DEAREST CHRISTINE: Thank you many times over for your wishes. I can imagine how the weather is at home this time of the
year. The days are warm about noon, and the nights are cool and pleasant. The only thing here is the malaria, which is very bad, and the men are catching it in good shape. There is not much excitement, and time hangs heavy on our hands. The mails come pretty regularly, and I get newspapers and letters with every mail.
This is a small town near the Bamban River, with one main street and a good many broken-down houses. The headquarters are comfortable and it is the best house in town. I heard the church bells ringing last evening, and to-night they were ringing near the little church. The bells are in an open-air belfry near the poorly built church. There must have been a larger church at one time, because the foundations are partly outlined near the new one. A town government has been started and a tax is being raised which is small, but enough to support a school when one is started. The horses are taxed one dollar, Mexican (fifty cents gold), a year, and the cariboo, ten cents, Mexican.
There is a small market on the main street near the company, as well as a Chinese restaurant, and an American one near by. The natives sell fruits, soap, cloth goods, fish, and vegetables in their market, and it is interesting going through the place to see the pickaninnies and the women in their prettily colored dresses. Red seems to be a part of every woman’s dress, except the funeral dresses, which are black like ours.