The changes of the seasons having once more brought round the glorious autumn weather of Mid-China, we determined not to let another October pass without taking advantage of the invitation held out to us by kindly nature in the shape of smooth seas, cloudless skies, and balmy airs, and by man in the shape of a fast-sailing pilot sloop obligingly placed at our disposal. An annual change from the ozoneless atmosphere of Shanghai is now an acknowledged necessity to those condemned to pass a summer on the steaming, muddy shores of the Hwang-pu, and towards the end of September all who can flit either to the north to Chefoo, eastwards to Japan, or up-country to the land of pig and pheasant, where long tramps through the thick cover of the Western Hills allure the sportsman. We for our part determined to seek our field of recreation amidst the land-locked seas of the Chusan Archipelago and in the to us uncommon surroundings of salt-water. Our party of four comprised two dealers in the fragrant leaf, one world-famed legal luminary, and an architect of whom may be said to all who have the good fortune to land on the shores of our palatial city, “Si quœrts monumenta, circumspice.”