mat bundle, and an escort of ten men. The escort escorted me down to the edge of the forest and then vanished; and I walked out into civilisation

once more.

"Civilisation, confound it, didn't like the look of me at all. I had an awful time. The first chap I met was a Chinaman cutting cane in a sugar plantation. He hove his chopper at me and fled. The second fellow was a Jap sportsman of sorts, with a shot-gun. He let off both barrels at me on sight, so I fled. Talk about savages! I tell you I soon wished myself safe back with old Tamil-Pak again. I judged it might be my costume which excited these people. You see, except for what remained to me of a pair of riding-breeches, I was dressed in full Chinhwan kit. So I hid in some bushes and discarded everything-except my trousers, of course, and my bundle of heads; and then I sallied forth and came upon a small boy driving two water buffaloes along a path. The buffs snorted, scented a white man, and charged me like a shot. The beggars always do, you know. They can't abide the smell of us or something. So I had to leave that place in a hurry. There weren't any trees handy, and all I could do was to dodge the brutes round a clump of bamboo. If they hadn't been yoked I think they'd have got me; but, thank heaven, they tangled themselves up in the bamboos,

into action and kicked them in their stomachs, and they went away. The business turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It served as a sort of introduction, because the boy would undoubtedly have fled like smoke if he hadn't seen me running away first. As it was, he stood there and grinned at me. He was a bright child. I had some ten yen notes sewn up in my belt, and I got one out and waved it to him, and it convinced him of my respectability quicker than any visiting card could have done. Then I tried to explain I wanted to buy some clothes, and he soon grasped what I was getting at. He led me off to introduce me to his dad. Father was discovered immersed to his hams in a paddy field, transplanting young rice by hand. He was rather a stupid old man, and it took his young hopeful some time to make him understand that I really was fool enough to wish to buy his old clothes for the fabulous sum of ten yen. When he did grasp that fact, though, he proved himself to be a man of action by stripping himself there and then. His apparel consisted merely of a large straw hat, the usual coolies' blue jacket, and a mud-spattered loin cloth. But they were all I needed. They served, even better than a top-hat and frock-coat would have done, to re-establish me as a conventional and respect

able member of the common herd. So I put 'em all on, bar the loin cloth, and went off rejoicing.

"I walked towards the coast until I came to the railway; followed the line to the next station; bought a third-class ticket to Taihoku; and by nine o'clock that night I was giving Parmiter the surprise of his life. Poor old Parmiter, you see, was sitting in his verandah having his afterdinner smoke, when he was outraged by the sight of a strange and filthy coolie calmly marching up his front steps. He shouted to his boy to throw the beggar out; and almost went off into a fit when that beggar said, 'Gie's a hand, my trusty freen, and here's a hand o' mine. We'll tak' a richt guid wulliewaucht -and I could do with a cigar, too, if you don't mind.' I also mentioned a hot bath, some clean clothes, and a Christian meal; and all Parmiter could say at first was, Losh! Keep us.' However, he soon pulled himself together, and responded nobly to my various demands. When I was cleaned and clothed and fed I told Parmiter where I'd been and what I'd been up to. At first I let him take it for granted I'd gone up-country solely to collect heads, and I didn't mention the fact that I'd managed, incidentally, to make my fortune. I wanted to give him a joyful surprise. And when I did come out with it, at last, and told him about my valley full of camphor, I

was somewhat surprised at the way he took my piece of news. He didn't say anything at all. He just sat up and stared at me as if he was rather stunned. I suggested he should go shares with me and develop the thing properly; and, as he still didn't say anything, I remarked that, for a man who'd just been offered the half of a pretty considerable fortune, he didn't seem unduly pleased. And at that he suddenly blew up in the most extraordinary fashion. He gave me, in fact, a fine illustration of what twenty years in the Far East can do to a man's temper, liver, and nerves. He sprang up, flung his tumbler of whisky on the floor, stamped on it, turned purple, started to curse, checked himself, and then gave utterance to the following remarkable words, ' Confound and blister that blasted German and all his damned, discommodious works,' said he. He meant it, too, and he looked so extraordinarily comic standing there in a sort of furious trance that I burst out laughing at him.

So he flew out at me then. He really was angry. It took me a long time to get him calmed down enough to explain what all the fuss was about. He then informed me, with tears of vexation rolling from his eyes, that the cup had been, so to speak, dashed from my very lips, and my valley full of camphor trees, which in the ordinary course of events would have been worth some thousands of

ing. Just nothing at all! It seems, soon after I started up - country, some German chemist or other had succeeded in producing a synthetic camphor which could be manufactured in commercial quantities at a fraction of the cost of the true-blue article. The price of the synthetic stuff was so low, in fact, that the bottom had dropped right out of the market, and as good as killed the Formosan camphor industry stone dead. The Japs had practically ceased operations already, and Parmiter himself had retired from the business and was on the point of sailing for home. So there I was, you see. Properly flummoxed. I'd wasted a lot of my time and trouble and that was all. I felt a bit vexed at first. But not for long. I soon got over it. I took it as a warning to stick to my own job in future and leave commerce strictly alone. Parmiter was much more upset about the thing

together in the same boat, and he used to break out several times a day and get black in the face cursing that German.

"Poor old Parmiter. I can understand his anguish at missing that fortune. He's a business man. But I, thank heaven, can view the whole thing with the calm detachment which distinguishes a truly scientific mind. So, if you'll lend me a hand, we'll just pack up these fruits of my scientific labours and ship them off to Chicago. That gentleman you've got hold of, by the way, is an absolutely unique specimen. Handle him with care. He's a white man. You mightn't think it to look at his complexion ; but that's only because he's been smoked. He was white enough once, though. Observe his teeth. That gold filling is a first-class piece of dentistry. American work probably. I expect he's a Yank. And if he hails from Chicago, he's likely to give his old friends a bit of a surprise."

IT has been my fate to have spent some eighteen months of my life in a London workhouse. My sojourn was no intentional act, undertaken with the comforting knowledge that I could end it at any time I chose. It was, on the contrary, the real thing, and for that reason I believe that the following pages may be of some interest to the reader. For I write, not only with considerable inside knowledge of my subject, but also with a lively recollection of the frame of mind in which that knowledge was gained.

In the early evening of a November Sunday I presented myself at the gate of Avernus and requested admittance. The necessary permission from the adjacent Relieving Office cleared the way to the Receiving Ward, where I found that I had arrived just in time for the evening meal, which consisted of bread and margarine and a pint of tea. There followed a hot bath, and I presently saw my entire belongings stuffed into a large canvas bag, and found myself attired in clothes which, to my naturally depressed and agitated mind, appeared to have been prepared, with deliberate calculation, for my complete discomfort and humiliation. These abominable rags were so aged

and filthy that I thought their previous wearer might easily have been one of my anthropoid ancestors-a fancy which was almost immediately borne out by my further discovery that both my waistcoat pockets were filled with the discoloured remnants of a number of ancient nuts!

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While on the subject of the Receiving Ward, there is one word I should like to say about the rules relating to underclothing. If a new inmate be found on arrival to be wearing neither vest nor pants, he will not be provided with corresponding articles of ' House clothing, no matter how long he may remain in the institution. That is to say, a new-comer entering the place very lightly clad, owing to the time being the height of summer or for any other reason, will remain so clad, be the ensuing winter as severe as it may. The reader may possibly be able to imagine some plausible reason for such a rule, but I am confident that No reason that can be adduced will, upon final judgment, be deemed sufficient to justify so stupid and cruel a regulation.

I myself was lucky in this respect, in that I was wearing underclothes on arrival. In fact, I was not made aware of the existence of this in

famous regulation until a much later date, when it was impressed upon me in a manner which I am likely neither to forget nor to forgive. But of this more anon.

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Having been passed as ablebodied " by the doctor, whose visit to the Receiving Ward took place at 7 o'clock, I was at last admitted to the body of the House." An undersized inmate of villainous aspect, whose face looked as if some one had made a laudable but not altogether successful attempt to rub it out, showed me my dormitory and the bed I would occupy; informed me that smoking in the bedrooms was the blackest of crimes; and then left me to my own devices in one of the Day Rooms" attached to the block to which I had been assigned.

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My dormitory contained fourteen beds, as did all the others in this particular block. In the main block, some distance away, the dormitories are enormous, each of them containing fifty-six beds and eight efficient radiators. The bedrooms in my block, however, contained none of the latter, nor was there any hot-water supply in the washing-rooms. My bedroom had a fireplace at one end and a single electric lightat the same end, which was consequently the more popular with the permanent residents. The walls were innocent of plaster. Distemper had been applied direct to the rough brick surface, giving the room a curiously bleak and uninvit

ing appearance. The floor, of course, was of bare boards.

At 8 o'clock the big bell sounded, and I dragged myself, tired out in body and mind, upstairs to bed. There were no lockers in the rooms. I wondered what local etiquette demanded concerning the disposal of my clothes-my outer clothes, that is, for in a workhouse one sleeps in such of one's underclothes as one may see fit to use as night attire. The average inmate does not consider this unhealthy custom to be in any way remarkable. It has been his usual procedure all his life.

I noticed that most of my companions put their clothes under their pillows, and that the remainder spread them over their beds. I did not like the idea of putting the things I had been given to wear in any such places. The farther I could get away from them during the night the better, I thought. So I put them on the floor.

"Shouldn't put 'em there if I was you, mate," said a neighbour. 'It's rainin' 'ard."

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I wondered what connection there might be between the floor as a repository for clothes, and rain. On the following morning I found out. All night the walls of that room had streamed with water, to such an extent that in several places rivulets had formed, reaching for a considerable distance across the floor. I was later to learn that in wintry weather the thermometer upon