A HOLIDAY trip from Central China (Chung-King), through the red sandstone basin of western Sze Chuan to the granite frontiers of Tibet, and back again by the traditional water-highway of the Yangtse, is not an experience which falls within the reach of every mercantile explorer in the East; and it derives additional interest in Mr. Little's case from the fact that he was accompanied by his wife. The story of the expedition is told in the form of a diary, a form in which it is almost impossible to avoid a certain amount of monotonous reiteration of incident in the daily record of progress, and which is, perhaps, a little too official in its method for an ordinary traveller's tale; but it is interesting all through, and the deductions which Mr. Little draws from his observations afford valuable food for reflection to those who look to the opening up of China to western methods of economic development. From Chung King to Kia ting, the town which lies at the foot of the classical Omi (the Fusilama of western China), Mr. Little and his wife adopted the Chinese traditional mode of transport, which consists of a sedan chair carried on the shoulders of coolies; and it is a method which, in the present stage-, of Chinese social advancement, secures for a traveller as-much respect and attention as a coach-and-four would in-England. It at once lifts him morally and physically above the steaming crowds of humanity which, in a region which is free from the depleting processes of famine, swarm together in one great pitiless struggle for existence. The whole basin of the Yangtse to the foot of the western mountains presents the same aspect of overcrowded population. Every acre of available soil is cultivated, every yard of productive land is occupied. There is no room to pitch even the smallest of tents, and travellers have perforce to put up with the accommodation afforded by the indigenous hotel. It is the varied nature of the sort of entertainment which is found at these Chinese inns, with the everlasting accompaniment of personal unrestrained curiosity on the part of a people who look on all foreign devils (especially a feminine devil) as fair game for their inquisitiveness, which forms the leading feature in Mr. Little's account of his outward journey.. The trip was made in 1897, and it is worthy of remark (àpropos of more recent events in China) that even then Mr. Little was able to discern a very considerable change for the worse in the attitude of the people towards strangers; and this change had taken place during the previous ten years. Fifteen years before Mr. Little's journey that delightful writer and traveller, Baber, had visited western Sre Chuan and Mount Omi, and his account of his travels certainlytends to confirm Mr. Little's view that a growing antipathy to foreign incursions was gradually accumulating which would eventually tend to mischievous results. Our travellers were occasionally treated to something worse than the derisive jeers of the townspeople. “Clods of earth and cabbage-stalks” now and then followed the maledictions of the crowd. And yet there was much good-natured hospitality and courtesy frequently shown both by priests and people. How far the interference of missionaries with the old traditions of a form of Buddhism which seems to be of a far higher and purer type in western China than anything in Tibet, may have influenced the minds of the people is open to question. Mr. Little is evidently doubtful on the points With every desire to give missionaries credit for their devoted spirit of enterprise, he seems to think that their efforts in the work of regeneration have not always been wisely directed.