The pond itself swarms with sacred fish; they are so numerous that when the masses move the whole pond vibrates.

Many merits are gained by feeding the fish, and, as it happened at the time of my visit that I had no money, I was constrained to borrow fifteen cash from my chair coolies, with which I purchased some of the artificial food that women were vending and threw it to the fish, so that I might add another thousand to the innumerable merits I have already hoarded in Heaven.
Upon a pretty wooded hill near the centre of the city is the Confucian Temple, and on the lower slope of the hill, in an admirable position, are the quarters of the China Inland Mission, conducted by Mr.and Mrs.
X., assisted by Mr.Graham, who at the time of my visit was absent in Tali, and by two exceedingly nice young girls, one of whom comes from Melbourne.

The single ladies live in quarters of their own on the edge of a swamp, and suffer inevitably from malarial fever.

Mr.X."finds the people very hard to reach," he told me, and his success has only been relatively cheering.

After labouring here nearly six years--the mission was first opened in 1882--he has no male converts, though there are two promising nibblers, who are waiting for the first vacancy to become adherents.