TWO years before, travelling through the English Lakes in the month of June and rejoicing in the rhododendrons and azaleas, so lovely there, I read Miss Gordon Cumming's account of the azaleas on the hills behind Ningpo, and thought I must some day come to China just on purpose to see them. But I did not then think that I should ever really do so. Now one night on board the good boat Kiangteen had brought us from Shanghai to Ningpo, reaching that place in pleasant time for breakfast. And next day saw us most comfortably installed in a friend's houseboat en route for Kongkou, where we were to take chairs to proceeed to the Snowy Hollow of Shih-to-sze. Ningpo boats are excellent, and the one lent us slipped along like an eel, propelled by two men with yulos at the stern. Though pleasant enough there was little to notice on the way. But before ever packing into the houseboat, we had been to see the various sights of Ningpo: the shops of the famous wood-carving; the grand old Fokien Guild House with its beautiful dragon-carved stone pillars, and air of departed grandeur; then in the foreign quarter the race-course, which is not circular but straight, and where no races are ever run: the church with its excellent memorial window to Bishop Russel, and last, but certainly not least, the new Bund.