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All my native collectors are waging hard for an increase of 25 cents gold per month in salary or wages.  I have not yet agreed to give it.  I'm afraid of running collecting expenses up too high.

The Chinese were very friendly on my last trip, on the whole.

Dr. Crook has recently passed through Suifu to Yachow.  When he saw the Smithsonian calipers and other instruments for taking anthropometrical measurements, he remarked that he formerly had some such instruments, but that they were lost in a robbery on the road to Tat[[strikethrough]]r [[/strikethrough]] ^[[s]] ienlu [[Tatsienlu]].

In west China we constantly run the risk of being robbed by brigands.  I have not been robbed yet, but may be at any time. In case I am I hope that the Smithsonian Institution will regard it as an unavoidable mishap.  I always leave about half the collecting outfit at home so that if I should lose half in a robbery I could still go on collecting. I can do this with nearly everything but the guns.  I leave one double-barrelled shotgun at home at least.  I have so far been able to avoid robbery by using the utmost care and always having a good escort where [[underlined in pencil]] they [[/underline]] are ^[[there]] brigands. This adds to the running expenses but removes the necessity of replacing valuable instruments. 

D. C. Graham

Transcription Notes:
The underlined word "they" and the handwritten word "brigands" appear to be intended for clarification. As in "by they, I mean the brigands"