growers who bring the silk to the foreign market. These growers are invariably small farmers, who either purchase the leaves, or have a few mulberry bushes planted in some odd corner of their tilled lands, and the rearing of the worm and the production of silk by no means monopolise the whole of their time. It is only a spring occupation for the women and younger members of their families. Chinese merchants or brokers proceed to the country markets, and there collect the produce until they have secured enough to make up a parcel for the Shanghai or Chefoo markets, where it is bought up by foreigners for exportation.
I paid two visits to Chefoo, and must have experienced the extremes of temperature. On the first occasion the heat was intense; but on my return the cold was so severe that my boy Ahong had his ears and nose frost-bitten. We had proceeded to a hill-top to obtain a picture of Chefoo, but the north-west wind, blowing from the icy steppes of Mongolia, was like to freeze the blood in our veins. Having, however, succeeded in taking a photograph, I sent to a neighbouring hut for a bottle of water to wash the negative, but no sooner had I withdrawn the plate from the shelter of the dark tent and poured the water over it, than the liquid froze on its surface and hung in icicles around its edge. In spite of these difficulties we adjourned to a friendly hut, where we thawed the plate over a charcoal fire and washed it with hot water,—wet plate process.
The next place of importance at which we touched on our route north, was Taku, at the mouth of the Peiho. The Taku forts are mud strongholds, which have been often and well described. At the time of my visit these forts had been under repair; still they were not yet properly garrisoned, nor were their guns all mounted. I passed along a stone pavement which
