xii INTRODUCTION. 



determined at all costs, dead or alive, to return 

 to China. An Englishman not only takes his 

 wife with him when he emigrates, but generally 

 goes to stay. This being so, I felt it my duty 

 to write for both sexes, and as I have very little 

 knowledge of what ladies like, I took my wife 

 with me, and have incorporated her letters to a 

 girl-friend in the same book with letters of mine 

 to a brother limb of the law in England. 



There may be, I hope, a few letters from 

 others of our party, who separated from us at 

 one point or another in our journey across 

 America. If they keep their promises and 

 write, I shall give you the benefit of their experi- 

 ences, warning you that in all cases, though I 

 am responsible for all literary sins within these 

 covers, the writer of each letter is responsible 

 for the opinions therein expressed. 



It was at the end of the last London season that 

 our little party got together and booked for 

 Montreal by the Dominion Line. The tennis- 

 lawns of Montgomeryshire had grown brown and 

 dry, and drier and more parched were the bodies 

 and brains of the husbands and brothers in 

 London, to whom certain Montgomeryshire 

 ladies suggested an autumn in Canada. 



The papers had been full of rumours of the 

 great new line which Russia is threatening to 



