With the decline of summer comes the bracing time in Samarkand. During October and November autumn has established itself. At breakfast time the thermometer will show between 32° and 41° F. (0° to 5° C.), rising to about 60 (15° C.) at two o'clock. The evenings are chilly again, being frequently followed by several degrees of frost at night. The trees are yellow, streaks of mist creep through the gardens in the morning and the air is crisp. That is the season for travelling and walking in comfort, for seeing the sights as a tourist.

Then, in December, comes winter with an occasional shower of rain or sudden rise of temperature, but on the whole clear and cold. Through the leafless branches distant views with snow-topped hills are revealed and hidden houses everywhere become visible among the recesses of the gardens. Now the bugle sounds for the gay chase after pheasant, duck and boar, across the crackling stubble-fields and through the rustling reeds. For us autumn and winter are favourable for roaming in the plains; now is the season for lusty deeds in the lowlands.

On the 1st of December 1907 two ladies, Carruthers and myself left Samarkand intent upon a shooting trip to Makhan-kul. According to the official calendar of the Russian railways it must already have been mid-winter, for our second class carnage was almost bursting with heat. The iron stove in the corner had been goaded to red wrath and was doing his level best to reduce to a sweltering stew the crowd packed into this boiler on wheels. Herein it succeeded with remarkable atmospheric effects.

Yunnan is situated in the S.W. corner of the Chinese Empire proper and is a mountain-covered plateau,—not a simple tableland or “Hochebene,” as is the Mongolian plateau in greater part. It averages 5,000 feet above the sea-level in the actual and dried-up lake basins that yield a limited level area between the mountains, and 8 to 10,000 feet in its innumerable mountain crests; whereby is indicated the general ancient level of the whole plateau. It may be classed as a S.E. peninsular extension of the high Tibetan plateau to which it is directly attached on its N.W. border. It is the third largest province of the empire and covers an area of 108,000 square miles. Compare Great Britain with 88,000 square miles and Tonking with 50,000. In situation and climate it bears a marked analogy to that of the high plateau of Mexico, the mean temperature of which likewise ranges from 60° to 70° (the extremes being 50° to 86°). The new French Railway from Haiphong to Yunnan-fu may be compared with that from Vera Cruz to Mexico, which rises 8,000 feet in 263 miles with gradients of 2.51 per 100. The population was estimated by Davenport in 1877 to have fallen, in consequence of the ruthless extermination of the Mahomedans and the mutual massacres of the contending parties, from the original estimate in 1850 of 6,000,000, to about 1,000,000.

Having found the province of Yunnan and the journey thither very different from my expectations, notwithstanding that I had read almost everything written on the subject, I think others may like to hear more about this unique region and to read the fresh impressions made upon an old traveller in visiting this sequestered corner of the empire. The province of Yunnan is farther of special interest at the moment, since its boundaries have become coterminous with those of the British Indian and of the French Indo-Chinese empires; and that a race has set in between the two Powers for the development of their respective interests in this land of great potentialities—a race in which undoubtedly so far our French friends are a good first.

From the capital of Szechuan to the capital of Yunnan, a distance of 700 miles by the nearest road, but of little more than five degrees of latitude, the time occupied by us in the journey was exactly forty days. The water in the branch of the Min river that washes the walls of the provincial capital being, at the time of our departure, the end of April, very low, in consequence of the irrigation requirements of the great Chêngtu plain; we started out from the city by the land route to Kia-ting, proceeding thence by boat to Sui-fu and thence again for the remainder of the journey by land, there being in Yunnan no alternative choice of water carriage such as we find in so many of, if not all, the other provinces of China, and notably in the well-watered province of Szechuan.

THERE are two routes open to the traveller desirous of escaping from the remote capital of Yunnan to the outside world and the civilisation of the West—both arduous and difficult, both leading over high mountain passes and by deep river valleys—the one due west to the valley of the Irrawaddy, across the defiles of the Mekong and the Salween, and so on to Rangoon—the other due south to the valley of the Red River and thence to the coast at Haiphong, the seaport of French Tonking. If bound to Europe, the road to Rangoon is the more direct, and by much the shorter: returning to China, we chose the way by the Red River rather than traverse once again the terrible pathways of Lao-wa-t‘an and northern Yunnan; notwithstanding that the latter leads across the healthy uplands of the northern plateau, while the southern route dips down to the low encased valley of the Red River, which has at this season a bad reputation for heat and malaria, and by which we found the discomforts of travel far greater than those on the land journey. On the other hand Haiphong could be reached from Yunnan-fu in about a fortnight, while the journey overland to Sui-fu—where the Yangtse is reached and the luxurious travel on the Great River is resumed—would occupy a full month's time.

AS is the case with all Chinese mountain cities, the capital of Yunnan enjoys a most picturesque situation. Emerging from the plain it stands on a limestone ridge, along which its north wall runs; the southern wall encloses much flat land, including a considerable extent of paddy-fields and lotus ponds, across which run stone causeways leading to temples and tea-houses; a bit of Japan with Chinese dirt and decay thrown in. The view over the city and the distant lake and the amphitheatre of surrounding mountains is very beautiful, as one takes a seat on one of the rugged limestone rocks, that cover the face of the slope of the ridge inside the north wall. Like Peking and Chẻngtu, the city is full of fine trees, amidst which glitter the variegated tiled roofs of the many temples and guildhalls. The eye reaches across the city, with its very elegant twin pagodas marking the spot where the Burmese tribute bearers used to assemble—the stable for their elephants was near the British Consulate, where a new school was being built—and across the wide lake to the mountains beyond: these distant mountains form the water-parting between the valley of the Yangtse, to which the drainage of the Yunnan Lake basin belongs, and the drainage of the lakes in the east of the province which goes to feed the West River of Canton.

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.

July 6th, 1893. After all I went off to the Farm by myself, starting at ten, and only getting there after twelve, though the crossing of the River was rather exciting than slow, there being no freshet on; only all the dreadful rocks, that went to form the remarkable little harbour of the Dragon's gate, were now quite covered with water, so that our boat went careering over them. Yet afterwards it was so hot, that the coolies spent a long time eating and resting before they got me up the 1000 ft. from the River to the T'u Shan Temple, on the top of the first range of hills. I was annoyed to find the furniture in our Farm not cleaned, and a good deal of smell of dirt in spite of the many men, who had been out cleaning it for several days. The Shrine at one end of the room, that I had told the people they might take away, was still there. When I remarked on this, the Cook exclaimed it could not be moved. “Well then it must be cleaned,” I said, attacking it with a feather brush, and immediately producing a shower of dust. The Coolies all screamed. “You must not touch it! We cannot touch it!” they cried. “Call the woman of the house,” I said. But she again waved deprecatory hands, and cried “I cannot touch it,” to which the Coolies all replied in Chorus: “She cannot touch it! A woman!” Presently the Farmer appeared, very obliging but very grave. It seemed that he only could clean it.

We were living in the far West of China, 1500 miles from the sea, 500 miles beyond the reach of steamers, and against its becoming too hot in Chungking, a large city, the commercial Capital of Szechuan, all shut in by walls, and so full of houses as not to have an available breathing space left empty, we had rented a hill side on which to build ourselves a Summer cottage. But the Magistrate had stopped our building on the pretext that the country people were so much opposed to foreigners he dared not sanction our living amongst them; then made a great favour of having persuaded a certain Farmer to have us as tenants, and suggested that, if we went out to him for three months, perhaps gradually the people might become accustomed to us.

It was very hot in the daytime and all day long I was shut up in the one Farm house sittingroom, so I started a Diary for much the same reason probably, that I have often observed people do so on a Sea Voyage. They generally do not keep it up till the end, neither did I; but I noted down every thing I could observe of interest, as long as I wrote in it, and here it is, recalling many simple pleasures and some painful days.

While speaking of the glens further up the river, I omitted to say that in several places I found decided indications of gold.

In one gully the bed of the stream had numerous small quartz stones scattered about, some of them honey-combed, which reminded me strongly of the quartz-bearing reefs of Australia. Whether it was fancy or not I do not know, but I thought that the mountains had a similar formation to some that I remember having seen about Mount Alexander and Mount Blackwood.

Then once again, as in former years, I got an attack of gold fever, but this time only in a mild form. We were between two and three miles from the boats, and I had nothing in which I could wash even a handful of sand, but what I had seen was quite enough to raise up visions of gold, so an attempt at washing must be made, even though it proved a failure, which I quite expected would be the case. I had a long weary tramp to the boat, and on overhauling the cooking department I found the very thing I wanted. A tin milk-dish, about twenty inches in diameter, sloping sides and five inches deep. Nothing could be better; it was a perfect prospecting pan such as I had used hundreds of times before.

The tramp back again seemed endless, but, when I had arrived at the place where I intended my first attempt should be made, something in its appearance displeased me and I looked for more promising ground.