All the post-offices transmit parcels, as well as letters and bullion, at very moderate charges.

The distance is 230 miles, and the charges are fifty cash (_1-1/4d._) the catty (1-1/3lb.), or any part thereof; thus a single letter pays fifty cash, a catty's weight of letters paying no more than a single letter.
From Chungking to Yunnan city, a distance of 630 miles, letters pay two hundred cash (fivepence) each; packages of one catty, or under, pay three hundred and fifty cash; while for silver bullion there is a special fee of three hundred and fifty cash for every ten taels, equivalent to ninepence for thirty shillings, or two-and-a-half per cent., which includes postage registration, guarantee, and insurance.
Tak-wan-hsien is a town of some importance, and was formerly the seat of the French missionary bishop.

It is a walled town, ranking as a Hsien city, with a Hsien magistrate as its chief ruler.

There are 10,000 people (more or less), within the walls, but the city is poor, and its poverty is but a reflex of the district.

Its mud wall is crumbling; its houses of mud and wood are falling; the streets are ill-paved and the people ill-clad..