Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/12

VIII courant" with the course of events in "Further Asia," But in China and in Chinese institutions there is no well-defined change to place on record. Western civilisation with its aggressive activities appears to be opposed to the genius of the people, who fain would be left alone to follow their time-worn methods social and political.

To those of my readers interested in photography I may add a note on my method of working.

All my negatives were by the wet collodion process, a process most exacting in its chemistry, especially in a land where the science is practically unknown.

Some of my troubles are recounted in these pages, and may prove interesting to the amateur who works along the line of rapid plates and films, and who after making his exposure, may retain the plate with its latent image for an indefinite period before development. With such plates and ﬁlms ready to his hand the explorer ought to be in a position to produce work of the highest artistic and scientific value.

I must here thank my former publishers, Messrs. Sampson Low and Marston, for their courtesy in allowing me to make use of such matter as I required for the present volume.