National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

LIANG was also having a model done in miniature, scaled down to a tenth of the natural size, thus six feet high. This was an exact replica of the temple, down to the last detail, and was intended to give the American joiners who were to mount the temple in Chicago something to go by besides the drawings. We were afterwards to be allowed to keep this model, that would be a nice ornament for the Ethnographical Museum in Stockholm.

WE MOVE INTO A NEW HOUSE

As we unfortunately could not keep our Chinese house as long as we had calculated, we had to look around for new quarters. One day KULLGREN, who otherwise acted as my amanuensis, went compound-hunting and was hard at it from early morning till late in the evening. He saw over thirty compounds. But none of them would suit; either they were too dear, or they were unfurnished, or without bathroom, or else they were situated too far from the centre of the city. Finally, late in the evening, when he had practically given up hope, he heard from a Chinese that The Great Northern, i. e. The Danish Telegraph Company, had a house to let. We went over it together. It was the company's mess, and consisted of a large two-storey stone house, built in the European style. It contained six double rooms, all with bathroom; it had a dining-room, a huge attic, a roof-terrace with a view over the whole city, and lovely porches. It was situated in a park-like garden well back from the street and was fully furnished. The rent was 30o Mexican dollars a month, and we were to have a contract that would be valid until March 15th 1931.

This was, true, no Chinese house, but it was at all events roomy enough; and with the winter before us it was better to live in a cosy foreign house than in a draughty Chinese ditto.

On September 13th I moved over to our new headquarters in pouring rain. LESSING was already installed, and stood waiting on the verandah to welcome me. The rainy season was strangely delayed that year. It was already the middle of September, yet it often came down in buckets about this time. Still, the beautiful autumn weather was beginning to assert itself more and more. Autumn is the pleasantest season of the year in Peking.

THE CITY

Along the broad, dusty street, Tung-huang-ch'eng-ken, in which we were now living, ran a dried-up canal. Though it was full of all sorts of stinking refuse and heaps of rubbish, it bore the sounding name of The Jade Canal. Ducks and geese waddled about in it, grubbing for food; scabby dogs strayed in the bed, and black

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