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summer in the tropical and exhausting climate of this island.
2. I hasten to express my grateful thanks to Your Lordship for your telegram of the 15th of September authorising me to extend my leave to two months, in case public affairs should not recall me sooner to my post. I was absent for only about seven weeks.
3. Your telegram suggested that my proposed visit to Peking at the present moment might be liable to misconstruction and that it had, perhaps, better be postponed. Though I was unaware of any reason for this suggestion, I should have loyally deferred to it had your telegram reached me in time. But it was opened by MacMurdo on its arrival at Hongkong about a fortnight after my departure from the Colony; and it was forwarded to me in a letter addressed to the British Legation Peking, where it finally reached me.
4. The fact is that, on receiving your...
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