* * * * *

The weather is becoming hot, even here in latitude 40 and in the month
of May. The Peking dust, distinguished among all the dusts of the
earth for its blackness, its disagreeable insistence in sticking to
one's clothes, one's hair, one's very eyebrows, until a grey-brown
coating its visible to every eye, is rising in heavier clouds than
ever. In the market-places, and near the great gates of the city,
where Peking carts and camels from beyond the passes--_k'ou wai_, to
use the correct vernacular--jostle one another, the dust has become
damnable beyond words, and there can be no health possibly in us. The
Peking dust rises, therefore, in clouds and obscures the very sun at
times; for the sun always shines here in our Northern China, except
during a brief summer rainy season, and a few other days you can count
on your fingers. The dust is without significance, you will say, since
it is always there more or less. It is in any case--healthy; it chokes
you, but is reputed also to choke germs; therefore it is good. All of
which is true, only this year there is more of it than ever, meaning
very dry weather indeed for this city, hanging near the gates of
Mongolian deserts--a dry weather spelling the devil for the Northern
farmer.

Meanwhile, is there anything special for me to chronicle? Not much,
although there is a cloud no bigger than your hand in Shantung not a
thousand miles from Weihaiwei, and the German Legation is consequently
somewhat irate. It was noticed at our club, for instance, which, by
the way, is a humble affair, that the German military attache, a
gentleman who wears bracelets, is somewhat effeminate, and plays vile
tennis and worse billiards, had a "hostile attitude" towards the