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bringhtnspots of color - Peter Pan and Where the Blue Begins, two beautiful books, sent us by our brother and sisters in Glen Ellyn, which came this week. We are delighted to have them, and display them proudly.

But to go on with the donkeys. We came first to an old city, new aflling inruins and practically deserted, that used to be an important outpost and customs office of the capitol. We pass ed along the wide deserted street, from the north gate to the south,and came out on the borad approach to the Marco Polo bridge. This bridge was built not very long before Marco's visit to China, and he remarks upon it at length in these words:

"Upon leaving the capital andntraveling ten miles, you come to a river named Pulisangan, which discharges itself into the ocean, and is navigated by many vessels entering from thence, with considerable quantities of merchandise. Over this river there is a handsome bridge of stone,,perhaps unequalled by another inntheworld. Its length is three hundred paces, and its width eight paces; and that ten men can, without inconvenience, ride abreast. It has twenty-four arches, suuported by twenty-five piers erected in the water, all of serpentine stone, and built with great skill. On each side, and from one extremitybto the other, there is a handsome parapet, formed of marble slabs and pillars arranged in a masterly style. At the commencement of the ascent the bridge is smoething wider than at the summit, but from the part where the ascent terminates, the sides run in straight lines and parallel to each other....All the spaces between one pillar and another, throughout the whole length of the bridge, are filled up with slabs of marble, curiously sculptured, and mortised into thennext adjoining pillars, which are, in like manner, a pace and a half asunder, and equally surmounted with lions, forming altogether a beautiful spectacle. These parapets serve to prevent accidents that might otherwise happen to passengers."

The bridge has been repaired, but is still a part of themmain highway south from Peking. The river is the Hun river, and is scarcely capable of supporting any considerable amount of commerce, for