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GRAND HOTEL DES WAGONS-LITS,LTD'

Peking, Sept.27th,1909.

Dear Colonel Hecker,

In response to my cable request of last Friday and with their accustomed promptness the "Shanghai Bank" --- here so termed --- Hongkong Shanghai Banking Corporation in reality, early this (Monday) morning notified me that they were holding for me the sum of £1,000 sterling.  Many thanks for your kind and prompt response to my second call.  When calling upon you for the £2,000 I thought that sum would be ample, but I did not then know that I had reached Peking at one of the two best annual times for purchasing fine objects.

The Chinese well-to-do people must have money twice a year.  First on their New Years day - February 1st, when every china-man inventories his property, collects all outstanding accounts due him and pays all his debts --- for ordinary purchases he pays only annually, that is on February 1st.  His second requirement is for ready cash with which to celebrate the festival of the "Autumn Moon".  Tomorrow , Tuesday, is the grand festival, but its preliminary festivities began yesterday and will end the latter part of this week.  The habit is to pay cash for all the gaiety of this event --- hence the pressing need of money just now, and, hence, in a sense, my unlooked for quick accumulation of treasurers.  Mr. Oliver, the secretary of Sir Robert Harts great custom's department, its absolute working Chief and a reliable Englishman of thirty years' experience in Chinese collecting, told me today, while a guest in his charming home, that I could not have arrived here at a more propitious time.  He, too, buys Chinese paintings, and has bought liberally during the last three weeks, but he will not pay beyond a certain fixed rice for any specimen, and knowing only the art of the Mind and Ching dynasties --- all after 1368, A.D. his buying and mine have not, fortunately, clashed.

Thanks to Fenollosa's superior teachings and the splendid opportunities give me in Japan during the summer of 1907, when I saw practically all of the early Chinese paintings owned publicly and privately in Japan, I knew what to search for when I began my quest here two weeks ago. I am, I believe, the very first foreigner who ever searched here, I mean Peking, scientifically and determinedly for paintings of the Tang, Sung and Yan dynasties.  The result carries me off my feet and almost out of my head.  Had I during my stay in China secured