ABSTRACT
As time passed, my first revulsion of feeling for Chungking faded completely. I liked filth and bad odors not a whit better than I ever had, but familiarity had now merged these annoyances so successfully into the background that they no longer interfered with my appreciation of the general scene. Perhaps the chief charm of this port for an American lay in the fact that life held no dull moments. Activity was unceasing and ever changing, for in many ways Chungking was a beginning and an end for all China. To the coast, North China, and the entire Yangtze Valley, this city represented the last outpost of trade with Central Asia, while to that vast, mysterious domain beyond that stretched into the heart of the Himalayan ranges the city was the chief gateway to a strange Western world.
