miles of which may be traversed with not so much as a house to be seen, through which the Blackburn Commercial Mission passed in 1897. Their comment is pathetic: "On March 31st, we travelled twenty-five miles without seeing a village. And there was no work for us to do—a commercial mission in the Sahara. In truth, from Lao-wa-t'an to K'ung-shan the country is at present of no possible value for commerce. The people are very poor, and clad exclusively—when clad at all—in Sha-shih cotton cloth; but they can scarcely afford sufficient clothing." It was a relief to drop, on January 12th, from a high range to the long and well-cultivated valley in which lies the city of Tung-ch'uan Fu, the second place worthy of the name of town between Sui Fu and Yün-nan Fu. The distance between Chao-t'ung Fu and Tung-ch'uan Fu is mentioned by Morrison as 110 miles; but my own estimate was 83 miles. The valley wore quite an air of prosperity after the bleak uplands over which we had been travelling. Wild-blossom gave the land an appearance
