the Iwa Miao, Lesu, Laga, and Kopu we use the Pollard script.... but seeing that the Tai have a written language it would be better to work with you if you will allow us. The trouble is we have no idea of the writing. Can we be taught at this distance? Have you time and patience to help us master the alphabet? There are only seventeen families that believe but if we can teach them it would be worth while. At this distance it will be a laborious task. However I would like a hymn book with the title in English so that one would know the hymns. Then say a Gospel of Mark if you have one. But the important thing is to have a primer with directions how to read it. . . . I trust I am not bothering you too much, but it is for the sake of these Tai.... Perhaps later on we may meet. ... We are now privileged to pray for your work.

In reply to my invitation to meet me at Szemao, he writes:

It would have been a great pleasure to go south and meet you and have a talk about the work, especially to get some information about the Tai books. Alas, this is impossible, for we are short handed, building is in progress, so, much as I would like to go, it cannot be . . . . The Lord will lead us on step by step, as one's heart is troubled by the darkness of these Tai. . . . even though we cannot go down south, yet we must not drop the subject.

....

Gentle reader, isn't that enough to stir your blood? And if you had already met in person and talked with thousands of Tai in Southern Yünnan and knew you could talk with those in the north, and if allowed could give them the gospel in their own tongue, would not you just ache to get at them? We didboth.

Finally the opportunity came in 1917 with the opening of Chiengrung station-which the Chinese call Kiu Lung Kiangin Southern Yünnan, and the beginning of work for the Tai of China. The station was opened by Dr. Mason and Mr. Beebe on October 15, 1917. We were appointed to the new station with Dr. Mason and family but were urged to take our furlough first. So it came about that we were trying to hasten back after a nine months' furlo, in April of 1918, to join our lonely colleagues in Chiengrung.

A journey in war times meant many unexpected delays, changing steamers, and long waits in port cities. Ours was no exception in the way of delays, but we enjoyed exceedingly this onforced opportunity to see something of missionary work in the ports of Japan, China, and the Philippines. We decided to make the latter part of our journey to Chieng Rung by way of Haiphong and the French railway, rather than up through Siam. This is the more direct way and we hoped to be able to reach our station before the heavy rains set in. This gave us the opportunity of meeting missionaries of other denominations at work in Tongking and Yuna. We met the Christian and Missionary Alliance family at work in Hanoi, Mr. and Mrs. Cadman, and we enjoyed their hospitality for a night enroute. Mr. Cadman also helped us through the inevitable interview at the police station over passports. We had to go early in the morning, as we expected to take the 9:30 train, and going through the passport catechism is evidently a time consuming business in Tongking. The French officials went a little farther even than the Japanese in their kind inquiries after our parents and grandparents; they wrote a verbal picture of us each one and then when we had begun to breathe freely and think breakfast and train were yet possible they asked for our photographs. We all looked blank and thought "Goodbye train for today," when I suddenly remembered I had some and produced them. Our thoughtful U. S. Government had informed us we would need extra ones, if we were passing through any belligerent country, and here we did, and we had them. Breakfast and train were

ours.

The French railway is the most magnificent piece of engineering we have ever seen. It is subject to inundations and landslides annually at present. But these are diminishing gradually, and in time will disappear altogether, in all probability. There are 154 tunnels in the three days' ride from Haiphong to Yunnanfu, and many of them are in the day's journey from the Tongking border to Amitchow. For about half the day we followed up the "turbulent, tumbling, turbid Ti," a muddy little stream in the rainy season but very picturesque. On the side of one mountain we saw what we thought was another road above a dizzy height but a few minutes later we were on that road and the former track was far below. We traveled around mountain peaks, sometimes the circular terraced fields full of water looked

like basins down below. We are told the loss of life was appall ing in the construction of this railway. We cannot but hope, however, that in spite of difficulties it may sometime be put through to Singyifu and Nanning.

Our meeting with the missionaries was all that we expected, and as to numbers more than we expected. We met at Mengtze, two ladies of the Pentecostal Missionary Union (P. M. U.), and at the capital, Yunnanfu, the missionaries of the China Inland Mission (C. I. M.), the Church of England (C. M. S.) with P. M. U. and Y. M. C. A. workers. We were most hospitably entertained at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Collins of the Y. M. C. A., both at the beginning and the end of our stay in this region. Indeed, the kindness and hospitality of all these friends is long to be remembered. Mr. and Mrs. Collins lived in an old Confucian Temple fitted up for a modern dwelling. All the missionaries in Yünnan live in rented Chinese houses, except Dr. Thomp son and family of the C. M. S. and those at the headquarters of the P. M. U. who have built in foreign style. Our visit to the capital was a pleasure we had been looking forward to for several years.

Our regular route through Yünnan would have taken us from Mengtze, on the French railway, by caravan stages to Szemno and thence six days' stages south to Chiengrung. But the Chinese authorities reported the road unsafe from Mengtze westward, on account of numerous robber bands with which their few soldiers were unable to cope, and requested us to come up to the capital where the soldiers are more numerous, and go from there by

caravan.

Arriving by rail at the capital, we received word from Mr. Porteous of the Wutingchow station that a conference at the capital was out of the question, and cordially inviting us to come on up to this Sapushan center for conference, and for Tai work. Unusually heavy rains for the season, and the failure of our heavy baggage and freight (supplies for the caravan journey) to arrive by rail for some time, soon showed us that it was impossible for us to press on to Chiengrung until after the rains. The hand of the Lord was plainly pointing the way. So it was decided that we go to Sapushan and offer our services at that time.

Accordingly we left the capital June 5th, being conducted by Mr. Parker, a C. I. M. worker living a solitary life among the

Kopu in the Wutingchow region. As our "kit" had not arrived the Y. M. C. A. and C. I. M. ladies generously furnished us with everything needful for the journey of three days, including food, so we made the trip in comfort as to the "inner man." As it was our first long distance ride in sedan chairs we had an interesting journey through an uninterestig country and the usual line of filthy Chinese towns and villages.

We arrived in Sapushan June 7th. It is a delightful mountain station over 8000 feet above sea level. We arrived in time to witness their annual school drill. All the schools in their district, seven in all, gathered for this festival. There were 300 boys from seven tribes and races; the Lisu, Laga, Nosu, Kopu, Hwa Miao, Tai, and Chinese. Their drill was very interesting; but still more so was the communion service on Sabbath afternoon There were 700 in attendance. The singing was wonderful. They had four services that day, the two longer lasting for four hours with a half-hour intermission.

Two Tai men and two school boys had come in to the festival. We found we could talk with them and they and all who heard agreed that we had the same language. On Monday night we had a conference with them and with our missionary brethren, Messrs. Porteous, Metcalf, and Parker. The Tai men begged us to stay and visit them in their village and teach them. They said, "There are many villages of Tai who say they will become Christian if there is some one to teach them in their own language.'

The conference lasted till late. After much prayer for guidance it was decided that we should stay and do what we could to help them in the three months at our disposal, and that Mr. Metcalf should be put in charge of the Tai work, to carry it on after we left, although he already had charge of the Laga work and later temporary charge of the Lisu comprising many villages and hundreds of believers. He began studying the Tai language at once under our instruction. The Tai men left after arranging to return a month later for Mr. Metcalf and myself to visit their village. Mr. Porteous wished us to prepare a tract of religious instruction and a number of hymns, also a primer with alphabet tables, etc., all to be finished and printed on his Roneo before we went down to their village, saying, "We must have something to offer them that they can go to work on, and that we may be able to get into close touch with them as soon as possible.'

It must be gratefully remembered that this was not the first work to be done for these Tai people here. Overworked as these C. I. M. missionaries have long been in the care and direction of great mass movements among "the tribes," several of them have taken time to visit the village of believing Tai repeatedly, situated some three days northwest of Sapushan, and given them instruction through the medium of the Chinese language. Mr. Porteous, on these flying visits, had prepared a small Tai primer, using the Pollard script as best he could. But the Pollard script, admirable as it is for use among tribes having no final consonants and few tones, is inadequate for writing Tai. The Tai have six final consonantal sounds and the local Tai here are blessed with ten tones. Moreover we found these isolated Tai as proud of being "The Free" as are their literate brethern farther south. ("Tai" means free.) And they wish work for them done in their own written and spoken language. So we set to work at once after it had been arranged that we should stay, and that Mr. Metcalf should study their language, not only to give him daily lessons, but to prepare a Tai Primer in Tai characters. As we proceeded with this primer work, we found the work that Mr. Porteous had done in his primer was so well done that much of it was incorporated in the new primer, after expunging a few Chinese words, and at his request making his hymns rhyme.

We had scarcely begun this entrancing work, when I fell ill and was kept in bed from June 10th to June 26th. Mrs. Dodd in addition to nursing me gave Mr. Metcalf his two hours of study daily for about two weeks, when he left us for the tour on which I was to have accompanied him. The Tai people were much disappointed in not seeing me. They however selected three women and three men to come in and study with us for a month. On the way back from the Tai village Mr. Metcalf was also taken ill and had to be carried into the station. These two long illnesses interrupted our work and delayed it greatly.

From June 26th to July 6th we roamed the hills enjoying a holiday with book or camera. The magnificent mountains talked to us, and the bracing air gave new strength to us. We became so familiar with the mountains we gave names to them, Old Craghead, Ingleside and the Palisades being our favorites. We explored the paths made by the feet of the hundreds of mountain. people, as they go up singly or in groups to the Sabbath services or in bands with banners flying, to gather for the great con