When we returned to Shanghai on our way down from Peking I was greeted by two cablegrams. It just happened that I opened them in the order of their coming and the first one contained the information that my husband was very ill and said that I had better return at once to Manila, while the second read that he was much better and that there was no cause for alarm. There was no way of getting to Manila for several days, because there were no boats going. So I decided to take a trip up the Yangtse River on the houseboat belonging to the wife of the American Consul. If I had been doing this for pleasure instead of for the purpose of “getting away from myself” I should have enjoyed it exceedingly, but as it was I have but a vague recollection of a very wide and very muddy river; great stretches of clay flats, broken here and there by little clumps of round mounds which I knew were Chinese graves, and bordered by distant, low hills; an occasional quaint grey town with uptilted tile roofs; and a few graceful but dreary-looking pagodas crowning lonesome hilltops. And in addition to all of this there was a seething mass of very dirty and very noisy humanity which kept out of our way and regarded us with anything but friendly looks.