. Holder's idea. Quite allrulstie as he hopes to lend the bull calf to the woolly nomads away up on the plateaux, and thereby improve the stock along the frontier. He was brought up on a farm and since his arrival on the border In 1935 he has often wondered why the Tibetan cows give so little and such poor milk. An ordinary Tibetan cow will not give much more than three or four cups of milk per day; which is not quite one quart. With the introduction of foreign stock it hoped there will be an improvement in the breed and a greater oUt ut of milk and a larger supply of butter. jolter Babies Anticlpated
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.