So much information is to be obtained from the i

I speak of this because I feel that in the face of untruthful and malicious descriptions which in former years have got into print respecting this very mission and the very missionaries on this field, it is only fair that people in the homeland interested in the work should know what their American brethren are doing here.  I cannot praise too highly this mission and the enthusiastic band of workers whom it was my pleasure to meet.  In Mr. Roberts, the superintendent of the field, the American Baptist Board have a man of wonderful resource, who is not only an ardent Christian evangelist and capable administrator, but a gentleman of considerable business ability and a remarkable organizer.  A writer who, passing through in 1894, was indebted to Mr. Roberts for many kindnesses, found that the only adverse criticism he could make of the missionary was in respect to his knowledge of horses.  My experience is that in the whole of the Far East there can be found no more capable pioneer missionary, and his friends in America should pray that Mr. Roberts may be spared many years still to control the work on the successful mission field in which he has spent so much of his labor of love for the Kachins.

Kachins form the bulk of the population in the extreme north of Burma.  To the west they extend to Assam, and to the south into the Shan States, as far even as latitude 20 deg. 30’.  By far the largest proportion of them live in Burmese territory, but they also extend into Western Yuen-nan, though nowhere are they found farther east than longitude 99 deg..

Man Hsien is the last yamen place before reaching the British border.  I crossed the river Taping from Manyueen, being shown the road by a Burmese member of the Buddhistic yellow cloth, who was most pressing that I should stay with him for a few days.  Again did I get a fright that my manuscript would never get into print, for my pony, Rusty, probably cognizant of the fact that he, too, was finishing his long tramp, nearly stamped the bottom of the boat out, and threatened to send us down by river past Bhamo quicker than our arrival was scheduled.