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[[underlined]] CHAPTER XV, INVESTIGATIONS IN THE YANGTZE VALLEY [[/underlined]]         31^[[3-a]].

[[underlined]] Mr. Wenley's Departure for France. [[/underlined]]
     After our return to Peking, my colleagues and I set about drawing up reports and financial statements, studying our field-notes, photographs, and finds (mainly of potsherds), attending to correspondence, and in general catching up with arrears of office-work. Also, since our efforts to do anything in northern Shansi had been thus frustrated [[strikethrough]] (see latter part of previous chapter) [[/strikethrough]], we held numerous discussions, among ourselves and with various informed persons, both Chinese and foreigners, about the choice of some other region where we might dig. For though political and military conditions in China at that time were growing steadily more chaotic, we still hoped that we might find some place where we could carry on legitimate field-work undisturbed.
     Toward the end of November Mr. Wenley received his anticipated instructions from Mr. Lodge, in Washington [[strikethrough]] (see page 248) [[/strikethrough]]---to come home by way of India and Europe, visiting important sites and collections [[underlined]] en route [[/underlined]], and after a brief stay in the United States to proceed to Paris for further sinological study. Accordingly he and Mrs. Wenley left at once. On account of the disturbed state of affairs in the interior of China, in order to take the S.S. [[underlined]] Morea [[/underlined]] for Singapore they found it necessary to go by sea from Tientsin to Dairen (the former Russian port of Dalny), and thence to Shanghai. They left Peking on Nov. 30th, having been in China for rather more than two years.

[[underlined]] Possibilities in Southern Shansi. [[/underlined]]
     A few days after the Wenleys left, on Dec. 11, 1925, I sounded Dr. Li