Originally written as letters to the North China Herald, of which my husband's brother, R. W. Little, was then the Editor, and now for the first time published in England by the kind permission of the present Editor, this volume lacks the final corrections of the author; although in Shanghai he wrote the introduction here given. Before publishing it in book form he wished, I think, to add to it and somewhat to remodel it. But the time for that never came.

Now, however, that the French have so far completed their railway from Hanoi to Yunnan-fu, that it is to be officially opened on April 1st, 1910, I have done my very imperfect best to revise the volume, as I think my husband would have wished, and to bring it out also in April as a tribute to that French enterprise on which he touches so often with warm admiration in these pages. Had he lived, I know what valuable additions they would have gained from his richly-stored memory and original tone of thought; whereas I could but diminish the value of what he has written by additions. Regarded as his freshly-written impressions of our last travel together in China, the following pages will, I hope, convey to the reader something of his intense enjoyment at the time.