

AN- OLD PLANTATION OF THE EDIBLE BAMBOO 



Thousands of hillsides in China are covered with bamboo groves. Through their thin 

 green leaves the sunlight falls with a greenish tint. Their plume-like stems rise 50 feet into 

 the air and for 30 feet are without a branch — just jointed, brilliant green tubes, the most 

 fascinating things in the world to put one's hand on. For decades these groves furnish to 

 their owners an abundance of young shoots in the early spring — shoots which are as good 

 to eat as asparagus — and poles so light and from which so many things can be easily and 

 quickly made that they belong in a class by themselves. This bamboo can be grown from the 

 Carolinas to Texas, and there is no reason to doubt that our grandchildren will wander, as 

 do the Chinese children, through beautiful groves of this wonderful plant. 



went in quest of the wild pear forests in 

 the region of Jehol, north of Peking, and 

 the region around Ichang. He was caught 

 at Ichang by the revolution and for many 

 months was unable to escape. The con- 

 finement and uncertainty with regard to 

 the great war and an attack of illness had 

 by this time combined to bring on a re- 

 currence of a former attack of what 

 amounted to nervous prostration, and be- 

 fore he could reach the encouraging com- 

 panionship of people of his own class he 

 was drowned in the waters of the 

 Yangtze River near the town of Wu Hu, 

 thirty miles north of Nanking. 



HIS LETTERS PICTURE STRANGE 

 CIVILIZATIONS 



Meyer's letters are the letters of a 

 real traveler. When written from cold, 

 dirty inns, they reflected his surroundings 

 of discomfort ; from the sublime moun- 



tain tops or mountain passes of the Cau- 

 casus, they were filled with his quaint 

 philosophy of existence. From Buddhist 

 temples in the Kansu Province of China, 

 on the borders of Tibet, they gave pic- 

 tures of that strange civilization forty 

 centuries old. 



LEFT ALONE IN TURKESTAN 



Writing from Samarkand, Turkestan, 

 he said : 



"Alone in Samarkand ! My assistant 

 yesterday got tidings from home that his 

 presence was urgently needed, as the man 

 in charge of his farm was severely in- 

 jured by a horse, and he left me. The 

 interpreter had left the day before, as 

 his eyesight and general health had be- 

 come rather poor these last days on 

 account of the great heat, and so it has 

 come to pass that I am left alone in this 

 far-away land, with only a mere smat- 



01 



