[Illustration: OUR CAMP ON THE SNOW MOUNTAINAT AN ALTITUDE OF 12, 000 FEET] CAMPS AND TRAILS IN CHINA A NARRATIVE OF EXPLORATION, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT IN LITTLE-KNOWN CHINA BY ROY CHAPMAN ANDREWS, M. A. ASSOCIATE CURATOR OF MAMMALS IN THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ANDLEADER OF THE MUSEUM'S ASIATIC ZOÖLOGICAL EXPEDITION OF 1916-1917; FELLOWNEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES; CORRESPONDING MEMBER ZOÖLOGICAL SOCIETY OFLONDON, MEMBER OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON; AUTHOR OF 'WHALEHUNTING WITH GUN AND CAMERA' AND YVETTE BORUP ANDREWS PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE ASIATIC ZOÖLOGICAL EXPEDITION 1918 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO PRESIDENT HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN AS AN EXPRESSIONOF GRATITUDE AND ADMIRATION "Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us;Let us journey to a lonely land I know. There's a whisper on the night-wind, there's a star agleam to guide us, And the Wild is calling, calling . . . Let us go. " --_Service_. PREFACE The object of this book is to present a popular narrative of the AsiaticZoölogical Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History to China in1916-17. Details of a purely scientific nature have been condensed, oreliminated, and emphasis has been placed upon our experiences with thestrange natives and animals of a remote and little known region in the hopethat the book will be interesting to the general reader. The scientific reputation of the Expedition will rest upon the technicalreports of its work which will be published in due course by the AmericanMuseum of Natural History. To these reports we would refer those readerswho desire more complete information concerning the results of ourresearches. At the time the manuscript of this volume was sent to press thecollections were still undergoing preparation and the study of thedifferent groups had just begun. Although the book has been largely written by the senior author, hiscollaborator has contributed six chapters marked with her initials; all theillustrations are from her photographs and continual use has been made ofher daily journals; she has, moreover, materially assisted in referencework and in numerous other ways. The information concerning the relationships and distribution of the nativetribes of Yün-nan is largely drawn from the excellent reference work byMajor H. R. Davies and we have followed his spelling of Chinese names. Parts of the book have been published as separate articles in the _AmericanMuseum Journal, Harper's Magazine_, and _Asia_ and to the editors of theabove publications our acknowledgments are due. That the Expedition obtained a very large and representative collection ofsmall mammals is owing in a great measure to the efforts of Mr. EdmundHeller, our companion in the field. He worked tirelessly in the care andpreservation of the specimens, and the fact that they reached New York inexcellent condition is, in itself, the best testimony to the skill andthoroughness with which they were prepared. Our Chinese interpreter, Wu Hung-tao, contributed largely to the success ofthe Expedition. His faithful and enthusiastic devotion to our interests andhis tact and resourcefulness under trying circumstances won our lastinggratitude and affectionate regard. The nineteen months during which we were in Asia are amongthe most memorable of our lives and we wish to express our deepestgratitude to the Trustees of the American Museum of Natural History, andespecially to President Henry Fairfield Osborn, whose enthusiasticendorsement and loyal support made the Expedition possible. Director F. A. Lucas, Dr. J. A. Allen and Mr. George H. Sherwood were unfailing infurthering our interests, and to them we extend our hearty thanks. To the following patrons, who by their generous contributions materiallyassisted in the financing of the Expedition, we wish to acknowledge ourgreat personal indebtedness as well as that of the Museum; Mr. And Mrs. Charles L. Bernheimer, Mr. And Mrs. Sidney M. Colgate, Messrs. GeorgeBowdoin, Lincoln Ellsworth, James B. Ford, Henry C. Frick, Childs Frick, and Mrs. Adrian Hoffman Joline. The Expedition received many courtesies while in the field from thefollowing gentlemen, without whose coöperation it would have beenimpossible to have carried on the work successfully. Their services havebeen referred to individually in subsequent parts of the book: The Directorof the Bureau of Foreign Affairs of the Province of Yün-nan; M. GeorgesChemin Dupontès, Director de l'Exploration de la Compagnie Française desChemins de Fer de l'Indochine et du Yün-nan, Hanoi, Tonking; M. HenryWilden, Consul de France, Shanghai; M. Kraemer, Consul de France, Hongkong;Mr. Howard Page, Standard Oil Co. , Yün-nan Fu; the Hon. Paul Reinsch, Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary to the Chinese Republic, Mr. J. V. A. McMurray, First Secretary of the American Legation, Peking; Mr. H. G. Evans, British-American Tobacco Co. , Hongkong; the Rev. William Hanna, Ta-li Fu; the Rev. A. Kok, Li-chang Fu; Ralph Grierson, Esq. , Teng-yueh;Herbert Goffe, Esq. , H. B. M. Consul General, Yün-nan Fu; Messrs. C. R. Kellogg, and H. W. Livingstone, Foochow, China; the General Passenger Agent, Canadian Pacific Railroad Company, Hongkong; and the Rev. H. R. Caldwell, Yenping, who has read parts of this book in manuscript and who through hiscriticisms has afforded us the benefit of his long experience in China. To Miss Agnes F. Molloy and Miss Anna Katherine Berger we wish to expressour appreciation of editorial and other assistance during the preparationof the volume. ROY CHAPMAN ANDREWSYVETTE BORUP ANDREWS JUSTAMERE HOME, _Lawrence Park, Bronxville, N. Y. _ _May 10, 1917. _ CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE OBJECT OF THE EXPEDITION The importance of the scientific exploration of Central Asia--The regionwhich the Asiatic Zoölogical Expedition investigated--Personnel of theExpedition--Equipment--Applicants for positions upon the Expedition CHAPTER II CHINA IN TURMOIL Yuan Shi-kai--Plot to become emperor of China--The Rebellion--Our arrivalin Peking--Passports for Fukien Province--Admiral von Hintze, the GermanMinister--_En route_ to Shanghai--Death of Yuan Shi-kai CHAPTER III UP THE MIN RIVER Y. B. A. Arrival at Foochow--Foochow--We leave for Yen-ping--The Min River--Ourfirst night in a _sampan_--Miss Mabel Hartford--Brigands atYuchi--Yen-ping--Trapping at Yen-ping CHAPTER IV A BAT CAVE IN THE BIG RAVINE The Temple in the Big Ravine--Hunting serow--A bat apartment house CHAPTER V THE YEN-PING REBELLION A message from Mr. Caldwell--Refugees from Yen-ping--Situation in thecity--Fighting on Monday morning--Wounded men at the hospital--We do RedCross work--More fighting--A Chinese puzzle--The missionaries save thecity--The narrow escape of a young Chinese--The mission cook--Return toFoochow CHAPTER VI HUNTING THE GREAT INVISIBLE Tiger lairs--Mr. Caldwell's method of hunting--His first tiger--Habits oftigers--Experiences with the Great Invisible--Killing a man eater--Chinesesuperstitions--Hunting in the lair CHAPTER VII THE BLUE TIGER Arriving at Lung-tao--The blue tiger--Mr. Caldwell's first view of thebeast--The lair in the Long Ravine--Bad luck with the tiger--A meeting inthe dark--Ling-suik monastery--Life at the temple--Fukien Province as acollecting ground CHAPTER VIII THE WOMEN OF CHINA Y. B. A. Schools for girls--Position of women--The Confucian rules--Woman's life inthe home--Foot binding--Early marriage--A Chinese wedding CHAPTER IX VOYAGING TO YÜN-NAN Outfitting in Hongkong--Food--Guns--Cameras--_En route_ to Tonking--TheIsland of Hainan--We engage a cook at Paik-hoi--Arrival in Haiphong--Lossof our Ammunition--Hanoi--The railroad to Yün-nan Fu--Yün-nan--The ChineseForeign Office endorses our plans CHAPTER X ON THE ROAD TO TA-LI FU Our caravan--The Yün-nan pack saddle--Temple camps--Chinese_mafus_--Roads--Country--Ignorance of a Chinese scholar--Newmammals--Village life--Opium growing--An opium scandal--Goitre--TheChinese "Mountain schooner"--Horses--Miss Morgan--Brigands--Our guardof soldiers CHAPTER XI TA-LI FU Hsia-kuan--Summer temperature--Lake--Graves--Pagodas--Mr. H. G. Evans--Foreigners of Ta-li Fu--Chinese mandarins--Mammals at Ta-li--Caravanhorses and mules--The cook becomes ill CHAPTER XII LI-CHIANG, AND THE "TEMPLE OF THE FLOWERS" Traveling to Li-chiang--Our entrance into the city--The surprise of theforeigners--The temple--Excellent collecting--Small mammals--The Mosonatives--Customs--The Snow Mountain--Baron Haendel-Mazzetti CHAPTER XIII CAMPING IN THE CLOUDS Moso hunters--Primitive guns--Cross-bows and poisoned arrows--Dogs--Aporcupine--New mammals--We find a new camp on the mountain CHAPTER XIV THE FIRST GORAL Killed near camp--A sacrifice to the God of the Hunt--Small mammals--Thesecond goral CHAPTER XV MORE GORALS Gorals almost invisible--Heller shoots a kid--Collecting material for aMuseum group--A splendid hunt--Two gorals--A crested muntjac CHAPTER XVI THE SNOW MOUNTAIN TEMPLE The first illness in camp--Serow--Death of the leading dog--Rain--Two moreserows--Lolos--Non-Chinese tribes of Yün-nan CHAPTER XVII GORALS AND SEROWS Relationship--Appearance of the serow--Habits--Gorals CHAPTER XVIII THE "WHITE WATER" Y. B. A. Our new camp--A serow--We go to Li-chiang--A burial ceremony--Ancestorworship CHAPTER XIX ACROSS THE YANGTZE GORGE Traveling to the river--Inaccuracy of the Chinese--First view of thegorge--The Taku ferry--Caves CHAPTER XX THROUGH UNMAPPED COUNTRY Along the rim of the gorge--A beautiful camp at Habala--Newmammals--Photographic work--Phete village--Stupid inhabitants--Strangenatives--The "Windy Camp"--Hotenfa CHAPTER XXI TRAVELING TOWARD TIBET A hard climb--Our highest camp--A Lolo village--Thanksgiving with the Lolos CHAPTER XXII STALKING TIBETANS WITH A CAMERA Y. B. A. Caravans--Tibetans--Dress--Appearance--Photographing frightenednatives--Reason for suspicion CHAPTER XXIII WESTWARD TO THE MEKONG RIVER Snow--Photographing natives--The Snow Mountain again--The Shih-kuferry--Cranes--"Brahminy ducks"--A well-deserved beating--Chinese soldiers CHAPTER XXIV DOWN THE MEKONG VALLEY Arrival at Wei-hsi--The Mekong River--Lutzu natives--Difficulties in thevalley--An unexpected goral--Christmas--The salt wells--A snow coveredpass--Duck shooting--Return to Ta-li Fu CHAPTER XXV MISSIONARIES WE HAVE KNOWN Our observations on work of missionaries in Fukien and Yün-nanProvinces--Mode of living--Servants--Voluntary exile--Medicalmissionaries--A missionary's experience with the brigands at Yuchi CHAPTER XXVI CHINESE NEW YEAR AT YUNG-CHANG Y. B. A. Traveling to Yung-chang--New Year's customs--Inhabitants of thecity--Foot-binding--Caves--Water buffaloes--Chinesecow-caravans--Yung-chang mentioned by Marco Polo CHAPTER XXVII TRAVELING TOWARD THE TROPICS Shih-tien plain--Curious inhabitants of the city--A tropical valley atMa-po-lo--"A little more far"--A splendid camp--Many new mammals--Preparingspecimens--Sambur--Trapping CHAPTER XXVIII MENG-TING: A VILLAGE: OF MANY TONGUES The first Shan village--Priscilla and John Alden--Meng-ting--The Shanmandarin--Young priests--The market--Photographing underdifficulties--Suppression of opium growing CHAPTER XXIX CAMPING ON THE NAM-TING RIVER A beautiful camp--The "Dying Rabbit"--Sambur hunting--Junglefowl--Civets--Pole cats and other animals CHAPTER XXX MONKEY HUNTING Strange calls in the jungle--Our first gibbons--Relationship andhabits--Langurs and baboons--A night in the jungle CHAPTER XXXI THE SHANS OF THE BURMA BORDER An unfriendly chief--Honest natives--Houses at Nam-ka--Tattooing--Shantribe--Dress CHAPTER XXXII PRISONERS OF WAR IN BURMA Y. B. A. The mythical Ma-li-ling--Across the frontier into Burma--The _mafus_rebel--Ma-li-pa--Captain Clive--Guarding the border--Life at Ma-li-pa CHAPTER XXXIII HUNTING PEACOCKS ON THE SALWEEN RIVER The valley at Changlung--The ferry--Peacocks--The stalker stalked--Habitsof peafowls CHAPTER XXXIV THE GIBBONS OF HO-MU-SHU Climbing out of the Salween Valley--A Shan village--Ho-mu-shu--Camping on amountain pass--Gibbons--An exciting hunt and a narrow escape--Habits of the"hoolock" CHAPTER XXXV TENG-YUEH: A LINK WITH CIVILIZATION Tai-ping-pu--Flying squirrels--Lisos--A bat cave--Mail--Teng-yueh--Mr. Ralph Grierson--Tibetan bear cubs CHAPTER XXXVI A BIG GAME PARADISE Gorals at Hui-yao--Deer--Splendid hunts CHAPTER XXXVII SEROW AND SAMBUR Monkeys at Hui-yao--Muntjacs--A new serow--We move camp to Wa-tien--A finesambur CHAPTER XXXVIII LAST DAYS IN CHINA Return to Teng-yueh--Packing the specimens--Results of the Expedition--Onthe road to Bhamo--The chair coolies--Burma _vs. _ China--In civilizationagain--Farewell to the Orient LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Our camp on the Snow Mountain at an altitude of 12, 000 feet. Yvette Borup Andrews with a pet Yün-nan squirrelEdmund HellerRoy Chapman Andrews and a goral A Chinese hunter and a muntjacBrigands killed in the Yen-ping Rebellion The Ling-suik monasteryA priest of Ling-suik A Chinese mother with her childrenChinese women of the coolie class with bound feet Cormorant fishers on the lake at Yün-nan FuOur camp at Chou Chou on the way to Ta-li Fu The Pagodas at Ta-li FuThe dead of China The residence of Rev. William J. Hanna at Ta-li-FuThe gate and main street of Ta-li Fu One of the pagodas at Ta-li Fu A Moso herderA Moso woman The Snow Mountain A cheek gun used by one of our huntersThe first goral killed on the Snow Mountain Hotenfa, one of our Moso hunters, bringing in a goralAnother Moso hunter with a porcupine A typical goral cliff on the Snow Mountain A serow killed on the Snow MountainThe head of a serow The "white water" A Liso hunter carrying a flying squirrelThe chief of our Lolo hunters A Lolo villageLolos seeing their photographs for the first time Travelers in the Mekong valleyTwo Tibetans The gorge of the Yangtze River A quiet curve of the Mekong River The temple in which we camped at Ta-li FuA crested muntjac The south gate at Yung-changA Chinese bride returning to her mother's home at New Year's A Chinese patriarchYoung China A Shan villageA Shan woman spinning A Kachin woman in the market at Meng-tingOne of our Shan hunters with two yellow gibbons Our camp on the Nam-ting RiverThe Shan village at Nam-ka The head of a gibbon killed on the Nam-ting RiverA civet A Shan girlA Shan boy A suspension bridgeMrs. Andrews feeding one of our bear cubs A sambur killed at Wa-tienThe head of a muntjac A mountain chairThe waterfall at Teng-Yueh MAP I. The red line indicates the travels of the Expedition MAP II. Route of the Expedition in Yün-nan CAMPS AND TRAILS IN CHINA CHAPTER I THE OBJECT OF THE EXPEDITION The earliest remains of primitive man probably will be found somewhere inthe vast plateau of Central Asia, north of the Himalaya Mountains. Fromthis region came the successive invasions that poured into Europe from theeast, to India from the north, and to China from the west; the migrationroute to North America led over the Bering Strait and spread fanwise southand southeast to the farthest extremity of South America. The Central Asianplateau at the beginning of the Pleistocene was probably less arid than itis today and there is reason to believe that this general region was notonly the distributing center of man but also of many of the forms ofmammalian life which are now living in other parts of the world. Forinstance, our American moose, the wapiti or elk, Rocky Mountain sheep, theso-called mountain goat, and other animals are probably of Central Asianorigin. Doubtless there were many contributing causes to the extensive wanderingsof primitive tribes, but as they were primarily hunters, one of the mostimportant must have been the movements of the game upon which they lived. Therefore the study of the early human races is, necessarily, closelyconnected with, and dependent upon, a knowledge of the Central Asianmammalian life and its distribution. No systematic palaeontological, archaeological, or zoölogical study of this region on a large scale hasever been attempted, and there is no similar area of the inhabited surfaceof the earth about which so little is known. The American Museum of Natural History hopes in the near future to conductextensive explorations in this part of the world along general scientificlines. The country itself and its inhabitants, however, present unusualobstacles to scientific research. Not only is the region one of vastintersecting mountain ranges, the greatest of the earth, but the climate istoo cold in winter to permit of continuous work. The people have a naturaldislike for foreigners, and the political events of the last half centuryhave not tended to decrease their suspicions. It is possible to overcome such difficulties, but the plans for extensiveresearch must be carefully prepared. One of the most important steps is thesending out of preliminary expeditions to gain a general knowledge of thenatives and fauna and of the conditions to be encountered. For the firstreconnoissance, which was intended to be largely a mammalian survey, theAsiatic Zoölogical Expedition left New York in March, 1916. Its destination was Yün-nan, a province in southwestern China. This is oneof the least known parts of the Chinese Republic and, because of itssouthern latitude and high mountain systems, the climate and faunal rangeis very great. It is about equal in size to the state of California andtopographically might be likened to the ocean in a furious gale, for thegreater part of its surface has been thrown into vast mountain waves whichdivide and cross one another in hopeless confusion. Yün-nan is bordered on the north by Tibet and S'suchuan, on the west byBurma, on the south by Tonking, and on the east by Kwei-chau Province. Faunistically the entire northwestern part of Yün-nan is essentiallyTibetan, and the plateaus and mountain peaks range from altitudes of 8, 000feet to 20, 000 feet above sea level. In the south and west along theborders of Burma and Tonking, in the low fever-stricken valleys, theclimate is that of the mid-tropics, and the native life, as well as thefauna and flora, is of a totally different type from that found in thenorth. The natives of Yün-nan are exceptionally interesting. There are aboutthirty non-Chinese tribes in the province, some of whom, such as the Shansand Lolos, represent the aboriginal inhabitants of China, and it is safe tosay that in no similar area of the world is there such a variety oflanguage and dialects as in this region. Although the main work of the Expedition was to be conducted in Yün-nan, wedecided to spend a short time in Fukien Province, China, and endeavor toobtain a specimen of the so-called "blue tiger" which has been seen twiceby the Reverend Harry R. Caldwell, a missionary and amateur naturalist, whohas done much hunting in the vicinity of Foochow. The white members of the first Asiatic Zoölogical Expedition included Mr. Edmund Heller, my wife (Yvette Borup Andrews) and myself. A Chineseinterpreter, Wu Hung-tao, with five native assistants and ten muleteers, completed the personnel. Mr. Heller is a collector of wide experience. His early work, which wasdone in the western United States and the Galápagos Islands, was followedby many years of collecting in Mexico, Alaska, South America, and Africa. He first visited British East Africa with Mr. Carl E. Akeley, next withex-President Theodore Roosevelt, and again with Mr. Paul J. Rainey. Duringthe Asiatic Zoölogical Expedition Mr. Heller devoted most of his time tothe gathering and preparation of small mammals. He joined our party late inJuly in China. Mrs. Andrews was the photographer of the Expedition. She had studiedphotography as an amateur in Germany, France, and Italy, as well as in NewYork, and had devoted especial attention to the taking of photographs innatural colors. Such work requires infinite care and patience, but theresults are well worth the efforts expended. Wu Hung-tao is a native of Foochow, China, and studied English at theAnglo-Chinese College in that city. He lived for some time in Teng-yueh, Yün-nan, in the employ of Mr. F. W. Carey, Commissioner of Customs, and notonly speaks mandarin Chinese but also several native dialects. He acted asinterpreter, head "boy, " and general field manager. My own work was devotedmainly to the direction of the Expedition and the hunting of big game. In order to reduce the heavy transportation charges we purchased only suchequipment in New York as could not be obtained in Shanghai or Hongkong. Messrs. Shoverling, Daly & Gales furnished our guns, ammunition, tents, andgeneral camp equipment, and gave excellent satisfaction in attention to theminor details which often assume alarming importance when an expedition isin the field and defects cannot be remedied. All food and commissarysupplies were purchased in Hongkong (_see_ Chapter IX). * * * * * When the announcement of the Expedition was made by the American Museum ofNatural History it received wide publicity in America and other parts ofthe world. Immediately we began to discover how many strange persons makeup the great cities of the United States, and we received letters andtelegrams from hundreds of people who wished to take part in theExpedition. Men and boys were the principal applicants, but there was nolack of women, many of whom came to the Museum for personal interviews. Most of the letters were laughable in the extreme. One was from a butcherwho thought he might be of great assistance in preparing our specimens, ordefending us from savage natives; another young man offered himself to mywife as a personal bodyguard; a third was sure his twenty years' experienceas a waiter would fit him for an important position on the Expedition, andnumerous women, young and old, wished to become "companions" for my wife inthose "drear wastes. " Applicants continued to besiege us wherever we stopped on our way acrossthe continent and in San Francisco until we embarked on the afternoon ofMarch 28 on the S. S. _Tenyo Maru_ for Japan. Our way across the Pacific was uneventful and as the great vessel drew intoward the wharf in Yokohama she was boarded by the usual crowd of natives. We were standing at the rail when three Japanese approached and, bowing inunison, said, "We are report for leading Japanese newspaper. We wish toknow all thing about Chinese animal. " Evidently the speech had beenrehearsed, for with it their English ended abruptly, and the interviewproceeded rather lamely, on my part, in Japanese. Japan was reveling in the cherry blossom season when we arrived and for aperson interested in color photography it was a veritable paradise. Westayed three weeks and regretfully left for Peking by way of Korea. Butbefore we continue with the story of our further travels, we would likebriefly to review the political situation in China as a background for ourearly work in the province of Fukien. CHAPTER II CHINA IN TURMOIL During the time the Expedition was preparing to leave New York, China wasin turmoil. Yuan Shi-kai was president of the Republic, but the hope of hisheart was to be emperor of China. For twenty years he had plotted for thethrone; he had been emperor for one hundred miserable days; and now he waswatching, impotently, his dream-castles crumble beneath his feet. Yuan wasthe strong man of his day, with more power, brains, and personality thanany Chinese since Li-Hung Chang. He always had been a factor in hispolitical world. His monarchial dream first took definite form as early as1901 when he became viceroy of Chi-li, the province in which Peking issituated. It was then that he began to modernize and get control of the army which isthe great basis of political power in China. Properly speaking, there wasnot, and is not now, a Chinese national army. It is rather a collection ofarmies, each giving loyalty to a certain general, and he who secures thesupport of the various commanders controls the destiny of China's fourhundred millions of people regardless of his official title. Yuan was able to bind to himself the majority of the leading generals, andin 1911, when the Manchu dynasty was overthrown, his plots and intriguesbegan to bear fruit. By crafty juggling of the rebels and Manchus hemanaged to get himself elected president of the new republic, although hedid not for a moment believe in the republican form of government. He wasalways a monarchist at heart but was perfectly willing to declare himselfan ardent republican so long as such a declaration could be used as astepping stone to the throne which he kept ever as his ultimate goal. As president he ruled with a high hand. In 1913 there was a rebellion inprotest against his official acts but he defeated the rebels, won over moreof the older generals, and solidified the army for his own interests, making himself stronger than ever before. At this time he might well have made a _coup d'état_ and proclaimed himselfemperor with hardly a shadow of resistance, but with the hereditary cautionof the Chinese he preferred to wait and plot and scheme. He wanted hisposition to be even more secure and to have it appear that he reluctantlyaccepted the throne as a patriotic duty at the insistent call of thepeople. Yuan's ways for producing the proper public sentiment were typicallyChinese but entirely effective, and he was making splendid progress, whenin May, 1915, Japan put a spoke in his wheel of fortune by taking advantageof the European war and presenting the historical twenty-one demands, tomost of which China agreed. This delayed his plans only temporarily, and Yuan's agents pushed the workof making him emperor more actively than ever, with the result that thethrone was tendered to him by the "unanimous vote of the people. " To "savehis face" he declined at first but at the second offer he "reluctantly"yielded and on December 12, 1915, became emperor of China. But his triumph was short-lived, for eight days later tidings of unrest inYün-nan reached Peking. General Tsai-ao, a former military governor of theprovince, appeared in Yün-nan Fu, the capital, and, on December 23, sent anultimatum to Yuan stating that he must repudiate the monarchy and executeall those who had assisted him to gain the throne, otherwise Yün-nan wouldsecede; which it forthwith did on December 25. Without doubt this rebellion was financed by the Japanese who had intimatedto Yuan that the change from a republican form of government would not meetwith their approval. The rebellion spread rapidly. On January 21, Kwei-chauProvince, which adjoins Yün-nan, seceded, and, on March 13, Kwang-si alsoannounced its independence. About this time the Museum authorities were becoming somewhat doubtful asto the advisability of proceeding with our Expedition. We had a long talkwith Dr. Wellington Koo, the Chinese Minister to the United States, at theBiltmore Hotel in New York. Dr. Koo, while certain that the rebellion wouldbe short-lived, strongly advised us to postpone our expedition untilconditions became more settled. He offered to cable Peking for advice, butwe, knowing how unwelcome to the government of the harassed Yuan would be aparty of foreigners who wished to travel in the disturbed area, gratefullydeclined and determined to proceed regardless of conditions. We hoped thatYuan would be strong enough to crush this rebellion as he had that of 1913, but day by day, as we anxiously watched the papers, there came reports ofother provinces dropping away from his standard. On the _Tenyo Maru_ we met the Honorable Charles Denby, an ex-AmericanConsul-General at Shanghai and former adviser to Yuan Shi-kai when he wasviceroy of Chi-li. Mr. Denby was interested in obtaining a road concessionnear Peking and was then on his way to see Yuan. His anxiety over thepolitical situation was not less than ours and together we often paced thedecks discussing what might happen; but every wireless report told of moredesertions to the ranks of the rebels. It seemed to be the beginning of the end, for Yuan had lost his nerve. Hehad decided to quit, and one hundred days after he became emperor elect heissued a mandate canceling the monarchy and restoring the republic. But therebellious provinces were not satisfied and demanded that he get outaltogether. About this time we reached Peking, literally blown in by a tremendous duststorm which seemed an elemental manifestation of the human turmoil withinthe grim old walls. Our cousin, Commander Thomas Hutchins, Naval Attaché ofthe American Legation, was awaiting us on the platform, holding his hatwith one hand and wiping the dust from his eyes with the other. The news we received from him was by no means comforting for in theLegation pessimism reigned supreme. The American Minister, Dr. Reinsch, wasnot enthusiastic about our going south regardless of conditions, butnevertheless he set about helping us to obtain the necessary visé for ourpassports. We wished first to go to Foochow, in Fukien Province, where we were to hunttiger until Mr. Heller joined us in July for the expedition into Yün-nan. Fukien was still loyal to Yuan, but the strong Japanese influence in thisprovince, which is directly opposite the island of Formosa, was causingconsiderable uneasiness in Peking. We were armed with telegrams from Mr. C. R. Kellogg, of the Anglo-ChineseCollege, with whom we were to stay while in Foochow, assuring us that allwas quiet in the province, and through the influence of Dr. Reinsch, theChinese Foreign Office viséd our passports. The huge red stamp which wasaffixed to them was an amusing example of Chinese "face saving. " First camethe seal of Yuan's impotent dynasty of Hung Hsien, signifying "BrilliantProsperity, " and directly upon it was placed the stamp of the ChineseRepublic. One was almost as legible as the other and thus the ForeignOffice saved its face in whichever direction the shifting cards ofpolitical destiny should fall. At a luncheon given by Dr. Reinsch at the Embassy in Peking, we met Admiralvon Hintze, the German Minister, who had recently completed an adventuroustrip from Germany to China. He was Minister to Mexico at the beginning ofthe war but had returned to Berlin incognito through England to ask theKaiser for active sea service. The Emperor was greatly elated over vonHintze's performance and offered him the appointment of Minister to Chinaif he could reach Peking in the same way that he had traveled to Berlin. Von Hintze therefore shipped as supercargo on a Scandinavian tramp steamerand arrived safely at Shanghai, where he assumed all the pomp of a foreigndiplomat and proceeded to the capital. The Americans were in a rather difficult position at this time because ofthe international complications, and social intercourse was extremelylimited. Dinner guests had to be chosen with the greatest care and one wasvery likely to meet exactly the same people wherever one went. Peking is a place never to be forgotten by one who has shared its sociallife. In the midst of one of the most picturesque, most historical, andmost romantic cities of the world there is a cosmopolitan community thatenjoys itself to the utmost. Its talk is all of horses, polo, racing, shooting, dinners, and dances, with the interesting background of Chinesepolitics, in which things are never dull. There is always a rebellion ofsome kind to furnish delightful thrills, and one never can tell when a newpolitical bomb will be projected from the mysterious gates of the ForbiddenCity. We spent a week in Peking and regretfully left by rail for Shanghai. _Enroute_ we passed through Tsinan-fu where the previous night seriousfighting had occurred in which Japanese soldiers had joined with the rebelsagainst Yuan's troops. On every side there was evidence of Japan's effortsagainst him. In the foreign quarter of Shanghai just behind the residenceof Mr. Sammons, the American Consul-General, one of Yuan's leading officershad been openly murdered, and Japanese were directly concerned in the plot. We were told that it was very difficult at that time to lease houses in theforeign concession because wealthy Chinese who feared the wrath of oneparty or the other were eager to pay almost any rent to obtain theprotection of that quarter of the city. A short time later it became known to a few that Yuan was seriously ill. Hewas suffering from Bright's disease with its consequent weakness, loss ofmental alertness, and lack of concentration. French doctors were called in, but Yuan's wives insisted upon treating him with concoctions of their own, and on June 6, shortly after three o'clock in the morning, he died. Even on his death-bed Yuan endeavored to save his face before the country, and his last words were a reiteration of what he knew no one believed. Thestory of his death is told in the _China Press_ of June 7, 1916: According to news from the President's palace the condition of Yuan became critical at three o'clock in the morning. Yuan asked for his old confidential friend, Hsu Shih-chang, who came immediately. On the arrival of Hsu, Yuan was extremely weak, but entirely conscious. With tears in his eyes, Yuan assured his old friend that he had never had any personal ambition for an emperor's crown; he had been deceived by his _entourage_ over the true state of public opinion and thus had sincerely believed the people wished for the restoration of the monarchy. The desire of the South for his resignation he had not wished to follow for fear that general anarchy would break out all over China. Now that he felt death approaching he asked Hsu to make his last words known to the public. In the temporary residence of President Li Yuan-hung, situated in the Yung-chan-hu-tung (East City) and formerly owned by Yang Tu, the prominent monarchist, the formal transfer of the power to Li-Yuan-hung took place this morning at ten o'clock. Yuan Chi-jui, Secretary of State and Premier, as well as all the members of the cabinet, Prince Pu Lun as chairman of the State Council, and other high officials were present. The officials, wearing ceremonial dress, were received by Li-Yuan-hung in the main hall and made three bows to the new president, which were returned by the latter. The same ceremony will take place at two o'clock, when all the high military officials will assemble at the President's residence. The Cabinet, in a circular telegram has informed all the provinces that Vice-President Li-Yuan-hung, in accordance with the constitution, has become president of the Chinese Republic (Chung-hua-min-kuo) from the seventh instance. So ended Yuan Shi-kai's great plot to make himself an emperor over fourhundred millions of people, a plot which could only have been carried outin China. He failed, and the once valiant warrior died in the humiliationof defeat, leaving thirty-two wives, forty children and his country inpolitical chaos. CHAPTER III UP THE MIN RIVER _Y. B. A. _ Three days after leaving Shanghai we arrived at Pagoda Anchorage at themouth of the Min River, twelve miles from Foochow. We boarded a launch which threaded its way through a fleet of picturesquefishing vessels, each one of which had a round black and white eye paintedon its crescent-shaped bow. When asked the reason for this decoration aChinese on the launch looked at us rather pityingly for a moment and thensaid: "No have eye. No can see. " How simple and how entirely satisfactory! The instant the launch touched the shore dozens of coolies swarmed likeflies over it, fighting madly for our luggage. One seized a trunk, theother end of which had been appropriated by another man and, in theargument which ensued, each endeavored to deafen the other by his screams. The habit of yelling to enforce command is inherent with the Chinese andappears to be ineradicable. To expostulate in an ordinary tone of voice, pausing to listen to his opponent's reply, seems a psychologicalimpossibility. There had been a mistake about the date of our arrival at Foochow, and wewere two days earlier than we had been expected, so that Mr. C. R. Kellogg, of the Anglo-Chinese College, with whom we were to stay, was not on thejetty to meet us. We were at a loss to know where to turn amidst the chaosand confusion until a customs officer took us in charge and, judiciouslyselecting a competent looking woman from among the screaming multitude, told her to get two sedan chairs and coolies to carry our luggage. Shedisappeared and ten minutes later the chairs arrived. Dashing about amongthe crowd in front of us, she chose the baggage for such men as met withher approval and after the usual amount of argument the loads were taken. We mounted our chairs and started off with apparently all Foochow followingus. As far as we could see down the narrow street were the heads andshoulders of our porters. We felt as if we were heading an invading armyas, with our thirty-three coolies and sixteen hundred pounds of luggage, wedescended upon the homes of people whom we did not know and who were notexpecting us. But our sudden arrival did not disturb the Kelloggs and ourwelcome was typical of the warm hospitality one always finds in the FarEast. No matter how long one has lived in China one remains in a condition ofmental suspense unable to decide which is the filthiest city of theRepublic. The residents of Foochow boast that for offensiveness to thesenses no town can compare with theirs, and although Amoy and several otherplaces dispute this questionable title, we were inclined to grant itunreservedly to Foochow. It is like a medieval city with its narrow, ill-paved streets wandering aimlessly in a hopeless maze. They are usuallyroofed over so that by no accident can a ray of purifying sun penetratetheir dark corners. With no ventilation whatsoever the oppressive air reekswith the odors that rise from the streets and the steaming houses. In Foochow, as in other cities of China, the narrow alleys are literallychoked with every form of industrial obstruction. Countless workmen plantthemselves in the tiny passageways with the pigs, children, and dogs, andwomen bring their quilts to spread upon the stones. There is a commonsaying that the Chinese do little which is not at some time done on thestreet. The foreign residents, including consuls of all nationalities, missionaries, and merchants, live well out of the city on a hilltop. Theirhouses are built with very high ceilings and bare interiors, and as theoccupants seldom go into the city except in a sedan chair and have"punkahs" waving day and night, life is made possible during the intenseheat of summer. A telegram was awaiting us from the Reverend Harry Caldwell, with whom wewere to hunt, asking us to come to his station two hundred miles up theriver, and we passed two sweltering days repacking our outfit while Mr. Kellogg scoured the country for an English-speaking cook. One middle-aged gentleman presented himself, but when he learned that wewere going "up country, " he shook his head with an assumption of greatfilial devotion and said that he did not think his mother would let him go. Another was afraid the sun might be too hot. Finally on the eve of ourdeparture we engaged a stuttering Chinese who assured us that he was aremarkable cook and exceptionally honest. If you have never heard a Chinaman stutter you have something to live for, and although we discovered that our cook was a shameless rascal he wasworth all he extracted in "squeeze, " for whenever he attempted to utter aword we became almost hysterical. He sounded exactly like a worn-outphonograph record buzzing on a single note, and when he finally did manageto articulate, his "pidgin" English in itself was screamingly funny. One day he came to the _sampan_ proudly displaying a piece of beef and, after a series of vocal gymnastics, eventually succeeded in shouting:"Missie, this meat no belong die-cow. Die-cow not so handsome. " Which meantthat this particular piece of beef was not from an animal which had diedfrom disease. The first stage of our trip began before daylight. We rode in four-mansedan chairs, followed by a long procession of heavily laden coolies withour cameras, duffle-sacks, and pack baskets. The road lay through greenrice fields between terraced mountains, and we jogged along first on thecrest of a hill, then in the valley, passing dilapidated temples with thepaint flaking off and picturesque little huts half hidden in the reeds ofthe winding river. It was a relief to get into the country again afterpassing down the narrow village streets and to breathe fresh air perfumedwith honeysuckle. A passenger launch makes the trip to Cui-kau at the beginning of therapids, but it leaves at two o'clock in the morning and is literallycrowded to overflowing with evil-smelling Chinese who sprawl over everyavailable inch of deck space, so that even the missionaries stronglyadvised us against taking it. The passengers not infrequently are pushedoff into the water. One of the missionaries witnessed an incident whichillustrates in a typical way the total lack of sympathy of the averageChinese. A coolie on the Cui-kau launch accidentally fell overboard, and although afriend was able to grasp his hand and hold him above the surface, no oneoffered to help him; the launch continued at full speed, and finallyweakening, the poor man loosed his hold and sank. This is by no means anisolated case. Some years ago a foreign steamer was burned on the YangtzeRiver, and the crowds of watching Chinese did little or nothing to rescuethe passengers and crew. Indeed, as fast as they made their way to shoremany of them were robbed even of their clothing and some were murderedoutright. Our first day on the Min River was the most luxurious of the entireExpedition, for we were fortunate in obtaining the Standard Oil Company'slaunch through the kindness of Mr. Livingston, their agent. It was largeand roomy, and the trip, which would have been worse than disagreeable onthe public boat, was most delightful. The Min is one of the most beautifulrivers of all China with its velvet green mountains rising a thousand feetor more straight up from the water and often terraced to the summits. Perched on the bow of our boat was a wizened little gentleman with apigtail wrapped around his head, who said he was a pilot, but as heinquired the channel of everyone who passed and ran us aground a dozentimes or more to the tremendous agitation of our captain, we felt that hisclaim was not entirely justified. The river life was a fascinating, ever-changing picture. One moment wewould pass a _sampan_ so loaded with branches that it seemed like a smallisland floating down the stream. Next a huge junk with bamboo-ribbed sailsprojecting at impossible angles drifted by, followed by innumerable smallercrafts, the monotonous chant of the boatmen coming faintly over the waterto us as they passed. When evening came we had reached Cui-kau. The _sampans_ in which we were tospend eight days were drawn up on the beach with twenty or thirty others. Right above us was the straggling town looking very much like the rear viewof tenement houses at home. Darkness blotted out the filth of oursurroundings but could do nothing to lessen the odors that poured down fromthe village, and we ate our dinner with little relish. Our beds were spread in the _sampans_ which we shared in common with thefour river men who formed the crew. There was only a mosquito net to screenthe end of the boat, but all our surroundings were so strange that this wasbut a minor detail. As we lay in our cots we could look up at the starsframed in the half oval of the _sampan's_ roof and listen to the sounds ofthe water life grow fainter and fainter as one by one the river men beachedtheir boats for the night. It seemed only a few minutes later when we wereroused by a rush of water, but it was daylight, and the boats had reachedthe first of the rapids which separated us from Yen-ping, one hundred andtwenty miles away. In the late afternoon we arrived at Chang-hu-fan where Mr. Caldwell stoodon the shore waving his hat to us amidst scores of dirty little childrenand the explosion of countless firecrackers. Wherever we went crackerspreceded and followed us--for when a Chinese wishes to register extremeemotion, either of joy or sorrow, its expression always takes the form offirecrackers. There had been a good deal of persecution of the native Christians in thedistrict, and only recently a band of soldiers had strung up the nativepastor by the thumbs and beaten him senseless. He was our host that nightand seemed to be a bright, vivacious, little man but quite deaf as a resultof his cruel treatment. He never recovered and died a few weeks later. Mr. Caldwell had come to investigate the affair, for the missionaries areinvested by the people themselves with a good deal of authority. We spent that night in the parish house just behind the little church, abare schoolroom being turned over to us for our use, and it seemed veryluxurious after we had set up our cots, tables, chairs, and bath tub; butthe house was in the center of the town and the high walls shut out everybreath of pure air. The barred windows opened on a street hardly six feetwide, and while we were preparing for bed there was a buzz of subduedwhispers outside. We switched on a powerful electric flashlight and therestood at least forty men, women and children gazing at us with raptattention, but they melted away before the blinding glare like snow in aJune sun. That night was not a pleasant one. The heat was intense, the mosquitoesworse, and every dog and cat in the village seemed to choose our court yardas a dueling ground in which to settle old scores. The climax was reachedat four o'clock in the morning, when directly under our windows there camea series of ear-splitting squeals followed by a horrible gurgle. Theneighbors had chosen that particular spot and hour to kill the family pig, and the entire process which followed of sousing it in hot water andscraping off the hair was accompanied by unceasing chatter. Boiling withrage we dressed and went for a walk, vowing not to spend another night inthe place but to sleep in the _sampans_. On the whole our river men were nice fellows but they had the love ofcompanionship characteristic of all Chinese and the inherent desire tohuddle together as closely as possible wherever they were. On the way upthe river to Yuchi every evening they insisted on stopping at somefoul-smelling village, and it was difficult to induce them to spend thenight away from a town. Moreover, at our stops for luncheon they wouldinvariably ignore a shady spot and choose a sand bank where the sun beatdown like a blast furnace. The Chinese never appear to be affected by the sun and go bareheaded at allseasons of the year, shading their eyes with one hand or a partly openedfan. A fan is the prime requisite, and it is not uncommon to see cooliesalmost devoid of clothing, dragging a heavy load and with the perspirationstreaming from their naked bodies, energetically fanning themselvesmeanwhile. Mr. Caldwell was _en route_ to Yuchi, one of his mission stations far up abranch of the Min River, and as there was a vague report of tiger in thatvicinity we joined him instead of proceeding directly to Yen-ping. Thetiger story was found to be merely a myth, but our trip was madeinteresting by meeting Miss Mabel Hartford, the only foreign resident ofthe place. She has lived in Yuchi for two years and at one time did not seea white person for eight months with the exception of Mr. Caldwell who wasin the vicinity for three days. It requires four weeks to obtain suppliesfrom Foochow, there is no telegraph, and mails are very irregular, but sheenjoys the isolation and is passionately fond of her work. She has had an interesting life and one not devoid of danger. In 1895 shewas wounded and barely escaped death in the Hwa Shan (Flower Mountain)massacre in which ten women and one man were brutally murdered by a mob offanatic natives known as "Vegetarians. " The Chinese Government was requiredto pay a considerable indemnity to Miss Hartford, which she accepted onlyunder protest and characteristically devoted to missionary work in Kuchengwhere the massacre occurred. Conditions at Yuchi when we arrived were most unsettled and for some monthsthere had been a veritable "reign of terror. " A large band of brigands wasestablished in the hills not far from the city, and we were warned by themandarin not to attempt to go farther up the river. A few months earlierseveral companies of soldiers had been sent from Foochow, and the result ofturning loose these ruffians upon the town was to make "the remedy worsethan the disease. " The soldiers were continually arresting innocent peasants, accusing them ofbeing brigands or aiding the bandits, and shooting them without a hearing. At one time accurate information concerning the camp of the robbers wasreceived and the soldiers set bravely off, but when within a short distanceof the brigands the commanders began to quarrel among themselves, guns werefired, and the bandits escaped. A Chinaman must always "save his face, "however, and when they returned to Yuchi they arrested dozens of people onmere suspicion and executed them without the vestige of a trial. Finallyconditions became so intolerable that no one was safe, and after repeatedcomplaints by the missionaries, a new mandarin of a somewhat better typewas sent to Yuchi. As it was impossible to do any collecting farther up the river because ofthe bandits, we left for Yen-ping two days after arriving at Yuchi. Yen-ping is a wonderfully picturesque old city, situated on a hill at afork of the river and surrounded by high stone walls pierced andloopholed for rifle fire. Such walls, while of little use againstartillery, nevertheless offer a formidable obstacle to anything less thanfield guns as we ourselves were destined to discover. The Methodist mission compound encloses a considerable area on the verysummit of the hill, backed by the city wall, and besides the four dwellinghouses, comprises two large schools for boys and girls. Mr. Caldwell'sresidence commands a wonderful view down the river and in the lateafternoon sunlight when the hills are bathed in pink and lavender andpurple a more beautiful spot can hardly be imagined. But the delights of Yen-ping are somewhat tempered by the abominableweather. In summer the heat is almost unbearable and the air is so nearlysaturated from continual rain that it is impossible to dry anything exceptover a fire. From all reports winter must be almost as bad in the oppositeextreme for the cold is damp and penetrating; but the early fall is said tobe delightful. The larger part of Fukien, like many other provinces in China, has beendenuded of forests, and the groves of pine which remain have all beenplanted. This deforestation consequently has driven out the game, andexcept for tigers, leopards, wolves, wild pigs, serows and gorals, none ofthe large species is left. However, the dense growth of sword grass and thethorny bushes which clothe the hills and choke the ravines give cover tomuntjac, or barking deer, and many species of small cats, civets, and otherViverines. These animals come to the rice paddys, which fill every valley, to hunt for frogs and fish, but it is difficult to catch them because ofthe Chinese who are continually at work in the fields. We spent a week trapping about Yen-ping and although we caught a good manyanimals they were almost always stolen together with the traps. We had thissame difficulty in Yün-nan as well as in Fukien. None of us had ever seennatives in any part of the world who were such unmitigated thieves as theChinese of these two provinces. The small mammals are hardly more abundantthan the larger ones for the natives wage an unceasing war on those aboutthe rice paddys and have exterminated nearly all but a few widelydistributed forms. CHAPTER IV A BAT CAVE IN THE BIG RAVINE A few days after our arrival in Yen-ping we went with Mr. Caldwell and hisson Oliver to a Taoist temple seven miles away in a lonely ravine known asChi-yuen-kang. The walk to the temple in the early morning was delightful. The "bamboo chickens" and francolins were calling all about us and on theway we shot enough for our first day's dinner. Both these birds areabundant in Fukien Province but it is by no means easy to kill them forthey live in such thick cover that they can only be flushed withdifficulty. Early in the morning we frequently heard the francolins crowing in thetrees or on the top of a hill and when a cock had taken possession of sucha spot the intrusion of another was almost sure to cause trouble which onlyended when one of them had been driven off. For two miles and a half the Big Ravine is a narrow cut betweenperpendicular rock walls thickly clothed to their very summits with bambooand a tangle of thorny vines. In the bottom of the gorge a mountain torrentfoams among huge bowlders but becomes a gentle, slow moving stream when itleaves the cool darkness of the cañon to spread itself over the terracedrice fields. About a mile from the entrance two old temples nestle into the hillside. One stands just over the water, but the other clings to the rock wall threehundred feet above the river, and it was there that we made our camp. The old priest in charge did not appear especially delighted to see usuntil I slipped a Mexican dollar into his hand--then it was laughable tosee his change of face. The far end of the balcony was given up to us whileMr. Caldwell and Oliver put up their beds at the feet of a grinning idol inthe main temple. We had come to Chi-yuen-kang to hunt serow (_see_ Chapter XVII) and hadbrought with us only a few traps for small mammals. Harry had seen severalserow exhibited for sale on market days in towns along the river, and allwere reported to have been killed near this ravine. There was a village ofconsiderable size at the upper end and here we collected a motley lot ofbeaters with half a dozen dogs to drive the top of a mountain which toweredabout two thousand five hundred feet above the river. Never will we forget that climb! We tried to start at daylight but it waswell toward six o'clock before we got our men together. A Chinaman woulddrive an impatient man to apoplexy and an early grave for it is well-nighimpossible to get him started within an hour of the appointed time, andwith a half dozen the difficulty is multiplied as many times. Just when youthink all is ready and that there can be no possible reason for delayinglonger, the whole crowd will disappear suddenly and you discover that theyhave gone for "chow. " Then you know that the end is really in sight, forchow usually is the last thing. We waited nearly two hours on this particular morning before we started onthe long climb to the top of the mountain. The sun was simply blazing, andin fifteen minutes we were soaked with perspiration. When we were half wayup the dogs disappeared in a small ravine overgrown with bamboo and swordgrass and suddenly broke into a chorus of yelps. They had found a freshtrail and were driving our way. Harry ran to a narrow opening in the jungle, shouting to us to watchanother higher up. We were hardly in position when his rifle banged, followed by such a bedlam of yells and barks that we thought he must havekilled nothing less than one of the hunters. Before we reached them Harryappeared, smiling all over, and dragging a muntjac (_Muntiacus_) by thefore legs. He had just made a beautiful shot, for the clearing he had beenwatching was not more than ten feet wide and the muntjac flashed across itat full speed. Caldwell fired while it was in mid-air and his bullet caughtthe animal at the base of the neck, rolling it over stone dead. This beautiful little deer in Fukien is hardly larger than a fox. Itsantlers are only two or three inches in length and rise from an elongatedskin-covered pedicel instead of from the base of the skull as in all othermembers of the deer family. On each side of the upper jaw is a slendertusk, about two inches long, which projects well beyond the lips and makesa rather formidable weapon. We hoped that this muntjac was going to prove a "good joss, " but instead adisappointing day was in store for us. When we had worked our way to thevery summit of the mountain under a merciless sun and over a trail whichled through a smothering bamboo jungle, we saw dozens of fresh serowtracks. The animals were there without a doubt and we were on the _quivive_ with excitement. We selected positions and the men made a long circuit to drive toward us asCaldwell had directed. After half an hour had passed we heard them yellingas they closed in, but what was our disgust to see them solemnly paradingin single file up the bottom of the valley on an open trail and carefullyavoiding all thickets where a serow could possibly be. As Harry expressedit, "all the animals had to do was to sit tight and watch the nobleprocession pass. " The beaters very evidently knew nothing whatever aboutdriving nor were we able to teach them, for they seriously objected toleaving the open trails and going into the bush. We worked hard for serow but the men were hopeless and it was impossible to"still hunt" the animals at that time of the year. The natives say that inSeptember when the mushrooms are abundant in the lower forests the serowleave the mountain tops and thick cover to feed upon the fungus, and thatthey may be killed without the aid of beaters, but at any time the huntwould involve a vast amount of labor with only a moderate chance ofsuccess. After we had left Fukien, Mr. Caldwell purchased a fine male andfemale serow for us which are especially interesting as they represent adifferent subspecies (_Capricornis sumatrensis argyrochcaetes_) from thosewe killed in Yün-nan. Chi-yuen-kang did yield us results, however, for we discovered a wonderfulbat cave less than a mile from our temple. Its entrance was a low roundhole half covered with vegetation, and opening into a high circulargallery; from this three long corridors branched off like fingers from thepalm of a giant's hand. The cave was literally alive with bats. There musthave been ten thousand and on the first day we killed a hundred, representing seven species and at least four genera. This was especiallyremarkable as it is unusual to find more than two or three species livingtogether. The cave was a regular bat apartment house for each corridor was divided byrock partitions into several small rooms in every one of which bats ofdifferent species were rearing their families. The young in most instanceswere only a few days old but were thickly clustered on the walls andceilings, and each and every one was squeaking at the top of its tinylungs. The place must have been occupied for scores, if not hundreds, ofyears for the floor was knee-deep with dung. When we returned the day after our first visit we found that many of theyoung bats had been removed by their parents and in some instances entirerooms had been vacated. After the first day the odor of the cave was sonauseating that to enable us to go inside it was necessary to wear gauzepads of iodoform over our noses. The bats at this place were killed with bamboo switches but later we alwaysused a long gill net which had been especially made in New York. We couldhang the net over the entrance to a cave and, when all was ready, send anative into the galleries to stir up the animals. As they flew out theybecame entangled in the net and could be caught or killed before they wereable to get away. It was sometimes possible to catch every specimen in acavern, and moreover, to secure them in perfect condition without brokenskulls or wings. If a bat escaped from the net it would never again strike it, for theanimals are wonderfully accurate in flight and most expert dodgers. Evenwhile in a cave, where hundreds of bats were in the air, they seldom flewagainst us, although we might often be brushed by their wings; and it was amost difficult thing to hit them with a bamboo switch. Their ability indodging is without doubt a necessary development of their feeding habitsfor, with the exception of a few species, bats live exclusively uponinsects and catch them in the air. It is a rather terrifying experience for a girl to sit in a bat caveespecially if the light has gone out and she is in utter darkness. Ofcourse she has a cap tightly pulled over her ears, for what girl, even ifshe be a naturalist's wife, would venture into a den of evil bats with onewisp of hair exposed! All about is the swish of ghostly wings which brush her face or neck andthe air is full of chattering noises like the grinding of hundreds of tinyteeth. Sometimes a soft little body plumps into her lap and if she dares totake her hands from her face long enough to disengage the clinging animalshe is liable to receive a vicious bite from teeth as sharp as needles. But, withal, it is good fun, and think how quickly formalin jars orcollecting trays can be filled with beautiful specimens! CHAPTER V THE YEN-PING REBELLION On Sunday, June 18, we went to the bat cave to obtain a new supply ofspecimens. Upon our return, just as we were about to sit down to luncheon, four excited Chinese appeared with the following letter from Mr. Caldwell: DEAR ROY: There was quite a lively time in the city at an early hour this morning. The rebels have taken Yen-ping and it looks as though there was trouble ahead. Northern soldiers have been sent for and the chances are that either tonight or tomorrow morning there will be quite a battle. Bankhardt, Dr. Trimble and myself have just made a round of the city, visiting the telegraph office, post office and other places, and while we do not believe that the foreigners will be molested, nevertheless it is impossible to tell just what to expect. It is certain, however, that the Consul will order all of us to Foochow if news of the situation reaches there. Owing to the uncertainty, I think you had better come in to Yen-ping so as to be ready for any eventuality. After talking the situation over with Dr. Trimble and Mr. Bankhardt, we all agreed that the wisest thing is for you to come in immediately. I am sending four burden-bearers for it will be out of the question to find any tomorrow, if trouble occurs tonight. The city gates are closed so you will have to climb up the ladder over the wall behind our compound. Best wishes. HARRY. P. S. --Later: It is again reported that Northern soldiers are to arrive tonight. If they do and trouble occurs your only chance is to get to Yen-ping today. H. C. The camp immediately was thrown into confusion for Da-Ming, the cook, andthe burden-bearers were jabbering excitedly at the top of their voices. The servants began to pack the loads at once and meanwhile we ate a roastchicken faster than good table manners would permit--in fact, we took it inour fingers. We were both delighted at the prospect of some excitement andtalked almost as fast as the Chinese. In just one hour from the time Harry's letter had been received, we wereon the way to Yen-ping. It was the hottest part of the day, and we weredripping with perspiration when we left the cool darkness of the ravine andstruck across the open valley, which lay shimmering in a furnace-like heat. At the first rest house on the top of the long hill we waited nearly anhour for our bearers who were struggling under the heavy loads. Three miles farther on a poor woman tottered past us on her peglike feetleaning on the arm of a man. A short distance more and we came to thesecond rest house. We had been there but a few moments when three pantingwomen, steadying themselves with long staves and barely able to walk onfeet not more than four inches long, came up the hill. With them wereseveral men bearing household goods in large bundles and huge red boxes. The exhausted women sank upon the benches and fanned themselves while theperspiration ran down their flushed faces. They looked so utterly miserablethat we told the cook to give them a piece of cake which Mrs. Caldwell hadsent us the day before. Their gratitude was pitiful, but, of course, theygave the larger share to the men. It was not long before other women and children appeared on the hill path, all struggling upward under heavy loads, or tottering along on tightlybound feet. Probably these women had not walked so far in their entirelives, but the fear of the Northern soldiers and what would happen in thecity if they took possession had driven them from their homes. Farther on we had a clear view across the valley where a long line ofpeople was filing up to a temple which nestled into the hillside. Half amile beyond were two other temples both crowded with refugees and theirgoods. Hundreds of families were seeking shelter in every little housebeside the road and were overflowing into the cowsheds and pigpens. At six o'clock we stood on the summit of the hill overlooking the city andhalf an hour later were clambering up the ladder over the high wall of thecompound, just behind Dr. Trimble's house. We were wet through and whilecooling off heard the story of the morning's fighting. It seemed that acertain element in the city was in coöperation with the representatives ofthe revolutionary organization. These men wished to obtain possession ofYen-ping and, after the rebellion was well started, to gather forces, marchto Foochow, and force the Governor to declare the independence of theprovince. The plot had been hatching for several days, but the death of Yuan Shi-kaihad somewhat delayed its fruition. Saturday, however, it was knownthroughout the city that trouble would soon begin. Sunday morning at halfpast three, a band of one hundred men from Yuchi had marched to Yen-pingwhere they were received by a delegation of rebels dressed in white whoopened to them the east gate of the city. Immediately they began to fireup the streets to intimidate the people and in a short time were in a hotengagement with the seventeen Northern soldiers, some of whom threw awaytheir guns and swam across the river. The remaining city troops were fromthe province of Hunan and their sympathies were really with the South inthe great rebellion. These immediately joined the rebels, where they werereceived with open arms. It was reported that the _tao-tai_ (districtmandarin) had asked for troops from Foochow and that these might beexpected at any moment; thus when they arrived a real battle could beexpected and it was very likely that the city would be partly destroyed. We had a picnic supper on the Caldwell's porch and discussed the situation. It was the opinion of all that the foreigners were in no immediate danger, but nevertheless it was considered wise to be prepared, and we decided uponposts for each man if it should become necessary to protect the compound. Hundreds of people were besieging the missionaries with requests to beallowed to bring their goods and families inside the walls, but thesenecessarily had to be refused. Had the missionaries allowed the Chinese tobring their valuables inside it would have cost them the right of Consularprotection and, moreover, their compound would have been the first to beattacked if looting began. On Monday morning while we were sitting on the porch of Mr. Caldwell'shouse preparing some bird skins, there came a sharp crackle of rifle fireand then a roar of shots. Bullets began to whistle over us and we could seepuffs of smoke as the deep bang of a black powder gun punctuated thevicious snapping of the high-power rifles. The firing gradually ceasedafter half an hour and we decided to go down to the city to see what hadhappened, for, as no Northern troops had appeared, the cause of thefighting was a mystery. We went first to the mission hospital which lay across a deep ravine andonly a few yards from the quarters of the soldiers. At the door of thehospital compound lay a bloody rag, and we found Dr. Trimble in theoperating room examining a wounded man who had just been brought in. Thefellow had been shot in the abdomen with a 45-caliber lead ball that hadgone entirely through him, emerging about three inches to the right of hisspine. From the doctor we got the first real news of the puzzling situation. Itappeared that all the men who had arrived Sunday morning from Yuchi to jointhe Yen-ping rebels were in reality brigands and, to save their own lives, the Hunan soldiers quartered in the city had played a clever trick. Theyhad pretended to join the rebels but at a given signal had turned uponthem, killing or capturing almost every one. Although their sympathies werereally with the South, the Hunan men knew that the rebels in Yen-ping couldnot hold the city against the Northern soldiers from Foochow and, bycrushing the rebellion themselves, they hoped to avert a bigger fight. As we could not help the doctor he suggested that we might be of someassistance to the wounded in the city, and with rude crosses of red clothpinned to our white shirt sleeves we left the hospital, accompanied by fourChinese attendants bearing a stretcher. In the compound we met a chair inwhich was lying an old man groaning loudly and dripping with blood. Besidehim were his wife and several boys. The poor woman was crying quietly and, between her sobs, was offering the wounded man mustard pickles from a smalldish in her hand! Poor things, they have so little to eat that they believefood will cure all ills! The bearers set the chair down as we appeared and lifted the filthy ragwhich covered a gaping wound in the man's shoulder, over which had beenplastered a great mass of cow dung. Just think of the infection, but it wasthe only remedy they knew! We took the man upstairs where Dr. Trimble was preparing to operate on thefellow who had been shot in the abdomen. The doctor was working steadilyand quietly, making every move count and inspiring his native hospitalstaff with his own coolness; the way this young missionary handled hiscases made us glad that he was an American. On the way down the hill several soldiers passed us, each carrying four orfive rifles and slung about with cartridge belts--plunder stripped from themen who had been killed. A few hundred yards farther on we found twobrigands lying dead in a narrow street. The nearest one had fallen on hisface and, as we turned him over, we saw that half his head had been blownaway; the other was staring upward with wide open eyes on which the fliesalready were settling in swarms. There was little use in wasting time over these men who long ago had passedbeyond need of our help, and we went on rapidly down the alley to the mainthoroughfare. Guided by a small boy, we hurried over the rough stones forfifteen minutes, and suddenly came to a man lying at the side of thestreet, his head propped on a wooden block. An umbrella once had partlycovered him but had fallen away, leaving him unprotected in the broilingsun. His face and a terrible wound in his head were a solid mass of flies, and thousands of insects were crawling over the blood clots on the stonesbeside him. At first we thought he was dead but soon saw his abdomen moveand realized that he was breathing. It did not seem possible that a humanbeing could live under such conditions; and yet the bystanders told us thathe had been lying there for thirty hours--he had been shot early theprevious morning and it was now three o'clock of the next afternoon. The man was a poor water-carrier who lived with his wife in the most utterpoverty. He had been peering over the city wall when the firing beganSunday morning and was one of the first innocent bystanders to pay thepenalty of his curiosity. I asked why he had not been taken to thehospital, and the answer was that his wife was too poor to hire anyone tocarry him and he had no friends. So there he lay in the burning sun, gazedat by hundreds of passers-by, without one hand being lifted to help him. Our hospital attendants brushed away the flies, placed him in the stretcherand started up the long hill, followed by the haggard, weeping wife and acurious crowd. On every hand were questions: "Why are these men taking himaway?" "What are they going to do with him?" But several educated nativeswho understood said, "_Ing-ai-gidaiie_" (A work of love). They got rightthere a lesson in Christianity which they will not soon forget. It isseldom that Chinese try to help an injured man, for ever present in theirminds is the possibility that he may die and that they will be responsiblefor his burial expenses. We left the stretcher bearers at the corner of the main street with ordersto return as soon as they had deposited the man in the hospital and, underthe guidance of a boy, hurried toward the east gate where it was said sevenor eight men had been shot. Our guide took us first to a brigand who hadbeen wounded and left to die beside the gutter. The corpse was a horriblesight and with a feeling of deathly nausea we made a hurried examinationand walked to the gate at the end of the street. A dozen soldiers were on guard. We learned from the officer that there wereno wounded in the pile of dead just beyond the entrance, so we turnedtoward the river bank and rapidly patrolled the alleys leading to the_tao-tai's yamen_ (official residence) where the firing had been heaviest. The _yamen_ was crowded with soldiers, and we were informed that the deadhad all been removed and that there were no wounded--a grim statement whichtold its own story. The _yamen_ is but a short distance from the hospital so we climbed thehill to the compound. The sun was simply blazing and I realized then whatthe wounded men must have suffered lying in the heat without shelter. Wereturned to the house and were resting on the upper porch when suddenly, far down the river, we saw the glint of rifle barrels in the sunlight, andwith field glasses made out a long line of khaki-clad men winding along theshore trail. At the same time two huge boats filled with soldiers came intoview heading for the water gate of the city. These were undoubtedly theNorthern troops from Foochow who were expected Monday night. Even as we looked there came a sudden roar of musketry and a cloud of smokedrifted up from the barracks right below us--then a rattling fusillade ofshots. We could see soldiers running along the walls firing at men belowand often in our direction. Bullets hummed in the air like angry bees andwe rushed for cover, but in a few moments the firing ceased as suddenly asit began. We were at a loss to know what it all meant and why the troops were firingupon the Northern soldiers whom they wished to placate. It was still amystery when we sat down to dinner at half past seven, but a few minuteslater Mr. Bankhardt rushed in saying that he had just received a note fromthe _tao-tai_. The mandarin's personal servant had brought word that theNorthern soldiers, who had just entered the city, were going to kill himand he begged the missionaries for assistance. Bankhardt also told us ofthe latest developments in the situation. It seems that the city soldierssupposed the Northern troops to be brigands and had fired upon them andkilled several before they discovered their mistake. A very delicatesituation had thus been precipitated, for the Northern commander believedthat it was treachery and intended to attack the barracks in the morningand kill every man whom he found with a rifle, as well as all the cityofficials. The story of the way in which the missionaries acted as peacemakers, savedthe _tao-tai_, and prevented the slaughter which surely would have takenplace in the morning, is too long to be told here, for it was accomplishedonly after hours of the talk and "face saving" so dear to the heart of theOriental. Suffice it to say that through the exercise of great tact and athorough understanding of the Chinese character they were able to settlethe matter without bloodshed. The following day twenty brigands were given a so-called trial, marched offto the west gate, beheaded amid great enthusiasm, and the incident wasclosed. In the afternoon a messenger called and delivered to each of us anofficial letter from the commander of the Northern troops thanking us forthe part we had played in averting trouble and bringing the matter to apeaceful end. An interesting sidelight on the affair was received a few days later. Ayoung man, a Christian, who was born in the same town from which a numberof the brigands had come, went to his house on Monday night after the fightand found seven of the robbers concealed in his bedroom. He was terrifiedbecause if they were discovered he and all his family would be killed foraiding the bandits. He told them they must leave at once, but they pleadedwith him to let them stay for they knew there were soldiers at every cornerand that it would be impossible to get away. While he was imploring them to go, a knock sounded at the door. He pushedthe brigands into the courtyard, and opened to three soldiers. They said:"We understand you have brigands in your house. " He was trembling withfear, but answered, "Come in and see for yourself, if you think so. " The soldiers were satisfied by his frank open manner and, as they knew himto be a good man, did not search the house, but went away. The poor fellowwas frightened nearly to death, but as his place was being watched it wasimpossible for the brigands to leave during the day. At night they stripped themselves, shaved their heads, and dressed likecoolies, and were able to get to the ladder down the city wall just belowthe mission compound where they could escape into the hills. The day after this occurrence, about four o'clock in the afternoon, abreathless Chinese appeared at the house with a note to Mr. Bankhardtsaying that his Chinese teacher and the mission school cook had beenarrested by the Northern soldiers and were to be beheaded in an hour. Wehurried to the police office where they were confined and found that notonly the two men but three others were in custody. The mission cook owned a small restaurant under the management of one ofhis relatives and, while Bankhardt's teacher and the other man were sittingat a table, some Northern soldiers appeared, one of whom owed therestaurant keeper a small amount of money. When asked to pay, the soldierturned upon him and shouted: "You have been assisting the brigands. I sawsome of them carrying goods into your house. " Thereupon the soldiersarrested everyone in the shop. The police officials were quite ready to release the teacher and the otherman upon our statements, but they would not allow the cook to go. His handswere kept tightly bound and he was chained to a post by the neck. Thesoldier who arrested him was his sole accuser, but of course, others wouldappear to uphold him in his charge if it were necessary. The cook was as innocent as any one of the missionaries, but it requiredseveral hours of work and threats of complaint to the government at Foochowto prevent the man from being summarily executed. We were not able to get any mail from Foochow during the rebellion becausethe constant stream of Northern soldiers on their way up the river hadparalyzed the entire country to such an extent that all the river men hadfled. The soldiers were firing for target practice upon every boat they saw onthe river and dozens of men had been killed and then robbed. The Northerncommander told us frankly that this could not be prevented, and when weannounced that we were going to start will all the missionaries down theriver on the following day, he was very much disturbed. He insisted that wehave American flags displayed on our boats to prevent being fired upon bythe soldiers. Although it had taken eight days to work our way laboriously through therapids and up the river from Foochow to Yen-Ping, we covered the samedistance down the river in twenty-four hours and had breakfast with Mr. Kellogg at his house the morning after we left Yen-Ping. In two days ourequipment was repacked and ready for the trip to Futsing to hunt the bluetiger. CHAPTER VI HUNTING THE "GREAT INVISIBLE" For many years before Mr. Caldwell went to Yen-ping he had been stationedat the city of Futsing, about thirty miles from Foochow. Much of his workconsisted of itinerant trips during which he visited the various missionstations under his charge. He almost invariably went on foot from place toplace and carried with him a butterfly net and a rifle, so that to so keena naturalist each day's walk was full of interest. The country was infested with man-eating tigers, and very often thevillagers implored him to rid their neighborhood of some one of the yellowraiders which had been killing their children, pigs, or cattle. During tenyears he had killed seven tigers in the Futsing region. He often said thathis gun had been just as effective in carrying Christianity to the nativesas had his evangelistic work. Although Mr. Caldwell has been especiallyfortunate and has killed his tigers without ever really hunting them, nevertheless it is a most uncertain sport as we were destined to learn. Thetiger is the "Great Invisible"--he is everywhere and nowhere, here todayand gone tomorrow. A sportsman in China may get his shot the first day outor he may hunt for weeks without ever seeing a tiger even though they areall about him; and it is this very uncertainty that makes the game all themore fascinating. The part of Fukien Province about Futsing includes mountains ofconsiderable height, many of which are planted with rice and support asurprising number of Chinese who are grouped in closely connected villages. While the cultivated valleys afford no cover for tiger and the mountainslopes themselves are usually more or less denuded of forest, yet the deepand narrow ravines, choked with sword grass and thorny bramble, offer animpenetrable retreat in which an animal can sleep during the day withoutfear of being disturbed. It is possible for a man to make his way throughthese lairs only by means of the paths and tunnels which have been openedby the tigers themselves. Mr. Caldwell's usual method of hunting was to lead a goat with one or twokids to an open place where they could be fastened just outside the edge ofthe lair, and then to conceal himself a few feet away. The bleating of thegoats would usually bring the tiger into the open where there would be anopportunity for a shot in the late afternoon. Mr. Caldwell's first experience in hunting tigers was with a shotgun at thevillage of Lung-tao. His burden-bearers had not arrived with the basketcontaining his rifle, and as it was already late in the afternoon, hesuggested to Da-Da, the Chinese boy who was his constant companion, thatthey make a preliminary inspection of the lair even though they carriedonly shotguns loaded with lead slugs about the size of buckshot. They tethered a goat just outside the edge of the lair and the tigerresponded to its bleating almost immediately. Caldwell did not see theanimal until it came into the open about fifty yards away and remained inplain view for almost half an hour. The tiger seemed to suspect danger andcrouched on the terrace, now and then putting his right foot forward ashort distance and drawing it slowly back again. He had approached along asmall trail, but before he could reach the goat it was necessary to crossan open space a few yards in width, and to do this the animal flattenedhimself like a huge striped serpent. His head was extended so that thethroat and chin were touching the ground, and there was absolutely nomotion of the body other than the hips and shoulders as the beast slidalong at an amazingly rapid rate. But at the instant the cat gained thenearest cover it made three flying leaps and landed at the foot of theterrace upon which the goat was tied. "Just then he saw me, " said Mr. Caldwell, "and slowly pushed his greatblack-barred face over the edge of the grass not fifteen feet away. "I fired point-blank at his head and neck. He leaped into the air with theblood spurting over the grass, and fell into a heap, but gathered himselfand slid down over the terraces. As he went I fired a second load of slugsinto his hip. He turned about, slowly climbed the hill parallel with us, and stood looking back at me, his face streaming with blood. "I was fumbling in my coat trying to find other shells, but before I couldreload the gun he walked unsteadily into the lair and lay down. It wasalready too dark to follow and the next morning a bloody trail showed wherehe had gone upward into the grass. Later, in the same afternoon, he wasfound dead by some Chinese more than three miles away. " During his many experiences with the Futsing tigers Mr. Caldwell haslearned much about their habits and peculiarities, and some of hisobservations are given in the following pages. "The tiger is by instinct a coward when confronted by his greatestenemy--man. Bold and daring as he may be when circumstances are in hisfavor, he will hurriedly abandon a fresh kill at the first cry of ashepherd boy attending a flock on the mountain-side and will always weighconditions before making an attack. If things do not exactly suit himnothing will tempt him to charge into the open upon what may appear to bean isolated and defenseless goat. "An experience I had in April, 1910, will illustrate this point. I led agoat into a ravine where a tiger which had been working havoc among theherds of the farmers was said to live. This animal only a few days previousto my hunt had attacked a herd of cows and killed three of them, but onthis occasion the beast must have suspected danger and was exceedinglycautious. He advanced under cover along a trail until within one hundredfeet of the goat and there stopped to make a survey of the surroundings. Peering into the valley, he saw two men at a distance of five hundred yardsor more cutting grass and, after watching intently for a time, the greatcat turned and bounded away into the bushes. "On another occasion this tiger awaited an opportunity to attack a cowwhich a farmer was using in plowing his field. The man had unhitched hiscow and squatted down in the rice paddy to eat his mid-day meal, when thetiger suddenly rushed from cover and killed the animal only a few yardsbehind the peasant. This shows how daring a tiger may be when he is able tostrike from the rear, and when circumstances seem to favor an attack. Ihave known tigers to rush at a dog or hog standing inside a Chinese housewhere there was the usual confusion of such a dwelling, and in almost everyinstance the victim was killed, although it was not always carried away. "There is probably no creature in the wilds which shows such a combinationof daring strategy and slinking cowardice as the tiger. Often courage failshim after he has secured his victim, and he releases it to dash off intothe nearest wood. "I knew of two Chinese who were deer hunting on a mountain-side when alarge tiger was routed from his bed. The beast made a rushing attack on theman standing nearest to the path of his retreat, and seizing him by the legdragged him into the ravine below. Luckily the man succeeded in grasping asmall tree whereupon the tiger released his hold, leaving his victim lyingupon the ground almost paralyzed with pain and fear. "A group of men were gathering fuel on the hills near Futsing when a tigerwhich had been sleeping in the high grass was disturbed. The enraged beastturned upon the peasants, killing two of them instantly and strikinganother a ripping blow with his paw which sent him lifeless to the terracebelow. The beast did not attempt to drag either of its victims into thebush or to attack the other persons near by. "The strength and vitality of a full grown tiger are amazing. I hadoccasion to spend the night a short time ago in a place where a tiger hadperformed some remarkable feats. Just at dusk one of these maraudersvisited the village and discovered a cow and her six-months-old calf in apen which had been excavated in the side of a hill and adjoined a house. There was no possible way to enter the enclosure except by a door openingfrom the main part of the dwelling or to descend from above. The tigerjumped from the roof upon the neck of the heifer, killing it instantly, andthe inmates of the house opened the door just in time to see the animalthrow the calf out bodily and leap after it himself. I measured theembankment and found that the exact height was twelve and a half feet. "The same tiger one noon on a foggy day attacked a hog, just back of thevillage and carried it into the hills. The villagers pursued the beast andovertook it within half a mile. When the hog, which dressed weighed morethan two hundred pounds, was found, it had no marks or bruises upon itother than the deep fang wounds in the neck. This is another instance wherecourage failed a tiger after he had made off with his kill to a safedistance. The Chinese declare that when carrying such a load a tiger neverattempts to drag its prey, but throws it across its back and races off attop speed. "The finest trophy taken from Fukien Province in years I shot in May, 1910. Two days previous to my hunt this tiger had killed and eaten asixteen-year-old boy. I happened to be in the locality and decided to makean attempt to dispose of the troublesome beast. Obtaining a mother goatwith two small kids, I led them into a ravine near where the boy had beenkilled. The goat was tied to a tree a short distance from the lair, and thekids were concealed in the tall grass well in toward the place where thetiger would probably be. I selected a suitable spot and kneeled down behinda bank of ferns and grass. The fact that one may be stalked by the verybeast which one is hunting adds to the excitement and keeps one's nerves onedge. I expected that the tiger would approach stealthily as long as hecould not see the goat, as the usual plan of attack, so far as myobservation goes, is to creep up under cover as far as possible beforerushing into the open. In any case the tiger would be within twenty yardsof me before it could be seen. "For more than two hours I sat perfectly still, alert and waiting, behindthe little blind of ferns and grass. There was nothing to break the silenceother than the incessant bleating of the goats and the unpleasant raspingcall of the mountain jay. I had about given up hope of a shot when suddenlythe huge head of the man-eater emerged from the bush, exactly where I hadexpected he would appear and within fifteen feet of the kids. The back, neck, and head of the beast were in almost the same plane as he movednoiselessly forward. "I had implicit confidence in the killing power of the gun in my hand, andat the crack of the rifle the huge brute settled forward with hardly aquiver not ten feet from the kids upon which he was about to spring. Asecond shot was not necessary but was fired as a matter of precaution asthe tiger had fallen behind rank grass, and the bullet passed through theshoulder blade lodging in the spine. The beast measured more than nine feetand weighed almost four hundred pounds. "Upon hearing the shots the villagers swarmed into the ravine, each eagernot so much to see their slain tormentor as to gather up the blood. Butlittle attention was paid to the tiger until every available drop wassopped up with rags torn from their clothing, whilst men and children evenpulled up the blood-soaked grass. I learned that the blood of a tiger isused for two purposes. A bit of blood-stained cloth is tied about the neckof a child as a preventive against either measles or smallpox, and tigerflesh is eaten for the same purpose. It is also said that if a handkerchiefstained with tiger blood is waved in front of an attacking dog the animalwill slink away cowed and terrified. "From the Chinese point of view the skin is not the most valuable part of atiger. Almost always before a hunt is made, or a trap is built, thevillagers burn incense before the temple god, and an agreement is made tothe effect that if the enterprise be successful the skin of the beast takenbecomes the property of the gods. Thus it happens that in many of thetemples handsome tiger-skin robes may be found spread in the chair occupiedby the noted 'Duai Uong, ' or the god of the land. When a hunt issuccessful, the flesh and bones are considered of greatest value, and itoften happens that a number of cows are killed and their flesh mixed withthat of the tiger to be sold at the exorbitant price cheerfully paid fortiger meat. The bones are boiled for a number of days until a gelatine-likeproduct results, and this is believed to be exceptionally efficaciousmedicine. "Notwithstanding the danger of still-hunting a tiger in the tangle of itslair, one cannot but feel richly rewarded for the risk when one begins tosum up one's observations. The most interesting result of investigating anoft-frequented lair is concerning the animal's food. That a tiger alwaysdevours its prey upon the spot where it is taken or in the adjacent bush isan erroneous idea. This is often true when the kill is too heavy to becarried for a long distance, but it is by no means universally so. Not longago the remains of a young boy were found in a grave adjacent to a tiger'slair a few miles from Futsing city. No child had been reported missing inthe immediate neighborhood and everything indicated that the boy had beenbrought alive to this spot from a considerable distance. The sides of thegrave were besmeared with the blood of the unfortunate victim, indicatingthat the tiger had tortured it just as a cat plays with a mouse as long asit remains alive. "In the lair of a tiger there are certain terraces, or places underoverhanging trees, which are covered with bones, and are evidently spots towhich the animal brings its prey to be devoured. On such a terrace one willfind the remains of deer, wild hog, dog, pig, porcupine, pangolin, andother animals both domestic and wild. A fresh kill shows that with itsrasp-like tongue the tiger licks off all the hair of its prey beforedevouring it and the hair will be found in a circle around what remains ofthe kill. The Chinese often raid a lair in order to gather up the quills ofthe porcupine and the bony scales of the pangolin which are esteemed formedicinal purposes. "In addition to the larger animals, tigers feed upon reptiles and frogswhich they find among the rice fields. On the night of April 22, 1914, aparty of frog catchers were returning from a hunt when the man carrying theload of frogs was attacked by a tiger and killed. The animal made noattempt to drag the man away and it would appear that it was attracted bythe croaking of the frogs. " "One often finds trees 'marked' by tigers beside some trail or path in, oradjacent to, a lair. Catlike, the tiger measures its full length upon atree, standing in a convenient place, and with its powerful claws ripsdeeply through the bark. This sign is doubly interesting to the sportsmanas it not only indicates the presence of a tiger in the immediate vicinitybut serves to give an accurate idea as to the size of the beast. The trailsleading into a lair often are marked in a different way. In doing this theanimal rakes away the grass with a forepaw and gathers it into a pile, butclaw prints never appear. " CHAPTER VII THE BLUE TIGER After one has traveled in a Chinese _sampan_ for several days the prospectof a river journey is not very alluring but we had a most agreeablesurprise when we sailed out of Foochow in a chartered house boat to huntthe "blue tiger" at Futsing. In fact, we had all the luxury of a privateyacht, for our boat contained a large central cabin with a table and chairsand two staterooms and was manned by a captain and crew of six men--all for$1. 50 per day! In the evening we talked of the blue tiger for a long time before we spreadour beds on the roof of the boat and went to sleep under the stars. We leftthe boat shortly after daylight at Daing-nei for the six-mile walk toLung-tao. To my great surprise the coolies were considerably distressed atthe lightness of our loads. In this region they are paid by weight and someof the bearers carry almost incredible burdens. As an example, one of ourmen came into camp swinging a 125-pound trunk on each end of his pole, laughing and chatting as gayly as though he had not been carrying 250pounds for six miles under a broiling sun. Mr. Caldwell's Chinese hunter, Da-Da, lived at Lung-tao and we found hishouse to be one of several built on the outskirts of a beautiful grove ofgum and banyan trees. Although it was exceptionally clean for a Chinesedwelling, we pitched our tents a short distance away. At first we weresomewhat doubtful about sleeping outside, but after one night indoors wedecided that any risk was preferable to spending another hour in thestifling heat of the house. It was probable that a tiger would be so suspicious of the white tents thatit would not attack us, but nevertheless during the first nights we wererather wakeful and more than once at some strange night sound seized ourrifles and flashed the electric lamp into the darkness. Tigers often come into this village. Only a few hundred yards from our campsite, in 1911, a tiger had rushed into the house of one of the peasants andattempted to steal a child that had fallen asleep at its play under thefamily table. All was quiet in the house when suddenly the animal dashedthrough the open door. The Chinese declare that the gods protected theinfant, for the beast missed his prey and seizing the leg of the tableagainst which the baby's head was resting, bolted through the door draggingthe table into the courtyard. This was the work of the famous "blue tiger" which we had come to hunt andwhich had on two occasions been seen by Mr. Caldwell. The first time heheard of this strange beast was in the spring of 1910. The animal wasreported as having been seen at various places within an area of a fewmiles almost simultaneously and so mysterious were its movements that theChinese declared it was a spirit of the devil. After several unsuccessfulhunts Mr. Caldwell finally saw the tiger at close range but as he was armedwith only a shotgun it would have been useless to shoot. His second view of the beast was a few weeks later and in the same place. Iwill give the story in his own words: "I selected a spot upon a hill-top and cleared away the grass and fernswith a jack-knife for a place to tie the goat. I concealed myself in thebushes ten feet away to await the attack, but the unexpected happened andthe tiger approached from the rear. "When I first saw the beast he was moving stealthily along a little trailjust across a shallow ravine. I supposed, of course, that he was trying tolocate the goat which was bleating loudly, but to my horror I saw that hewas creeping upon two boys who had entered the ravine to cut grass. Thehuge brute moved along lizard-fashion for a few yards and then cautiouslylifted his head above the grass. He was within easy springing distance whenI raised my rifle, but instantly I realized that if I wounded the animalthe boys would certainly meet a horrible death. "Tigers are usually afraid of the human voice so instead of firing Istepped from the bushes, yelling and waving my arms. The huge cat, crouchedfor a spring, drew back, wavered uncertainly for a moment, and then slowlyslipped away into the grass. The boys were saved but I had lost theopportunity I had sought for over a year. "However, I had again seen the animal about which so many strange tales hadbeen told. The markings of the beast are strikingly beautiful. The groundcolor is of a delicate shade of maltese, changing into light gray-blue onthe underparts. The stripes are well defined and like those of the ordinaryyellow tiger. " Before I left New York Mr. Caldwell had written me repeatedly urging me tostop at Futsing on the way to Yün-nan to try with him for the blue tigerwhich was still in the neighborhood. I was decidedly skeptical as to itsbeing a distinct species, but nevertheless it was a most interesting animaland would certainly be well worth getting. I believed then, and my opinion has since been strengthened, that it is apartially melanistic phase of the ordinary yellow tiger. Black leopards arecommon in India and the Malay Peninsula and as only a single individual ofthe blue tiger has been reported the evidence hardly warrants theassumption that it represents a distinct species. We hunted the animal for five weeks. The brute ranged in the vicinity oftwo or three villages about seven miles apart, but was seen most frequentlynear Lung-tao. He was as elusive as a will o' the wisp, killing a dog orgoat in one village and by the time we had hurried across the mountainsappearing in another spot a few miles away, leaving a trail of terrifiednatives who flocked to our camp to recount his depredations. He was intruth the "Great Invisible" and it seemed impossible that we should not gethim sooner or later, but we never did. Once we missed him by a hair's breadth through sheer bad luck, and it wasonly by exercising almost superhuman restraint that we prevented ourselvesfrom doing bodily harm to the three Chinese who ruined our hunt. Everyevening for a week we had faithfully taken a goat into the "Long Ravine, "for the blue tiger had been seen several times near this lair. On theeighth afternoon we were in the "blind" at three o'clock as usual. We hadtied a goat to a tree nearby and her two kids were but a few feet away. The grass-filled lair lay shimmering in the breathless heat, silent savefor the echoes of the bleating goats. Crouched behind the screen ofbranches, for three long hours we sat in the patchwork shade, --motionless, dripping with perspiration, hardly breathing, --and watched the shadowssteal slowly down the narrow ravine. It was a wild place which seemed to have been cut out of the mountain sidewith two strokes of a mighty ax and was choked with a tangle of thornyvines and sword grass. Impenetrable as a wall of steel, the only entrancewas by the tiger tunnels which drove their twisting way through themurderous growth far in toward its gloomy heart. The shadows had passed over us and just reached a lone palm tree on theopposite hillside. By that I knew it was six o'clock and in half an houranother day of disappointment would be ended. Suddenly at the left and justbelow us there came the faintest crunching sound as a loose stone shiftedunder a heavy weight; then a rustling in the grass. Instantly the captivegoat gave a shrill bleat of terror and tugged frantically at the rope whichheld it to the tree. At the first sound Harry had breathed in my ear "Get ready, he's coming. " Iwas half kneeling with my heavy . 405 Winchester pushed forward and thehammer up. The blood drummed in my ears and my neck muscles ached with thestrain but I thanked Heaven that my hands were steady. Caldwell sat like a graven image, the stock of his little 22 caliber highpower Savage nestling against his cheek. Our eyes met for an instant and Iknew in that glance that the blue tiger would never make another charge, for if I missed him, Harry wouldn't. For ten minutes we waited and my heartlost a beat when twenty feet away the grass began to move again--butrapidly and _up the ravine_. I saw Harry watching the lair with a puzzled look which changed to one ofdisgust as a chorus of yells sounded across the ravine and three Chinesewood cutters appeared on the opposite slope. They were taking a short cuthome, shouting to drive away the tigers--and they had succeeded only toowell, for the blue tiger had slipped back to the heart of the lair fromwhence he had come. He had been nearly ours and again we had lost him! I felt so badly that Icould not even swear and it wasn't the fact that Harry was a missionarywhich kept me from it, either. Caldwell exclaimed just once, for hisdisappointment was even more bitter than mine; he had been hunting thissame tiger off and on for six years. It was useless for us to wait longer that evening and we pushed our waythrough the sword grass to the entrance of the tunnel down which the tigerhad come. There in the soft earth were the great footprints where he hadcrouched at the entrance to take a cautious survey before charging into theopen. As we looked, Harry suddenly turned to me and said: "Roy, let's go into thelair. There is just one chance in a thousand that we may get a shot. " Now Imust admit that I was not very enthusiastic about that little excursion, but in we went, crawling on our hands and knees up the narrow passage. Every few feet we passed side branches from the main tunnel in any one ofwhich the tiger might easily have been lying in wait and could have killedus as we passed. It was a foolhardy thing to do and I am free to admit thatI was scared. It was not long before Harry twisted about and said: "Roy, Ihaven't lost any tigers in here; let's get out. " And out we came fasterthan we went in. This was only one of the times when the "Great Invisible" was almost in ourhands. A few days later a Chinese found the blue tiger asleep under a ricebank early in the afternoon. Frightened almost to death he ran a mile and ahalf to our camp only to find that we had left half an hour before foranother village where the brute had killed two wild cats early in themorning. Again, the tiger pushed open the door of a house at daybreak just as themembers of the family were getting up, stole a dog from the "heaven'swell, " dragged it to a hillside and partly devoured it. We were in camponly a mile away and our Chinese hunters found the carcass on a narrowledge in the sword grass high up on the mountain side. The spot was animpossible one to watch and we set a huge grizzly bear trap which had beencarried with us from New York. It seemed out of the question for any animal to return to the carcass ofthe dog without getting caught and yet the tiger did it. With his hindquarters on the upper terrace he dropped down, stretched his long neckacross the trap, seized the dog which had been wired to a tree and pulledit away. It was evident that he was quite unconscious of the trap for hisfore feet had actually been placed upon one of the jaws only two inchesfrom the pan which would have sprung it. One afternoon we responded to a call from Bui-tao, a village seven milesbeyond Lung-tao, where the blue tiger had been seen that day. The nativesassured us that the animal continually crossed a hill, thickly clothed withpines and sword grass just above the village and even though it was latewhen we arrived Harry thought it wise to set the trap that night. It was pitch dark before we reached the ridge carrying the trap, twolanterns, an electric flash-lamp and a wretched little dog for bait. We hadbeen engaged for about fifteen minutes making a pen for the dog, andCaldwell and I were on our knees over the trap when suddenly a low rumblinggrowl came from the grass not twenty feet away. We jumped to our feet justas it sounded again, this time ending in a snarl. The tiger had arrived afew moments too early and we were in the rather uncomfortable position ofhaving to return to the village by way of a narrow trail through thejungle. With our rifles ready and the electric lamp cutting a brilliantpath in the darkness we walked slowly toward the edge of the sword grasshoping to see the flash of the tiger's eyes, but the beast backed offbeyond the range of the light into an impenetrable tangle where we couldnot follow. Apparently he was frightened by the lantern, for we did nothear him again. After nearly a month of disappointments such as these Mr. Heller joined usat Bui-tao with Mr. Kellogg. Caldwell thought it advisable to shift camp tothe Ling-suik monastery, about twelve miles away, where he had once spent asummer with his family and had killed several tigers. This was within theblue tiger's range and, moreover, had the advantage of offering a bettergeneral collecting ground than Bui-tao; thus with Heller to look after thesmall mammals we could begin to make our time count for something if we didnot get the tiger. Ling-suik is a beautiful temple, or rather series of temples, built into ahillside at the end of a long narrow valley which swells out like a greatbowl between bamboo clothed mountains, two thousand feet in height. On hisformer visit Mr. Caldwell had made friends with the head priest and we wereallowed to establish ourselves upon the broad porch of the third andhighest building. It was an ideal place for a collecting camp and wouldhave been delightful except for the terrible heat which was rendered doublydisagreeable by the almost continual rain. The priests who shuffled about the temples were a hard lot. Most of themwere fugitives from justice and certainly looked the part, for a moredisreputable, diseased and generally undesirable body of men I have neverseen. Our stay at Ling-suik was productive and the temple life interesting. Weslept on the porch and each morning, about half an hour before daylight, the measured strokes of a great gong sounded from the temple just below us. _Boom--boom--boom--boom_ it went, then rapidly _bang, bang, bang_. It was areligious alarm clock to rouse the world. A little later when the upturned gables and twisted dolphins on the roofhad begun to take definite shape in the gray light of the new day, the gongboomed out again, doors creaked, and from their cell-like rooms shuffledthe priests to yawn and stretch themselves before the early service. Thedroning chorus of hoarse voices, swelling in a meaningless half-wild chant, harmonized strangely with the romantic surroundings of the temple andbecome our daily _matin_ and evensong. At the first gong we slipped from beneath our mosquito nets and dressed tobe ready for the bats which fluttered into the building to hide themselvesbeneath the tiles and rafters. When daylight had fully come we scattered tothe four winds of heaven to inspect traps, hunt barking deer, or collectbirds, but gathered again at nine o'clock for breakfast and to deposit ourspoil. Caldwell and I always spent the afternoon at the blue tiger's lairbut the animal had suddenly shifted his operations back to Lung-tao and didnot appear at Ling-suik while we were there. Our work in Fukien taught us much that may be of help to other naturalistswho contemplate a visit to this province. We satisfied ourselves thatsummer collecting is impracticable, for the heat is so intense and thevegetation so heavy that only meager results can be obtained for theefforts expended. Continual tramping over the mountains in the blazing sunnecessarily must have its effect upon the strongest constitution, and evena man like Mr. Caldwell, who has become thoroughly acclimated, is notimmune. Both Caldwell and I lost from fifteen to twenty pounds in weight during thetime we hunted the blue tiger and each of us had serious trouble fromabscesses. I have never worked in a more trying climate--even that ofBorneo and the Dutch East Indies where I collected in 1909-10, was muchless debilitating than Fukien in the summer. The average temperature wasabout 95 degrees in the shade, but the humidity was so high that one feltas though one were wrapped in a wet blanket and even during a six weeks'rainless period the air was saturated with moisture from the sea-winds. In winter the weather is raw and damp, but collecting then would be vastlyeasier than in summer, not only on account of climatic conditions, butbecause much of the vegetation disappears and there is an opportunity for"still hunting. " Trapping for small mammal is especially difficult because of the densepopulation. The mud dykes and the rice fields usually are covered withtracks of civets, mongooses, and cats which come to hunt frogs or fish, butif a trap is set it either catches a Chinaman or promptly is stolen. Moreover, the small mammals are neither abundant nor varied in number ofspecies, and the larger forms, such as tiger, leopard, wild pig and seroware exceedingly difficult to kill. While our work in the province was done during an unfavorable season and inonly two localities, yet enough was seen of the general conditions to makeit certain that a thorough zoölogical study of the region would requireconsiderable time and hard work and that the results, so far as a largecollection of mammals is concerned, would not be highly satisfactory. Workin the western part of the province among the Bohea Hills undoubtedly wouldbe more profitable, but even there it would be hardly worth while for anexpedition with limited time and money. Bird life is on a much better footing, but the ornithology of Fukienalready has received considerable attention through the collections ofSwinhoe, La Touche, Styan, Ricketts, Caldwell and others, and probably nota great number of species remain to be described. Much work could still be done upon the herpetology of the region, however, and I believe that this branch of zoölogy would be well worth investigationfor reptiles and batrachians are fairly abundant and the natives wouldrather assist than retard one's efforts. The language of Fukien is a greater annoyance than in any other of theChinese coast provinces. The Foochow dialect (which is one of the mostdifficult to learn) is spoken only within fifty or one hundred miles of thecity. At Yen-ping Mr. Caldwell, who speaks "Foochow" perfectly, could notunderstand a word of the "southern mandarin" which is the language of thatregion, and near Futsing, where a colony of natives from Amoy have settled, the dialect is unintelligible to one who knows only "Foochow. " Travel in Fukien is an unceasing trial, for transport is entirely bycoolies who carry from eighty to one hundred pounds. The men are paid bydistance or weight; therefore, when coolies finally have been obtainedthere is the inevitable wrangling over loads so that from one to two hoursare consumed before the party can start. But the worst of it is that one can never be certain when one's entireoutfit will arrive at its new destination. Some men walk much faster thanothers, some will delay a long time for tea, or may give out altogether ifthe day be hot, with the result that the last load will arrive perhaps fiveor six hours after the first one. As horses are not to be had, if one does not walk the only alternative isto be carried in a mountain chair, which is an uncomfortable, trapeze-likeaffair and only to be found along the main highways. On the whole, transport by man-power in China is so uncertain and expensive that for alarge expedition it forms a grave obstacle to successful work, if time andfunds be limited. On the other hand, servants are cheap and usually good. We employed a veryfair cook who received monthly seven dollars Mexican (then about three andone-half dollars gold), and "boys" were hired at from five to seven dollars(Mexican). As none of the servants knew English they could be obtained atmuch lower wages, but English-speaking cooks usually receive from fifteento twenty dollars (Mexican) a month. It was hard to leave Fukien without the blue tiger but we had hunted himunsuccessfully for five weeks and there was other and more important workawaiting us in Yün-nan. It required thirty porters to transport our baggagefrom the Ling-suik monastery to Daing-nei, twenty-one miles away, where twohouseboats were to meet us, and by ten o'clock in the evening we were lyingoff Pagoda Anchorage awaiting the flood tide to take us to Foochow. We madeour beds on the deck house and in the morning opened our eyes to find theboat tied to the wharf at the Custom House on the Bund, and ourselves infull view of all Foochow had it been awake at that hour. The week of packing and repacking that followed was made easy for us byClaude Kellogg, who acted as our ministering angel. I think there must be aspecial Providence that watches over wandering naturalists and directs themto such men as Kellogg, for without divine aid they could never be found. When we last saw him, he stood on the stone steps of the water front wavinghis hat as we slipped away on the tide, to board the S. S. _Haitan_ forHongkong. CHAPTER VIII THE WOMEN OF CHINA _Y. B. A. _ The schools for native girls at Foochow and Yen-ping interested us greatly, even when we first came to China, but we could not appreciate then as wedid later the epoch-making step toward civilization of these institutions. How much the missionaries are able to accomplish from a religiousstandpoint is a question which we do not wish to discuss, but no one whohas ever lived among them can deny that the opening of schools and thediffusing of western knowledge are potent factors in the development of thepeople. The Chinese were not slow even in the beginning to see theadvantages of a foreign education for their boys and now, along the coastat least, some are beginning to make sacrifices for their daughters aswell. The Woman's College, which was opened recently in Foochow, is one ofthe finest buildings of the Republic, and when one sees its bright-facedgirls dressed in their quaint little pajama-like garments, it is difficultto realize that outside such schools they are still slaves in mind and bodyto those iron rules of Confucius which have molded the entire structure ofChinese society for over 2400 years. The position of women in China today, and the rules which govern thehousehold of every orthodox Chinese, are the direct heritage ofConfucianism. The following translation by Professor J. Legge from the_Narratives of the Confucian School_, chapter 26, is illuminating: Confucius said: "Man is the representative of heaven and is supreme over all things. Woman yields obedience to the instructions of man and helps to carry out his principles. On this account she can determine nothing of herself and is subject to the rule of the three obediences. "(1) When young she must obey her father and her elder brother; "(2) When married, she must obey her husband; "(3) When her husband is dead she must obey her son. "She may not think of marrying a second time. No instructions or orders must issue from the harem. Women's business is simply the preparation and supplying of drink and food. Beyond the threshold of her apartments she shall not be known for evil or for good. She may not cross the boundaries of a state to attend a funeral. She may take no steps on her own motive and may come to no conclusion on her own deliberation. " The grounds for divorce as stated by Confucius are: "(1) Disobedience to her husband's parents; "(2) Not giving birth to a son; "(3) Dissolute conduct; "(4) Jealousy of her husband's attentions (to the other inmates at his harem); "(5) Talkativeness, and "(6) Thieving. " A Chinese bride owes implicit obedience to her mother-in-law, and as she isoften reared by her husband's family, or else married to him as a merechild, and is under the complete control of his mother for a considerableperiod of her existence, her life in many instances is one of intolerablemisery. There is generally little or no consideration for a girl under thebest of circumstances until she becomes the mother of a male child; hercondition then improves but she approaches happiness only when she in turnoccupies the enviable position of mother-in-law. It is difficult to imagine a life of greater dreariness and vacuity thanthat of the average Chinese woman. Owing to her bound feet and resultanthelplessness, if she is not obliged to work she rarely stirs from thenarrow confinement of her courtyard, and perhaps in her entire life she maynot go a mile from the house to which she was brought a bride, except forthe periodical visits to her father's home. It has been aptly said that there are no real homes in China and it is notsurprising that, ignored and despised for centuries, the Chinese womanshows no ability to improve the squalor of her surroundings. She passes herlife in a dark, smoke-filled dwelling with broken furniture and a mudfloor, together with pigs, chickens and babies enjoying a limited sphere ofaction under the tables and chairs, or in the tumble-down courtyardwithout. Her work is actually never done and a Chinese bride, bright andattractive at twenty, will be old and faded at thirty. But without doubt the crowning evil which attends woman's condition inChina is foot binding, and nothing can be offered in extenuation of thisabominable custom. It is said to have originated one thousand years beforethe Christian era and has persisted until the present day in spite of theefforts directed against it. The Empress Dowager issued edicts stronglyadvising its discontinuation, the "Natural Foot Society, " which was formedabout fifteen years ago, has endeavored to educate public opinion, and themissionaries refuse to admit girls so mutilated to their schools; butnevertheless the reform has made little progress beyond the coast cities. "Precedent" and the fear of not obtaining suitable husbands for theirdaughters are responsible for the continuation of the evil, and it isestimated that there are still about seventy-four millions of girls andwomen who are crippled in this way. The feet are bandaged between the ages of five and seven. The toes are bentunder the sole of the foot and after two or three years the heel and instepare so forced together that a dollar can be placed in the cleft; graduallyalso the lower limbs shrink away until only the bones remain. The suffering of the children is intense. We often passed through streetsfull of laughing boys and tiny girls where others, a few years older, weresitting on the doorsteps or curbstones holding their tortured feet andcrying bitterly. In some instances out-houses are constructed aconsiderable distance from the family dwelling where the girls must sleepduring their first crippled years in order that their moans may not disturbthe other members of the family. The child's only relief is to hang herfeet over the edge of the bed in order to stop the circulation and inducenumbness, or to seek oblivion from opium. If the custom were a fad which affected only the wealthy classes it wouldbe reprehensible enough, but it curses rich and poor alike, and almostevery day we saw heavily laden coolie women steadying themselves by meansof a staff, hobbling stiff-kneed along the roads or laboring in the fields. Although the agitation against foot binding is undoubtedly making itselffelt to a certain extent in the coast provinces, in Yün-nan the horriblepractice continues unabated. During the year in which we traveled through alarge part of the province, wherever there were Chinese we saw bound feet. And the fact that virtually _every_ girl over eight years old was mutilatedin this way is satisfactory evidence that reform ideas have not penetratedto this remote part of the Republic. I know of nothing which so rouses one's indignation because of itssenselessness and brutality, and China can never hope to take her placeamong civilized nations until she has abandoned this barbarous custom andliberated her women from their infamous subjection. There has been much criticism of foreign education because the girls whohave had its advantages absorb western ideas so completely that theydislike to return to their homes where the ordinary conditions of a Chinesehousehold exist. Nevertheless, if the women of China are ever to beemancipated it must come through their own education as well as that of themen. One of the first results of foreign influence is to delay marriage, and insome instances the early betrothal with its attendant miseries. The evilwhich results from this custom can hardly be overestimated. It happens notinfrequently that two children are betrothed in infancy, the respectivefamilies being in like circumstances at the time. The opportunity perhapsis offered to the girl to attend school and she may even go throughcollege, but an inexorable custom brings her back to her parents' home, forces her to submit to the engagement made in babyhood and perhaps ruinsher life through marriage with a man of no higher social status orintelligence than a coolie. Among the few girls imbued with western civilization a spirit of revolt isslowly growing, and while it is impossible for them to break down thebarriers of ages, yet in many instances they waive aside what would seem anunsurmountable precedent and insist upon having some voice in the choosingof their husbands. While in Yen-ping we were invited to attend the semi-foreign wedding of agirl who had been brought up in the Woman's School and who was qualified tobe a "Bible Woman" or native Christian teacher. It was whispered that shehad actually met her betrothed on several occasions, but on their weddingday no trace of recognition was visible, and the marriage was performedwith all the punctilious Chinese observances compatible with a Christianceremony. Precedent required of this little bride, although she might have beenradiantly happy at heart, and undoubtedly was, to appear tearful andshrinking and as she was escorted up the aisle by her bridesmaid one mighthave thought she was being led to slaughter. White is not becoming to theChinese and besides it is a sign of mourning, so she had chosen pink forher wedding gown and had a brilliant pink veil over her carefully oiledhair. After the ceremony the bride and bridegroom proceeded downstairs to thejoyous strain of the wedding march, but with nothing joyous in theirdemeanor--in fact they appeared like two wooden images at the reception andendured for over an hour the stares and loud criticism of the guests. Heassumed during the ordeal a look of bored indifference while the littlebride sat with her head bowed on her breast, apparently terror stricken. But once she raised her face and I saw a merry twinkle in her shining blackeyes that made me realize that perhaps it wasn't all quite so frightful asshe would have us believe. I often wonder what sort of a life she isleading in her far away Chinese courtyard. CHAPTER IX VOYAGING TO YÜN-NAN We had a busy week in Hongkong outfitting for our trip to Yün-nan. Hongkongis one of the best cities in the Orient in which to purchase supplies ofalmost any kind, for not only is the selection excellent, but the bestEnglish goods can be had for prices very little in excess of those inLondon itself. The system which we used in our commissary was that of the unit food boxwhich has been adopted by most large expeditions. The boxes were packed toweigh seventy pounds each and contained all the necessary staple suppliesfor three persons for one week; thus only one box needed to be opened at atime, and, moreover, if the party separated for a few days a single boxcould be taken without the necessity of repacking and with the assurancethat sufficient food would be available. Our supplies consisted largely of flour, butter, sugar, coffee, milk, bacon, and marmalade, and but little tinned meat, vegetables, or fruitbecause we were certain to be able to obtain a plentiful supply of suchfood in the country through which we were expecting to travel. Our tents were brought from New York and were made of light Egyptian cottonthoroughly waterproof, but we also purchased in Hongkong a large army tentfor the servants and two canvas flies to protect loads and specimens. Weused sleeping bags and folding cots, tables and chairs, for when anexpedition expects to remain in the field for a long time it is absolutelynecessary to be as comfortable as possible and to live well; otherwise onecannot work at one's highest efficiency. For clothing we all wore khaki or "Dux-back" suits with flannel shirts andhigh leather shoes for mountain climbing, and we had light rubberautomobile shirts and rubber caps for use in rainy weather. The auto shirtis a long, loose robe which slips over the head and fastens about the neckand, when one is sitting upon a horse, can be so spread about as to coverall exposed parts of the body; it is especially useful and necessary, andhip rubber boots are also very comfortable during the rainy season. Our traps for catching small mammals were brought from New York. We had twosizes of wooden "Out of Sight" for mice and rats, and four or five sizes ofOneida steel traps for catching medium sized animals such as civets andpolecats. We also carried a half dozen No. 5 wolf traps. Mr. Heller hadused this size in Africa and found that they were large enough even to holdlions. Mr. Heller carried a 250-300 Savage rifle, while I used a 6-1/2 mm. Mannlicher and a . 405 Winchester. All of these guns were eminentlysatisfactory, but the choice of a rifle is a very personal matter and everysportsman has his favorite weapon. We found, however, that a flattrajectory high-power rifle such as those with which we were armed wasabsolutely essential for many of our shots were at long range and wefrequently killed gorals at three hundred yards or over. The camera equipment consisted of two 3A Kodaks, a Graphic 4 × 5 tripodcamera, and Graflex 4 × 5 for rapid work. We have found after considerablefield experience that the 4 × 5 is the most convenient size to handle, forthe plate is large enough and can be obtained more readily than any otherin different parts of the world. The same applies to the 3A Kodak"post-card" size film, for there are few places where foreign goods arecarried that 3A films cannot be purchased. All of our plates and films were sealed in air-tight tin boxes before weleft America, and thus the material was in perfect condition when the canswere opened. We used plates almost altogether in the finer photographicwork, for although they are heavier and more difficult to handle thanfilms, nevertheless the results obtained are very superior. A collapsiblerubber dark room about seven feet high and four feet in diameter was anindispensable part of the camera equipment. This tent was made for us bythe Abercrombie & Fitch Company, of New York, and could be hung from thelimb of a tree or the rafters of a building and be ready for use in fiveminutes. The motion pictures were taken with a Universal camera, and like all othernegatives were developed in the field by means of a special apparatus whichhad been designed by Mr. Carl Akeley of the American Museum of NaturalHistory. This work required a much larger space than that of the portabledark room and we consequently had a tent made of red cloth which could betied inside of our ordinary sleeping tent. Our equipment was packed in fiber army trunks and in wooden boxes withsliding tops. The latter arrangement is especially desirable in Yün-nan, for the loads can be opened without being untied from the saddle, thussaving a considerable amount of time and trouble. It was by no means an easy matter to get our supplies together, but theLane & Crawford Company of Hongkong pushed the making and packing of ourboxes in a remarkably efficient manner; as the manager of one of theirdepartments expressed it, "the one way to hurry a Chinaman is to get moreChinamen, " and they put a small army at work upon our material, which wasready for shipment in just a week. While in Hongkong we were joined by Wu Hung-tao, of Shanghai, who acted asinterpreter and "head boy" as well as a general field manager of theexpedition. He formerly had been in the employ of Mr. F. W. Gary, when thelatter was Commissioner of Customs in Teng-yueh, Yün-nan, and he waseducated at the Anglo-Chinese College of Foochow. Wu proved to be the mostefficient and trustworthy servant whom we have ever employed, and thesuccess of our work was due in no small degree to his efforts. We left for Tonking on the S. S. _Sung-kiang_, commanded by HarryTrowbridge, a congenial and well-read gentleman whose delightfulpersonality contributed much toward making our week's stay on his ship mostpleasant. On our way to Haiphong the vessel stopped at the island of Hainanand anchored about three miles off the town of Hoi-hau. This island is 90by 150 miles long, is mountainous in its center, but flat and uninterestingat the northwest. A large part of the island is unexplored and in the interior there is amountain called "the Five Fingers" which has never been ascended, for it isreported that the hill tribes are unfriendly and that the tropical valleysare reeking with deadly malaria. The island undoubtedly would prove to be arich field for zoölogical work as is shown by the collections which theAmerican Museum of Natural History has already received from a nativedealer; these include monkeys, squirrels, and other small mammals, andbears, leopards, and deer are said to be among its fauna. The next night's steaming brought us to the city of Paik-hoi on themainland. In the afternoon we went ashore with Captain Trowbridge to visitDr. Bradley of the China Inland Mission who is in charge of a leperhospital, which is a model of its kind. The doctor was away but we madeourselves at home and when he returned he found us in his drawing roomcomfortably enjoying afternoon tea. He remarked that he knew of a Chinesecook who was looking for a position, and half an hour later, while we werewatching some remarkably fine tennis, the cook arrived. He was about sixfeet two inches high, and so thin that he was immediately christened the"Woolworth Building" and, although not a very prepossessing lookingindividual he was forthwith engaged, principally because of his ability tospeak English. This was at six o'clock in the afternoon and we had to beaboard the ship at eight. The doctor sent a note to the French Consul andthe cook returned anon with his baggage and passport. Obtaining this cookwas the only really rapid thing which I have ever seen done in China! When the _Sung-kiang_ arrived in Haiphong the next afternoon we werebesieged by a screaming, fighting mob of Annamits who seized upon ourbaggage like so many vultures, and it was only by means of a fewwell-directed kicks that we could prevent it from being scattered to thefour winds of Heaven. After we had designated a _sampan_ to receive ourequipment the unloading began and several trunks had gone over the side, when Mr. Heller happened to glance down just in time to see one of theammunition boxes drop into the water and sink like lead. The Annamits, believing that it had not been noticed, went on as blithely as before andvolubly denied that anything had been lost. We stopped the unloadinginstantly and sent for divers. The box had sunk in thirty feet of muddywater and it seemed useless to hope that it could ever be recovered, butthe divers went to work by dropping a heavy stone on the end of a rope andgoing down it hand over hand. After two hours the box was located and brought dripping to the surface. Fortunately but little of the ammunition was ruined, and most of it wasdried during the night in the engine room. Because of this delay we had toleave Haiphong on the following day, and with Captain Trowbridge, we wentby train to Hanoi, the capital of the colony. Hanoi is a city of delightful surprises. It has broad, clean streets, overhung with trees which often form a cool green canopy overhead, beautiful lawns and well-kept houses, and in the center of the town is alovely lake surrounded by a wide border of palms. At the far end, like ajewel in a crystal setting, seems to float a white pagoda, an outpost ofthe temple which stands in the midst of a watery meadow of lotos plants. The city shops are excellent, but in most instances the prices areexceedingly high. Like all the French towns in the Orient the hours for work are ratherconfusing to the foreigner. The shops open at 6:30 in the morning and closeat 11 o'clock to reopen again at 3 in the afternoon and continue businessuntil 7:30 or 8 o'clock in the evening. During the middle of the day allhouses have the shutters closely drawn, and because of the intense heat andglare of the sun the streets are absolutely deserted, not even a nativebeing visible. In the morning a _petit déjeuner_, remarkable especially forits "petitness, " is served, and a real _déjeuner_ comes later anywhere from10 to 12:30. About 6 o'clock in the evening the open _cafés_ and restaurants along thesidewalk are lined with groups of men and women playing cards and dice anddrinking gin and bitters, vermouth or absinthe. There is an air ofhappiness and life about Hanoi which is typically Parisian and even duringwar time it is a city of gayety. An immense theater stands in the center ofthe town, but has not been opened since the beginning of the war. We had letters to M. Chemein Dupontés, the director of the railroads, aswell as to the Lieutenant-Governor and other officials. Without exceptionwe were received in the most cordial manner and every facility andconvenience put at our disposal. M. Dupontés was especially helpful. Some time before our arrival a tunnel on the railroad from Hanoi to Yün-nanFu had caved in and for almost a month trains had not been running. It wasnow in operation, however, but all luggage had to be transferred by hand atthe broken tunnel and consequently must not exceed eighty-five pounds inweight. This meant repacking our entire equipment and three days of hardwork. M. Dupontés arranged to have our 4000 pounds of baggage put in aspecial third class carriage with our "boys" in attendance and in this waysaved the expedition a considerable amount of money. He personally wentwith us to the station to arrange for our comfort with the _chef de gare_, telegraphed ahead at every station upon the railroad, and gave us an openletter to all officials; in fact there was nothing which he left undone. The railroad is a remarkable engineering achievement for it was constructedin great haste through a difficult mountainous range. Yün-nan is anexceedingly rich province and the French were quick to see the advantagesof drawing its vast trade to their own seaports. The British were alreadymaking surveys to construct a railroad from Bhamo on the headwaters of theIrawadi River across Yün-nan to connect with the Yangtze, and the Frenchwere anxious to have their road in operation some time before the rivalline could be completed. Owing to its hasty construction and the heavy rainfall, or perhaps to both, the tunnels and bridges frequently cave in or are washed away and therailroad is chiefly remarkable for the number of days in the year in whichit does not operate; nevertheless the French deserve great credit for theirenterprise in extending their line to Yün-nan Fu over the mountains wherethere is a tunnel or bridge almost every mile of the way. While it wasbeing built through the fever-stricken jungles of Tonking the coolies diedlike flies, and it was necessary to suspend all work during the summermonths. The scenery along the railroad is marvelous and the traveling is by nomeans uncomfortable, but the hotels in which one stops at night arewretched. One of our friends in Hongkong related an amusing experiencewhich he had at Lao-kay, the first hotel on the railroad. He asked for abath and discovered that a tub of hot water had been prepared. He wished acold bath, and seeing a large tank filled with cold water in the corner ofthe room he climbed in and was enjoying himself when the hotel proprietorsuddenly rushed upstairs exclaiming, "Mon Dieu, Mon Dieu, you are in thetank of drinking water. " When we arrived at Yün-nan Fu we found a surprisingly cosmopolitancommunity housed within its grim old walls; some were consuls, somemissionaries, some salt, telegraph, or customs officials in the Chineseemploy, and others represented business firms in Hongkong, but all receivedus with open handed hospitality characteristic of the East. We thought that after leaving Hongkong our evening clothes would not againbe used, but they were requisitioned every night for we were guests atdinners given by almost everyone of the foreign community. Mr. Howard Page, a representative of the Standard Oil Company, proved a most valuablefriend, and through him we were able to obtain a caravan and make otherarrangements for the transportation of our baggage. M. Henry Wilden, theFrench Consul, an ardent sportsman and a charming gentleman, took an activeinterest in our affairs and arranged a meeting for us with the ChineseCommissioner of Foreign Affairs. Moreover, he later transported our trunksto Hongkong with his personal baggage and assisted us in every possibleway. We went to the Foreign Office at half past ten and were ushered into alarge room where a rather imposing lunch had already been spread. TheCommissioner, a fat, jolly little man, who knew a few words of French butnone of English, received us in the most cordial way and immediately openedseveral bottles of champagne in our honor. He asked why our passports hadnot been viséd in Peking, and we pleased him greatly by replying that atthe time we were in the capital Yün-nan was an independent province andconsequently the Peking Government had not the temerity to put their stampupon our passports. Inasmuch as Yün-nan was infested with brigands we had expected someopposition to our plans for traveling in the interior, but none wasforthcoming, and with the exception of an offer of a guard of soldiers forour trip to Ta-li Fu which we knew it would be impolitic to refuse, we leftthe Foreign Office with all the desired permits. The Chinese Government appeared to be greatly interested in our zoölogicalstudy of Yün-nan, offered to assist us in every way we could suggest, andtelegraphed to every mandarin in the north and west of the province, instructing them to receive us with all honor and to facilitate our work inevery way. None of the opposition which we had been led to expectdeveloped, and it is difficult to see how we could have been more cordiallyreceived. CHAPTER X ON THE ROAD TO TA-LI FU On August 6, we dispatched half our equipment to Ta-li Fu, and three dayslater we ourselves left Yün-nan Fu at eleven o'clock in the morning afteran interminable wait for our caravan. Through the kindness of Mr. Page, ahouse boat was put at our disposal and we sailed across the upper end ofthe beautiful lake which lies just outside the city, and intercepted thecaravan twenty-five _li_ [Footnote: A _li_ in this province equalsone-third of an English mile. ] from Yün-nan Fu. On the way we passed a number of cormorant fishers, each with ten or adozen birds sitting quietly upon the boat with outspread wings drying theirfeathers. Every bird has a ring about its neck, and is thus prevented fromswallowing the fish which it catches by diving into the water. After waiting an hour for our caravan we saw the long train of mules andhorses winding up the hill toward us. There were seventeen altogether, andin the midst of them rode the cook clinging desperately with both hands toa diminutive mule, his long legs dangling and a look of utter wretchednessupon his face. Just before the caravan reached us it began to rain, and thecook laboriously pulled on a suit of yellow oilskins which we had purchasedfor him in Yün-nan Fu. These, together with a huge yellow hat, completed apicture which made us roar with laughter; Heller gave the caption for itwhen he shouted, "Here comes the 'Yellow Peril. '" We surveyed the tiny horses with dismay. As Heller vainly tried to get hisgirth tight enough to keep the saddle from sliding over the animal's tailhe exclaimed, "Is this a horse or a squirrel I'm trying to ride?" But itwas not so bad when we finally climbed aboard and found that we did notcrush the little brutes. A seventy-pound box on each side of the saddle with a few odds and ends ontop made a pack of at least one hundred and sixty pounds. This is heavyeven for a large animal and for these tiny mules seemed an impossibility, but it is the usual weight, and the businesslike way in which they movedoff showed that they were not overloaded. The Yün-nan pack saddle is a remarkably ingenious arrangement. The load isstrapped with a rawhide to a double A-shaped frame which fits loosely overa second saddle on the animal's back and is held in place by its ownweight. If a mule falls the pack comes off and, moreover, it can be easilyremoved if the road is bad or whenever a stop is made. It has the greatdisadvantage, however, of giving the horses serious back sores whichreceive but scanty attention from the _mafus_ (muleteers). When we were fairly started upon our long ride to Ta-li Fu the time slippedby in a succession of delightful days. Since this was the main caravanroute the _mafus_ had regular stages beyond which they would not go. If wedid not stop for luncheon the march could be ended early in the afternoonand we could settle ourselves for the night in a temple which always proveda veritable "haven of rest" after a long day in the saddle. A few pagesfrom my wife's "Journal" of September fifteenth describes our camp atLu-ho-we and our life on the road to Ta-li Fu. We are sitting on the porch of an old, old temple. It is on a hilltop in a forest grove with the gray-walled town lying at our feet. The sun is flooding the flower-filled courtyard and throwing bars of golden light through the twisted branches of a bent old pine, over the stone well, and into the dim recesses behind the altar where a benevolent idol grins down upon us. We have been in the saddle for eight hours and it is enchanting to rest in this peaceful, aged temple. Outside children are shouting and laughing but all is quiet here save for the drip of water in the well, and the chatter of a magpie on the pine tree. Today we made the stage in one long march and now we can rest and browse among our books or wander with a gun along the cool, tree-shaded paths. The sun is hot at midday, although the mornings and evenings are cold, and tonight we shall build a fragrant fire of yellow pine, and talk for an hour before we go to sleep upon the porch where we can see the moon come up and the stars shining so low that they seem like tiny lanterns in the sky. It is seven days since we left Yün-nan Fu and each night we have come to temples such as this. There is an inexpressible charm about them, lying asleep, as it were, among the trees of their courtyards, with stately, pillared porches, and picturesque gables upturned to the sky. They seem so very, very old and filled with such great calm and peace. Sometimes they stand in the midst of a populous town and we ride through long streets between dirty houses, swarming with ragged women, filthy men, and screaming children; suddenly we come to the dilapidated entrance of our temple, pass through a courtyard, close the huge gates and are in another world. We leave early every morning and the boys are up long before dawn. As we sleepily open our eyes we see their dark figures silhouetted against the brilliant camp fire, hear the yawns of the _mafus_ and the contented crunching of the mules as they chew their beans. Wu appears with a lantern and calls out the hour and before we have fully dressed the odor of coffee has found its way to the remotest corner of the temple, and a breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and oatmeal is awaiting on the folding table spread with a clean white cloth. While we are eating, the beds are packed, and the loads retied, accompanied by a running fire of exhortations to the _mafus_ who cause us endless trouble. They are a hard lot, these _mafus_. Force seems to be the only thing they understand and kindness produces no results. If the march is long and we stop for tiffin it is well-nigh impossible to get them started within three hours without the aid of threats. Once after a long halt when all seemed ready, we rode ahead only to wait by the roadside for hours before the caravan arrived. As soon as we were out of sight they had begun to shoe their mules and that night we did not make our stage until long after dark. In the morning when we see the first loads actually on the horses we ride off at the head of the caravan followed by a straggling line of mules and horses picking their way over the jagged stones of the road. It is delightful in the early morning for the air is fresh and brisk like that of October at home, but later in the day when the sun is higher it is uncomfortably hot, and we are glad to find a bit of shade where we can rest until the caravan arrives. The roads are execrable. The Chinese have a proverb which says: "A road is good for ten years and bad for ten thousand, " and this applies most excellently to those of Yün-nan. The main caravan highways are paved with huge stones to make them passable during the rainy season, but after a few years' wear the blocks become broken and irregular, the earth is washed from between them and they are upturned at impossible angles. The result is a chaotic mass which by no stretch of imagination can be called a road. Where the stones are still in place they have been worn to such glasslike smoothness by the thousands of passing mules that it is well-nigh impossible to walk upon them. As a result a caravan avoids the paving whenever it can find a path and sometimes dozens of deeply-cut trails wind over the hills beside the road. We are seldom on level ground, for ten per cent of the entire province is mountainous and we soon lost count of the ranges which we crossed. It is slow, hard work, toiling up the steep mountain-sides, but once on the ridges where the country is spread out below us like a great, green relief map, there is a wonderful exhilaration, and we climb higher with a joyous sense of freedom. Yün-nan means "south of the cloud" and every morning the peaks about us are shrouded in fog. Sometimes the veil-like mists still float about the mountain tops when we climb into them, and we are suddenly enveloped in a wet gray blanket which sends us shivering into the coats tied to our saddles. For centuries this road has been one of the main trade arteries through theprovince, and with the total lack of conservation ideas so characteristicof the Chinese, every available bit of natural forest has been cut away. Asa result the mountains are desert wastes of sandstone alternating withgrass-covered hills sometimes clothed with groves of pines or spruces. These trees have all been planted, and ere they have reached a height offifteen or twenty feet will yield to the insistent demand for wood which isever present with the Chinese. The ignorance of the need of forest conservation is an illuminatingcommentary on Chinese education. Mr. William Hanna, a missionary of Ta-liFu, told us that one day he was riding over this same road with a Chinesegentleman, a deep scholar, who was considered one of the best educated menof the province. Pointing to the barren hills washed clean of soil anddeeply worn by countless floods, Mr. Hanna remarked that all this couldhave been prevented, and that instead of a rocky waste there might havebeen a fertile hillside, had the trees been left to grow. The Chinese scholar listened in amazement to facts which every westernschoolboy has learned ere he is twelve years old, but of which he wasignorant because they are not a part of Confucius' teachings. To studymodern science is considered a waste of time by the orthodox Chinese for"everything good must be old, " and all his life he delves into the pastutterly neglectful of the present. Every valley along the road was green with rice fields and this, togetherwith the deforestation of the mountains, is responsible for the almosttotal lack of animal life. Night after night we set traps about our templecamps only to find them untouched in the morning. There were no mammalswith the exception of a few red-bellied squirrels (_Callosciuruserythraeus_ sub sp. ) and now and then a tree shrew (_Tupaia belangerichinensis_). The latter is an interesting species. Although it is an Insectivore, and arelative of the tiny shrews which live in holes and under logs, it hassquirrel-like habits and in appearance is like a squirrel to which it istotally unrelated. Instead of the thinly haired mouselike tails of theordinary shrews the tupaias have developed long bushy tails and in factlook and act so much like squirrels that it is difficult to convince thewhite residents of Yün-nan, who are accustomed to see them run about thehedges and walls of their courtyards that the two are quite unrelated. The tree shrews are found only in Asia and are one of the most remarkableinstances of a superficial resemblance between unrelated animals withsimilar habits. A study of their anatomy has revealed the fact that theyrepresent a distinct group which is connected with the monkeys (lemurs). Although birds were fairly abundant the species were not varied. We wereabout a month too early for the ducks and geese, which during the winterswarm into Yün-nan from the north, and without a dog, pheasants aredifficult to get. In fact we were greatly disappointed in the game birds, for we had expected good pheasant shooting even along the road andvirtually none were to be found. The main caravan roads of Yün-nan held little of interest for us asnaturalists, but as students of native customs they were fascinating, forthe life of the province passed before us in panoramic completeness. Chinese villages wherever we have seen them are marvels of utter andabandoned filth and although those of Yün-nan are no exception to the rule, they are considerably better than the coast cities. Pigs, chickens, horses and cows live in happy communion with the humaninmates of the houses, the pigs especially being treated as we favor dogsat home. On the door steps children play with the swine, patting andpounding them, and one of my friends said that he had actually seen amother bring her baby to be nursed by a sow with her family of piglets. The natives were pleasant and friendly and seemed to be industrious. Wherever the deforestation had left sufficient soil on the lower hillsidespatches of corn took the place of the former poppy fields for opium. In1906, the Empress Dowager issued an edict prohibiting the growing of opium, and gave guarantees to the British that it would be entirely stamped outduring the next ten years. Strangely enough these promises have beenfaithfully kept, and in Yün-nan the hillsides, which were once white withpoppy blossoms, are now yellow with corn. In all our 2000 miles of ridingover unfrequented trails and in the most out-of-the-way spots we found onlyone instance where opium was being cultivated. The mandarin of each district accompanied by a guard of soldiers makesperiodical excursions during the seasons when the poppy is in blossom, cutsdown the plants if any are found, and punishes the owners. China deservesthe greatest credit for so successfully dealing with a question whichaffects such a large part of her four hundred millions of people and whichpresents such unusual difficulties because of its economic importance. Just across the frontier in Burma, opium is grown freely and much issmuggled into Yün-nan. Therefore its use has by no means been abandoned, especially in the south of the province, and in some towns it is smokedopenly in the tea houses. In August, 1916, just before we reached Yün-nanFu there was an _exposé_ of opium smuggling which throws an illuminatingside light on the corruption of some Chinese officials. Opium can be purchased in Yün-nan Fu for two dollars (Mexican) an ounce, while in Shanghai it is worth ten dollars (Mexican). Tang (the MilitaryGovernor), the Minister of Justice, the Governor's brother and threemembers of Parliament had collected six hundred pounds of opium which theyundertook to transfer to Shanghai. Their request that no examination of their baggage be made by the Frenchduring their passage through Tonking was granted, and a similar favor wasprocured for them at Shanghai. Thus the sixty cases were safely landed, buta few hours later, through the opium combine, foreign detectives learned ofthe smuggling and the boxes were seized. The Minister of Justice denied all knowledge of the opium, as did the threeParliament members, and Governor Tang was not interrogated as that would bequite contrary to the laws of Chinese etiquette; however, he will notreceive reappointment when his official term expires. As we neared Ta-li Fu, and indeed along the entire road, we were amazed atthe prevalence of goitre. At a conservative estimate two out of every fivepersons were suffering from the disease, some having two, or even three, globules of uneven size hanging from their throats. In one village six outof seven adults were affected, but apparently children under twelve orfourteen years are free from it as we saw no evidences in either sex. Probably the disease is in a large measure due to the drinking water, forit is most prevalent in the limestone regions and seems to be somewhatlocalized. Every day we passed "chairs, " or as we named them, "mountain schooners, " ineach of which a fat Chinaman sprawled while two or four sweating cooliesbore him up hill. The chair is rigged between a pair of long bamboo polesand consists of two sticks swung by ropes on which is piled a heap ofbedding. Overhead a light bamboo frame supports a piece of yellow oilcloth, which completely shuts in the occupant, except from the front and rear. The Chinese consider it undignified to walk, or even to ride, and if one isabout to make an official visit nothing less than a four-man chair isrequired. Haste is just as much tabooed in the "front families" as physicalexertion, and is utterly incomprehensible to the Chinese. Major Davies saysthat while he was in Tonking before the railroad to Yün-nan Fu had beenconstructed, M. Doumer, the Governor-General of French Indo-China, who wasa very energetic man, rode to Yün-nan Fu in an extraordinarily short time. While the Europeans greatly admired his feat, the Chinese believed he mustbe in some difficulty from which only the immediate assistance of theViceroy of Yün-nan could extricate him. In Yün-nan it is necessary to carry one's own bedding for the inns supplynothing but food, and consequently when a Chinaman rides from one city toanother he piles a great heap of blankets on his horse's back and climbs ontop with his legs astride the animal's neck in front. The horses aretrained to a rapid trot instead of a gallop, and I know of no moreridiculous sight than a Chinaman bouncing along a road on the summit of averitable mountain of bedding with his arms waving and streamers flying inevery direction. He is assisted in keeping his balance by broad brassstirrups in which he usually hooks his heels and guides his horse by meansof a rawhide bridle decorated with dozens of bangles which make acomforting jingle whenever he moves. On the sixth day out when approaching the city of Chu-hsuing Fu we took ashort cut through the fields leaving the caravan to follow the main road. The trail brought us to a river about forty feet wide spanned by a bridgemade from two narrow planks, with a wide median fissure. We led our horsesacross without trouble and Heller started to follow. He had reached thecenter of the bridge when his horse shied at the hole, jumped to one side, hung suspended on his belly for a moment, and toppled off into the water. The performance had all happened behind Heller's back and when he turnedabout in time to see his horse diving into the river, he stood looking downat him with a most ludicrous expression of surprise and disgust, while theanimal climbed out and began to graze as quietly as though nothing hadhappened. Chu-hsuing was interesting as being the home of Miss Cordelia Morgan, aniece of Senator Morgan of Virginia. We found her to be a most charming anddetermined young woman who had established a mission station in the cityunder considerable difficulties. The mandarin and other officials by nomeans wished to have a foreign lady, alone and unattended, settle downamong them and become a responsibility which might cause them endlesstrouble, and although she had rented a house before she arrived, the ownerrefused to allow her to move in. She could get no assistance from the mandarin and was forced to live fortwo months in a dirty Chinese inn, swarming with vermin, until theyrealized that she was determined not to be driven away. She eventuallyobtained a house and while she considers herself comfortable, I doubt ifothers would care to share her life unless they had an equal amount ofdetermination and enthusiasm. At that time she had not placed her work under the charge of a missionboard and was carrying it on independently. Until our arrival she had seenbut one white person in a year and a half, was living entirely upon Chinesefood, and had tasted no butter or milk in months. We had a delightful dinner with Miss Morgan and the next morning as ourcaravan wound down the long hill past her house she stood at the window towave good-by. She kept her head behind the curtains, and doubtless if wecould have seen her face we would have found tears upon it, for the eveningwith another woman of her kind had brought to her a breath of the old lifewhich she had resolutely forsaken and which so seldom penetrated to herself-appointed exile. On our ninth day from Yün-nan Fu we had a welcome bit of excitement. Wewere climbing a long mountain trail to a pass over eight thousand feet highand were near the summit when a boy dashed breathlessly up to the caravan, jabbering wildly in Chinese. It required fifteen minutes of questioningbefore we finally learned that bandits had attacked a big caravan less thana mile ahead of us and were even then ransacking the loads. He said that there were two hundred and fifty of them and that they hadkilled two _mafus_; almost immediately a second gesticulating Chinamanappeared and gave the number as three hundred and fifty and the dead asfive. Allowing for the universal habit of exaggeration we felt quite surethat there were not more than fifty, and subsequently learned that fortywas the correct number and that no one had been killed. Our caravan was in a bad place to resist an attack but we got out ourrifles and made for a village at the top of the pass. There were not morethan a half dozen mud houses and in the narrow street between them perfectbedlam reigned. Several small caravans had halted to wait for us, and men, horses, loads, and chairs were packed and jammed together so tightly thatit seemed impossible ever to extricate them. Our arrival added to theconfusion, but leaving the _mafus_ to scream and chatter among themselves, we scouted ahead to learn the true condition of affairs. Almost within sight we found the caravan which had been robbed. Paper andcloth were strewn about, loads overturned, and loose mules wandered overthe hillside. The frightened _mafus_ were straggling back and told us thatabout forty bandits had suddenly surrounded the caravan, shooting andbrandishing long knives. Instantly the _mafus_ had run for their livesleaving the brigands to rifle the packs unmolested. The goods chieflybelonged to the retiring mandarin of Li-chiang, and included some fivethousand dollars worth of jade and gold dust, all of which was taken. Yün-nan, like most of the outlying provinces of China, is infested withbrigands who make traveling very unsafe. There are, of course, organizedbands of robbers at all times, but these have been greatly augmented sincethe rebellion by dismissed soldiers or deserters who have taken tobrigandage as the easiest means to avoid starvation. The Chinese Government is totally unable to cope with the situation andmakes only half-hearted attempts to punish even the most flagrantrobberies, so that unguarded caravans carrying valuable material whicharrive at their destination unmolested consider themselves very lucky. So far as our expedition was concerned we did not feel great apprehensionfor it was generally known that we carried but little money and ourequipment, except for guns, could not readily be disposed of. Throughoutthe entire expedition we paid our _mafus_ and servants a part of theirwages in advance when they were engaged, and arranged to have money sent bythe mandarins or the British American Tobacco Co. , to some large town whichwould be reached after several months. There the balance on salaries waspaid and we carried with us only enough money for our daily needs. Before we left Yün-nan Fu we were assured by the Foreign Office that wewould be furnished with a guard of soldiers--an honor few foreignersescape! The first day out we had four, all armed with umbrellas! Theseaccompanied us to the first camp where they delivered their officialmessage to the _yamen_ and intrusted us to the care of others for our nextday's journey. Sometimes they were equipped with guns of the vintage of 1872, but theircartridges were seldom of the same caliber as the rifles and in most casesthe ubiquitous umbrella was their only weapon. Just what good they would bein a real attack it is difficult to imagine, except to divert attention bybreaking the speed limits in running away. Several times in the morning we believed we had escaped them but theyalways turned up in an hour or two. They were not so much a nuisance as anexpense, for custom requires that each be paid twenty cents (Mexican) a dayboth going and returning. They are of some use in lending an officialaspect to an expedition and in requisitioning anything which may be needed;also they act as an insurance policy, for if a caravan is robbed a claimcan be entered against the government, whereas if the escort is refused thetraveler has no redress. It is amusing and often irritating to see the cavalier way in which thesemen treat other caravans or the peasants along the road. Waving their armsand shouting oaths they shoo horses, mules or chairs out of the wayregardless of the confusion into which the approaching caravan may bethrown. They must also be closely watched for they are none too honest andare prone to rely upon the moral support of foreigners to take whateverthey wish without the formality of payment. We were especially careful to respect the property on which we camped andto be just in all our dealings with the natives, but it was sometimesdifficult to prevent the _mafus_ or soldiers from tearing down fences forfirewood or committing similar depredations. Wherever such acts werediscovered we made suitable payment and punished the offenders by deductinga part of their wages. Foreigners cannot respect too carefully the rightsof the peasants, for upon their conduct rests the reception which will beaccorded to all others who follow in their footsteps. CHAPTER XI TA-LI FU On Friday, September 23, we were at Chou Chou and camped in a picturesquelittle temple on the outskirts of the town. As the last stage was only sixhours we spent half the morning in taking moving pictures of the caravanand left for Ta-li at eleven-thirty after an early _tiffin_. About two o'clock in the afternoon we reached Hsia-kuan, a large commercialtown at the lower end of the lake. Its population largely consists ofmerchants and it is by all means the most important business place ofinterior Yün-nan; Ta-li, eight miles away, is the residence and officialcity. At Hsia-kuan we called upon the salt commissioner, Mr. Lui, to whom Mr. Bode, the salt inspector at Yün-nan Fu, had very kindly telegraphed moneyfor my account, and after the usual tea and cigarettes we went on to Ta-liFu over a perfectly level paved road, which was so slippery that it waswell-nigh impossible for either horse or man to move over it faster than awalk. This was the hottest day of our experience in Northern Yün-nan, thethermometer registering 85°+ in the shade, which is the usual mid-summertemperature, but the moment the sun dropped behind the mountains it wascool enough for one to enjoy a fire. Even in the winter it is never verycold and its delightful summer should make Northern Yün-nan a wonderfulhealth resort for the residents of fever-stricken Burma and Tonking. We rode toward Ta-li with the beautiful lake on our right hand and on theother the Ts'ang Shan mountains which rise to a height of fourteen thousandfeet. As we approached the city we could see dimly outlined against thefoothills the slender shafts of three ancient pagodas. They were erected tothe _feng-shui_, the spirits of the "earth, wind, and water, " and forfifteen hundred years have stood guard over the stone graves which, incountless thousands, are spread along the foot of the mountains like a vastgray blanket. In the late afternoon sunlight the walls of the city seemedto recede before us and the picturesque gate loomed shadowy and unreal evenwhen we passed through its gloomy arch and clattered up the stone-pavedstreet. We soon discovered the residence of Mr. H. G. Evans, agent of the BritishAmerican Tobacco Company, to whose care our first caravan had beenconsigned, and he very hospitably invited us to remain with him while wewere in Ta-li Fu. This was only the beginning of Mr. Evans' assistance tothe Expedition, for he acted as its banker throughout our stay in Yün-nan, cashing checks and transferring money for us whenever we needed funds. The British American Tobacco Company and the Standard Oil Company of NewYork are veritable "oases in the desert" for travelers because theiragencies are found in the most out-of-the-way spots in Asia and theiremployees are always ready to extend the cordial hospitality of the East towandering foreigners. Besides Mr. Evans the white residents of Ta-li Fu include the ReverendWilliam J. Hanna, his wife and two other ladies, all of the China InlandMission. Mr. Hanna is doing a really splendid work, especially alongeducational and medical lines. He has built a beautiful little chapel, alarge school, and a dispensary in connection with his house, where he andhis wife are occupied every morning treating the minor ills of the natives, Christian and heathen alike. Ta-li Fu was the scene of tremendous slaughter at the time of theMohammedan war, when the Chinese captured the city through the treachery ofits commander and turned the streets to rivers of blood. The Mohammedanswere almost exterminated, and the ruined stone walls testify to thecompleteness of the Chinese devastation. The mandarin at Ta-li Fu was good-natured but dissipated and corrupt. Hecalled upon us the evening of our arrival and almost immediately asked ifwe had any shotgun cartridges. He remarked that he had a gun but no shells, and as we did not offer to give him any he continued to hint broadly atevery opportunity. The mandarins of lower rank often buy their posts and depend upon what theycan make in "squeeze" from the natives of their district for reimbursementand a profit on their investment. In almost every case which is brought tothem for adjustment the decision is withheld until the magistrate haslearned which of the parties is prepared to offer the highest price for asettlement in his favor. The Chinese peasant, accepting this as theestablished custom, pays the bribe without a murmur if it is not tooexorbitant and, in fact, would be exceedingly surprised if "justice" weredispensed in any other way. My personal relations with the various mandarins whom I was constantlyrequired to visit officially were always of the pleasantest and I wastreated with great courtesy. It was apparent wherever we were in China thatthere was a total lack of antiforeign feeling in both the peasant andofficial classes and except for the brigands, who are beyond the law, undoubtedly white men can travel in perfect safety anywhere in therepublic. Before my first official visit Wu gave me a lesson in etiquette. The Chinese are exceedingly punctilious and it is necessary to conform totheir standards of politeness for they do not realize, or accept in excuse, the fact that Western customs differ from their own. At the end of the reception room in every _yamen_ is a raised platform onwhich the visitor sits at the _left hand_ of the mandarin; it would beexceedingly rude for a magistrate to seat the caller on his right hand. Teais always served immediately but is not supposed to be tasted until theofficial does so himself; the cup must then be lifted to the lips with bothhands. Usually when the magistrate sips his tea it is a sign that theinterview is ended. When leaving, the mandarin follows his visitor to thedoorway of the outer court, while the latter continually bows and protestsasking him not to come so far. Ta-li Fu and Hsia-kuan are important fur markets and we spent some timeinvestigating the shops. One important find was the panda (_Aelurusfulgens_). The panda is an aberrant member of the raccoon family but looksrather like a fox; in fact the Chinese call it the "fire fox" because ofits beautiful, red fur. Pandas were supposed to be exceedingly rare and wecould hardly believe it possible when we saw dozens of coats made fromtheir skins hanging in the fur shops. Skins of the huge red-brown flying squirrel, _Petaruista yunnanensis_, werealso used for clothing and the abundance of this animal was almost as greata surprise as the finding of the pandas. This is often true in the case ofsupposedly rare species. A few specimens may be obtained from the extremelimits of its range, or from a locality where it really is rare, and foryears it may be almost unique in museum collections but eventually theproper locality may be visited and the animals found to be abundant. We saw several skins of the beautiful cat (_Felis temmicki_) which, withthe snow leopard (_Felis uncia_), it was said came from Tibet. Civets, bears, foxes, and small cats were being used extensively for furs andpangolins could be purchased in the medicine shops. The scales of thepangolin are considered to be of great value in the treatment of certaindiseases and the skins are usually sold by the pound as are the horns ofdeer, wapiti, gorals, and serows. Almost all of the fossil animals which have been obtained in China byforeigners have been purchased in apothecary shops. If a Chinaman discoversa fossil bed he guards it zealously for it represents an actual gold mineto him. The bones are ground into a fine powder, mixed with an acid, and aphosphate obtained which in reality has a certain value as a tonic. When aconsiderable amount of faith and Chinese superstition is added its efficacyassumes double proportions. Every year a few tiger skins find their way to Hsia-kuan from the southernpart of the province along the Tonking border, but the good ones arequickly sold at prices varying from twenty-five to fifty dollars (Mexican). Ten dollars is the usual price for leopard skins. Marco Polo visited Ta-li Fu in the thirteenth century and, among otherthings, he speaks of the fine horses from this part of the province. Wewere surprised to find that the animals are considerably larger and moreheavily built than those of Yün-nan Fu and appear to be better in everyway. A good riding horse can be purchased for seventy-five dollars(Mexican) but mules are worth about one hundred and fifty dollars becausethey are considered better pack animals. On the advice of men who had traveled much in the interior of Yün-nan wehired our caravan and riding animals instead of buying them outright, andsubsequent experience showed the wisdom of this course. Saddle ponies, which are used only for short trips about the city, cannot endure continualtraveling over the execrable roads of the interior where often it isimpossible to feed them properly. If an entire caravan were purchased theleader of the expedition would have unceasing trouble with the _mafus_ toinsure even ordinary care of the animals, an opportunity would be given forendless "squeeze" in the purchase of food, and there are other reasons toonumerous to mention why in this province the plan is impracticable. However, the caravan ponies do try one's patience to the limit. They aretrained only to follow a leader, and if one happens to be behind anotherhorse it is well-nigh impossible to persuade it to pass. Beat or kick thebeast as one will, it only backs up or crowds closely to the horse infront. On the first day out Heller, who was on a particularly bad animal, when trying to pass one of us began to cavort about like a circus rider, prancing from side to side and backward but never going forward. We shoutedthat we would wait for him to go on but he replied helplessly, "I can't, this horse isn't under my management, " and we found very soon that ouranimals were not under our management either! In a town near Ta-li Fu we were in front of the caravan with Wu and Heller:Wu stopped to buy a basket of mushrooms but his horse refused to moveahead. Beat as he would, the animal only backed in a circle, ours followed, and in a few moments we were packed together so tightly that it wasimpossible even to dismount. There we sat, helpless, to the huge delight ofthe villagers until rescued by a _mafu_. As soon as he led Wu's horseforward the others proceeded as quietly as lambs. We paid forty cents (Mexican) a day for each animal while traveling, andfifteen or twenty cents when in camp, but the rate varies somewhat indifferent parts of the province, and in the west and south, along the Burmaborder fifty cents is the usual price. When a caravan is engaged thenecessary _mafus_ are included and they buy food for themselves and beansand hay for the animals. Ever since leaving Yün-nan Fu the cook we engaged at Paik-hoi had been asource of combined irritation and amusement. He was a lanky, effeminategentleman who never before had ridden a horse, and who was physically andmentally unable to adapt himself to camp life. After five months in thefield he appeared to be as helpless when the caravan camped for the nightas when we first started, and he would stand vacantly staring until someonedirected him what to do. But he was a good cook, when he wished to exerthimself, and had the great asset of knowing a considerable amount ofEnglish. While we were in Ta-li Fu Mr. Evans overheard him relating hisexperiences on the road to several of the other servants. "Of course, " saidthe cook, "it is a fine way to see the country, but the riding! Mygoodness, that's awful! After the third day I didn't know whether to go onor turn back--I was so sore I couldn't sit down even on a chair to saynothing of a horse!" He had evidently fully made up his mind not to "see the country" that wayfor the day after we left Ta-li Fu _en route_ to the Tibetan frontier hebecame violently ill. Although we could find nothing the matter with him hemade such a good case for himself that we believed he really was quite sickand treated him accordingly. The following morning, however, he sullenlyrefused to proceed, and we realized that his illness was of the mind ratherthan the body. As he had accepted two months' salary in advance and hadalready sent it to his wife in Paik-hoi, we were in a position to use acertain amount of forceful persuasion which entirely accomplished itsobject and illness did not trouble him thereafter. The loss of a cook is a serious matter to a large expedition. Good mealsand varied food must be provided if the personnel is to work at its highestefficiency and cooking requires a vast amount of thought and time. InYün-nan natives who can cook foreign food are by no means easy to find andwhen our Paik-hoi gentleman finally left us upon our return to Ta-li Fu wewere fortunate in obtaining an exceedingly competent man to take his placethrough the good offices of Mr. Hanna. CHAPTER XII LI-CHIANG AND "THE TEMPLE OF THE FLOWERS" We left a part of our outfit with Mr. Evans at Ta-li Fu and with a newcaravan of twenty-five animals traveled northward for six days to Li-chiangFu. By taking a small road we hoped to find good collecting in the pineforests three days from Ta-li, but instead there was a total absence ofanimal life. The woods were beautiful, parklike stretches which in acountry like California would be full of game, but here were silent anddeserted. During the fourth and fifth days we were still in the forests, but on the sixth we crossed a pass 10, 000 feet high and descended abruptlyinto a long marshy plain where at the far end were the gray outlines ofLi-chiang dimly visible against the mountains. Wu and I galloped ahead to find a temple for our camp, leaving Heller andmy wife to follow. A few pages from her journal tell of their entry intothe city. We rode along a winding stone causeway and halted on the outskirts of the town to wait until the caravan arrived. Neither Roy nor Wu was in sight but we expected that the _mafus_ would ask where they had gone and follow, for of course we could not speak a word of the language. Already there was quite a sensation as we came down the street, for our sudden appearance seemed to have stupefied the people with amazement. One old lady looked at me with an indescribable expression and uttered what sounded exactly like a long-drawn "Mon Dieu" of disagreeable surprise. I tried smiling at them but they appeared too astonished to appreciate our friendliness and in return merely stared with open mouths and eyes. We halted and immediately the street was blocked by crowds of men, women, and children who poured out of the houses, shops, and cross-streets to gaze in rapt attention. When the caravan arrived we moved on again expecting that the _mafus_ had learned where Roy had gone, but they seemed to be wandering aimlessly through the narrow winding streets. Even though we did not find a camping place we afforded the natives intense delight. I felt as though I were the chief actor in a circus parade at home, but the most remarkable attraction there could not have equaled our unparalleled success in Li-chiang. On the second excursion through the town we passed down a cross-street, and suddenly from a courtyard at the right we heard feminine voices speaking English. "It's a girl. No, it's a boy. No, no, can't you see her hair, it's a girl!" Just then we caught sight of three ladies, unmistakably foreigners although dressed in Chinese costume. They were Mrs. A. Kok, wife of the resident Pentecostal Missionary, and two assistants, who rushed into the street as soon as they had determined my sex and literally "fell upon my neck. " They had not seen a white woman since their arrival there four years ago and it seemed to them that I had suddenly dropped from the sky. While we were talking Wu appeared to guide us to the camp. They had chosen a beautiful temple with a flower-filled courtyard on the summit of a hill overlooking the city. It was wonderfully clean and when our beds, tables, and chairs were spread on the broad stone porch it seemed like a real home. The next days were busy ones for us all, Roy and Heller setting traps, and I working at my photography. We let it be known that we would pay well for specimens, and there was an almost uninterrupted procession of men and boys carrying long sticks, on which were strung frogs, rats, toads, and snakes. They would simply beam with triumph and enthusiasm. Our fame spread and more came, bringing the most ridiculous tame things--pigeons, maltese cats, dogs, white rabbits, caged birds, and I even believe we might have purchased a girl baby or two, for mothers stood about with little brown kiddies on their backs as though they really would like to offer them to us but hardly dared. The temple priest was a good looking, smooth-faced chap, and hidden under his coat he brought dozens of skins. I believe that his religious vows did not allow him to handle animals--openly--and so he would beckon Roy into the darkness of the temple with a most mysterious air, and would extract all sorts of things from his sleeves just like a sleight-of-hand performer. He was a rich man when we left! The people are mostly tribesmen--Mosos, Lolos, Tibetans, and many others. The girls wear their hair "bobbed off" in front and with a long plait in back. They wash their hair once--on their wedding day--and then it is wrapped up in turbans for the rest of their lives. The Tibetan women dress their hair in dozens of tiny braids, but I don't believe there is any authority that they ever wash it, or themselves either. Li-chiang was our first collecting camp and we never had a better one. Onthe morning after our arrival Heller found mammals in half his traps, andin the afternoon we each put out a line of forty traps which brought usfifty mammals of eleven species. This was a wonderful relief after the manydays of travel through country devoid of animal life. Our traps contained shrews of two species, meadow voles, Asiaticwhite-footed mice, spiny mice, rats, squirrels, and tree shrews. The smallmammals were exceedingly abundant and easy to catch, but after the firstday we began to have difficulty with the natives who stole our traps. Weusually marked them with a bit of cotton, and the boys would follow anentire line down a hedge, taking every one. Sometimes they even broughtspecimens to us for sale which we knew had been caught in our stolen traps! The traps were set under logs and stumps and in the grass where we foundthe "runways" or paths which mice, rats and voles often make. These animalsbegin to move about just after dark, and we usually would inspect our trapswith a lantern about nine o'clock in the evening. This not only gave thetrap a double chance to be filled but we also secured perfect specimens, for such species as mice and shrews are cannibalistic, and almost everynight, if the specimens were not taken out early in the evening, severalwould be partly eaten. Small mammals are often of much greater interest and importancescientifically than large ones, for, especially among the Insectivores, there are many primitive forms which are apparently of ancestral stock andthrow light on the evolutionary history of other living groups. Li-chiang is a fur market of considerable importance for the Tibetans bringdown vast quantities of skins for sale and trade. Lambs, goats, foxes, cats, civets, pandas, and flying squirrels hang in the shops and there aredozens of fur dressers who do really excellent tanning. This city is a most interesting place especially on market day, for itsinhabitants represent many different tribes with but comparatively fewChinese. By far the greatest percentage of natives are the Mosos who aresemi-Tibetan in their life and customs. They were originally an independentrace who ruled a considerable part of northern Yün-nan, and Li-chiang wastheir ancient capital. To the effeminate and "highly civilized" Chinesethey are "barbarians, " but we found them to be simple, honest and whollydelightful people. Many of those whom we met later had never seen a whitewoman, and yet their inherent decency was in the greatest contrast to thatof the Chinese who consider themselves so immeasurably their superior. The Mosos have large herds of sheep and cattle, and this is the one placein the Orient except in large cities along the coast, where we could obtainfresh milk and butter. As with the Tibetans, buttered tea and _tsamba_(parched oatmeal) are the great essentials, but they also grow quantitiesof delicious vegetables and fruit. Buttered tea is prepared by churningfresh butter into hot tea until the two have become well mixed. It is thenthickened with finely ground _tsamba_ until a ball is formed which is eatenwith the fingers. The combination is distinctly good when the ingredientsare fresh, but if the butter happens to be rancid the less said of it thebetter. The natives of this region are largely agriculturists and raise greatquantities of squash, turnips, carrots, cabbage, potatoes, onions, corn, peas, beans, oranges, pears, persimmons and nuts. While traveling we filledour saddle pockets with pears and English walnuts or chestnuts and couldreplenish our stock at almost any village along the road. Everything was absurdly cheap. Eggs were usually about eight cents(Mexican) a dozen, and we could always purchase a chicken for an empty tincan, or two for a bottle. In fact, the latter was the greatest desideratumand when offers of money failed to induce a native to pose for the camera abottle nearly always would decide matters in our favor. In Li-chiang we learned that there was good shooting only twelve milesnorth of the city on the Snow Mountain range, the highest peak of whichrises 18, 000 feet above the sea. We left a part of our outfit at Mr. Kok'shouse and engaged a caravan of seventeen mules to take us to the huntinggrounds. Mr. Kok assisted us in numberless ways while we were in thevicinity of Li-chiang and in other parts of the country. He took charge ofall our mail, sending it to us by runners, loaned us money when it wasdifficult to get cash from Ta-li Fu and helped us to engage servants andcaravans. It had rained almost continually for five days and a dense gray curtain offog hung far down in the valley, but on the morning of October 11 we awoketo find ourselves in another world. We were in a vast amphitheater ofencircling mountains, white almost to their bases, rising ridge on ridge, like the foamy billows of a mighty ocean. At the north, silhouetted againstthe vivid blue of a cloudless sky, towered the great Snow Mountain, itsjagged peaks crowned with gold where the morning sun had kissed theirsummits. We rode toward it across a level rock-strewn plain and watched thefleecy clouds form, and float upward to weave in and out or lose themselvesin the vast snow craters beside the glacier. It was an inspiration, thatbeautiful mountain, lying so white and still in its cradle of dark greentrees. Each hour it seemed more wonderful, more dominating in its grandeur, and we were glad to be of the chosen few to look upon its sacred beauty. In the early afternoon we camped in a tiny temple which nestled into agrove of spruce trees on the outskirts of a straggling village. To thenorth the Snow Mountain rose almost above us, and on the east and south agrassy rock-strewn plain rolled away in gentle undulations to a range ofhills which jutted into the valley like a great recumbent dragon. A short time after our camp was established we had a visit from an Austrianbotanist, Baron Haendel-Mazzetti, who had been in the village for twoweeks. He had come to Yün-nan for the Vienna Museum before the war, expecting to remain a year, but already had been there three. Surrounded ashe was by Tibet, Burma, and Tonking, his only possible exit was by way ofthe four-month overland journey to Shanghai. He had little money and fortwo years had been living on Chinese food. He dined with us in the evening, and his enjoyment of our coffee, bread, kippered herring, and other cannedgoods was almost pathetic. A week after our arrival Baron Haendel-Mazzetti left for Yün-nan Fu andeventually reached Shanghai which, however, became a closed port to himupon China's entry into the European war. It is to be hoped that hiscollections, which must be of great scientific value and importance, havearrived at a place of safety long ere this book issues from the press. CHAPTER XIII CAMPING IN THE CLOUDS We hired four Moso hunters in the Snow Mountain village. They werepicturesque fellows, supposedly dressed in skins, but their garments wereso ragged and patched that it was difficult to determine the originalmaterial of which they were made. One of them was armed with a most extraordinary gun which, it was said, came from Tibet. Its barrel was more than six feet long, and the stock wascurved like a golf stick. A powder fuse projected from a hole in the sideof the barrel, and just behind it on the butt was fastened a forked spring. At his waist the man carried a long coil of rope, the slowly burning end ofwhich was placed in the crotched spring. When about to shoot the nativeplaced the butt of the weapon against his cheek, pressed the spring so thatthe burning rope's end touched the powder fuse, and off went the gun. The three other hunters carried crossbows and poisoned arrows. They wereremarkably good shots and at a distance of one hundred feet could place anarrow in a six-inch circle four times out of five. We found later thatcrossbows are in common use throughout the more remote parts of Yün-nan andwere only another evidence that we had suddenly dropped back into theMiddle Ages and, with our high-power rifles and twentieth centuryequipment, were anachronisms. The natives are able to obtain a good deal of game even with such primitiveweapons for they depend largely upon dogs which bring gorals and serows tobay against a cliff and hold them until the men arrive. The dogs are amongrel breed which appears to be largely hound, and some are reallyexcellent hunters. White is the usual color but a few are mixed black andbrown, or fox red. Hotenfa, one of our Mosos, owned a good pack and we allcame to love its big red leader. This fine dog could be depended upon todig out game if there was any in the mountains, but his life with us wasshort for he was killed by our first serow. Hotenfa was inconsolable andthe tears he shed were in sincere sorrow for the loss of a faithful friend. Almost every family owns a dog. Some of those we saw while passing throughChinese villages were nauseating in their unsightliness, for at leastthirty per cent of them were more or less diseased. Barely able to walk, they would stagger across the street or lie in the gutter in indescribablefilth. One longed to put them out of their misery with a bullet but, although they seemed to belong to nobody, if one was killed an ownerappeared like magic to quarrel over the damages. The dogs of the non-Chinese tribes were in fairly good condition and thereseemed to be comparatively little disease among them. Our hunters treatedtheir hounds kindly and fed them well, but the animals themselves, althoughloyal to their masters, manifested but little affection. In Korea dogs areeaten by the natives, but none of the tribes with which we came in contactin Yün-nan used them for food. On our first day in the temple Heller went up the Snow Mountain for areconnoissance and the party secured a fine porcupine. It is quite adifferent animal from the American tree porcupines and represents a genus(_Hystrix_) which is found in Asia, Africa, and southern Europe. Thisspecies lives in burrows and, when hunting big game, we were often greatlyannoyed to find that our dogs had followed the trail of one of theseanimals. We would arrive to see the hounds dancing about the burrow yelpingexcitedly instead of having a goral at bay as we had expected. Some of the beautiful black and ivory white quills are more than twelveinches long and very sharp. A porcupine will keep an entire pack of dogs atbay and is almost sure to drive its murderous weapons into the bodies ofsome of them unless the hunters arrive in a short time. The Mosos eat theflesh which is white and fine. Although we were only twelve miles from Li-chiang the traps yielded fourshrews and one mouse which were new to our collection. The natives broughtin three bats which we had not previously seen and began a thrivingbusiness in toads and frogs with now and then a snake. The temple was an excellent place for small mammals but it was evident thatwe would have to move high up on the slopes of the mountain if gorals andother big game were to be obtained. Accordingly, while Heller prepared anumber of bat skins we started out on horseback to hunt a camp site. It was a glorious day with the sun shining brilliantly from a cloudless skyand just a touch of autumn snap in the air. We crossed the slopingrock-strewn plain to the base of the mountain, and discovered a trail whichled up a forested shoulder to the right of the main peaks. An hour ofsteady climbing brought us to the summit of the ridge where we struck intothe woods toward a snow-field on the opposite slope. The trail led us alongthe brink of a steep escarpment from which we could look over the valleyand away into the blue distance toward Li-chiang. Three thousand feet belowus the roof of our temple gleamed from among the sheltering pine trees, andthe herds of sheep and cattle massed themselves into moving patches on thesmooth brown plain. We pushed our way through the spruce forest with the glistening snow bed asa beacon and suddenly emerged into a flat open meadow overshadowed by theragged peaks. "What a perfectly wonderful place to camp, " we bothexclaimed. "If we can only find water, let's come tomorrow. " The hunters had assured us that there were no streams on this end of themountain but we hoped to find a snow bank which would supply our camp for afew days at least. We rode slowly up the meadow reveling in the grandeur ofthe snow-crowned pinnacles and feeling very small and helpless amidsurroundings where nature had so magnificently expressed herself. At the far end of the meadow we discovered a dry creek bed which led upwardthrough the dense spruce forest. "Where water has been, water may beagain, " we argued and, leading the horses, picked our way among the treesand over fallen logs to a fairly open hill slope where we attempted toride, but our animals were nearly done. After climbing a few feet theystood with heaving sides and trembling legs, the breath rasping throughdistended nostrils. We felt the altitude almost as badly as the horses forthe meadow itself was twelve thousand feet above the level of the sea andthe air was very thin. There seemed to be no hope of finding even a suitable snow bank when it wasslowly borne in upon us that the subdued roaring in our ears was the soundof water and not the effect of altitude as we both imagined. Above and tothe left was a sheer cliff, hundreds of feet in height, and as we toiledupward and emerged beyond timber line we caught a glimpse of a silverribbon streaming down its face. It came from a melting snow crater and wecould follow its course with our eyes to where it swung downward along arock wall not far from the upper end of the meadow. It was so hidden by thetrees that had we not climbed above timber line, it never would have beendiscovered. This solved the question of our camp and we looked about us happily. On theway through the forest we had noticed small mammal runways under almostevery log and, when we stood above the tree limit, the grassy slope was cutby an intricate network of tiny tunnels. These were plainly the work of ameadow vole (_Microtus_) and at this altitude it certainly would prove tobe a species new to our collection. The sun had already dropped behind the mountain and the meadow was inshadow when we reached it again on our homeward way. By five o'clock wewere in the temple eating a belated tiffin and making preparations for anearly start. But our hopes were idle, for in the morning three of the muleshad strayed, and we did not arrive at the meadow until two o'clock in theafternoon. Our camp was made just at the edge of the spruce forest a few hundred yardsfrom the snow stream. As soon as the tents were up we climbed to the grassyslope above timber line, with Heller, to set a string of traps in the volerunways and under logs and stumps in the forest. The hunters made their camp beside a huge rock a short distance away andslept in their ragged clothes without a blanket or shelter of any kind. Itwas delightfully warm, even at this altitude, when the sun was out, but assoon as it disappeared we needed a fire and the nights were freezing cold;yet the natives did not seem to mind it in the slightest and refused ouroffer of a canvas tent fly. We never will forget that first night on the Snow Mountain. As we sat atdinner about the campfire we could see the somber mass of the forest losingitself in the darkness, and felt the unseen presence of the mighty peaksstanding guard about our mountain home. We slept, breathing the strong, sweet perfume of the spruce trees and dreamed that we two were wanderingalone through the forest opening the treasure boxes of the Wild. CHAPTER XIV THE FIRST GORAL We were awakened before daylight by Wu's long drawn call to the hunters, "_L-a-o-u H-o, L-a-o-u H-o, L-a-o-u H-o_. " The steady drum of rain on ourtent shot a thrill of disappointment through me as I opened my eyes, butbefore we had crawled out of our sleeping-bags and dressed it lessened to agentle patter and soon ceased altogether. It left a cold, gray morning withdense clouds weaving in and out among the peaks but, nevertheless, Idecided to go out with the hunters to try for goral. Two of the men took the dogs around the base of a high rock shouldersparsely covered with scrub spruce while I went up the opposite slopeaccompanied by the other two. We had not been away from camp half an hourwhen the dogs began to yelp and almost immediately we heard them comingaround the summit of the ridge in our direction. The hunters made franticsigns for me to hurry up the steep slope but in the thin air with my heartpounding like a trip hammer I could not go faster than a walk. We climbed about three hundred yards when suddenly the dogs appeared on theside of the cliff near the summit. Just in front of them was a boundinggray form. The mist closed in and we lost both dogs and animals but tenminutes later a blessed gust of wind drifted the fog away and the goral wasindistinctly visible with its back to a rock ledge facing the dogs. The bigred leader of the pack now and then dashed in for a nip at the animal'sthroat but was kept at bay by its vicious lunges and sharp horns. It was nearly three hundred yards away but the cloud was drifting in againand I dropped down for a shot. The hunters were running up the slope, frantically waving for me to come on, thinking it madness to shoot at thatdistance. I could just see the gray form through the sights and the firsttwo shots spattered the loose rock about a foot low. For the third I got adead rest over a stone and as the crash of the little Mannlicher echoed upthe gorge, the goral threw itself into the air whirling over and over ontothe rocks below. The hunters, mad with excitement, dashed up the hill and down into thestream bed, and when I arrived the goral lay on a grassy ledge beside thewater. The animal was stone dead, for my bullet had passed through itslungs, and, although the front teeth had been smashed on the rocks, itshorns were uninjured and the beautiful gray coat was in perfect condition. It so happened that this ram was the largest which we killed on the entiretrip. When the hunters were carrying the goral to camp we met Yvette and Helleron their way to visit the traps just below snow line, and she returned withme to photograph the animal and to watch the ceremonies which I knew wouldbe performed. One of the natives cut a leafy branch, placed the goral uponit and at the first cut chanted a prayer. Then laying several leaves oneupon the other he sliced off the tip of the heart, wrapped it carefully inthe leaves and placed it in a nearby tree as an offering to the God of theHunt. I have often seen the Chinese and Korean hunters perform similar ceremoniesat the death of an animal, and the idea that it is necessary to propitiatethe God of the Hunt is universal. When I was shooting in Korea in 1912, andalso in other parts of China, if luck had been against us for a few daysthe hunters would invariably ask me to buy a chicken, or some animal tosacrifice for "good joss. " After each dog had had a taste of the goral's blood we again climbed thecliff at the end of the meadow. When we were nearly 2, 000 feet above campthe clouds shut in and, as the impenetrable gray curtain wrapped itselfabout us, we could only sit quietly and wait for it to drift away. After an hour the fog began to thin and the men sent the hounds toward atalus slope at the base of the highest peak. Almost immediately the big reddog picked up a trail and started across the loose rock with the packyelping at his heels. We followed as rapidly as possible over such hardgoing but before we reached the other side the dogs had rounded a sharppinnacle and disappeared far below us. Expecting that the goral would swingabout the base of the peak the hunters sent me back across the talus towatch for a shot, but the animal ran down the valley and into a heavilywooded ravine where the dogs lost his trail only a short distance abovecamp. I returned to find that Heller had secured a rich haul from the traps. Aswe supposed, the runways which Yvette and I had discovered above timberline were made by a meadow vole (_Microtus_) and in the forest almost everytrap had caught a white-footed mouse (_Apodemus_). He also had several newshrews and we caught eight different species of these important littleanimals at this one camp. Wu, the interpreter, hearing us speak of shrews, came to me one day ingreat perplexity with his Anglo-Chinese dictionary. He had looked up theword "shrew" and found that it meant "a cantankerous woman!" The following day Heller went out with the hunters and saw two gorals butdid not get a shot. In the meantime Yvette and I ran the traps and preparedthe small mammals. While we were far up on the mountain-side, BaronHaendel-Mazzetti appeared armed with ropes and an alpine snow ax. He wasabout to attempt to climb the highest peak which had never been ascendedbut the drifts turned him back several hundred feet from the summit. Hedined at our camp and as all of us carefully refrained from "war talk" wespent a very pleasant evening. During his three years in Yün-nan he hadexplored and mapped many sections of the province which had not beenvisited previously by foreigners and from him we obtained much valuableinformation. On the third morning we were up before daylight and I left with the huntersin the gray dawn. We climbed steadily for an hour after leaving camp and, when well up on the mountain-side, skirted the base of a huge peak througha dense forest of spruce and low bamboo thickets, emerging upon a steepgrassy meadow; this abutted on a sheer rock wall at the upper end, andbelow ran into a thick evergreen forest. As we entered the meadow the big red leading dog, trotted off by himselftoward the rock wall above us, and in a few moments we heard his sharpyelps near the summit. Instantly the pack was off stringing out in a longline up the hillside. We had nearly crossed the open slope and were standing on the edge of adeep gully when the dogs gave tongue and as soon as the hunters were surethey were coming in our direction we hurried to the bottom of the gorge andbegan the sharp ascent on the other side. It was almost straight up andbefore we had gone a hundred feet we were all gasping for breath and mylegs seemed like bars of lead, but the staccato yelps of the dogs soundingcloser and closer kept us going. When we finally dropped on the summit of the hill I was absolutely done. Ilay flat on my back for a few minutes and got to my knees just as the goralappeared on the opposite cliff. The sight of the magnificent animalbounding like rubber from ledges which his feet seemed hardly to touch downthe face of a sheer wall, will remain in my memory as long as I live. Heseemed the very spirit of the mountains, a thing born of peaks and crags, vibrant with the breath of the clouds. Selecting a spot which he must touchin the next flying leap, I waited until his body darkened the sights andthen pulled the trigger. The game little brute collapsed, then struggled to his feet, and with atremendous leap landed on a projecting shelf of rock four yards below. Instantly I fired again and he sank down in a crumpled gray mass not twofeet from the edge of the precipice which fell away in a dizzy drop of sixhundred feet. The dogs were on him long before we had worked our way down the cañon andup to the shelf where he lay. He was a fine ram nearly as large as thefirst one I had killed. I wanted to rest the dogs for they were very tiredfrom their two days of hunting, so I decided to return to camp with themen. On the way a second goral was started but it swung about the summit ofthe wooded ridge instead of coming in my direction, giving one of thehunters a shot with his crossbow, which he missed. It was a beautiful day. Above us the sky was clear and blue but the cloudsstill lay thickly over the meadow and the camp was invisible. The billowymasses clung to the forest line, but from the slopes above them we couldlook far across the valley into the blue distance where the snow-coveredsummits of range after range of magnificent mountains lay shining in thesun like beaten silver. There was a strange fascination about thosemountains, and I thrilled with the thought that for twelve long months Iwas free to roam where I willed and explore their hidden mysteries. CHAPTER XV MORE GORALS Both gorals were fine old rams with perfect horns. Their hair was thick andsoft, pale olive-buff tipped with brownish, and the legs on the "cannonbones" were buff-yellow like the margins of the throat patches. Their colormade them practically invisible against the rocks and when I killed thesecond goral my only distinct impression as he dashed down the face of theprecipice, was of four yellowish legs entirely separated from a body whichI could hardly see. This invisibility, combined with the fact that the Snow Mountain goralslived on almost inaccessible cliffs thickly covered with scrub spruceforest, made "still hunting" impossible. In fact, Baron Haendel-Mazzetti, who had explored this part of the Snow Mountains fairly thoroughly in hissearch for plants, had never seen a goral, and did not know that such ananimal existed there. Heller hunted for two days in succession and, although he saw severalgorals, he was not successful in getting one until we had been in campalmost a week. His was a young male not more than a year old with hornsabout an inch long. It was a valuable addition to our collection for I wasanxious to obtain specimens of various ages to be mounted as a "habitatgroup" in the Museum and we lacked only a female. The preparation of the group required the greatest care and study. First, we selected a proper spot to reproduce in the Museum, and Yvette took aseries of natural color photographs to guide the artist in painting thebackground. Next she made detail photographs of the surroundings. Then wecollected portions of the rocks and typical bits of vegetation such as mossand leaves, to be either dried or preserved in formalin. In a large group, perhaps several thousand leaves will be required, but the field naturalistneed select typical specimens of only five or six different sizes from eachof which a plaster mold can be made at the Museum and the leaves reproducedin wax. After two days of rain during which I had a hard and unsuccessful hunt forserows we decided to return to the temple at the foot of the mountain whichwas nearer to the forests inhabited by these animals. We had already beenin our camp on the meadow for nine days and, besides the gorals, hadgathered a large and valuable collection of small mammals. The shrews wereespecially varied in species and, besides a splendid series of meadowvoles, Asiatic mice and rats, we obtained a new weasel and a singlespecimen of a tiny rock-cony or little chief hare, an Asiatic genus(_Ochotona_) which is also found in the western part of North America onthe high slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Although we set dozens of trapsamong the rocks we did not get another on the entire expedition nor did wesee indications of their presence in other localities. The almost complete absence of carnivores at this camp was a greatsurprise. Except for weasels we saw no others and the hunters said thatfoxes or civets did not occur on this side of the mountain even though foodwas abundant. On the day before we went to the temple I had a magnificent hunt. We leftcamp at daylight in a heavy fog and almost at once the dogs took up a serowtrail. We heard them coming toward us as we stood at the upper edge of alittle meadow and expected the animal to break cover any moment, but itturned down the mountain and the hounds lost the trail in the thick sprucewoods. We climbed slowly toward the cliffs until we were well above the clouds, which lay in a thick white blanket over the camp, and headed for the cañonwhere I had shot my second goral. Hotenfa wished to go lower down into theforests but I prevailed upon him to stay along the open slopes and, whilewe were resting, the big red dog suddenly gave tongue on a ridge above andto the right of us. It was in the exact spot where my second goral had beenstarted and we were on the _qui vive_ when the rest of the pack dashed upthe mountain-side to join their leader. In a few moments they all gave tongue and we heard them swinging about inour direction. Just then the clouds, which had been lying in a solid bankbelow us, began to drift upward in a long, thin finger toward the cañon. Onand on it came, and closer sounded the yelps of the dogs. I was tremblingwith impatience and swearing softly as the gray vapor streamed into thegorge. The cloud thickened, sweeping rapidly up the ravine, until we wereenveloped so completely that I could hardly see the length of my gunbarrel. A moment later we heard the goral leaping down the cliff not ahundred yards away. With the rifle useless in my hands I listened to each hoof beat and thestones which his flying feet sent rattling into the gorge. Then the dogscame past, and we heard them follow down the rocks, their yelps growingfainter and fainter in the valley far below. The goral was lost, and asthough the Fates were laughing at us, ten minutes later a puff of windsucked the cloud out of the cañon as swiftly as it had come, and above usshone a sky as clear and blue as a tropic sea. Hotenfa's disgust more than equaled my own for I had loaned him mythree-barrel gun (12 gauge and . 303 Savage) and he was as excited as achild with a new toy. He was a remarkably intelligent man and mastered thesafety catches in a short time even though he had never before seen abreach-loading gun. There was nothing to do but hurry down the mountain for the dogs mightbring the goral to bay on one of the cliffs below us, and in twenty minuteswe stood on a ridge which jutted out from the thick spruce forest. One ofthe hunters picked his way down the rock wall while Hotenfa and I circledthe top of the spur. We had not gone a hundred yards when the hunter shouted that a goral wasrunning in our direction. Hotenfa reached the edge of the ridge before me, and I saw him fire with the three-barrel gun at a goral which disappearedinto the brush. His bullet struck the dirt only a few feet behind theanimal although it must have been well beyond a hundred yards and almoststraight below us. Hardly had we drawn back when a yell from the other hunter brought us againto the edge of the cliff just in time to see a second goral dash into theforest a good three hundred yards away in the very bottom of the gorge. Rather disappointed we continued along the ridge and Hotenfa made signswhich said as plainly as words, "I told you so. The gorals are not on thepeaks but down in the forest. We ought to have come here first. " There were not many moments for regret, however, for this was "our busyday. " Suddenly a burst of frantic yelps from the red dog turned us off tothe left and we heard him nearing the summit of the spur which we had justleft. One of the other hunters was standing there and his crossbow twangedas the goral passed only a few yards from him, but the wicked littlepoisoned dart stuck quivering into a tree a few inches above the animal'sback. The goral dashed over the ridge almost on top of the second hunter who wastoo surprised to shoot and only yelled that it was coming toward us on thecliff below. Hotenfa leaped from rock to rock, almost like a goat himself, and dashed through the bushes toward a jutting shelf which overhung thegorge. We reached the rim at the same moment and saw a huge ram standing on anarrow ledge a hundred yards below. I fired instantly and the noble animal, with feet wide spread, and head thrown back, launched himself into spacefalling six hundred feet to the rocks beneath us. As the goral leaped Hotenfa seemed suddenly to go insane. Yelling with joy, he threw his arms about my neck, rubbing my face with his and pounding meon the back until I thought he would throw us both off the cliff. I wasutterly dumfounded but seized his three-barrel gun to unload it for in hisexcitement there was imminent danger that he would shoot either himself orme. Then I realized what it was all about. We had both fired simultaneously andneither had heard the other's shot. By mistake Hotenfa had discharged aload of buckshot and it was my bullet which had killed the goral but hisjoy was so great that I would not for anything have disillusioned him. It was a half hour's hard work to get to the place where the goral hadfallen. The dogs were already there lying quietly beside the animal when wearrived. My bullet had entered the back just in front of the hind leg andranged forward through the lungs flattening itself against the breast bone;the jacket had split, one piece tearing into the heart, so that the ram wasprobably dead before it struck the rocks. I photographed the goral where it lay and after it had been eviscerated, and the hunters had performed their ceremonies to the God of the Hunt, Isent one of them back with it while Hotenfa and I worked toward the bottomof the cañon in the hope of finding the other animals. It was a delightfully warm day and Hotenfa told me in his vivid signlanguage that the gorals were likely to be asleep on the sunny side of theravine; therefore we worked up the opposite slope. It was the hardest kind of climbing and for two hours we plodded steadilyupward, clinging by feet and hands to bushes and rocks, and were almostexhausted when we reached a small open patch of grass about two thirds ofthe way to the summit. We rested for half an hour and, after a light tiffin, toiled on again. Ihad not gone thirty feet, and Hotenfa was still sitting down, when I sawhim wave his arm excitedly and throw up his gun to shoot. I leaped down tohis side just as he fired at a big female goral which was sound asleep inan open patch of grass on the mountain-side. Hotenfa's bullet broke the animal's foreleg at the knee but without theslightest sign of injury she dashed down the cliff. I fired as she ran, striking her squarely in the heart, and she pitched headlong into thebushes a hundred feet below. How Hotenfa managed to pack that animal to the summit of the ridge I nevercan understand, for with a light sack upon my back and a rifle it was all Icould do to pull myself up the rocks. He was completely done when wefinally threw ourselves on the grass at the edge of the meadow which we hadleft in the morning. Hotenfa chanted his prayer when we opened the goral, but the God of the Hunt missed his offering for my bullet had smashed theheart to a pulp. On our way back to camp the red dog, although dead tired, disappeared aloneinto the heavy forest below us. Suddenly we heard his deep bay coming upthe hill in our direction. Hotenfa and I dropped our burdens and ran to anopening in the forest where we thought the animal must pass. Instead of coming out where we expected, the dog appeared higher up at theheels of a crested muntjac (_Elaphodus_), which was bounding along at fullspeed, its white flag standing straight up over its dark bluish back. I hadone chance for a shot at about one hundred and fifty yards as the paircrossed a little opening in the trees, but it was too dangerous to shootfor, had I missed the deer, the dog certainly would have been killed. I was heart-broken over losing this animal, for it is an exceedingly rarespecies, but a few days later a shepherd brought in another which had beenwounded by one of our Lolo hunters and had run down into the plains to die. When we reached the hill above camp Yvette ran out to meet us, falling overlogs and bushes in her eagerness to see what we were carrying. No dinnerwhich I have ever eaten tasted like the one we had of goral steak thatnight and after a smoke I crawled into my sleeping bag, dead tired in bodybut with a happy heart. CHAPTER XVI THE SNOW MOUNTAIN TEMPLE On October 22, we moved to the foot of the mountain and camped in thetemple which we had formerly occupied. This was directly below the forestsinhabited by serow, and we expected to devote our efforts exclusivelytoward obtaining a representative series of these animals. Unfortunately I developed a severe infection in the palm of my right handalmost immediately, and had it not been for the devoted care of my wife Ishould not have left China alive. Through terrible nights of delirium whenthe poison was threatening to spread over my entire body, she nursed mewith an utter disregard of her own health and slept only during a fewrestless hours of complete exhaustion. For three weeks I could do no workbut at last was able to bend my "trigger finger" and resume huntingalthough I did not entirely recover the use of my hand for several months. However, the work of the expedition by no means ceased because of myillness. Mr. Heller continued to collect small mammals with great energyand the day after we arrived at the temple we engaged eight new nativehunters. These were Lolos, a wandering unit from the independent tribe ofS'suchuan and they proved to be excellent men. The first serow was killed by Hotenfa's party on our third day in thetemple. Heller went out with the hunters but in a few hours returned alone. A short time after he had left the natives the dogs took up the trail of ahuge serow and followed it for three miles through the spruce forest. Theyfinally brought the animal to bay against a cliff and a furious fightensued. One dog was ripped wide open, another received a horn-thrust in theside, and the big red leader was thrown over a cliff to the rocks below. More of the hounds undoubtedly would have been killed had not the huntersarrived and shot the animal. The men brought the serow in late at night but our joy was considerablydampened by the loss of the red dog. Hotenfa carried him in his arms andlaid him gently on a blanket in the temple but the splendid animal diedduring the night. His master cried like a child and I am sure that he feltmore real sorrow than he would have shown at the loss of his wife; forwives are much easier to get in China than good hunting dogs. The serow was an adult male, badly scarred from fighting, and had lost onehorn by falling over a cliff when he was killed. He was brownish black, with rusty red lower legs and a whitish mane. His right horn was nine andthree-quarters inches in length and five and three-quarters inches incircumference at the base and the effectiveness with which he had used hishorns against the dogs demonstrated that they were by no means only forornaments. In the next chapter the habits and relationships of the goralsand serows will be considered more fully. On the morning following the capture of the first serow the last rain ofthe season began and continued for nine days almost without ceasing. Theweather made hunting practically impossible for the fog hung so thicklyover the woods that one could not see a hundred feet and Heller found thatmany of his small traps were sprung by the raindrops. The Lolos haddisappeared, and we believed that they had returned to their village, butthey had been hunting in spite of the weather and on the fifth day arrivedwith a fine male serow in perfect condition. It showed a most interestingcolor variation for, instead of red, the lower legs were buff with hardly atinge of reddish. November 2, the sun rose in an absolutely cloudless sky and during theremainder of the winter we had as perfect weather as one could wish. Yvette's constant nursing and efficient surgery combined with the devotionof our interpreter, Wu, had checked the spread of the poison in my hand andmy nights were no longer haunted with the strange fancies of delirium, butI was as helpless as a babe. I could do nothing but sit with steamingcloths wrapped about my arm and rail at the fate which kept me useless inthe temple. The Lolos killed a third serow on the mountain just above our camp but theanimal fell into a rock fissure more than a hundred feet deep and wasrecovered only after a day's hard work. The men wove a swinging ladder fromtough vines, climbed down it, and drew the serow bodily up the cliff; as itweighed nearly three hundred pounds this was by no means an easyundertaking. Our Lolo hunters were tall, handsome fellows led by a slender young chiefwith patrician features who ruled his village like an autocrat withabsolute power of life and death. The Lolos are a strange people who at onetime probably occupied much of the region south of the Yangtze River butwere pushed south and west by the Chinese and, except in one instance, nowexist only in scattered units in the provinces of Kwei-chau and Yün-nan. In S'suchuan the Lolos hold a vast territory which is absolutely closed tothe Chinese on pain of death and over which they exercise no control. Several expeditions have been launched against the Lolos but all have endedin disaster. Only a few weeks before we arrived in Yün-nan a number of Chinese soldiersbutchered nearly a hundred Lolos whom they had encountered outside theindependent territory, and in reprisal the Lolos burned several villagesalmost under the walls of a fortified city in which were five hundredsoldiers, massacred all the men and boys, and carried off the women asslaves. The pure blood Lolos "are a very fine tall race, with comparatively faircomplexions, and often with straight features, suggesting a mixture ofMongolian with some more straight-featured race. Their appearance marksthem as closely connected by race with the eastern Tibetans, the latterbeing, if anything, rather the bigger men of the two. " [Footnote: "Yün-nan, the Link between India and the Yangtze, " by Major H. R. Davies, 1909, p. 389. ] They are great wanderers and over a very large part of Yün-nan formthe bulk of the hill population, being the most numerous of all thenon-Chinese tribes in the province. Like almost every race which has been conquered by the Chinese or has comeinto continual contact with them for a few generations, the Lolos ofYün-nan, where they are in isolated villages, are being absorbed by theChinese. We found, as did Major Davies, that in some instances they weregiving up their language and beginning to talk Chinese even amongthemselves. The women already had begun to tie up their feet in the Chinesefashion and even disliked to be called Lolos. Those whom we employed were living entirely by hunting and, although wefound them amiable enough, they were exceedingly independent. Theypreferred to hunt alone, although they recognized what an increased chancefor game our high-power rifles gave them, and eventually left us while Iwas away on a short trip, even though we still owed them considerablemoney. The Lolos are only one of the non-Chinese tribes of Yün-nan. Major Davieshas considered this question in his valuable book to which I have alreadyreferred, and I cannot do better than quote his remarks here. The numerous non-Chinese tribes that the traveler encounters in western China, form perhaps one of the most interesting features of travel in that country. It is safe to assert that in hardly any other part of the world is there such a large variety of languages and dialects, as are to be heard in the country which lies between Assam and the eastern border of Yün-nan and in the Indo-Chinese countries to the south of this region. The reason of this is not hard to find. It lies in the physical characteristics of the country. It is the high mountain ranges and the deep swift-flowing rivers that have brought about the differences in customs and language, and the innumerable tribal distinctions, which are so perplexing to the enquirer into Indo-Chinese ethnology. A tribe has entered Yün-nan from their original Himalayan or Tibetan home, and after increasing in numbers have found the land they have settled on not equal to their wants. The natural result has been the emigration of part of the colony. The emigrants, having surmounted pathless mountains and crossed unbridged rivers on extemporized rafts, have found a new place to settle in, and have felt no inclination to undertake such a journey again to revisit their old home. Being without a written character in which to preserve their traditions, cut off from all civilizing influence of the outside world, and occupied merely in growing crops enough to support themselves, the recollection of their connection with their original ancestors has died out. It is not then surprising that they should now consider themselves a totally distinct race from the parent stock. Inter-tribal wars, and the practice of slave raiding so common among the wilder members of the Indo-Chinese family, have helped to still further widen the breach. In fact it may be considered remarkable that after being separated for hundreds, and perhaps in some case for thousands, of years, the languages of two distant tribes of the same family should bear to each other the marked general resemblance which is still to be found. The hilly nature of the country and the consequent lack of good means of communication have also naturally militated against the formation of any large kingdoms with effective control over the mountainous districts. Directly we get to a flat country with good roads and navigable rivers, we find the tribal distinctions disappear, and the whole of the inhabitants are welded into a homogeneous people under a settled government, speaking one language. Burmese as heard throughout the Irrawaddy valley is the same everywhere. A traveler from Rangoon to Bhamo will find one language spoken throughout his journey, but an expedition of the same length in the hilly country to the east or to the west of the Irrawaddy valley would bring him into contact with twenty mutually unintelligible tongues. The same state of things applies to Siam and Tong-king--one nation speaking one language in the flat country and a Tower of Babel in the hills (_loc. Cit. _, pp. 332-333). CHAPTER XVII GORALS AND SEROWS Gorals and serows belong to the subfamily _Rupicaprinae_ which is an earlymountain-living offshoot of the _Bovidae_; it also includes the chamois, takin, and the so-called Rocky Mountain goat of America. The animals arecommonly referred to as "goat-antelopes" in order to express theintermediate position which they apparently hold between the goats andantelopes. They are also sometimes called the Rupicaprine antelopes fromthe scientific name of the chamois (_Rupicapra_). The horns of all members of the group are finely ridged, subcylindrical andare present in both sexes, being almost as long in the female as in themale. Although no one would suspect that the gorals are more closelyrelated to the takins than to the serows, which they resemblesuperficially, such seems to be the case, but the cranial differencesbetween the two genera are to a certain extent bridged over by the skull ofthe small Japanese serow (_Capricornulus crispus_). This species is mostinteresting because of its intermediate position. In size it is larger thana goral but smaller than a serow; its long coat and its horns resemblethose of a goral but it has the face gland and short tail of a serow. It isfound in Japan, Manchuria and southern Siberia. The principal external difference between the gorals and serows, besidesthat of size, is in the fact that the serows have a short tail and a welldeveloped face gland, which opens in front of the eyes by a small orifice, while the gorals have a long tail and no such gland. In the cylindrical form of their horns the serows are similar to someof the antelopes but in their clumsy build, heavy limbs and stouthoofs as well as in habits they resemble goats. The serow has a long, melancholy-looking face and because of its enormous ears the Chinese inFukien Province refer to it as the "wild donkey" but in Yün-nan it iscalled "wild cow. " The specific relationships of the serows are by no means satisfactorilydetermined. Mr. Pocock, Superintendent of the London Zoölogical Society'sGardens, has recently devoted considerable study to the serows of BritishIndia and considers them all to be races of the single species _Capricornissumatrensis_. With this opinion I am inclined to agree, although I have notyet had sufficient time in which to thoroughly study the subject in thelight of our new material. These animals differ most strikingly in external coloration, and fall intothree groups all of which partake more or less of the characters of eachother. Chinese serows usually have the lower legs rusty red, while inIndian races they are whitish, and black in the southern Burma and Malayanforms. The serows which we killed upon the Snow Mountain can probably be referredto _Capricornis sumatrensis milne-edwardsi_, those of Fukien obtained byMr. Caldwell represent the white-maned serow _Capricornis sumatrensisargyrochaetes_ and one which I shot in May, 1917, near Teng-yueh, not farfrom the Burma frontier, is apparently an undescribed form. Our specimens have brought out the fact that a remarkable individualvariation exists in the color of the legs of these animals; this characterwas considered to be of diagnostic value, and probably is in some degree, but it is by no means as reliable as it was formerly supposed to be. Two of the serows killed on the Snow Mountain have the lower legs rustyred, while in two others these parts are buff colored. The animals, allmales of nearly the same age, were taken on the same mountain, andvirtually at the same time. Their skulls exhibit no important differencesand there is no reason to believe that they represent anything but anextreme individual variation. The two specimens obtained by Mr. Caldwell at Yen-ping are even moresurprising. The old female is coal black, but the young male is distinctlybrownish-black with a chestnut stripe from the mane to the tail along themid-dorsal line where the hairs of the back form a ridge. The horns of thefemale are nearly parallel for half their extent and approach each other atthe tips; their surfaces are remarkably smooth. The horns of the young malediverge like a V from the skull and are very heavily ridged. The lattercharacter is undoubtedly due to youth. These serows are an excellent example of the necessity for collecting alarge number of specimens from the same locality. Only by this means is itpossible to learn how the species is affected by age, sex and individualvariation and what are its really important characters. In the case of thegorals, our Expedition obtained at Hui-yao such a splendid series of allages that we have an unequaled opportunity for intelligent study. Serowsare entirely Asian and found in China, Japan, India, Sumatra and the MalayPeninsula. On the Snow Mountain we found them living singly at altitudes of from 9, 000to 13, 000 feet in dense spruce forests, among the cliffs. The animalsseemed to be fond of sleeping under overhanging rocks, and we wereconstantly finding beds which gave evidence of very extensive use. Apparently serows seldom come out into the open, but feed on leaves andgrass while in the thickest cover, so that it is almost impossible to killthem without the aid of dogs or beaters. Sometimes a serow will lead the dogs for three or four miles, andeventually lose them or it may turn at bay and fight the pack after only ashort chase; a large serow is almost certain to kill several of the houndsif in a favorable position with a rock wall at its back. The animal can useits strong curved horns with deadly effect for it is remarkably agile for abeast of its size. In Fukien we hunted serows on the summit of a high mountain clothed with adense jungle of dwarf bamboo. It was in quite different country from thatwhich the animals inhabit in Yün-nan for although the cover was exceedinglythick it was without such high cliffs and there were extensive grassymeadows. We did not see any serows in Fukien because of the ignorance ofour beaters, although the trails were cut by fresh tracks. The natives saidthat in late September the animals could often be found in the forests ofthe lower mountain slopes when they came to browse upon the new grownmushrooms. Mr. Caldwell purchased for us in the market the skin of a splendid femaleserow and a short time later obtained a young male. The latter was seenswimming across the river just below the city wall and was caught alive bythe natives. The female weighed three hundred and ten pounds and the maletwo hundred and ninety pounds. Serows are rare in captivity and are said to be rather dangerous petsunless tamed when very young. We are reproducing a photograph taken andkindly loaned by Mr. Herbert Lang, of one formerly living in the BerlinZoölogical Garden; we saw a serow in the Zoölogical Park at Calcutta andone from Darjeeling is owned by the London Zoölogical Society. Gorals are pretty little animals of the size of the chamois. The specieswhich we killed on the Snow Mountain can probably be referred to_Naemorhedus griseus_, but I have not yet had an opportunity to study ourspecimens carefully. Unlike the serows these gorals have blackish browntails which from the roots to the end of the hairs measure about 10 inchesin length. The horns of both sexes are prominently ridged for the basalhalf of their length and perfectly smooth distally. The male horns arestrongly recurved and are thick and round at the base but narrow rapidly tothe tips; the female horns are straighter and more slender. The longesthorns in the series which we received measured six inches in length andthree and three-quarters inches in circumference at the base. Like theserows, gorals are confined to Asia and are found in northern India, Burma, and China, and northwards through Korea and southern Manchuria. We hunted gorals with dogs on the Snow Mountain for in this particularregion they could be killed in no other way. There was so much cover, evenat altitudes of from 12, 000 to 15, 000 feet and the rocks were soprecipitous, that a man might spend a month "still hunting" and never see agoral. They are vicious fighters, and often back up to a cliff where theycan keep the dogs at a distance. One of our best hounds while huntingalone, brought a goral to bay and was found dead next day by the hunterswith its side ripped open. On the Snow Mountain we found the animals singly but at Hui-yao, not farfrom the Burma frontier, where we hunted another species in the spring, they were almost universally in herds of from six to seven or eight. It wasat the latter place that we had our best opportunity to observe gorals andlearn something of their habits. We were camping on the banks of a branchof the Shwelie River, which had cut a narrow gorge for itself; on one sidethis was seven or eight hundred feet deep. A herd of about fifty gorals hadbeen living for many years on one of the mountain sides not far from thevillage, and although they were seen constantly the natives had no weaponswith which to kill them; but with our high-power rifles it was possible toshoot across the river at distances of from two hundred to four hundredyards. We could scan every inch of the hillside through our field glasses andwatch the gorals as they moved about quite unconscious of our presence. Atthis place they were feeding almost exclusively upon the leaves of lowbushes and the new grass which had sprung up where the slopes had beenpartly burned over. We found them browsing from daylight until about nineo'clock, and from four in the afternoon until dark. They would move slowlyamong the bushes, picking off the new leaves, and usually about the middleof the morning would choose a place where the sun beat in warmly upon therocks, and go to sleep. Strangely enough they did not lie down on their sides, as do many hoofedanimals, but doubled their forelegs under them, stretched their necks andhind legs straight out, and rested on their bellies. It was a mostuncomfortable looking attitude, and the first time I saw an animal restingthus I thought it had been wounded, but both Mr. Heller and myself saw themrepeatedly at other times, and realized that this was their naturalposition when asleep. When frightened, like our own mountain sheep or goats, they would run ashort distance and stop to look back. This was usually their undoing, forthey offered excellent targets as they stood silhouetted against the sky. They were very difficult to see when lying down among the rocks, but ournative hunters, who had most extraordinary eyesight, often would discoverthem when it was almost impossible for me to find them even with the fieldglasses. We never could be sure that there were no gorals on amountainside, for they were adepts at hiding, and made use of a bunch ofgrass or the smallest crevice in a rock to conceal themselves, and did itso completely that they seemed to have vanished from the earth. Like all sheep and goats, they could climb about where it seemed impossiblefor any animal to move. I have seen a goral run down the face of a cliffwhich appeared to be almost perpendicular, and where the dogs dared notventure. As the animal landed on a projecting rock it would bounce off asthough made of rubber, and leap eight or ten feet to a narrow ledge whichdid not seem large enough to support a rabbit. The ability to travel down such precipitous cliffs is largely due to theanimal's foot structure. Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn has investigatedthis matter in the mountain goat and as his remarks apply almost equallywell to the goral, I cannot do better than quote them here: The horny part of the foot surrounds only the extreme front. Behind this crescentic horn is a shallow concavity which gives the horny hoof a chance to get its hold. Both the main digits and the dewclaws terminate in black, rubber-like, rounded and expanded soles, which are of great service in securing a firm footing on the shelving rocks and narrow ledges on which the animal travels with such ease. This sole, Smith states, softens in the spring of the year, when the snow is leaving the ground, a fresh layer of the integument taking its place. The rubber-like balls with which the dewclaws are provided are by no means useless; they project back below the horny part of the hoof, and Mr. Smith has actually observed the young captive goats supporting themselves solely on their dewclaws on the edge of a roof. It is probable that they are similarly used on the rocks and precipices, since on a very narrow ledge they would serve favorably to alter the center of gravity by enabling the limb to be extended somewhat farther forward. [Footnote: "Mountain Goat Hunting with the Camera, " by Henry Fairfield Osborn. Reprinted from the tenth _Annual Report of the New York Zoölogical Society_, 1906, pp. 13-14. ] There were certain trails leading over the hill slopes at Hui-yao which thegorals must have used continually, judging by the way in which these wereworn. We also found much sign beneath overhanging rocks and on projectingledges to indicate that these were definite resorts for numbers of theanimals. Many which we saw were young or of varying ages running with theherds, and it was interesting to see how perfectly they had mastered theart of self-concealment even when hardly a year old. Although at Hui-yaoalmost all were on the east side of the river, they did not seem to beespecially averse to water, and several times I watched wounded animalsswim across the stream. Gorals are splendid game animals, for the plucky little brutes inspire thesportsman with admiration, besides leading him over peaks which try hisnerve to the utmost, and I number among the happiest hours of my life thewonderful hunts in Yün-nan, far above the clouds, at the edge of the snow. CHAPTER XVIII THE "WHITE WATER" _Y. B. A. _ October had slipped into November when we left the temple and shifted campto the other side of the Snow Mountain at the "White Water. " It was abrilliant day and the ride up the valley could not have been morebeautiful. Crossing the _gangheisa_ or "dry sea, " a great grassy plainwhich was evidently a dry lake basin, we followed the trail into the forestand down the side of a deep cañon to a mountain stream where the watersspread themselves in a thin, green veil over a bed of white stones. We pitched our tents on a broad terrace beside the stream at the edge ofthe spruce forest. Above us towered the highest peak of the mountain, witha glacier nestling in a basin near its summit, and the snow-covered slopesextending in a glorious shining crescent about our camp. The moon was full, and each night as we sat at dinner before the fire, the ragged peaks turnedcrimson in the afterglow of the sun, and changed to purest silver at thetouch of the white moonlight. We have had many camps in many lands but nonemore beautiful than the one at the "White Water. " The weather was perfect. Every day the sun shone in a cloudless blue skyand in the morning the ground was frozen hard and covered with snowlikefrost, but the air was marvelously stimulating. We felt that we could behappy at the "White Water" forever, but it did not prove to be as good ahunting ground as that on the other side of the mountain. The Lolos killeda fine serow on the first day and Hotenfa brought in a young goral a shorttime later, but big game was by no means abundant. At the "White Water" weobtained our first Lady Amherst's pheasant (_Thaumalea amherstiae_) one ofthe most remarkable species of a family containing the most beautiful birdsof the world. The rainbow colored body and long tail of the male are mademore conspicuous by a broad white and green ruff about the neck. The firstbirds brought alive to England were two males which had been presented tothe Countess Amherst after whom the species was named. We found thispheasant inhabiting thick forests where it is by no means easy to discoveror shoot. It is fairly abundant in Yün-nan, Eastern Tibet and S'suchuan butits habits are not well known. Although the camp yielded several smallmammals new to our collection, we decided to go into Li-chiang to engage anew caravan for our trip across the Yangtze River while Heller remained incamp. The direct road to Li-chiang was considerably shorter than by way of theSnow Mountain village and at three o'clock in the afternoon our beloved"Temple of the Flowers" was visible on the hilltop overlooking the city. Aswe rode up the steep ascent we saw a picturesque gathering on the porch andheard the sound of many voices laughing and talking. The beautifulgarden-like courtyard was filled with women and children of every age anddescription, and all the doors from one side of the temple had beenremoved, leaving a large open space where huge caldrons were boiling andsteaming. We sat down irresolutely on the inner porch but the young priest wasdelighted to see us and insisted that we wait until Wu arrived. We wereglad that we did not seek other quarters for we were to witness aninteresting ceremony, which is most characteristic of Chinese life. Itseemed that about five years before a gentleman of Li-chiang had "shuffledoff this mortal coil. " His soul may have found rest, but "his mortal coil"certainly did not. Unfortunately his family inherited a few hundred dollarsseveral years later and the village "astrologer" informed them thataccording to the _feng-shui_, or omnipotent spirits of the earth, wind, andwater, the situation of the deceased gentleman's grave was ill-chosen andthat if they ever hoped to enjoy good fortune again they must dig him up, give the customary feast in his honor and have another burial site chosen. Every village has a "wise man" who is always called upon to select theresting place of the dead, his remuneration varying from two dollars to twothousand dollars according to the circumstances of the deceased'srelatives. The astrologer never will say definitely whether or not the spotwill prove a propitious one and if the family later sell any property, receive a legacy, or are known to have obtained money in other ways, theastrologer usually finds that the _feng-shui_ do not favor the originalplace and he will exact another fee for choosing a second grave. The dead are never buried until the astrologer has named an auspicious dayas well as an appropriate site, with the result that unburied coffins areto be seen in temples, under roadside shelters, in the fields and in theback yards of many houses. Any interference by foreigners with this custom is liable to bring aboutdire results as in the case of the rioting in Shanghai in 1898. A number ofFrench residents objected to a temple near by being used to store a scoreor more of bodies until a convenient time for burial and the result was thedeath of many people in the fighting which ensued. Mr. Tyler Dennet citesan amusing anecdote regarding the successful handling of the problem by anative mandarin in Yen-ping where we visited Mr. Caldwell: The doctor pointed out how dangerous to public health was the presence of these coffins in Yen-ping. The magistrate had a census taken of the coffins above ground in the city and found that they actually numbered sixteen thousand. The city itself is estimated to have only about twenty thousand inhabitants. It was a difficult problem for the magistrate. He might easily move in such a way as to bring the whole city down about his head. But the Chinese are clever in such situations, perhaps the cleverest people on earth. He finally devised a way out. A proclamation was issued levying a tax of fifty cents on every unburied coffin. The Chinese may be superstitious, but they are even more thrifty. For a few weeks Yen-ping devoted itself to funerals, a thousand a week, and now this little city, one of the most isolated in China, can truly be said to be on the road to health. [Footnote: "Doctoring China, " by Tyler Dennet, _Asia_, February, 1918, p. 114. ] There are very few such progressive cities in China, however, and amissionary told us that recently a young child and his grandfather wereburied on the same day although their deaths had been nearly fifty yearsapart. The funeral rites are in themselves fairly simple, but it is thegreat ambition of every Chinese to have his resting place as near aspossible to those of his ancestors. That is one of the reasons why they areso loath to emigrate. We often passed eight or ten coolies staggering under the load of a heavycoffin, transporting a body sometimes a month's journey or more to bury itat the dead man's birthplace. A rooster usually would be fastened to thecoffin for, according to the Yün-nan superstition, the spirit of the manenters the bird and is conveyed by it to his home. There is a strange absence of the fear of death among the Chinese. Oneoften sees large planks of wood stored in a corner of a house and one istold that these are destined to become the coffins of the man's father ormother, even though his parents may at the time be enjoying the most robusthealth. Indeed, among the poorer classes, a coffin is considered a mostfitting gift for a son to present to his father. We established our camp on the porch of the temple at Li-chiang and fromits vantage point could watch the festivities going on about us. Thefeasting continued until after dark and at daylight the kettles were againsteaming to prepare for the second day's celebration. By ten o'clock the court was crowded and a hour later there came a partialstillness which was broken by a sudden burst of music (?) from Chineseviolins and pipes. Going outside we found most of the guests standing aboutan improvised altar. The foot of the coffin was just visible in the midstof the paper decorations and in front of it were set half a dozen dishes oftempting food. These were meant as an offering to the spirit of thedeparted one, but we knew this would not prevent the sorrowing relativesfrom eating the food with much relish later on. In a few moments a group of women approached, supporting a figure clothedin white with a hood drawn over her face. She was bent nearly to the groundand muffled shrieks and wails came from the depths of her veil as sheprostrated herself in front of the altar. For more than an hour this chiefmourner, the wife of the deceased, lay on her face, her whole figureshaking with what seemed the most uncontrollable anguish. This same lady, however, moved about later among her guests an amiable hostess, withbeaming countenance, the gayest of the gay. But every morning while thefestivities lasted, promptly at eleven o'clock she would prostrate herselfbefore the coffin and display heartrending grief in the presence of theunmoved spectators in order to satisfy the demands of "custom. " Custom and precedent have grown to be divinities with the Chinese, and sucha display of feigned emotion is required on certain prescribed occasions. As one missionary aptly described it "the Chinese are all face and noheart. " Mr. Caldwell told us that one night while passing down a desertedstreet in a Chinese village he was startled to hear the most piercingshrieks issuing from a house nearby. Thinking someone was being murdered, he rushed through the courtyard only to find that a girl who was to bemarried the following day, according to Chinese custom, was displaying themost desperate anguish at the prospect of leaving her family, even thoughshe probably was enchanted with the idea. On the third day of the celebration in the temple at Li-chiang the feastingended in a burst of splendor. From one o'clock until far past sundown thefriends and relatives of the departed one were fed. Any person couldreceive an invitation by bringing a small present, even if it were only abowl of rice or a few hundred cash (ten or fifteen cents). All during the morning girls and women flocked up the hill with trays ofgifts. There were many Mosos and other tribesmen among them as well asChinese. The Moso girls wore their black hair cut short on the sides andhanging in long narrow plaits down their backs. They wore white leathercapes (at least that was the original shade) and pretty ornaments of silverand coral at their throats, and as they were young and gay with glowing redcheeks and laughing eyes they were decidedly attractive. The guests wereseated in groups of six on the stones of the temple courtyard. Small boysacted as waiters, passing about steaming bowls of vegetables and huge strawplatters heaped high with rice. As soon as each guest had stuffed himselfto satisfaction he relinquished his place to someone else and the food waspassed again. We were frequently pressed to eat with them and in theevening when the last guest had departed the "chief mourner" brought ussome delicious fruit candied in black sugar. She told Wu that they had fedthree hundred people during the day and we could well believe it. The nextmorning the coffin was carried down the hill to the accompaniment ofanguished wails and we were left once more to the peace and quiet of ourbeautiful temple courtyard. Sometimes a family will plunge itself into debt for generations to come toprovide a suitable funeral for one of its members, because to bury the deadwithout the proper display would not only be to "lose face" but subjectthem to the possible persecution of the angered spirits. This is only oneof the pernicious results of ancestor worship and it is safe to say thatmost of the evils in China's social order today can be traced, directly orindirectly, to this unfortunate practice. A man's chief concern is to leave male descendants to worship at his graveand appease his spirit. The more sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons whowalk in his funeral procession, the more he is to be envied. As amissionary humorously says "the only law of God that ever has been obeyedin China is to be fruitful and multiply. " Craving for progeny has broughtinto existence thousands upon thousands of human beings who exist on thevery brink of starvation. Nowhere in the civilized world is there a moresordid and desperate struggle to maintain life or a more hopeless poverty. But fear and self-love oblige them to continue their blind breeding. Theapparent atrophy of the entire race is due to ancestor worship which bindsit with chains of iron to its dead and to its past, and not until thesebonds are severed can China expect to take her place among the progressivenations of the earth. CHAPTER XIX ACROSS THE YANGTZE GORGE In mid-November we left the White Water with a caravan of twenty-six mulesand horses. Following the road from Li-chiang to the Yangtze, we crossedthe "Black Water" and climbed steadily upward over several tremendouswooded ridges, each higher than the last, to the summit of the divide. The descent was gradual through a magnificent pine and spruce forest. Someof the trees were at least one hundred and fifty feet high, and were drapedwith beautiful gray moss which had looped itself from branch to branch andhung suspended in delicate streamers yards in length. The forest was chokedwith underbrush and a dense growth of dwarf bamboo, and the hundreds offallen logs, carpeted with bronze moss, made ideal conditions for smallmammal collecting. However, as all the species would probably be similar tothose we had obtained on the Snow Mountain, we did not feel that it wasworth while stopping to trap. At four-thirty in the afternoon we camped upon a beautiful hill in a pineforest which was absolutely devoid of underbrush, and where the floor wasthinly overlaid with brown pine needles. Although the Moso hunter, whoacted as our guide, assured us that the river was only three miles away, itproved to be more than fifteen, and we did not reach the ferry until halfpast one the next afternoon. We were continually annoyed, as every traveler in China is, by theinaccuracy of the natives, and especially of the Chinese. Their ideas ofdistance are most extraordinary. One may ask a Chinaman how far it is to acertain village and he will blandly reply, "Fifteen _li_ to go, but thirty_li_ when you come back. " After a short experience one learns how tointerpret such an answer, for it means that when going the road is downhill and that the return uphill will require double the time. Caravans are supposed to travel ten _li_ an hour, although they seldom domore than eight, and all calculations of distance are based upon time sofar as the _mafus_ are concerned. If the day's march is eight hours youinvariably will be informed that the distance is eighty _li_, although inreality it may not be half as great. In "Chinese Characteristics, " Dr. Arthur H. Smith gives many illuminatingobservations on the inaccuracy of the Chinese. In regard to distance hesays: It is always necessary in land travel to ascertain, when the distance is given in "miles" (_li_), whether the "miles" are "large" or not! That there is _some_ basis for estimates of distances we do not deny, but what we do deny is that these estimates or measurements are either accurate or uniform. It is, so far as we know, a universal experience that the moment one leaves a great imperial highway the "miles" become "long. " If 120 _li_ constitute a fair day's journey on the main road, then on country roads it will take fully as long to go 100 _li_, and in the mountains the whole day will be spent in getting over 80 _li_ (p. 51). In like manner, a farmer who is asked the weight of one of his oxen gives a figure which seems much too low, until he explains that he has omitted to estimate the bones! A servant who was asked his height mentioned a measure which was ridiculously inadequate to cover his length, and upon being questioned admitted that he had left out of account all above his shoulders! He had once been a soldier, where the height of the men's clavicle is important in assigning the carrying of burdens. And since a Chinese soldier is to all practical purposes complete without his head, this was omitted. Of a different sort was the measurement of a rustic who affirmed that he lived "ninety _li_ from the city, " but upon cross-examination he consented to an abatement, as this was reckoning both to the city and back, the real distance being as he admitted, only "forty-five _li_ one way!" (p. 49) . . . The habit of reckoning by "tens" is deep-seated, and leads to much vagueness. A few people are "ten or twenty, " a "few tens, " or perhaps "ever so many tens, " and a strictly accurate enumeration is one of the rarest of experiences in China. . . . An acquaintance told the writer that two men had spent "200 strings of cash" on a theatrical exhibition, adding a moment later, "It was 173 strings, but that is the same as 200--is it not?" (p. 54). A man who wished advice in a lawsuit told the writer that he himself "lived" in a particular village, though it was obvious from his narrative that his abode was in the suburbs of a city. Upon inquiry, he admitted that he did not _now_ live in the village, and further investigation revealed the fact that the removal took place nineteen generations ago! "But do you not almost consider yourself a resident of the city now?" he was asked. "Yes, " he replied simply, "we do live there now, but the old root is in that village. " . . . The whole Chinese system of thinking is based on a line of assumptions different from those to which we are accustomed, and they can ill comprehend the mania which seems to possess the Occidental to ascertain everything with unerring exactness. The Chinese does not know how many families there are in his native village, and he does not wish to know. What any human being can want to know this number for is to him an insoluble riddle. It is "a few hundred, " "several hundreds, " or "not a few, " but a fixed and definite number it never was and never will be. (p. 55. ) After breaking camp on the day following our departure from the "WhiteWater" we rode along a broad trail through a beautiful pine forest and inthe late morning stood on an open summit gazing on one of the mostimpressive sights which China has to offer. At the left, and a thousandfeet below, the mighty Yangtze has broken through the mountains in a gorgealmost a mile deep; a gorge which seems to have been carved out of thesolid rock, sharp and clean, with a giant's knife. A few miles to the rightthe mountains widen, leaving a flat plain two hundred feet above the river. Every inch of it, as well as the finger-like valleys which stretch upwardbetween the hills, is under cultivation, giving support for three villages, the largest of which is Taku. The ferry is in a bad place but it is the only spot for miles where theriver can be crossed. The south bank is so precipitous that the trail fromthe plain twists and turns like a snake before it emerges upon a narrowsand and gravel beach. The opposite side of the river is a vertical wall ofrock which slopes back a little at the lower end to form a steep hillsidecovered with short grass. The landing place is a mass of jagged rocksfronting a small patch of still water and the trail up the face of thecliff is so steep that it cannot be climbed by any loaded animal; thereforeall the packs must be unstrapped and laboriously carted up the slope on thebacks of the _mafus_. At two-thirty in the afternoon we were loading the boat, which carried onlytwo animals and their packs, for the first trip across the river. It wasdifficult to get the mules aboard for they had to be whipped, shoved andactually lifted bodily into the dory. One of the ferrymen first drew thecraft along the rocks by a long rope, then climbed up the face of whatappeared to be an absolutely flat wall, and after pulling the boat closebeneath him, slid down into it. In this way the dory was worked well upstream and when pushed into the swift current was rowed diagonally to theother side. After four loads had been taken over, the boatmen decided to stop workalthough there was yet more than an hour of daylight and they could not bepersuaded to cross again by either threats or coaxing. It was anuncomfortable situation but there was nothing to do but camp where we wereeven though the greater part of our baggage was on the other side, withonly the _mafus_ to guard it, and therefore open to robbery. About a third of a mile from the ferry we found a sandy cornfield on alevel shelf just above the water, and pitched our tents. A slight wind wasblowing and before long we had sand in our shoes, sand in our beds, sand inour clothes, and we were eating sand. Heller went down the river with a bagof traps while we set forty on the hills above camp, and after a supper ofgoral steak, which did much to allay the irritation of the day, we crawledinto our sandy beds. At daylight Hotenfa visited the ferry and reported that the loads were safebut that one of the boatmen had gone to the village and no one knew when hewould return. We went to the river with Wu as soon as breakfast was overand spent an aggravating hour trying by alternate threats and cajoling topersuade the remaining ferryman to cross the river to us. But it wasuseless, for the louder I swore the more frightened he became and hefinally retired into a rock cave from which the _mafus_ had to drag him outbodily and drive him into the boat. The second boatman ambled slowly in about ten o'clock and we felt likebeating them both, but Wu impressed upon us the necessity for patience ifwe ever expected to get our caravan across and we swallowed our wrath;nevertheless, we decided not to leave until the loads and mules were on theother side, and we ate a cold tiffin while sitting on the sand. Heller employed his time by skinning the twenty small mammals (one of whichwas a new rat) that our traps had yielded. We took a good many photographsand several rolls of "movie" film showing the efforts of the _mafus_ to getthe mules aboard. Some of them went in quietly enough but others absolutelyrefused to step into the boat. One of the _mafus_ would pull, another push, a third twist the animal's tail and a fourth lift its feet singly over theside. With the accompaniment of yells, kicks, and Chinese oaths theperformance was picturesque to say the least. By five o'clock the entire caravan had been taken across the racing greenwater and we had some time before dark in which to investigate the cavernswith which the cliffs above the river are honeycombed. They were of twokinds, gold quarries and dwelling caves. The latter consist of a longcentral shaft, just high enough to allow a man to stand erect; this widensinto a circular room. Along the sides of the corridor shallow nests havebeen scooped out to serve as beds and all the cooking is done not far fromthe door. The caves, although almost dark, make fairly comfortable livingquarters and are by no means as dirty or as evil smelling as the ordinarynative house. The mines are straight shafts dug into the cliffs where therock is quarried and crushed by hand. CHAPTER XX THROUGH UNMAPPED COUNTRY We left the Taku ferry by way of a steep trail through an open pine andspruce forest along the rim of the Yangtze gorge where the view wasmagnificent. Someone has said that when a tourist sees the Grand Cañon forthe first time he gasps "Indescribable" and then immediately begins todescribe it. Thus it was with us, but no words can picture the grandeur ofthis titanic chasm. In places the rocks were painted in delicate tints ofblue and purple; in others, the sides fell away in sheer drops of hundredsof feet to the green torrent below rushing on to the sea two thousand fivehundred miles away. The caravan wound along the edge of the gorge all day and we were left farbehind, for at each turn a view more beautiful than the last opened outbefore us, and until every color plate and negative in the holders had beenexposed we worked steadily with the camera. We were traveling northwestward through an unmapped region which BaronHaendel-Mazzetti had skirted and reported to be one of vast forests andprobably rich in game. After six hours of riding over almost baremountain-sides we passed through a parklike spruce forest and reachedHabala, a long thin village of mud and stone houses scattered up the sidesof a narrow valley. Above and to the left of the village rose ridge after ridge of dense spruceforest overshadowed by a snow-crowned peak and cut by deep ravines, thegloomy depths of which yielded fascinating glimpses of rocky cliffs--averitable paradise for serow and goral. Our camping place was a grassy lawnas flat and smooth as the putting green of a golf course. Just below thetents a streamlet of ice-cold water murmured comfortably to itself and ahuge dead tree was lying crushed and broken for the camp fire. The boys turned the beautiful spot into "home" in half an hour and, aftersetting a line of traps, we wandered slowly back through the darknessguided by the brilliant flames of the fires which threw a warm yellow glowover our little table spread for dinner. We sent men to the village to bring in hunters and after dinner four orfive picturesque Mosos appeared. They said that there were many serow, goral, muntjac and some wapiti in the forests above the village, and wecould well believe it, for there was never a more "likely looking" spot. Although the men did not claim to be professional hunters, neverthelessthey said that they had good dogs and had killed many muntjac and otheranimals. They agreed to come at daylight and arrived about two hours late, which wasdoing fairly well for natives. It was a brilliant day just warm enough forcomfort in the sun and we left camp with high hopes. However it did nottake many hours to demonstrate that the men knew almost nothing abouthunting and that their dogs were useless. Because of the dense cover "stillhunting" was out of the question and, after a hard climb, we returned tocamp to spend the remainder of the afternoon developing photographs andpreparing small mammals. Our traps had yielded three new shrews and a silver mole as well as anumber of mice, rats, and meadow voles of species identical with thosetaken on the Snow Mountain. It was evident, therefore, that the YangtzeRiver does not act as an effective barrier to the distribution of even thesmallest forms and that the region in which we were now working would notproduce a different fauna. This was an important discovery from thestandpoint of our distribution records but was also somewhat disappointing. The photographic work already had yielded excellent results. The Pagetcolor plates were especially beautiful and the fact that everything wasdeveloped in the field gave us an opportunity to check the quality of eachnegative. For this work the portable dark room was invaluable. It could be quicklyerected and suspended from a tree branch or the rafters of a temple andoffered an absolutely safe place in which to develop or load plates. Themoving-picture film required special treatment because of its size and weusually fastened in the servants' tent the red lining which had been madefor this purpose in New York. Even then the space was so cramped that wewere dead tired at the end of a few hours' work. One who sits comfortably in a theater or hall and sees moving-picture filmwhich has been obtained in such remote parts of the world does not realizethe difficulties in its preparation. The water for developing almostinvariably was dirty and in order to insure even a moderately clear film italways had to be strained. For washing the negative pailful after pailfulhad to be carried sometimes from a very long distance, and the film exposedfor hours to the carelessness or curiosity of the natives. In our crampedquarters perhaps a corner of the tent would be pushed open admitting astream of light; the electric flash lamp might refuse to work, leaving usin complete darkness to finish the developing "by guess and by gosh, " orany number of other accidents occur to ruin the film. At most we could notdevelop more than three hundred feet in an afternoon and we never breathedfreely until it finally was dried and safely stored away in the tin cans. We left Habala, on November 23, for a village called Phete where thenatives had assured us we would find good hunters with dogs. For almost theentire distance the road skirted the rim of the Yangtze gorge and there theview of the great chasm was even more magnificent than that we had left. While its sides are not fantastically sculptured and the colors are softerthan those of the Grand Cañon of the Colorado, nevertheless its grandeur ishardly less imposing and awe-inspiring. If Yün-nan is ever made accessibleby railroads this gorge should become a Mecca for tourists, for it iswithout doubt one of the most remarkable natural sights in the world. About two o'clock in the afternoon we saw three clusters of houses on atableland which juts into a chasm cut by a tributary of the great river. One of them was Phete and it seemed that we would reach the village in halfan hour at least, but the road wound so tortuously around the hillside, down to the stream and up again that it was an hour and a half before wefound a camping place on a narrow terrace a short distance from the nearesthouses. Next day we could not go to the village to find hunters until mid-forenoonbecause the natives of this region are very late risers and often have notyet opened their doors at ten o'clock. This is quite contrary to the customin many other parts of China where the inhabitants are about their work inthe first light of dawn. The hills above Phete are bare or thinly forested and every available inchof level ground is under cultivation with corn and a few rice paddys nearthe creek; the latter were a great surprise, for we had not expected tofind rice so far north. The village itself was exceedingly picturesque butnever have we met people of such utter and hopeless stupidity as itsinhabitants. They were pleasant enough and always greeted us with a smileand salutation, but their brains seemed not to have kept pace with theirbodies and when asked the simplest question they would only stare stupidlywithout the slightest glimmering of intelligence. It required an hour's questioning of a dozen or more people to glean thatthere were no hunters in the village where they had lived all their lives, but Wu, our interpreter, finally discovered a Chinese who told us of ahunter in the mountains. He asked how far and the answer was "Not veryfar. " "Well, is it ten _li_?" "I don't know how many _li_. " "Have you ever been there?" "Yes; it is only a few steps. " "How long will it take to get there?" "About the time of one meal. " We were not to be deceived, for we had had experience with native ideas ofdistance, and we ate our tiffin before starting out on the "few steps. " Asteep trail led up the valley and after three hours of steady riding wereached the hunter's village of three large houses on a flat strip ofcleared ground in the midst of a dense forest. The people looked much like those of Phete but were rather anemicspecimens, and five out of eight had enormous goiters. They wereexceedingly shy at first, watching us with side glances and through cracksin the wall. Wu learned that we were the first white persons they had everseen. I imagine that much of their unhealthiness was due to too closeintermarriage, for these families had little intercourse with the people inPhete who were only "a few steps" away. As we were leaving they began to eat their supper in the courtyard. Theprincipal dish consisted of mixed cornmeal and rice, boiled squash andgreen vegetables. All the women were busy husking corn which was hung todry on great racks about the house. These racks we had noticed in everyvillage since leaving Li-chiang and they seemed to be in universal use inthe north. The hunter had a flock of sheep and we purchased one for $4. 40 (Mexican)but there was considerable difficulty in paying for it since these peoplehad never seen Chinese money even though living in China itself. Forcurrency they used chunks of silver the size of a walnut and worth aboutone dollar (Mexican). The Chinese guide finally persuaded the people of thegenuineness of our money and we purchased a few eggs and a little verydelicious wild honey besides the sheep. These people as well as those ofPhete spoke the Li-chiang dialect but with such variation that even our_mafus_ could understand them only with the greatest difficulty. When we returned to camp we found that the coolie who had been engaged tocarry the motion-picture camera and tripod had left without the formalityof saying "good-by" or asking for the money which was due him. We had hadconsiderable trouble with the camera coolies since leaving Li-chiang. Thefirst one carried the camera to the Taku ferry with many groans, and thereengaged a huge Chinaman to take his place, for he thought the load tooheavy. It only weighed fifty pounds, and in the Fukien Province where menseldom carry less than eighty pounds and sometimes as much as one hundredand fifty, it would have been considered as only half a burden. In Yün-nan, however, animals do most of the pack carrying, and coolies protest at evenan ordinary load. We left Phete in the early morning and camped about five hundred feet abovethe hunter's cabin in a beautiful little meadow. It was surrounded withsplendid pine trees, and a clear spring bubbled up from a knoll in thecenter and spread fan-shaped in a dozen little streams over the edge of adeep ravine where a mountain torrent rushed through a tangled bamboojungle. The gigantic fallen trees were covered inches deep with green moss, and altogether it was an ideal spot for small mammals. Our traps, however, yielded no new species, although we secured dozens of specimens everynight. There were a few families of Lolos about two miles away and these wereengaged as hunters. They told us that serow and muntjac were abundant andthat wapiti were sometimes found on the mountains several miles to thenorthward. Although the men had a large pack of good dogs they were suchunsatisfactory hunters that we gave up in disgust after three days. Theynever would appear until ten or eleven o'clock in the morning when the sunhad so dried the leaves that the scent was lost and the dogs could notfollow a trail even if one were found. Moreover, the camp was a veryuncomfortable one, due to the wind which roared through the trees night andday. We were rejoined here by Hotenfa, who had left us at the Taku ferry to seeif he could get together a pack of dogs. He brought three hounds with himwhich he praised exuberantly, but we subsequently found that they did notjustify our hopes. Nevertheless, we were glad to have Hotenfa back, for hewas one of the most intelligent, faithful, and altogether charming nativeswhom we met in all Yün-nan. He was an uncouth savage when he first came tous, but in a very short time he had learned our camp ways and was as good aservant as any we had. CHAPTER XXI TRAVELING TOWARD TIBET Since the hunters at the "Windy Camp" had proved so worthless and the trapshad yielded no small mammals new to our collection, we decided to cross themountains toward the Chung-tien road which leads into Tibet. The head _mafu_ explored the trail and reported that it was impassable but, after an examination of some of the worst barriers, we decided that theycould be cleared away and ordered the caravan to start at half past sevenin the morning. Before long we found that the _mafus_ were right. The trail was a mass oftangled underbrush and fallen logs and led straight up a precipitousmountain through a veritable jungle of dwarf bamboo. It was necessary tostop every few yards to lift the loads over a barrier or cut a passagethrough the bamboo thickets, and had it not been for the adjustable packsaddles we never could have taken the caravan over the trail. Late in the afternoon the exhausted men and animals dragged themselves tothe summit of the mountain, for it was not a pass. In a few hours we hadcome from autumn to mid-winter where the ground was frozen and covered withsnow. We were at an altitude of more than 15, 000 feet and far above alltimber except the rhododendron forest which spread itself out in a low graymass along the ridges. It was difficult to make the slightest exertion inthe thin air and a bitterly cold wind swept across the peaks so that it wasimpossible to keep warm even when wrapped in our heaviest coats. The servants and _mafus_ suffered considerably but it was too late to go onand there was no alternative but to spend the night on the mountain. Assoon as the tents were up the men huddled disconsolately about the fire, but we started out with a bag of traps while Heller went in the oppositedirection. We expected to catch some new mammals during the night, forthere were great numbers of runways on the bare hillsides. The ground wasfrozen so solidly that it was necessary to cut into the little _Microtus_tunnels with a hatchet in order to set the traps and we were almost frozenbefore the work was completed. The next morning we had caught twentyspecimens of a new white-bellied meadow vole and a remarkable shrew with along curved proboscis. Everyone had spent an uncomfortable night, for it was bitterly cold even inour sleeping bags and the men had sat up about the fire in order to keepfrom freezing. There was little difficulty in getting the caravan startedin the gray light of early dawn and after descending abruptly four thousandfeet on a precipitous trail to a Lolo village strung out along a beautifullittle valley we were again in the pleasant warmth of late autumn. The natives here had never before seen a white person and in a few momentsour tents were surrounded by a crowd of strange-looking men and boys. Thechief of the village presented us with an enormous rooster and we made himhappy by returning two tins of cigarettes. The Lolo women, the first we hadseen, were especially surprising because of their graceful figures andhandsome faces. Their flat turbans, short jackets, and long skirts withhuge flounces gave them a rather old-fashioned aspect, quite out of harmonywith the metal neck-bands, earrings, and bracelets which they all wore. The men were exceedingly pleasant and made a picturesque group in theirgray and brown felt capes which they gather about the neck by a draw stringand, to the Lolos and Mosos alike, are both bed and clothing. We collectedall the men for their photographs, and although they had not the slightestidea what we were about they stood quietly after Hotenfa had assured themthat the strange-looking instrument would not go off. But most interestingof all was their astonishment when half an hour later they saw the negativeand were able to identify themselves upon it. The Lolos are apparently a much maligned race. They are exceedinglyindependent, and although along the frontier of their own territory inS'suchuan they wage a war of robbery and destruction it is not whollyunprovoked. No one can enter their country safely unless he is under theprotection of a chief who acts as a sponsor and passes him along to others. Mr. Brooke, an Englishman, was killed by the Lolos, but he was not properly"chaperoned, " and Major D'Ollone of the French expedition lived among themsafely for some time and gives them unstinted praise. Whenever we met tribesmen in Yün-nan who had not seen white persons theybehaved much like all other natives. They were, of course, always greatlyastonished to see our caravan descend upon them and were invariablyfascinated by our guns, tents, and in fact everything about us, but weregenerally shy and decidedly less offensive in their curiosity than theChinese of the larger inland towns to whom foreigners are by no meansunknown. As a matter of fact we have found that our white skins, lighteyes, and hair are a never failing source of interest and envy to almostall Orientals. Yvette usually excited the most curiosity, especially among the women, andas she wore knickerbockers and a flannel shirt there were times when thedetermination of her sex seemed to call forth the liveliest discussion. Herlong hair, however, usually settled the matter, and when the women haddecided the question of gender satisfactorily they often made timid, andmost amusing, advances. One woman said she greatly admired her faircomplexion and asked how many baths she took to keep her skin so white. Another wondered whether it was necessary to ever comb her hair and almosteveryone wished to feel her clothes and shoes. She always could commandmore attention than anyone else by her camera operations, and a group wouldstand in speechless amazement to see her dodge in and out of the portabledark room when she was developing photographs or loading plates. We made arrangements to go with a number of the Lolos to a spot fifteenmiles away on the Chung-tien road to hunt wapiti (probably _Cervusmacneilli_) which the natives call _maloo_. Our American wapiti, or elk, isa migrant from Asia by way of the Bering Strait and is probably a relativeof the wapiti which is found in Central Asia, China, Manchuria and Korea. At present these deer are abundant in but few places. Throughout theOrient, and especially in China, the growing horns when they are soft, orin the "velvet, " are considered of great medicinal value and, during thesummer, the animals are trapped and hunted relentlessly by the natives. InYün-nan, when we were there, a pair of horns were worth $100 (Mexican). Thanksgiving morning dawned gray and raw with occasional flurries ofhaillike snow, but we did not heed the cold, for the trail led over twohigh ridges and along the rim of a tremendous gorge. To the south the whitesummits of the Snow Mountain range towered majestically above thesurrounding peaks and, in the gray light, the colors were beautiful beyonddescription. To the north we could see heavily wooded mountain slopesinterspersed with open parklike meadows--splendid wapiti country. Our tents were pitched two hundred yards from the Chung-tien road justwithin the edge of a stately, moss-draped forest. That night we celebratedwith harmless bombs from the huge fires of bamboo stalks which exploded asthey filled with steam and echoed among the trees like pistol shots. MarcoPolo speaks of the same phenomenon which he first witnessed in this regionover six hundred and thirty years ago. About nine o'clock in the evening we ran our traps with a lantern andbesides several mice (_Apodemus_) found two rare shrews and a new mole(_Blarina_). I went out with the hunters at dawn but saw nothing except anold wapiti track and a little sign. All during the following day a densefog hung close to the ground so that it was impossible to hunt, and, on thenight of December 2, it snowed heavily. The morning began bright and clearbut clouded about ten o'clock and became so bitterly cold that the Loloswould not hunt. They really suffered considerably and that night they allleft us to return to their homes. We were greatly disappointed, for we hadbrilliant prospects of good wapiti shooting but without either men or dogsand in an unknown country there was little possibility of successful stillhunting. The _mafus_ were very much worried and refused to go further north. Theywere certain that we would not be able to cross the high passes which laybetween us and the Mekong valley far to the westward and complainedunceasingly about the freezing cold and the lack of food for their animals. It was necessary to visit the Mekong River, for even though it might not bea good big game region it would give us a cross-section, as it were, of thefauna and important data on the distribution of small mammals. Therefore wedecided to leave for the long ride as soon as the weather permitted. CHAPTER XXII STALKING TIBETANS WITH A CAMERA _Y. B. A. _ The road near which we were camped was one of the great trade routes intoTibet and over it caravans were continually passing laden with tea or pork. Many of them had traveled the entire length of Yün-nan to S'su-mao on theTonking frontier where a special kind of tea is grown, and were hurryingnorthward to cross the snow-covered passes which form the gateways to the"Forbidden Land. " The caravans sometimes stopped for luncheon or to spend the night near ourcamp. As the horses came up, one by one the loads were lifted off, theanimals turned loose, and after their dinner of buttered tea and _tsamba_[Footnote: _Tsamba_ is parched oats or barley, ground finely. ] each manstretched out upon the ground without shelter of any kind and heedless ofthe freezing cold. It is truly the life of primitive man and has bred ahardy, restless, independent race, content to wander over the boundlesssteppes and demanding from the outside world only to be let alone. They are picturesque, wild-looking fellows, and in their swinging walkthere is a care-free independence and an atmosphere of the bleak Tibetansteppes which are strangely fascinating. Every Tibetan is a study for anartist. He wears a fur cap and a long loose coat like a Russian blousethrown carelessly off one shoulder and tied about the waist, blue or redtrousers, and high boots of felt or skin reaching almost to the knees. Along sword, its hilt inlaid with bright-colored bits of glass or stones, ishalf concealed beneath his coat, and he is seldom without a gun or amurderous looking spear. In the breast of his loose coat, which acts as a pocket, he carries aremarkable assortment of things; a pipe, tobacco, tea, _tsamba_, cookingpots, a snuff box and, hanging down in front, a metal charm to protect himfrom bullets or sickness. The eastern Tibetans are men of splendid physique and great strength, andare frequently more than six feet in height. They have brick-redcomplexions and some are really handsome in a full-blooded masculine way. Their straight features suggest a strong mixture of other than Mongolianstock and they are the direct antithesis of the Chinese in everyparticular. Their strength and virility and the dashing swing of their walkare very refreshing after contact with the ease-loving, effeminate Chinamanwhom one sees being carried along the road sprawled in a mountain chair. Of all natives whom we tried to photograph the Tibetans were the mostdifficult. It was almost impossible to bribe them with money or tin cans tostand for a moment and when they saw the motion picture camera set upbeside the trail they would make long detours to avoid passing in front ofit. What we could not get by bribery we tried to do by stealth and concealedourselves behind bushes with the camera focused on a certain spot upon theroad. The instant a Tibetan discovered it he would run like a frighteneddeer and in some mysterious way they seemed to have passed the word alongthat our camp was a spot to be avoided. Sometimes a bottle was too great atemptation to be resisted, and one would stand timidly like a bird withwings half spread, only to dash away as though the devil were after him, when he saw my head disappear beneath the focusing hood. Wu and a _mafu_ who could speak a little Tibetan finally captured onepicturesque looking fellow. He carefully tucked the tin cans, given foradvance payment, inside his coat, and with a great show of bravery allowedme to place him where I wished. But the instant the motion picture cameraswung in his direction he dodged aside, and jumped behind it. Wu tried tohold him but the Tibetan drew his sword, waved it wildly about his head andtook to his heels, yelling at the top of his lungs. He was well-nighfrightened to death and when he disappeared from sight at a curve in theroad he was still "going strong" with his coat tails flapping like a sailin the wind. One caravan came suddenly upon the motion picture camera unawares. Therewere several women in the party and, as soon as the men realized that therewas no escape, each one dodged behind a woman, keeping her between him andthe camera. They were taking no chances with their precious selves, for thewomen could be replaced easily enough if necessary. The trouble is that the Tibetan not unnaturally has the greatest possiblesuspicion and dislike for strangers. The Chinese he loathes and despises, and foreigners he knows only too well are symptoms of missionaries andpunitive expeditions or other disturbances of his immemorial peace. He isconfirmed in his attitude by the Church which throughout Tibet has themonopoly of all the gold in the country. And the Church utterly declines tobelieve that any foreigner can come so far for any end less foolish thanthe discovery of gold and the infringing of the ecclesiastical monopoly. Major Davies, who saw much of the Yün-nan Tibetans, has remarked that it iscurious how little impression the civilization and customs of the Chinesehave produced on the Tibetans. Elsewhere, one of the principalcharacteristics of Chinese expansion is its power of absorbing other races, but with the Tibetans exactly the reverse takes place. The Chinese becomeTibetanized and the children of a Chinaman married to a Tibetan woman areusually brought up in the Tibetan customs. Probably the great cause which keeps the Tibetan from being absorbed is thecold, inhospitable nature of his country. There is little to tempt theChinese to emigrate into Tibet and consequently they never are there insufficient numbers to influence the Tibetans around them. A similar causehas preserved some of the low-lying Shan states from absorption, the heatin this case being the reason that the Chinese do not settle there. CHAPTER XXIII WESTWARD TO THE MEKONG RIVER During the night of December 4, there was a heavy fall of snow and in themorning we awoke to find ourselves in fairyland. We were living in a greatwhite palace, with ceiling and walls of filmy glittering webs. The long, delicate strands of gray moss which draped themselves from tree to tree andbranch to branch were each one converted into threads of crystal, forming afiligree lacework, infinitely beautiful. It was hard to break camp and leave that silver palace, for every vistathrough the forest seemed more lovely than the one before, but we knew thatanother fall of snow would block the passes and shut us out from the Mekongvalley. The _mafus_ even refused to try the direct route across themountains to Wei-hsi and insisted on going southward to the Shih-ku ferryand up the Yangtze River on the main caravan route. It was a long trip and we looked forward with no pleasure to eight days ofhard riding. The difficulty in obtaining hunters since leaving the SnowMountain had made our big game collecting negligible although we hadtraveled through some excellent country. The Mekong valley might not bebetter but it was an unknown quantity and, whether or not it yieldedspecimens, the results from a survey of the mammal distribution would benone the less important, and we felt that it must be done; otherwise weshould have turned our backs on the north and returned to Ta-li Fu. As we rode down the mountain trail we passed caravan after caravan ofTibetans with heavily loaded horses, all bound for that land of mysterybeyond the snow-capped barriers. Often we tried to stop some of thered-skinned natives and persuade them to pose for a color photograph, butusually they only shook their heads stubbornly and hurried past withaverted faces. We finally waylaid a Chinese and a Tibetan who were walkingtogether. The Chinaman was an amiable fellow and by giving each of them aglass jam tumbler they halted a moment. As soon as the photograph had beentaken the Chinese indicated that he expected us to produce one and wasthoroughly disgusted when we showed him that it was impossible. Repassing the Lolo village, we followed the river gorge at the upper end ofwhich Chung-tien is located and left the forests when we emerged on themain road. From the top of a ten thousand foot pass there was a magnificentview down the cañon to the snow-capped mountains, which were beautifulbeyond description in their changing colors of purple and gold. Just after leaving the pass we met a caravan of several hundred horses eachbearing two whole pigs bent double and tied to the saddles. The animals hadbeen denuded of hair, salted, and sewn up, and soon would be distributedamong the villages somewhere in the interior of Tibet. On the second day we saw before us seven snow-crowned peaks as sharp andregular as the teeth of a saw rising above the mouth of the stream where itspreads like a fan over a sandy delta and empties into the Yangtze. Herethe mighty river, flowing proudly southward from its home in the wind-blownsteppes of the "Forbidden Land, " countless ages ago found the great SnowMountain range barring its path. Thrust aside, it doubled back upon itselfalong the barrier's base, still restlessly seeking a passage through thewall of rock. Far to the north it bit hungrily into the mountain's sideagain, broke through, and swung south gathering strength and volume fromhundreds of tributaries as it rushed onward to the sea. For two days we rode along the river bank and crossed at the Shih-ku ferry. There was none of the difficulty here which we had experienced at Taku, forthe river is wide and the current slow. It required only two hours totransport our entire caravan while at the other ferry we had waited a dayand a half. Strangely enough, although there are dozens of villages alongthe Yangtze and the valley is highly cultivated, we saw no sign of fishing. Moreover, we passed but three boats and five or six rafts and it wasevident that this great waterway, which for fifteen hundred miles from itsmouth influences the trade of China so profoundly, is here used but littleby the natives. On the ride down the river we had good sport with the huge cranes (probably_Grus nigricollis_) which, in small flocks, were feeding along the riverfields. The birds stood about five feet high and we could see their greatblack and white bodies and black necks farther than a man was visible. Itwas fairly easy to stalk them to within a hundred yards, but even at thatdistance they offered a rather small target, for they were so largelywings, neck, legs, and tail. We were never within shotgun range and indeedit would be difficult to kill the birds with anything smaller than BB orbuckshot unless they were very near. Heller shot our first cranes with his . 250-. 300 Savage rifle. He stole uponfive which were feeding in a meadow and fired while two were "lined up. "One of the huge birds flapped about on the ground for a few moments and laystill, but the larger was only wing-tipped and started off at full speedacross the fields. Two _mafus_ left the caravan, yelling with excitement, and ran for nearly half a mile before they overtook the bird. Then theywere kept at bay for fifteen minutes by its long beak which is a reallyformidable weapon. As food the cranes were perfectly delicious when stuffedwith chestnut dressing and roasted. Each one provided two meals for threeof us with enough left over for hash and our appetites were by no meansbirdlike. Although the natives attempt to kill cranes they are not often successful, for the birds are very watchful and will not allow a man within a hundredyards. Such a distance for primitive guns or crossbows might as well be ahundred miles, but with our high-power rifles we were able to shoot as manyas were needed for food. The birds almost invariably followed the river when flying and fed in therice, barley, and corn fields not far from the water. It was an inspiringsight to see a flock of the huge birds run for a few steps along the groundand then launch themselves into the air, their black and white wingsflashing in the sunlight. They formed into orderly ranks like a company ofsoldiers or strung out in a long thin line across the sky. When we disturbed a flock from especially desirable feeding grounds theywould sometimes whirl and circle above the fields, ascending higher andhigher in great spirals until they were lost to sight, their musical voicescoming faintly down to us like the distant shouts of happy children. When we returned to Ta-li Fu in early January, cranes were very abundant inthe fields about the lake. They had arrived in late October and woulddepart in early spring, according to Mr. Evans. We often saw the birds onsand banks along the Yangtze, but they were usually resting or quietlywalking about and were not feeding; apparently they eat only rice, barley, corn, or other grain. This species was discovered by the great traveler and naturalist, Lieutenant Colonel Prjevalsky, who found it in the Koko-nor region ofTibet, and it was later recorded by Prince Henri d'Orleans from Tsang inthe Tibetan highlands. Apparently specimens from Yün-nan have not beenpreserved in museums and the bird was not known to occur in this portion ofChina. Along the Yangtze on our way westward we shot a good many mallard ducks(_Anas boscas_) and ruddy sheldrakes (_Casarca casarca_); the latter areuniversally known as "brahminy ducks" by the foreigners in Burma andYün-nan, but they are not true ducks. The name is derived from the bird'sbeautiful buff and rufous color which is somewhat like that of the robesworn by the Brahmin priests. In America the name "sheldrake" is appliederroneously to the fish-eating mergansers, and much confusion has thusarisen, for the two are quite unrelated and belong to perfectly distinctgroups. The mergansers have narrow, hooked, saw-toothed beaks quite unlikethose of the sheldrakes, and their habits are entirely dissimilar. The brahminy ducks, although rather tough, are not bad eating. We usuallyfound them feeding in fields not far from the river or in flooded ricedykes, and very often sitting in pairs on the sand banks near the water. They have a bisyllabic rather plaintive note which is peculiarlyfascinating to me and, like the honk of the Canada goose, awakens memoriesof sodden, wind-blown marshes, bobbing decoys, and a leaden sky shotthrough with V-shaped lines of flying birds. Mallards were frequently to be found with the sheldrakes, and we had goodshooting along the river and in ponds and rice fields. We also saw a fewteal but they were by no means abundant. Pheasants were scarce. We shot afew along the road and near some of our camps, but we found no place inYün-nan where one could have even a fair day's shooting without the aid ofa good dog. This is strikingly different from Korea where in a walk overthe hillsides a dozen or more pheasants can be flushed within an hour. After two and one-half days' travel up the Yangtze we turned westwardtoward Wei-hsi and camped on a beautiful flat plain beside a tree-borderedstream. It was a cold clear night and after dinner and a smoke about thefire we all turned in. Both of us were asleep when suddenly a perfect bedlam of angry exclamationsand Chinese curses roused the whole camp. In a few moments Wu came to ourtent, almost speechless with rage and stammered, "Damn fool soldiers cometry to take our horses; say if _mafu_ no give them horses they untie loads. Shall I tell _mafu_ break their heads?" We did not entirely understand thesituation but it seemed quite proper to give the _mafus_ permission to dothe head-breaking, and they went at it with a will. After a volley ofblows, there was a scamper of feet on the frozen ground and the soldiersretired considerably the worse for wear. When the battle was over, Wu explained matters more fully. It appearedthat a large detachment of soldiers had recently passed up this road toA-tun-tzu and four or five had remained behind to attend to the transportof certain supplies. Seeing an opportunity for "graft" the soldiers werestopping every caravan which passed and threatening to commandeer it unlessthe _mafus_ gave a sufficient bribe to buy their immunity. Our _mafus_, with the protection which foreigners gave them, had paid off a few oldscores with interest. That they had neglected no part of the reckoning wasquite evident when next morning two of the soldiers came to apologize fortheir "mistake. " One of them had a black and swollen eye and the other wasnursing a deep cut on his forehead; they were exceedingly humble and didnot venture into camp until they had been assured that we would not againloose our terrible _mafus_ upon them. Such extortions are every day occurrences in many parts of China and it islittle wonder that the military is cordially hated and feared by thepeasants. The soldiers, taking advantage of their uniform, oppress thevillagers in numberless ways from which there is no redress. If a complaintis made a dozen soldiers stand ready to swear that the offense wasjustified or was never committed, and the poor farmer is lucky if heescapes without a beating or some more severe punishment. It is a disgraceto China that such conditions are allowed to exist, and it is to be hopedthat ere many years have passed the country will awake to a properrecognition of the rights of the individual. Until she does there never canbe a national spirit of patriotism in China and without patriotism theRepublic can be one in name only. CHAPTER XXIV DOWN THE MEKONG VALLEY On December 11, we had tiffin on the summit of a twelve thousand foot passin a beautiful snow-covered meadow, from which we could see the glisteningpeaks of the vast mountain range which forms the Mekong-Salween divide. Inthe afternoon we reached Wei-hsi and camped in a grove of splendid pinetrees on a hill overlooking the city. The place was rather disappointingafter Li-chiang. The shops were poor and it was difficult to buy rice eventhough the entire valley was devoted to paddy fields, but we did getquantities of delicious persimmons. Wu told us that seven different languages were spoken in the city, and wecould well believe it, for we recognized Mosos, Lolos, Chinese, andTibetans. This region is nearly the extreme western limit of the Moso tribewhich appears not to extend across the Mekong River. The mandarin at Wei-hsi received us hospitably and proved to be one of themost courteous officials whom we met in Yün-nan. We were sorry to learnthat he was killed in a horrible way only a few weeks after our visit. Trouble arose with the peasants over the tax on salt and fifteen hundredrebelled, attacked the city, and captured it after a sharp fight. It wasreported that they immediately beheaded the mandarin's wives and children, and boiled him alive in oil. Although the magistrate offered to assist us in every way we could obtainno information concerning either hunting grounds or routes of travel. Theflying squirrels which we had hoped to find near the city were reported tocome from a mountain range beyond the Mekong in Burma, and Wei-hsi wasmerely a center of distribution for the skins. Moreover, the natives saidit would be impossible to obtain squirrels at that time of the year, forthe mountain passes were so heavily covered with snow that neither men norcaravans could cross them. It was desirable, however, to descend to the Mekong River in order todetermine whether there would be a change in fauna, and on Major Davies'map a small road was marked down the valley. A stiff climb of a day and ahalf over a thickly forested mountain ridge, frozen and snow-covered, brought us in sight of the green waters of the Mekong which has carved agorge for itself in an almost straight line from the bleak Tibetan plateausthrough Yün-nan and Indo-China to the sea. Our second camp was on the river at the mouth of a deep valley, near asmall village. Wu said that the natives were Lutzus and I was inclined tobelieve he was right, although Major Davies indicates this region to beinhabited by Lisos. At any rate these people both in physical appearanceand dress were quite distinct from the Lisos whom we met later. They were exceedingly pleasant and friendly and the chief, accompanied byfour venerable men, brought a present of rice. I gave him two tins ofcigarettes and the natives returned to the village wreathed in smiles. The garments of the Lutzus were characteristic and quite unlike those ofthe Mosos, Lisos or Tibetans. The women wore a long coat or jacket of bluecloth, trousers, and a very full pleated skirt. The men were dressed inplum colored coats and trousers. The natives said that monkeys (probably _Pygathrix_) were often seen whenthe corn was ripe and that even yet they might be found in the forestacross the river. Heller spent a day hunting them, but found none and weobtained only one new mammal in our traps. It was a tiny mouse (_Micromys_)but the remainder of the fauna was essentially the same as that of theYangtze valley and the intervening country. For three days we traveled down the Mekong River. Although the natives saidthat the trail was good, we discovered when it was too late that it was toonarrow and difficult to make it practicable for a caravan such as ours. Itwas necessary to continually remove the loads in order to lift them aroundsharp corners or over rocks, and the _mafus_ sometimes had to cut awaygreat sections of the bank. Usually only six or seven miles could betraversed after eight or nine hours of exhausting work, and we were gladwhen we could leave the river. The Mekong, on an average, is not more than a hundred yards wide in thisregion and, like the Yangtze, the water is very green from the Tibetansnows. The prevailing rock is red slate or sandstone instead of limestone, as in the country to the eastward, and the sides of the valley are soprecipitous that it seems impossible for a human being to walk over them, and yet they are patched with brown corn fields from the summit to thewater. Considering the small area available for cultivation there are aconsiderable number of inhabitants, who have gathered into villages andseldom live in isolated houses as in the Yangtze valley. Wherever a streamcomes down from the mountain-side or can be diverted by irrigating ditches, the ground is beautifully terraced for rice paddys, but in other places, corn and peas appear to be the principal crops. Very few vegetables, suchas turnips, squash, carrots or potatoes are raised, which is ratherremarkable, as they are so abundant in all the country between the Mekongand the Yangtze rivers. In several places the water was spanned by ropebridges. The cables are made of twisted bamboo, and as one end mustnecessarily be higher than the other, there are always two ropes, one tocross each way. The traveler is tied by leather thongs in a sittingposition to a wooden "runner" which slides along the bamboo cable andshoots across the river at tremendous speed. The valley is hopeless from a zoölogical standpoint. It is too dry forsmall mammals and the mountain slopes are so precipitous, thinly forested, and generally undesirable, that, except for gorals, no other large gamewould live there. The bird life is decidedly uninteresting. There are nocranes or sheldrakes and, except for a few flocks of mallards which feed inthe rice fields, we saw no other ducks or geese. On December 20, we turned away from the Mekong valley and began to marchsoutheast by east across an unmapped region toward Ta-li Fu. We camped atnight on a pretty ridge thickly covered with spruce trees just above a deepmoist ravine. In the morning our traps contained several rare shrews, fivesilver moles, a number of interesting mice, and a beautiful rufous spinyrat. It was too good a place to leave and I sent Hotenfa to inquire from afamily of natives if there was big game of any sort in the vicinity. Hereported that there were goral not far away, and at half past eight we rodedown the trail for three miles when I left my horse at a peasant's house. They told us that the goral were on a rocky, thinly forested mountain whichrose two thousand feet above the valley, and for an hour and a half weclimbed steadily upward. We were resting near the summit on the rim of a deep cañon when Hotenfaexcitedly whispered, "_gnai-yang_" and held up three fingers. He tried toshow the animals to me and at last I caught sight of what I thought was agoral standing on a narrow ledge. I fired and a bit of rock flew into theair while the three gorals disappeared among the trees two hundred feetabove the spot where I had supposed them to be. I was utterly disgusted at my mistake but we started on a run for the otherside of the gorge. When we arrived, Hotenfa motioned me to swing about tothe right while he climbed along the face of the rock wall. No sooner hadhe reached the edge of the precipice than I saw him lean far out, fire withmy three-barrel gun, and frantically wave for me to come. I ran to him and, throwing my arms about a projecting shrub, looked down. There directlyunder us stood a huge goral, but just as I was about to shoot, the earthgave way beneath my feet and I would have fallen squarely on the animal hadHotenfa not seized me by the collar and drawn me back to safety. The goral had not discovered where the shower of dirt and stones came frombefore I fired hurriedly, breaking his fore leg at the knee. Without theslightest sign of injury the ram disappeared behind a corner of the rock. Idashed to the top of the ridge in time to see him running at full speedacross a narrow open ledge toward a thick mass of cover on the oppositeside of the cañon. I fired just as the animal gained the trees and, at thecrash of my rifle, the goral plunged headlong down the mountain, stonedead. It fell on a narrow slide of loose rock which led nearly to the bottom ofthe valley and, slipping and rolling in a cloud of red dust, dropped over aprecipice. The ram brought up against an unstable boulder five hundred feetbelow us, and it required half an hour's hard work to reach the spot. When I finally lifted its head one of the horns which had been broken inthe fall slipped through my fingers, and away went the goral on anotherrough and tumble descent, finally stopping on a rock ledge nearly elevenhundred feet from the place where it had been shot. We returned to camp atnoon bringing joy with us, for, as my wife had remarked the day before, "Wewill soon have to eat chickens or cans. " Heller hunted the gorals unsuccessfully the following day and we left onDecember 23, camping at night on a flat terrace beside a stream at the endof a moist ravine. We intended to spend Christmas here for it was abeautiful spot, surrounded by virgin forest, but our celebration was to beon Christmas Eve. The following day dawned bright and clear. There had notbeen a drop of rain for nearly a month and the weather was just warm enoughfor comfort in the sun with one's coat off, but at night the temperaturedropped to about 15°+ or 20°+ Fahr. The camp proved to be a good one, giving us two new mammals and, just after tiffin, Hotenfa came running into report that he had discovered seven gray monkeys (probably _Pygathrix_)in a cornfield a mile away. The monkeys had disappeared ere we arrived, but while we were gone Yvettehad been busy and, just before dinner, she ushered us into our tent withgreat ceremony. It had been most wonderfully transformed. At the far endstood a Christmas tree, blazing with tiny candles and surrounded by massesof white cotton, through which shone red holly berries. Holly branches fromthe forest and spruce boughs lined the tent and hung in green waves fromthe ridge pole. At the base of the tree gifts which she had purchased inHongkong in the preceding August were laid out. Heller mixed a fearful and wonderful cocktail from the Chinese wine andorange juice, and we drank to each other and to those at home while sittingon the ground and opening our packages. We had purchased two Tibetan rugsin Li-chiang and Wei-hsi, as Christmas presents for Yvette. These rugsusually are blue or red, with intricate designs in the center, and are wellwoven and attractive. To the servants and _mafus_ we gave money and cigarettes. When themuleteers were brought to the tent to receive their gifts they evidentlythought our blazing tree represented an altar, for they kneeled down andbegan to make the "chin, chin joss" which is always done before theirheathen gods. Our Christmas dinner was a masterpiece. Four days previously I had shot apair of mallard ducks and they formed the _pièce de résistance_. The dinnerconsisted of soup, ducks stuffed with chestnuts, currant jelly, bakedsquash, creamed carrots, chocolate cake, cheese and crackers, coffee andcigarettes. Christmas day we traveled, and in the late afternoon passed through a verydirty Chinese town in a deep valley near some extensive salt wells. Redclay dust lay thick over everything and the filth of the streets and houseswas indescribable. We camped in a cornfield a mile beyond the village, butwere greatly annoyed by the Chinese who insisted on swarming into camp. Finally, unable longer to endure their insolent stares, I drove them withstones to the top of the hill, where they sat in row upon row exactly as inthe "bleachers" at an American baseball game. When we left the following day we passed dozens of caravans and groups ofmen and women carrying great disks of salt. Each piece was stamped in redwith the official mark for salt is a government monopoly and only licensedmerchants are allowed to deal in it; moreover, the importation of salt fromforeign countries is forbidden. For the purposes of administration, Chinais divided into seven or eight main circuits, each of which has its ownsources of production and the salt obtained in one district may not be soldin another. In Yün-nan the salt of the province is supplied from three regions. Thewater from the wells is boiled in great caldrons for several days, and theresulting deposit is earth impregnated with salt. This is crushed, mixedwith water, and boiled again until only pure salt remains. After passing avillage of considerable size called Pei-ping, we began the ascent of anexceedingly steep mountain range twelve thousand feet high. All theafternoon we toiled upward in the rain and camped late in the evening at apine grove on a little plateau two-thirds of the way to the summit. Duringthe night it snowed heavily and we awoke to find ourselves in a transformedworld. Every tree and bush was dressed in garments of purest white and between thebranches we could look westward across the valley toward the Mekong and thepurple mountain wall of the Burma border. There were still one thousandfeet of climbing between us and the summit of the pass. The trail wasalmost blocked, but by slow work we forced our way through the drifts. Someof the mules were already weak from exposure and underfeeding, and two ofthem had to be relieved of their loads; they died the next day. Our _mafus_did not appear to suffer greatly although their legs were bare from theknees down and their feet had no covering except straw sandals. Indeed whenwe discovered, on the summit of the pass, a tiny hut in which a fire wasburning, they waited only a few moments to warm themselves. We met two other caravans fighting their way up the mountain from the otherside, and by following the trail which they had broken through the driftswe made fairly good time on the descent. There had been no snow on thebroad, flat plain which we reached in the late afternoon and we found thatits ponds and fields were alive with ducks, geese, and cranes. The birdswere wild but we had good shooting when we broke camp in the morning andkilled enough to last us several days. On December 31, our weary days of crossing range after range of tremendousmountains were ended, and we stood on the last pass looking down upon thegreat Chien-chuan plain. Outside the grim walls of the old city, which lieson the main A-tun-tzu--Ta-li Fu road, are two large marshy ponds and, awayto the south, is an extensive lake. We camped just without the courtyard ofa fine temple, and at four o'clock Yvette and I went over to the waterwhich was swarming with ducks and geese. Neither of us will ever forget that shoot in the glorious afternoonsunlight. Cloud after cloud of ducks rose as we neared the pond and circledhigh above our heads, but now and then a straggling mallard or "pin tail"would swing across the sky within range; as my gun roared out the birdswould whirl to the ground like feathered bombs or climb higher withfrightened quacks if the shot went wild. An hour before dark the brahminyducks began to come in. We could hear their melodious plaintive calls longbefore we could see the birds, and we flattened ourselves out in the grassand mud. Soon a thin, black line would streak the sky, and as they drewnearer, Yvette would draw such seductive notes from a tiny horn of wood andbone that the flock would swing and dive toward us in a rush of flashingwings. When we could see the brown bodies right above our heads I would situp and bang away. Now and then a big white goose would drop into the pond or an ibis flaplazily overhead, seeming to realize that it had nothing to fear from theprostrate bodies which spat fire at other birds. The stillness of the marshwas absolute save for the voices of the water fowl mingled in the wild, sweet clamor so dear to the heart of every sportsman. As the day began todie, hung about with ducks and geese, we walked slowly back across the ricefields, to the yellow fires before our tents. It was our last camp for theyear and, as if to bid us farewell as we journeyed toward the tropics, thepeaks of the great Snow Mountain far to the north, had draped themselves ina gorgeous silver mantle and glistened against a sky of lavender and goldlike white cathedral spires. On January 3, we camped early in the afternoon on a beautiful little plainbeside a spring overhung with giant trees at the head of Erh Hai, or Ta-liFu Lake, which is thirty miles long. The fields and marshes were alive withducks, geese, cranes, and lapwings, and we had a glorious day of sport overdecoys and on the water before we went on to Ta-li Fu. Mr. Evans was about to leave for a long business trip to the south of theprovince and we took possession of a pretty temple just within the northgate of the city. Here we read a great accumulation of mail and learnedthat a thousand pounds of supplies which we had ordered from Hongkong hadjust arrived. Through the good offices of Mr. Howard Page, manager of the Standard OilCompany of Yün-nan Fu, their passage through Tonking had been facilitated, and he had dispatched the boxes by caravan to Ta-li Fu. Mr. Page renderedgreat assistance to the Expedition in numberless ways, and to him we oweour personal thanks as well as those of the American Museum of NaturalHistory. All the servants except our faithful Wu left at Ta-li Fu but, with the aidof Mr. Hanna, we obtained a much better personnel for the trip to the Burmafrontier. The cook, who was one of Mr. Hanna's converts, was an especiallyfine fellow and proved to be as energetic and competent as the other hadbeen lazy and helpless. Our work in the north had brought us a collection of thirteen hundredmammals, as well as several hundred birds, much material for habitatgroups, and a splendid series of photographic records in Paget colorplates, black and white negatives, and motion picture film. But what was offirst importance, we had covered an enormous extent of diverse country andlearned much about the distribution of the fauna of northern Yün-nan. Thethirteen hundred mammals of our collection were taken in a more or lesscontinuous line across six tremendous mountain ranges, and furnish anilluminating cross section of the entire region from Ta-li-Fu, north toChung-tien, and west to the Mekong River. It is apparent that in this part of the province, which is all within one"life zone, " even the smallest mammals are widely spread and that theprincipal factor in determining distribution is the flora. Neither thehighest mountain ridges nor such deep swift rivers as the Yangtze and theMekong appear to act as effective barriers to migration, and as long as thevegetation remains constant, the fauna changes but little. CHAPTER XXV MISSIONARIES WE HAVE KNOWN During our work in Fukien Province and in various parts of Yün-nan we cameinto intimate personal contact with a great many missionaries; indeed everytraveler in the interior of China will meet them unless he purposely avoidsdoing so. But the average tourist seldom sees the missionary in his nativehabitat because, for the most part, he lives and works where the touristdoes not go. Nevertheless, that does not prevent the coastwise traveler from carryingback with him from the East a very definite impression of the missionary, which he has gained on board ships or in Oriental clubs where he hears him"damned with faint praise. " Almost unconsciously he adopts the popularattitude just as he enlarges his vocabulary to include "pidgin English" andsuch unfamiliar phrases as "tiffin, " "bund" and "cumshaw. " This chapter is not a brief for the missionary, but simply a matter of fairplay. We feel that in justice we ought to present our observations uponthis subject, which is one of very general interest, as impartially as uponany phase of our scientific work. But it should be distinctly understoodthat we are writing _only_ of those persons whom we met and lived with, andwhose work we had an opportunity to know and to see; _we are not attemptinggeneralizations on the accomplishments of missionaries in any other part ofChina_. There are three charges which we have heard most frequently brought againstthe missionary: that he comes to the East because he can live better andmore luxuriously than he can at home; that he often engages in lucrativetrade with the natives; and that he accomplishes little good, eitherreligious or otherwise. It is said that his converts are only "riceChristians, " and treaty-port foreigners have often warned us in thismanner, "Don't take Christian servants; they are more dishonest andunreliable than any others. " It is often true that the finest house in a Chinese town will be that ofthe resident missionary. In Yen-ping the mission buildings are imposingstructures, and are placed upon a hill above and away from the rest of thecity. Any white person who has traveled in the interior of China willremember the airless, lightless, native houses, opening, as they all do, onfilthy streets and reeking sewers and he will understand that in order toexist at all a foreigner must be somewhat isolated and live in a clean, well-ventilated house. Every missionary in China employs servants--many more servants than hecould afford at home. So does every other foreigner, whatever his vocation. There is no such thing in China as the democracy of the West, and themissionary's status in the community demands that certain work in his housebe done by servants; otherwise he and his family would be placed on a levelwith the coolie class and the value of his words and deeds be discounted. But the chief reason is that the missionary's wife almost always hasdefinite duties to which she could not attend if she were not relieved fromsome of the household cares. She leads in work among the women of thecommunity by organizing clubs and "Mutual Improvement Societies" and inteaching in the schools or hospitals where young men and women are learningEnglish as an asset to medical work among their own people. Servants areunbelievably cheap. While we were in Foochow a cook received $3. 50 (gold)per month, a laundryman $1. 75 (gold) per month, and other wages were inproportion. In Fukien Province the missionaries receive two months' vacation. Anyonewho has lived through a Fukien summer in the interior of the province willknow why the missionaries are given this vacation. If they were not able toleave the deadly heat and filth and disease of the native cities for a fewweeks every year, there would be no missionaries to carry on the work. Thebusiness man can surround himself with innumerable comforts both in hishome and in his office which the missionary cannot afford and, during thesummer, life is not only made possible thereby but even pleasant. Yen-ping is eight days' travel from Foochow up the Min River and it is byno means the most remote station in the province. Very few travelers reachthese places during the year and the white inhabitants are almost isolated. Miss Mabel Hartford lives alone at Yuchi and at one time she saw only oneforeigner in eight months. Miss Cordelia Morgan is the sole foreignresident of Chu-hsuing Fu, a large Chinese city six days from Yün-nan Fu. In Ta-li Fu, Reverend William J. Hanna, his wife and two other women, arefourteen days' ride from the nearest foreign settlement. In Li-chiang, Reverend and Mrs. A. Kok and their three small children live with two womenmissionaries. They are twenty-one days' travel from a doctor, and for fouryears previous to our visit they had not seen a white woman. These are some instances of missionaries whom we met in China who havevoluntarily exiled themselves to remote places where they expect to spendtheir entire lives surrounded by an indifferent if not hostile population. Can anyone possibly believe that they have chosen this life because it iseasier or more luxurious than that at home? Some of the men whom we met had left lucrative business positions to takeup medical or evangelistic work in China where their compensation ispitifully small--not one-third of the salary they were commanding at home. We did not meet any missionaries who were engaging in trade with thenatives even though in some places there were excellent businessopportunities. Consider the doctors as examples of the civilizing influences whichmissionaries bring with them. We saw them in various parts of China doinga magnificent work. Dr. Bradley has established a great leper hospital atPaik-hoi where these human outcasts are receiving the latest and mostscientific treatment and beginning to look at life with a new hope. InYen-ping, at the time of the rebellion, we saw Dr. Trimble working hourafter hour over wounded and broken men without a thought of rest. InYün-nan Fu, Dr. Thompson's hospital was filled with patients suffering fromalmost every known disease. In Ta-li Fu we saw Mr. Hanna and his wifedispensing medicines and treating the minor ills of patients waiting by thedozen, the fees received being not enough to pay for the cost of themedicines. Why is it that every traveling foreigner in the interior ofChina is supposed to be able to cure diseases? Certainly an importantreason is because of the work done by the medical missionaries who havepenetrated to the farthest corners of the most remote provinces. Aside from their medical work, missionaries are in many instances the realpioneers of western civilization. They bring to the people new standards ofliving, both morally and physically. They open schools and emancipate theChinese children in mind and body. They fight the barbarous customs of footbinding and the killing and selling of girl babies. Until recent years itwas not unusual to meet the village "baby peddler" with from two to sixtiny infants peddling his "goods" from village to village. Not many yearsago such a man appeared before the mission compound at Ngu-cheng (Fukien)with four babies in his basket. Three of these had expired from exposureand the kerosene oil which had been poured down their throats to stupefythem and drown their cries. The fourth was purchased by the wife of thenative preacher for ten cents in order to save its life. This child wasreared and has since graduated from the mission schools with credit. InFoochow a stone tablet bearing the following inscription stands beside astagnant pool: "Hereafter the throwing of babies into this pool will bepunished by law. " This was a result of the work of the missionaries. Their task is by no means easy and, as Mr. Hanna once remarked, "Yün-nanProvince has broken the heart of more than one missionary. " The Chinese donot understand their point of view, and it is difficult to make them seeit. A Chinaman is a rank materialist and pure altruism does not enter intohis scheme of life. As a rule he has but two thoughts, his stomach and hiscash bag. It is well-nigh impossible to make him realize that themissionary has not come with an ulterior motive--if not to engage in trade, perhaps as a spy for his government. Others believe that it is becauseChina is so vastly superior to the rest of the world that the missionarieswish to live there. Eventually the suspicions of the natives become quietedand they accept the missionary at some part of his true worth. At the time of the rebellion in Yen-ping we saw Harry Caldwell, Mr. Bankhardt and Dr. Trimble save the lives of hundreds of people and the cityfrom partial destruction because the Chinese officers of the opposingforces would trust the missionaries when they would not trust each other. An excellent piece of practical missionary work was done in FukienProvince, not long after our visit there. As we have related in ChapterIII, several large bands of brigands were established in the hills aboutYuchi. Brigandage began there in the following way. During a famine whenthe people were on the verge of starvation, a wealthy farmer, Su Ek byname, decided to do his share in relieving conditions by offering for salea quantity of rice which he had accumulated. He approached another man ofsimilar wealth who agreed with him to sell his grain at a reasonable price. Su Ek accordingly disposed of his rice to the suffering people and, when hehad remaining only enough to sustain his own family until the followingharvest, he sent the peasants to the second man who had also agreed todispose of his grain. This farmer refused to sell at the stipulated price, and the people, angered at his treachery, looted his sheds. He immediately went to Foochowand reported to the governor that there was a band of brigands abroad inYuchi County under the leadership of Su Ek, and that they had robbed andplundered his property. Without warning a company of soldiers swooped down upon the community andarrested a number of men whose names the informer had given. Su Ek made hisescape to the hills but he was pursued as a brigand chief, and was laterjoined by other farmers who had been similarly persecuted. Unable to returnto their homes on pain of death they were forced to rob in order to live. Su Ek and others were finally decoyed to Foochow upon the promise thattheir lives would be spared if they would induce their band to surrender. They met the conditions but the government officials broke faith and themen were executed. Similar attempts were made to enter into negotiationswith the brigands and in 1915 two hundred were trapped and beheaded afterpardons had been promised them. Naturally the robbers refused to trust thegovernment officials again. The months which elapsed between this act of treachery and the spring of1916, were filled with innumerable outrages. Many townships were completelydevastated, either by the bandits or the Chinese soldiers. Little will everbe known of what actually took place under the guise of settlingbrigandage, behind the mountains which separate Yuchi from the outer world. It is well that it should not be known. During the spring of 1916 a missionary visited Yuchi. Business called himoutside the city wall and just beyond the west gate he saw the bodies often persons who had that day been executed. Among these were two children, brothers, the sons of a man who was reported to have "sold rice to thebrigands. " The smaller child had wept and pleaded to be permitted to kneelbeside his older brother further up in the row. He was too small to realizewhat it all meant but he wanted to die beside his brother. In the middle of the field lay a man whose head was partly severed from hisbody and who had been shot through and through by the soldiers. He waslying upon his back in the broiling sun pleading for a cup of tea or forsomeone to put him out of his misery. The missionary learned the man'sstory. It appeared that years ago a law suit in which his father had beenconcerned had been decided in his favor. In order to square the scorebetween the clans, the son of the man who had lost the suit had reportedthat he had seen this man carrying rice to the brigands. He had beenarrested by the soldiers, partially killed, and left to lie in the glaringsun from nine o'clock in the morning until dark suffering the agonies ofcrucifixion. Not one of those who heard his moans dared to moisten theparched lips with tea lest he too be executed for having administered to abrigand. The missionary returned to the city that night vowing that he would make arecurrence of such a thing impossible or he would leave China. He took upthe matter with the authorities in Peking in a quiet way and later with themilitary governor in Foochow. He was well known to the brigands byreputation and visited several of the chiefs in their strongholds. Theydeclared that they had confidence in him but none in the government--or itsrepresentatives. It was only after assuming full responsibility for anytreachery that the brigands agreed to discuss terms. Upon invitation to accompany him to the 24th Township, the missionary wasescorted out to civilization by twenty-five picked men to whom the chiefhad entrusted an important charge. As the group neared the township themissionary sent word ahead to the commander of the northern soldiers toprepare to receive the brigands. [Illustration: SEAL OF A PARDONED BRIGAND. ] As the twenty-five bandits appeared upon the summit of a hill overlookingthe city, soldiers could be seen forming into squads outside the barracks. Instantly the brigands halted, snapped back the bolts of their rifles, andthrew in shells. The missionary realized that they suspected treachery andturning about he said, "I am the guarantee for your lives. If a shot isfired kill me first. " With two loaded guns at his back and accompanied by the brigands he marchedinto the city, where they were received by the officials with all thepunctilious ceremony so dear to the heart of the Chinese. It had been adangerous half hour for the missionary. If a rifle had been fired bymistake, and Chinese are always shooting when they themselves least expectto, he would have been instantly killed. This conference, and others which followed, resulted in several hundredpardons being distributed to the brigands by the missionary himself. Themen then returned to their abandoned homes and again took up their lives asrespectable farmers. Thus the reign of terror in this portion of theprovince was ended through the efforts of one courageous man. It is suchapplied Christianity that has made us respect the missionary and admire hiswork. CHAPTER XXVI CHINESE NEW YEAR AT YUNG-CHANG _Y. B. A. _ The last half of the expedition began January 13 when we left Ta-li Fu witha caravan of thirty miles for Yung-chang, eight days' travel to the south. The _mafus_ although they had promised faithfully to come "at daylight" didnot arrive until nearly noon and in consequence it was necessary to camp atHsia-kuan at the foot of the lake. We improved our time there in hunting about for skins and finally purchasedtwo fine leopards and a tiger. The latter had been brought from the Tonkingfrontier. There were a number of Tibetans wandering about the market placeand in the morning a caravan of at least two hundred horses followed bytwenty or thirty Tibetans, passed into the city while it was yet gray dawn. They were bringing tea from P'u-erh and S'su-mao in the south of theprovince and although they had already been nearly a month upon theirjourney there was still many long weeks of travel before them ere theyreached the wind-blown steppes of their native land. The trip to Yung-chang proved uninteresting and uneventful. We crossed asuccession of dry, thinly forested mountains from 7, 000 to 8, 000 feet highwhich near their summits were often clothed with a thick growth ofrhododendron trees. The beautiful red flowers flashed like fire balls amongthe green leaves, peach trees were in full blossom and in some spots thedry hills seemed about to break forth in the full glory of their springverdure. We crossed the Mekong near a village called Shia-chai on apicturesque chain suspension bridge of a type which is not unusual in thesouthern and western part of the province. Several heavy iron chains arefirmly fastened to huge rock piers on opposite sides of the river and theroadway formed by planks laid upon them. Although the bridge shakes andswings in a rather alarming manner when a caravan is crossing, it isperfectly safe if not too heavily loaded. In the afternoon of January 21, we rode down the mountain to the greatYung-chang plain, and for two hours trotted over a hard dirt road. Theplain is eighteen miles long by six miles wide and except for its scatteredvillages, is almost entirely devoted to paddy fields. The city itselfincludes about five thousand houses. It is exceedingly picturesque and isremarkable for its long, straight, and fairly clean streets which contraststrongly with those of the usual Chinese town. At the west, but stillwithin the city walls, is a picturesque wooded hill occupied almostexclusively by temples. We ourselves camped between two ponds in the courtyard of a large andexceptionally clean temple just outside the south gate of the city. It wasthe Chinese New Year and Wu told us that for several days at least it wouldbe impossible to obtain another caravan or expect the natives to do anywork whatever. It was a very pleasant place in which to stay although wechafed at the enforced delay, but we made good use of our time inphotographing and developing motion picture film, collecting birds andmaking various excursions. Chinese New Year is always interesting to a foreigner and at Yung-chang wesaw many of the customs attending its celebration. It is a time of feastingand merry making and no native, if he can possibly avoid it, will work onthat day. Chinese families almost always live under one roof but should anymale member be absent at this season the circumstances must be exceptionalto prevent him from returning to his home. It is customary, too, for brides to revisit their mother's house at NewYear's. On our way to Yung-chang and for several days after leaving thecity, we were continually passing young women mounted on mules or horsesand accompanied by servants returning to their homes. New clothes are aleading feature of this season and the dresses of the brides and youngmatrons were usually of the most unexpected hues for, according to ourconception of color, the Chinese can scarcely be counted conspicuous fortheir good taste. Purple and blue, orange and red, pink and lavender clashdistressingly, but are worn with inordinate pride. These visits are not an unalloyed pleasure to the bride's family. Dr. Smithsays in "Chinese Characteristics": When she goes to her mother's home, she goes on a strictly business basis. She takes with her it may be a quantity of sewing for her husband's family, which the wife's family must help her get through with. She is accompanied on each of these visits by as many of her children as possible, both to have her take care of them and to have them out of the way when she is not at hand to look after them, and most especially to have them fed at the expense of the family of the maternal grandmother for as long a time as possible. In regions where visits of this sort are frequent, and where there are many daughters in a family, their constant raids on the old home are a source of perpetual terror to the whole family, and a serious tax on the common resources. [Footnote: "Chinese Characteristics, " by Arthur H. Smith, p. 200. ] Religious rites and ceremonies form a conspicuous part in the New Year'scelebration. At this time the "Kitchen God, " according to currentsuperstition, returns to heaven to render an account of the household'sbehavior. The wily Chinese, however, first rubs the lips of the departingdeity with candy in order to "sweeten" his report of any evil which he mayhave witnessed during the year. Usually all the members of the family gather before the ancestral tablets, or should these be lacking as among many of the laboring classes, a scrollwith a part of the genealogy is displayed and the spirits of the departedare appeased and honored by the burning of incense and the mumbling ofincantations. While strict attention is paid to the religious observance tothe dead, at New Year's the most punctilious ceremony is rendered to theliving. After the family have paid their respects to one another the younger malemembers go from house to house "kowtowing" to the elders who are there toreceive them. The following days are devoted to visits to relatives livingin the neighboring towns and villages, and this continues, an endlessroutine, until fourteen days later the Feast of the Lanterns puts an end tothe "epoch of national leisure. " The Chinese are inveterate gamblers and at New Year's they turn feverishlyto this form of amusement which is almost their only one. But they alsohave to think seriously about paying their debts for it is absolutelynecessary for all classes and conditions of men to meet their obligationsat the end of the year. Almost everyone owes money in China. According to the clan system anindividual having surplus cash is obliged to lend it (though at a high rateof interest) to any members of his family in need of help. However, aChinaman never pays cash unless absolutely obliged to and almost neversettles a debt until he has been dunned repeatedly. The activity displayed at New Year's is ludicrous. Each separate individual [says Dr. Smith] is engaged in the task of trying to chase down the men who owe money to him, and compel them to pay up, and at the same time in trying to avoid the persons who are struggling to track _him_ down and corkscrew from him the amount of his indebtedness to them! The dodges and subterfuges to which each is obliged to resort, increase in complexity and number with the advance of the season, until at the close of the month, the national activity is at fever heat. For if a debt is not secured then, it will go over till a new year, and no one knows what will be the status of a claim which has actually contrived to cheat the annual Day of Judgment. In spite of the excellent Chinese habit of making the close of a year a grand clearing-house for all debts, Chinese human nature is too much for Chinese custom, and there are many of these postponed debts which are a grief of mind to many a Chinese creditor. The Chinese are at once the most practical and the most sentimental of the human race. New Year _must not_ be violated by duns for debts, and the debts _must_ be collected New Year though it be. For this reason one sometimes sees an urgent creditor going about early on the first day of the year carrying a lantern looking for his creditor [=debtor]. His artificial light shows that by a social fiction the sun has not yet risen, it is still yesterday and the debt can still be claimed. . . . We have but to imagine the application of the principles which we have named, to the whole Chinese Empire, and we get new light upon the nature of the Chinese New Year festivities. They are a time of rejoicing, but there is no rejoicing so keen as that of a ruined debtor, who has succeeded by shrewd devices in avoiding the most relentless of his creditors and has thus postponed his ruin for at least another twelve months. For, once past the narrow strait at the end of the year, the debtor finds himself again in the broad and peaceful waters, where he cannot be molested. Even should his creditors meet him on New Year's day, there could be no possibility of mentioning the fact of the previous day's disgraceful flight and concealment, or indeed of alluding to business at all, for this would not be "good form" and to the Chinese "Good Form" (otherwise known as custom), is the chief national divinity. [Footnote: "Village Life in China, " by Arthur H. Smith, 1907, pp. 208-209. ] Yung-chang appears to be almost entirely inhabited by Chinese and in nopart of the province did we see foot-binding more in evidence. Practicallyevery woman and girl, young or old, regardless of her station in life wascrippled in this brutal way. The women wear long full coats with flaringskirts which hang straight from their shoulders to their knees. When thetrousers are tightly wrapped about their shrunken ankles, they look in aside view exactly like huge umbrellas. One day we visited a cave thirty _li_ north of the city where we hoped tofind new bats. A beautiful little temple has been built over the entranceto the cavern which does not extend more than forty or fifty feet into therock. But twenty _li_ south of Yung-chang, just beyond the village ofA-shih-wo, there is an enormous cave which is reported to extend entirelythrough the hill. Whether or not this is true we can not say for althoughwe explored it in part we did not reach the end. The central corridor isabout thirty feet wide and at least sixty or seventy high. We followed themain gallery for a long distance, and turned back at a branch which led offat a sharp angle. We were not equipped with sufficient candles to pursuethe exploration more extensively and did not have time to visit it again. The cave contained some beautiful stalactites of considerable size, but thelimestone was a dull lead color. We found only one bat and these animalsappear not to have used it extensively since there was little sign upon thefloor. At Yuang-chang we saw water buffaloes for the first time in Yün-nan butfound them to be in universal use farther to the south and west. The hugebrutes are as docile as a kitten in the hands of the smallest native childbut they do not like foreigners and discretion is the better part of valorwhere they are concerned. Water buffaloes are only employed for work in the rice fields but Chinesecows are used as burden bearers in this part of the province. Such caravanstravel much more slowly than do mule trains although the animals are notloaded as heavily. Two or three of the leading cows usually carry upontheir backs large bells hung in wooden frameworks and the music is by nomeans unmelodious when heard at a distance. Marco Polo, the great Venetiantraveler, refers to Yung-chang as "Vochang. " His account of a battle whichwas fought in its vicinity in the year 1272 between the King of Burma andBengal and one of Kublai Khan's generals is so interesting that I amquoting it below: When the king of Mien [Burma] and Bangala [Bengal], in India, who was powerful in the number of his subjects, in extent of territory, and in wealth, heard that an army of Tartars had arrived at Vochang [Yung-chang] he took the resolution of advancing immediately to attack it, in order that by its destruction the grand khan should be deterred from again attempting to station a force upon the borders of his dominions. For this purpose he assembled a very large army, including a multitude of elephants (an animal with which his country abounds), upon whose backs were placed battlements or castles, of wood, capable of containing to the number of twelve or sixteen in each. With these, and a numerous army of horse and foot, he took the road to Vochang, where the grand khan's army lay, and encamping at no great distance from it, intended to give his troops a few days of rest. As soon as the approach of the king of Mien, with so great a force, was known to Nestardín, who commanded the troops of the grand khan, although a brave and able officer, he felt much alarmed, not having under his orders more than twelve thousand men (veterans, indeed, and valiant soldiers); whereas the enemy had sixty thousand, besides the elephants armed as has been described. He did not, however, betray any sign of apprehension, but descending into the plain of Vochang, took a position in which his flank was covered by a thick wood of large trees, whither, in case of a furious charge by the elephants, which his troops might not be able to sustain, they could retire, and from thence, in security, annoy them with their arrows. . . . Upon the king of Mien's learning that the Tartars had descended into the plain, he immediately put his army in motion, took up his ground at the distance of about a mile from the enemy, and made a disposition of his force, placing the elephants in the front, and the cavalry and infantry, in two extended wings, in their rear, but leaving between them a considerable interval. Here he took his own station, and proceeded to animate his men and encourage them to fight valiantly, assuring them of victory, as well from the superiority of their numbers, being four to one, as from their formidable body of armed elephants, whose shock the enemy, who had never before been engaged with such combatants, could by no means resist. Then giving orders for sounding a prodigious number of warlike instruments, he advanced boldly with his whole army towards that of the Tartars, which remained firm, making no movement, but suffering them to approach their entrenchments. They then rushed out with great spirit and the utmost eagerness to engage; but it was soon found that the Tartar horses, unused to the sight of such huge animals, with their castles, were terrified, and by wheeling about endeavored to fly; nor could their riders by any exertions restrain them, whilst the king, with the whole of his forces, was every moment gaining ground. As soon as the prudent commander perceived this unexpected disorder, without losing his presence of mind, he instantly adopted the measure of ordering his men to dismount and their horses to be taken into the wood, where they were fastened to the trees. When dismounted, the men without loss of time, advanced on foot towards the line of elephants, and commenced a brisk discharge of arrows; whilst, on the other side, those who were stationed in the castles, and the rest of the king's army, shot volleys in return with great activity; but their arrows did not make the same impression as those of the Tartars, whose bows were drawn with a stronger arm. So incessant were the discharges of the latter, and all their weapons (according to the instructions of their commander) being directed against the elephants, these were soon covered with arrows, and, suddenly giving way, fell back upon their own people in the rear, who were thereby thrown into confusion. It soon became impossible for their drivers to manage them, either by force or address. Smarting under the pain of their wounds, and terrified by the shouting of the assailants, they were no longer governable, but without guidance or control ran about in all directions, until at length, impelled by rage and fear, they rushed into a part of the wood not occupied by the Tartars. The consequence of this was, that from the closeness of the branches of large trees, they broke, with loud crashes, the battlements or castles that were upon their backs, and involved in the destruction those who sat upon them. Upon seeing the rout of the elephants the Tartars acquired fresh courage, and filing off by detachments, with perfect order and regularity, they remounted their horses, and joined their several divisions, when a sanguinary and dreadful combat was renewed. On the part of the king's troops there was no want of valor, and he himself went amongst the ranks entreating them to stand firm, and not to be alarmed by the accident that had befallen the elephants. But the Tartars by their consummate skill in archery, were too powerful for them, and galled them the more exceedingly, from their not being provided with such armor as was worn by the former. The arrows having been expended on both sides, the men grasped their swords and iron maces, and violently encountered each other. Then in an instant were to be seen many horrible wounds, limbs dismembered, and multitudes falling to the ground, maimed and dying; with such effusion of blood as was dreadful to behold. So great also was the clangor of arms, and such the shoutings and the shrieks, that the noise seemed to ascend to the skies. The king of Mien, acting as became a valiant chief, was present wherever the greatest danger appeared, animating his soldiers, and beseeching them to maintain their ground with resolution. He ordered fresh squadrons from the reserve to advance to the support of those that were exhausted; but perceiving at length that it was impossible any longer to sustain the conflict or to withstand the impetuosity of the Tartars, the greater part of his troops being either killed or wounded, and all the field covered with the carcasses of men and horses, whilst those who survived were beginning to give way, he also found himself compelled to take to flight with the wreck of his army, numbers of whom were afterwards slain in the pursuit. . . . The Tartars having collected their force after the slaughter of the enemy, returned towards the wood into which the elephants had fled for shelter, in order to take possession of them, where they found that the men who had escaped from the overthrow were employed in cutting down trees and barricading the passages, with the intent of defending themselves. But their ramparts were soon demolished by the Tartars, who slew many of them, and with the assistance of the persons accustomed to the management of the elephants, they possessed themselves of these to the number of two hundred or more. From the period of this battle the grand khan has always chosen to employ elephants in his armies, which before that time he had not done. The consequences of the victory were, that he acquired possession of the whole of the territories of the king of Bangala and Mien, and annexed them to his dominions. [Footnote: "The Travels of Marco Polo the Venetian. " Everyman's Library. J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd. , London; pp. 253-256. ] CHAPTER XXVII TRAVELING TOWARD THE TROPICS We left Yung-chang with no regret on Monday, January 28. Our stay therewould have been exceedingly pleasant under ordinary conditions but it wasimpossible not to chafe at the delay occasioned by the caravan. Travelingsouthward for two days over bare brown mountain-sides, their monotonyunrelieved except by groves of planted pine and fir trees, we descendedabruptly into the great subtropical valley at Shih-tien. Mile after mile this fertile plain stretches away in a succession of ricepaddys and fields of sugar cane interspersed with patches of gracefulbamboo, their summits drooping like enormous clusters of ostrich plumes;the air is warm and fragrant and the change from the surrounding hills isdelightful. However, we were disappointed in the shooting for, although itappeared to be an ideal place for ducks and other water birds, we killedonly five teal, and the great ponds were almost devoid of bird life. Evenherons, so abundant in the north, were conspicuous by their absence and wesaw no sheldrakes, geese, or mallards. At Shih-tien we camped in a beautiful temple yard on the outskirts of thetown, and with Wu I returned to the village to inquire about shootingplaces. We seated ourselves in the first open tea house and within tenminutes more than a hundred natives had filled the room, overflowed throughthe door and windows, and formed a mass of pushing, crowding bodies whichcompletely blocked the street outside. It was a simple way of getting allthe village together and Wu questioned everyone who looked intelligent. We learned that shooting was to be found near Gen-kang, five days' travelsouth, and we returned to the temple just in time to receive a visit fromthe resident mandarin. He was a good-looking, intellectual man, withcharming manners and one of the most delightful gentlemen whom we met inChina. During his visit, and until dinner was over and we had retired to ourtents, hundreds of men, women and children crowded into the temple yard togaze curiously at us. After the gates had been closed they climbed thewalls and sat upon the tiles like a flock of crows. Their curiosity wasinsatiable but not unfriendly and nowhere throughout our expedition did wefind such extraordinary interest in our affairs as was manifested by thepeople in this immediate region. They were largely Chinese and most of themmust have met foreigners before, yet their curiosity was much greater thanthat of any natives whom we knew were seeing white persons for the firsttime. Just before camping the next day we passed through a large village where wewere given a most flattering reception. We had stopped to do some shootingand were a considerable distance behind the caravan. The _mafus_ must haveannounced our coming, for the populace was out _en masse_ to greet us andlined the streets three deep. It was a veritable triumphal entry and crowdsof men and children followed us for half a mile outside the town, runningbeside our horses and staring with saucer-like eyes. On the second day from Shih-tien we climbed a high mountain and wound downa sharp descent for about 4, 000 feet into a valley only 2, 300 feet abovesea level. We had been cold all day on the ridges exposed to a biting windand had bundled ourselves into sweaters and coats over flannel shirts. After going down about 1, 000 feet we tied our coats to the saddle pockets, on the second thousand stripped off the sweaters, and for the remainder ofthe descent rode with sleeves rolled up and shirts open at the throat. Wehad come from mid-winter into summer in two hours and the change was moststartling. It was as though we had suddenly ridden into an artificiallyheated building like the rooms for tropical plants at botanical gardens. Our camp was on a flat plain just above the river where we had a splendidview of the wide valley which was like the bottom of a well with highmountains rising abruptly on all sides. It was a place of strangecontrasts. The bushes and trees were in full green foliage but the grassand paddy fields were dry and brown as in mid-winter. The thick trees atthe base of the hills were literally alive with doves but there were fewmammal runways and our traps yielded no results. That night a muntjac, thefirst we had heard, barked hoarsely behind the tents. The _yamen_ "soldier" who accompanied us from Shih-tien delivered hisofficial dispatch at the village (Ma-po-lo) which lies farther down thevalley. The magistrate, who proved to be a Shan native, arrived soon afterwith ten or twelve men and we discovered that there was but one man in thevillage who spoke Chinese. The magistrate at Ma-po-lo by no means wished to have the responsibility ofour safety thrust upon him and consequently assured us that there wereneither game nor hunters in this village. Although his anxiety to be rid ofus was apparent, he was probably telling the truth, for the valley is sohighly cultivated (rice), and the cover on the mountain-sides so limited, that it is doubtful if much game remains. In the morning the entire valley was filled with a dense white fog but weclimbed out of it almost immediately, and by noon were back again in winteron the summits of the ridges. The country through which we passed _enroute_ to Gen-kang was similar to that which had oppressed us during thepreceding week--cultivated valleys between high barren mountains relievedhere and there by scattered groves of planted fir trees. It was a regionutterly hopeless from a naturalist's standpoint and when we arrived at alarge town near Gen-kang we were well-nigh discouraged. During almost a month of travel we had been guided by native informationwhich without exception had proved worthless. It seemed useless to relyupon it further, and yet there was no other alternative, for none of theforeigners whom we had met in Yün-nan knew anything about this part of theprovince. We were certain to reach a tropical region farther south and thefact that there were a few sambur skins for sale in the market offeredslight encouragement. These were said to come from a village calledMeng-ting, "a little more far, " to the tune of four or five days' travel, over on the Burma frontier. With gloom in our hearts, which matched that of the weather, we left in apouring rain on February 5, to slip and splash southward through veritablerivers of mud for two long marches. In the afternoon of the second day thecountry suddenly changed. The trail led through a wide grassy valley, bordered by heavily forested hills, into a deep ravine. Along the banks ofa clear stream the earth was soft and damp and the moss-covered logs anddense vegetation made ideal conditions for small mammalian life. We rode happily up the ravine and stood in a rocky gateway. At the right agreen-clothed mountain rose out of a tangle of luxuriant vegetation; to theleft wave after wave of magnificent forested ridges lost themselves in thelow hung clouds; at our feet lay a beautiful valley filled with statelytrees which spread into a thick green canopy overhead. We camped in a clearing just at the edge of the forest. While the tentswere being pitched, I set a line of traps along the base of the oppositemountain and found a "runway" under almost every log. About eight o'clock Iran my traps and, with the aid of a lantern, stumbled about in the bushesand high grass, over logs and into holes. When I emptied my pockets therewere fifteen mice, rats, shrews, and voles, representing seven species _andall new to our collection_. Heller brought in eight specimens and added twonew species. We forthwith decided to stay right where we were until this"gold mine" had been exhausted. In the morning our traps were full of mammals and sixty-two were laid outon the table ready for skinning. The length, tail, hind foot, and ear ofeach specimen was first carefully measured in millimeters and recorded inthe field catalogue and upon a printed label bearing our serial number;then an incision was made in the belly, the skin stripped off, poisonedwith arsenic, stuffed with cotton, and sewed up. The animal was then pinnedin position by the feet, nose, and tail in a shallow wooden tray whichfitted in the collecting trunk. The specimens were put in the sun on every bright day until they werethoroughly dry and could be wrapped in cotton and packed in water-tighttrunks or boxes. We have found that the regulation U. S. Army officer'sfiber trunk makes an ideal collecting case. It measures thirty inches longby thirteen deep and sixteen inches wide and will remain quite dry in anordinary rain but, of course, must not be allowed to stand in water. Theskulls of all specimens, and the skeletons of some, are numbered like theskin, strung upon a wire, and dried in the sun. Also individuals of everyspecies are injected and preserved in formalin for future anatomical study. Larger specimens are always salted and dried. As soon as the skin has beenremoved and cleaned of flesh and fat, salt is rubbed into every part of itand the hide rolled up. In the morning it is unwrapped, the water which hasbeen extracted by the salt poured off, and the skin hung over a rope or atree branch to dry. If it is not too hot and the air is dry, the skin maybe kept in the shade to good advantage, but under ordinary field conditionsit should be placed in the sun. Before it becomes too hard, the hide isrolled or folded into a convenient package hair side in, tied into shapeand allowed to become "bone dry. " In this condition it will keepindefinitely but requires constant watching, for the salt absorbs moisturefrom the air and alternate wetting and drying is fatal. We soon trained two of our Chinese boys to skin both large and smallanimals and they became quite expert. They required constant watching, however, and after each hide had been salted either Mr. Heller or Iexamined it to make sure that it was properly treated. On our first day in camp we sent for natives to the village of Mu-cheng ten_li_ distant. The men assured us that there were sambur, serow, and muntjacin the neighborhood, and they agreed to hunt. They had no dogs and werearmed with crossbows, antiquated guns, and bows and arrows, but they showedus the skins of two sambur in proof of their ability to secure game. Like most of the other natives, with the exception of the Mosos on the SnowMountain, these men had no definite plan in hunting. The first day I wentout with them they indicated that we were to drive a hill not far fromcamp. Without giving me an opportunity to reach a position in front ofthem, they began to work up the hill, and I had a fleeting glimpse of asambur silhouetted against the sky as it dashed over the summit. Two days later while I was out with ten other men who had a fairly goodpack of dogs, the first party succeeded in killing a female sambur. Theanimal weighed at least five hundred pounds but they brought it to our campand we purchased the skin for ten _rupees_. South of Gen-kang the money ofthe region, like all of Yün-nan for some distance from the Burma frontier, is the Indian _rupee_ which equals thirty-three cents American gold; inthat part of the province adjoining Tonking, French Indo-China money iscurrent. My Journal of February 8 tells of our life at this camp, which we called"Good Hope. " The weather is delightful for the sun is just warm enough for comfort and the nights are clear and cold. How we do sleep! It seems hardly an hour from the time we go to bed until we hear Wu rousing the servants, and the crackle of the camp-fire outside the tent. We half dress in our sleeping bags and with chattering teeth dash for the fire to lace our high boots in its comfortable warmth. After breakfast when it is full daylight, my wife and I inspect the traps. The ground is white with frost and the trees and bushes are dressed in silver. Every trap holds an individual interest and we follow the line through the forest, resetting some, and finding new mammals in others. Yvette has conquered her feminine repugnance far enough to remove shrews or mice from the traps by releasing the spring and dropping them on to a broad green leaf, but she never touches them. We go back to meet the hunters and while I am away with the men, the lady of the camp works at her photography. I return in the late afternoon and after tea we wander through the woods together. It is the most delightful part of the day when the sun goes down and the shadows lengthen. We sit on a log in a small clearing where we can watch the upper branches of a splendid tree. It is the home of a great colony of red-bellied squirrels (_Callosciurus erythraeus_ subsp. ) and after a few moments of silence we see a flash of brown along a branch, my gun roars out, and there is a thud upon the ground. Yvette runs to find the animal and ere the echoes have died away in the forest the gun bangs again. We have already shot a dozen squirrels from this tree and yet more are there. Sometimes a tiny, striped chipmunk (_Tamiops macclellandi_ subsp. ) will appear on the lower branches, searching the bark for grubs, and after he falls we have a long hunt to find him in the brown leaves. When it is too dark to see the squirrels, we wander slowly back to camp and eat a dinner of delicious broiled deer steak in front of the fire; over the coffee we smoke and talk of the day's hunting until it is time to "run the traps. " Of all the work we enjoy this most. With lanterns and a gun we pick our way among the trees until we strike the trail along which the traps are set. On the soft ground our feet are noiseless and, extinguishing the lanterns, we sit on a log to listen to the night sounds. The woods are full of life. Almost beside us there is a patter of tiny feet and a scurry among the dry leaves; a muntjac barks hoarsely on the opposite hillside, and a fox yelps behind us in the forest. Suddenly there is a sharp snap, a muffled squeal, and a trap a few yards away has done its work. Even in the tree tops the night life is active. Dead twigs drop to the ground with an unnatural noise, and soft-winged owls show black against the sky as they flit across an opening in the branches. We light the lanterns again and pass down the trail into a cuplike hollow. Here there are a dozen traps and already half of them are full. In one is a tiny brown shrew caught by the tail as he ran across the trap; another holds a veritable treasure, and at my exclamation of delight Yvette runs up excitedly. It is a rare Insectivore of the genus _Hylomys_ and possibly a species new to science. We examine it beside the lantern, wrap it carefully in paper, and drop it into a pocket by itself. The next bit of cotton clings to a bush above a mossy log. The trap is gone and for ten minutes we hunt carefully over every inch of ground. Finally my wife discovers it fifteen feet away and stifles a scream for in it, caught by the neck and still alive, is a huge rat nearly two feet long; it too is a species which may prove new. When the last trap has been examined, we follow the trail to the edge of the forest and into the clearing where the tents glow in the darkness like great yellow pumpkins. Ours is delightfully warmed by the charcoal brazier and, stretched comfortably on the beds, we write our daily records or read Dickens for half an hour. It is with a feeling of great contentment that we slip down into the sleeping bags and blow out the candles leaving the tent filled with the soft glow of the moonlight. CHAPTER XXVIII MENG-TING: A VILLAGE OF MANY TONGUES During the eight days in which we remained at the "Good Hope" camp, twohundred specimens comprising twenty-one species were added to ourcollection. Although the altitude was still 5, 000 feet, the flora was quiteunlike that of any region in which we had previously collected, and thatundoubtedly was responsible for the complete change of fauna. We were onthe very edge of the tropical belt which stretches along the Tonking andBurma frontiers in the extreme south and west of the province. It was already mid-February and if we were to work in the fever-strickenvalleys below 2, 000 feet, it was high time we were on the way southward. The information which we had obtained near Gen-kang had been supplementedby the natives of Mu-cheng, and we decided to go to Meng-ting as soon aspossible. The first march was long and uneventful but at its end, from the summit ofa high ridge, we could see a wide valley which we reached in the earlymorning of the second day. The narrow mountain trail abruptly left us on ajutting promontory and wandered uncertainly down a steep ravine to loseitself in a veritable forest of tree ferns and sword grass. The slantingrays of the sun drew long golden paths into the mysterious depths of themist-filled valley. To the right a giant sentinel peak of granite rosegaunt and naked from out the enveloping sea of green which swelled away tothe left in huge ascending billows. We rested in our saddles until the faint tinkle of the bell on the leadingmule announced the approach of the caravan and then we picked our wayslowly down the steep trail between walls of tangled vegetation. In an hourwe were breathing the moist warm air of the tropics and riding across awide valley as level as a floor. The long stretches of rank grass, farhigher than our heads, were broken by groves of feathery bamboos, bananapalms, and splendid trees interlaced with tangled vines. Near the base of the mountains a Shan village nestled into the grass. Thebamboo houses, sheltered by trees and bushes, were roofed in the shape ofan overturned boat with thatch and the single street was wide and clean. Could this really be China? Verily, it was a different China from that wehad seen before! It might be Burma, India, Java, but never China! Before the door of a tiny house sat a woman spinning. A real Priscilla, somewhat strange in dress to be sure and with a mouth streaked with betelnut, but Priscilla just the same. And in his proper place beside her stoodJohn Alden. A pair of loose, baggy trousers, hitched far up over one leg toshow the intricate tattoo designs beneath, a short coat, and a white turbancompleted John's attire, but he grasped a gun almost as ancient in designas that of his Pilgrim fathers. Priscilla kept her eyes upon the spinningwheel, but John's gaze could by no stretch of imagination be called ardenteven before we appeared around a corner of the house and the pretty pictureresolved into its rightful components--a surprised, but not unlovely Shangirl and a well-built, yellow-skinned native who stared with wide browneyes and open mouth at what must have seemed to him the fancy of adisordered brain. For into his village, filled with immemorial peace and quiet, where everyday was exactly like the day before, had suddenly ridden two big men withwhite skins and blue eyes, and a little one with lots of hair beneath abroad sun helmet. And almost immediately the little one had jumped from thehorse and pointed a black box with a shiny front at him and his Priscilla. At once, but without loss of dignity, Priscilla vanished into the house, but John Alden stood his ground, for a beautiful new tin can had beenthrust into his hand and before he had really discovered what it was thelittle person had smiled at him and turned her attention to the charmingstreet of his village. There the great water buffalos lazily chewed theircuds standing guard over the tiny brown-skinned natives who playedtrustingly with the calves almost beneath their feet. Such was our invasion of the first Shan village we had ever seen, andregretfully we rode away across the plain between the walls of waving grasstoward the Nam-ting River. Two canoes, each dug out of a single log, andtightly bound together, formed the ferry, but the packs were soon acrossthe muddy stream and the mules were made to swim to the other bank. Shortlyafter leaving the ferry we emerged from the vast stretches of rank grass onto the open rice paddys which stretched away in a gently undulating plainfrom the river to the mountains. Strangely enough we saw no ducks or geese, but three great flocks of cranes (probably _Grus communis_) rose from thefields and wheeled in ever-widening spirals above our heads until they werelost in the blue depths of the sky. Away in the distance we saw a wooded knoll with a few wisps of smokecurling above its summit, but not until we were well-nigh there did werealize that its beautiful trees sheltered the thatched roofs of Meng-ting. But this was only the "residential section" of the village and below theknoll on the opposite side of a shallow stream lay the shops and markets. We camped on a dry rice dyke where a fringe of jungle separated us from thenearest house. As soon as the tents were up I announced our coming to themandarin and requested an interview at five o'clock. Wu and I found the_yamen_ to be a large well-built house, delightfully cool and exhibitingseveral foreign articles which evinced its proximity to Burma. We were received by a suave Chinese "secretary" who shortly introduced themandarin--a young Shan not more than twenty years old who only recently hadsucceeded his late father as chief of the village. The boy was dressed inan exceedingly long frock coat, rather green and frayed about the elbows, which in combination with his otherwise typical native dress gave him amost extraordinary appearance. We soon discovered that the Chinese secretary who did all the talking wasthe "power behind the throne. " He accepted my gift of a package of tea withgreat pleasure, but the information about hunting localities for which weasked was not forthcoming. He first said that he knew of a place wherethere were tiger and leopard, but that he did not dare to reveal it to usfor we might be killed by the wild animals and he would be responsible forour deaths; bringing to his attention the fact that tigers had never beenrecorded from the Meng-ting region did not impress him in the slightest. It did tend to send him off on another track, however, and he next remarkedthat if he sent us to a place where the hunting was disappointing weprobably would report him to the district mandarin. Assurances to thecontrary had no effect. It was perfectly evident that he wished only to getus out of his district and thus relieve himself of the responsibility ofour safety. During the conversation, which lasted more than an hour, theyoung Shan was not consulted and did not speak a word; he sat stolidly inhis chair, hardly winking, and except for the constant supply of cigaretteswhich passed between his fingers there was no evidence that he evenbreathed. The interview closed with assurances from the Chinaman that he would makeinquiries concerning hunting grounds and communicate with us in themorning. We returned to camp and half an hour later a party of nativesarrived from the _yamen_ bearing about one hundred pounds of rice, a sackof potatoes, two dozen eggs, three chickens, and a great bundle of firewood. These were deposited in front of our tent as gifts from the mandarin. We were at a loss to account for such generosity until Wu explained thatwhenever a high official visited a village it was customary for themandarin to supply his entire party with food during their stay. It wouldbe quite polite to send back all except a few articles, however, for thesupplies were levied from the inhabitants of the town. We kept the eggs andchickens, giving the _yamen_ "runners" considerably more than their valuein money, and they gratefully returned with the rice and potatoes. On the hill high above our camp was a large Shan Buddhist monastery, bamboowalled and thatched with straw, and at sunset and daybreak a musical chantof childish voices floated down to us in the mist-filled valley. All daylong tiny yellow-robed figures squatted on the mud walls about the templelike a flock of birds peering at us with bright round eyes. They were wildas hawks, these little priests and, although they sometimes left theshelter of their temple walls, they never ventured below the bushy hedgeabout our rice field. In the village we saw them often, wandering about the streets or sitting inyellow groups beneath the giant trees which threw a welcome shade overalmost every house. They were not all children, and finely built youths ormen so old that they seemed like wrinkled bits of lemon peel, passed to andfro to the temple on the hill. There is no dearth of priests, for every family in the village with malechildren is required to send at least one boy to live a part of his lifeunder the tutelage of the Church. He must remain three years, and longer, if he wishes. The priests are fed by the monastery, and their clothing isnot an important item of expenditure as it consists merely of a straw hatand a yellow robe. They lead a lazy, worthless life, and from their sojournin religious circles they learn only indolence and idleness. The day following our arrival in Meng-ting the weekly market was held, andwhen Wu and I crossed the little stream to the business part of thevillage, we found ourselves in the midst of the most picturesque crowd ofnatives it has ever been my fortune to see. It was a group flashing withcolor, and every individual a study for an artist. There were blue-cladChinese, Shans with tattooed legs, turbans of pink or white, and Burmansdressed in brilliant purple or green, Las, yellow-skinned Lisos, flat-facedPalaungs, Was, and Kachins in black and red strung about with beads orshells. Long swords hung from the shoulders of those who did not carry aspear or gun, and the hilts of wicked looking daggers peeped from beneaththeir sashes. Every man carried a weapon ready for instant use. Nine tribes were present in the market that day and almost as manylanguages were being spoken. It was a veritable Babel and half the tradingwas done by signs. The narrow street was choked with goods of every kindspread out upon the ground: fruit, rice, cloth, nails, knives, swords, hats, sandals, skins, horns, baskets, mats, crossbows, arrows, pottery, tea, opium, and scores of other articles for food or household use. Dozens of natives were arriving and departing, bringing new goods orpacking up their purchases; under open, thatched pavilions were silentgroups of men gambling with cash or silver, and in the "tea houses"white-faced natives lay stretched upon the couches rolling "pills" ofopium and oblivious to the constant stream of passers-by. It was a picturesque, ever changing group, a kaleidoscopic mass of life andcolor, where Chinese from civilized Canton drank, and gambled, and smokedwith wild natives from the hills or from the depths of fever-strickenjungles. After one glimpse of the picture in the market I dashed back to camp tobring the "Lady of the Camera. " On the way I met her, hot and breathless, half coaxing, half driving three bewildered young priests resplendent inyellow robes. All the morning she had been trying vainly to photograph apriest and had discovered these splendid fellows when all her color plateshad been exposed. She might have succeeded in bringing them to camp had Inot arrived, but they suddenly lost courage and rushed away with avertedfaces. When the plate holders were all reloaded we hurried back to the marketfollowed by two coolies with the cameras. Leaving Yvette to do her workalone I set up the cinematograph. Wu was with me and in less than a minutethe narrow space in front of us was packed with a seething mass of natives. It was impossible to take a "street scene" for the "street" had suddenlydisappeared. Making a virtue of necessity I focused the camera on theirregular line of heads and swung it back and forth registering a varietyof facial expressions which it would be hard to duplicate. For some time itwas impossible to bribe the natives to stand even for a moment, but afterone or two had conquered their fear and been liberally rewarded, there wasa rush for places. Wu asked several of the natives who could speak Chineseif they knew what we were doing but they all shook their heads. None ofthem had ever seen a camera or a photograph. The Kachin women were the most picturesque of all the tribes as well as themost difficult to photograph. Yvette was not able to get them at all, and Icould do so only by strategy. When Wu discovered two or three squattingnear their baskets on the ground I moved slowly up behind them keeping inthe center of the crowd. After the "movie camera" was in position Wusuddenly "shooed" back the spectators and before the women realized whatwas happening they were registered on twenty-five or thirty feet of film. One of the Kachin men, who had drunk too much, suddenly became belligerentwhen I pointed the camera in his direction, and rushed at me with a drawnknife. I swung for his jaw with my right fist and he went down in a heap. He was more surprised than hurt, I imagine, but it took all of the fightout of him for he received no sympathy from the spectators. Poor Yvette had a difficult time with her camera operations and a lessdetermined person would have given up in despair. The natives were so shyand suspicious that it was well-nigh impossible to bribe them to stand fora second and it was only after three hours of aggravating work in thestifling heat and dust that she at last succeeded in exposing all herplates. Her patience and determination were really wonderful and I am quitesure that I should not have obtained half her results. The Kachin women were extraordinary looking individuals. They were short, and strongly built, with a mop of coarse hair cut straight all around, andthick lips stained with betel nut. Their dress consisted of a short blackjacket and skirt reaching to the knees, and ornamented with strings ofbeads and pieces of brass or silver. This tribe forms the largest part ofthe population in northern Burma and also extends into Assam. Yün-nan isfortunate in having comparatively few of them along its western frontierfor they are an uncivilized and quarrelsome race and frequently give theBritish government considerable trouble. There were only a few Burmans in the market although the border is hardly adozen miles to the west, but the girls were especially attractive. Theirbright pretty faces seemed always ready to break into a smile and theirgraceful figures draped in brilliant _sarongs_ were in delightful contrastto the other, not over-clean, natives. The Burma girls were not chewing betel nut, which added to theirdistinction. The lips of virtually every other woman and man were stainedfrom the red juice, which is in universal use throughout India, the MalayPeninsula, and the Netherlands Indies. In Yün-nan we first noted it at the"Good Hope" camp, and the Shans are generally addicted to the practice. The permanent population of Meng-ting is entirely Shan, but during thewinter a good many Cantonese Chinamen come to gamble and buy opium. Thedrug is smuggled across the border very easily and a lucrative trade iscarried on. It can be purchased for seventy-five cents (Mexican) an ouncein Burma and sold for two dollars (Mexican) an ounce in Yün-nan Fu and forten dollars in Shanghai. Opium is smoked publicly in all the tea houses. The drug is cooked over analcohol lamp and when the "pill" is properly prepared it is placed in thetiny bowl of the pipe, held against the flame and the smoke inhaled. Theprocess is a rather complicated one and during it the natives alwaysrecline. No visible effect is produced even after smoking several pipefuls, but the deathly paleness and expressionless eye marks the inveterate opiumuser. There can be no doubt that the Chinese government has been, and is, genuinely anxious to suppress the use of opium and it has succeeded to aremarkable degree. We heard of only one instance of poppy growing inYün-nan and often met officials, accompanied by a guard of soldiers, on inspection trips. Indeed, while we were in Meng-ting the districtmandarin arrived. We were sitting in our tents when the melodious notes ofdeep-toned gongs floated in through the mist. They were like the chimes offar away cathedral bells sounding nearer and louder, but losing none of thesweetness. Soon a long line of soldiers appeared and passed the campbearing in their midst a covered chair. The mandarin established himself ina spacious temple on the opposite side of the village, where I visited himthe following day and explained the difficulty we had had at the Meng-ting_yamen_. He aided us so effectually that all opposition to our plans endedand we obtained a guide to take us to a hunting place on the Nam-tingRiver, three miles from the Burma border. CHAPTER XXIX CAMPING ON THE NAM-TING RIVER Every morning the valley at Meng-ting was filled with a thick white mistand when we broke camp at daylight each mule was swallowed up in the fog assoon as it left the rice field. We followed the sound of the leader's bell, but not until ten o'clock was the entire caravan visible. For thirty _li_the valley is broad and flat as at Meng-ting and filled with a luxuriantgrowth of rank grass, but it narrows suddenly where the river has carvedits way through a range of hills. The trail led uncertainly along a steep bank through a dense, tropicaljungle. Palms and huge ferns, broad-leaved bananas, and giant trees lacedand interlaced with thorny vines and hanging creepers formed a living wallof green as impenetrable as though it were a net of steel. We followed thetrail all day, sometimes picking our way among the rocks high above theriver or padding along in the soft earth almost at the water's edge. Atnight we camped in a little clearing where some adventurous native hadfought the jungle and been defeated; his bamboo hut was in ruins and thefields were overgrown with a tangle of throttling vegetation. We had seen no mammals, but the birds along the road were fascinating. Brilliant green parrots screamed in the tree tops and tiny sun-birdsdressed in garments of red and gold and purple, flashed across the traillike living jewels. Once we heard a strange whirr and saw a huge hornbillflapping heavily over the river, every beat of his stiff wing featherssounding like the motor of an aëroplane. Bamboo partridges called from thebushes and dozens of unfamiliar bird notes filled the air. At eleven o'clock on the following morning we passed two thatched huts in alittle clearing beside the trail and the guide remarked that our campingplace was not far away. We reached it shortly and were delighted. Twoenormous trees, like great umbrellas, spread a cool, dark shade above asparkling stream on the edge of an abandoned rice field. From a patch ofground as level as a floor, where our tents were pitched, we could lookacross the brown rice dykes to the enclosing walls of jungle and up to thegreen mountain beyond. A half mile farther down the trail, but hidden awayin the jungle, lay a picturesque Shan village of a dozen huts, where theguide said we should be able to find hunters. As soon as tiffin was over we went up the creek with a bag of steel trapsto set them on the tiny trails which wound through the jungle in everydirection. Selecting a well-beaten patch we buried the trap in the center, covered it carefully with leaves, and suspended the body of a bird or achunk of meat by a wire over the pan about three feet from the ground. Alight branch was fastened to the chain as a "drag. " When the trap is pulledthis invariably catches in the grass or vines and, while holding the animalfirmly, still gives enough "spring" to prevent its freeing itself. Trapping is exceedingly interesting for it is a contest of wits between thetrapper and the animal with the odds by no means in favor of the former. The trap may not be covered in a natural way; the surroundings may beunduly disturbed; a scent of human hands may linger about the bait, orthere may be numberless other possibilities to frighten the suspiciousanimal. In the evening our guide brought a strange individual whom he introduced asthe best hunter in the village. He was a tall Mohammedan Chinese whodressed like a Shan and was married to a Shan woman. He seemed to beafflicted with mental and physical inertia, for when he spoke it was inslow drawl hardly louder than a whisper, and every movement of his body wascorrespondingly deliberate. We immediately named him the "Dying Rabbit" butdiscovered very shortly that he really had boundless energy and was anexcellent hunter. The next morning he collected a dozen Shans for beaters and we drove apatch of jungle above camp but without success. There were many samburtracks in the clearings, but we realized at once that it was going to bedifficult to get deer because of the dense cover; the open places were sofew and small that a sambur had every chance to break through withoutgiving a shot. Nearly all the beaters carried guns. The "Dying Rabbit" was armed with a. 45-caliber bolt action rifle into which he had managed to fit a . 303 shelland several of the men had Winchester carbines, model 1875. The guns hadall been brought from Burma and most were without ammunition, but each manhad an assortment of different cartridges and used whichever he could forceinto his rifle. The men worked splendidly under the direction of the "Dying Rabbit. " On thesecond day they put up a sambur which ran within a hundred feet of us butwas absolutely invisible in the high grass. When we returned to camp wefound that a civet (_Viverra_) had walked past our tent and begun to eatthe scraps about the cook box, regardless of the shouts of the _mafus_ andservants who were imploring Heller to bring his gun. After considerabledifficulty they persuaded him that there really was some cause for theirexcitement and he shot the animal. It was probably ill, for its flesh wasdry and yellow, but the skin was in excellent condition. Civets belong to the family _Viverridae_ and are found only in Asia andAfrica. Although they resemble cats superficially they are not directlyrelated to them and their claws are only partly retractile. They are verybeautiful animals with a grayish body spotted with black, a ringed tail, and a black and white striped pointed head. A scent gland near the base ofthe tail secretes a strong musk-like odor which, although penetrating, isnot particularly disagreeable. The animals move about chiefly in the earlymorning and evening and at night and prey upon birds, eggs, small mammals, fish, and frogs. One which we caught and photographed had a curious habitof raising the hair on the middle of its back from the neck to the tailwhenever it was angry or frightened. Although there were no houses within half a mile of camp we were surprisedon our first night to hear cocks crowing in the jungle. The note was likethat of the ordinary barnyard bird, except that it ended somewhat moreabruptly. The next morning we discovered Chanticleer and all his harem in adeserted rice field, and he flew toward the jungle in a flash of red andgold. I dropped him and one of his hens with a right and left of "sixes" andfound that they were jungle fowl (_Gallus gallus_) in full plumage. Thecock was a splendid bird. The long neck feathers (hackles) spread over hisback and wings like a shimmering golden mantle, but it was hardly morebeautiful than the black of his underparts and green-glossed tail. Pictureto yourself a "black-breasted red" gamecock and you have him in all hisglory except that his tail is drooping and he is more pheasant-like in hisgeneral bearing. The female was a trim little bird with a lilac sheen toher brown feathers and looked much like a well-kept game bantam hen. The jungle fowl is the direct ancestor of our barnyard hens and roosterswhich were probably first domesticated in Burma and adjacent countries longbefore the dawn of authentic history. According to tradition the Chinesereceived their poultry from the West about 1400 B. C. And they are figuredin Babylonian cylinders between the sixth and seventh centuries B. C. ;although they were probably introduced in Greece through Persia there is nodirect evidence as to when and how they reached Europe. The black-breasted jungle fowl (_Gallus gallus_) inhabit northern India, Burma, Indo-Chinese countries, the Malay Peninsula, and the PhilippineIslands; a related species, _G. Lafayetti_, is found in Ceylon; another, _G. Sonnerati_, in southern India, and a fourth, _G. Varius_, in Java. We found the jungle fowl wild and hard to kill even where they were seldomhunted. During the heat of the day they remain in thick cover, but incloudy weather and in the early morning and evening they come out intoclearings to feed. At our camp on the Nam-ting River we could usually putup a few birds on the edge of the deserted rice fields which stretched upinto the jungle, but they were never far away from the edge of the forest. We sometimes saw single birds of either sex, but usually a cock had withhim six or eight hens. It was interesting to watch such a flock feeding inthe open. The male, resplendent in his vivid dress, shone like a piece ofgold against the dull brown of the dry grass and industriously ran aboutamong his trim little hens, rounding up the stragglers and directing hisharem with a few low-toned "clucks" whenever he found some unusuallytempting food. It was his duty, too, to watch for danger and he usually would send theflock whirring into the jungle while they were well beyond shotgun range. When flushed from the open the birds nearly always would alight in thefirst large tree and sit for a few moments before flying deeper into thejungle. We caught several hens in our steel traps, and one morning at theedge of a swamp I shot a jungle fowl and a woodcock with a "right and left"as they flushed together. We were at the Nam-ting camp at the beginning of the mating season for thejungle fowl. It is said that they brood from January to April according tolocality, laying from eight to twelve creamy white eggs under a bambooclump or some dense thicket where a few leaves have been scratched togetherfor a nest. The hen announces the laying of an egg by means of a proudcackle, and the chicks themselves have the characteristic "peep, peep, peep" of the domestic birds. After the breeding season the beautiful redand gold neck hackles of the male sometimes are molted and replaced byshort blackish feathers. There seems to be some uncertainty as to whether the cocks are polygamous, but our observations tend to show that they are. We never saw more than onemale in a flock and in only one or two instances were the birds in pairs. The cocks are inveterate fighters like the domestic birds and their longcurved spurs are exceedingly effective weapons. We set a trap for a leopard on a hill behind the Nam-ting River camp and onthe second afternoon it contained a splendid polecat. This animal is amember of the family Mustelidae which includes mink, otter, weasels, skunks, and ferrets, and with its brown body, deep yellow throat, and longtail is really very handsome. Polecats inhabit the Northern Hemisphere andare closely allied to the ferret which so often is domesticated and used inhunting rats and rabbits. We found them to be abundant in the low valleysalong the Burma border and often saw them during the day running acrossa jungle path or on the lower branches of a tree. The polecat is ablood-thirsty little beast and kills everything that comes in its way forthe pure love of killing, even when its appetite has been satisfied. On the third morning we found two civets in the traps. The cook told methat some animal had stolen a chicken from one of his boxes during thenight and we set a trap only a few yards from our tent on a trail leadinginto the grass. The civet was evidently the thief for the cook boxes werenot bothered again. Inspecting the traps every morning and evening was a delightful part of ourcamp life. It was like opening a Christmas package as we walked up thetrails, for each one held interesting possibilities and the mammals of theregion were so varied that surprises were always in store for us. Besidescivets and polecats, we caught mongooses, palm civets, and othercarnivores. The small traps yielded a new _Hylomys_, several new rats, andan interesting shrew. We saw a few huge squirrels (_Ratufa gigantea_) and shot one. It wasthirty-six inches long, coal black above and yellow below. The animals werevery shy and as they climbed about in the highest trees they were by nomeans easy to see or shoot. They represent an interesting group confined toIndia, Siam, the Malay Peninsula, the islands of the Dutch East Indies, andBorneo. CHAPTER XXX MONKEY HUNTING Our most exciting sport at the Nam-ting camp was hunting monkeys. Everymorning we heard querulous notes which sounded much like the squealing ofvery young puppies and which were followed by long, siren wails; when theshrill notes had reached their highest pitch they would sink into lowmellow tones exceedingly musical. The calls usually started shortly after daylight and continued until aboutnine o'clock, or later if the day was dark or rainy. They would be answeredfrom different parts of the jungle and often sounded from half a dozenplaces simultaneously. The natives assured us that the cries were made by_hod-zu_ (monkeys) and several times we started in pursuit, but they alwaysceased long before we had found a way through the jungle to the spot fromwhich they came. At last we succeeded in locating the animals. We were inspecting a line of traps placed along a trail which led up avalley to a wide plateau. Suddenly the puppy-like squealing began, followedby a low tremulous wail. It seemed almost over our heads but the trees wereempty. We stole silently along the trail for a hundred yards and turnedinto a dry creek bed which led up the bottom of the forested ravine. Withinfinite caution, breathing hard from excitement, we slipped along, scanning the top of every tree. A hornbill sitting on a dead branch caughtsight of us and flapped heavily away emitting horrid squawks. A flock ofparrots screamed overhead and a red-bellied squirrel followed persistentlyscolding at the top of its voice, but the monkeys continued to call. The querulous squealing abruptly ceased and we stood motionless beside atree. For an instant the countless jungle sounds were hushed in abreathless stillness; then, low and sweet, sounded a moaning wail whichswelled into deep full tones. It vibrated an instant, filling all theforest with its richness, and slowly died away. Again and again it floatedover the tree tops and we listened strangely moved, for it was like themusic of an exquisite contralto voice. At last it ceased but, ere theechoes had reached the valley, the jungle was ringing with an unlovelysiren screech. The spell was broken and we moved on, alert and tense. The trees stretchedupward full one hundred and fifty feet, their tops spread out in a leafyroof. Long ropelike vines festooned the upper branches and a luxuriantgrowth of parasitic vegetation clothed the giant trunks in a swaying massof living green. Far above the taller trees a gaunt gray monarch of theforest towered in splendid isolation. In its topmost branches we could justdiscern a dozen balls of yellow fur from which proceeded discordantsqueals. It was long range for a shotgun but the rifles were all in camp. I fired acharge of B. B. 's at the lowest monkey and as the gun roared out the treetops suddenly sprang into life. They were filled with running, leaping, hairy forms swinging at incredible speed from branch to branch; not adozen, but a score of monkeys, yellow, brown, and gray. The one at which I had shot seemed unaffected and threw itself full twentyfeet to a horizontal limb, below and to the right. I fired again and hestopped, ran a few steps forward and swung to the underside of the branch. At the third charge he hung suspended by one arm and dropped heavily to theground stone dead. We tossed him into the dry creek bed and dashed up the hill where thebranches were still swaying as the monkeys traveled through the tree tops. They had a long start and it was a hopeless chase. At every step ourclothes were caught by the clinging thorns, our hands were torn, and ourfaces scratched and bleeding. In ten minutes they had disappeared and weturned about to find the dead animal. Suddenly Yvette saw a splash ofleaves in the top of a tree below us and a big brown monkey swung out on apendent vine. I fired instantly and the animal hung suspended, whirledslowly around and dropped to the ground. Before I had reloaded my gun itgathered itself together and dashed off through the woods on three legsfaster than a man could run. The animal had been hiding on a branch andwhen we passed had tried to steal away undiscovered. We found the dead monkey, a young male, in the creek bed and sat down toexamine it. It was evidently a gibbon (_Hylobates_), for its long arms, round head, and tailless body were unmistakable, but in every species withwhich I was familiar the male was black. This one was yellow and we knew itto be a prize. That there were two other species in the herd was certainfor we had seen both brown and gray monkeys as they dashed away among thetrees, but the gibbons were far more interesting than the others. Gibbons are probably the most primitive in skull and teeth of all theanthropoid, or manlike, apes, --the group which also includes the gorilla, chimpanzee, and orangutan. They are apparently an earlier offshoot of theanthropoid stem, as held by most authorities, and the giant apes and manare probably a later branch. Gibbons are essentially Oriental being foundin India, Burma, Siam, Tonking, Borneo, and the Islands of Hainan, Sulu, Sumatra, and Java. For the remainder of our stay at the Nam-ting River camp we devotedourselves to hunting monkeys and soon discovered that the three species wehad first seen were totally different. One was the yellow gibbon, another abrown baboon (_Macacus_), and the third a huge gray ape with a long tail(_Pygathrix_) known as the "langur. " On the first day all three specieswere together feeding upon some large green beans and this happened onceagain, but usually they were in separate herds. The gibbons soon became extremely wild. Although the same troop couldusually be found in the valley where we had first discovered them, theychose hillsides where it was almost impossible to stalk them because of thethorny jungle. Usually when they called, it was from the upper branches ofa dead tree where they could not only scan every inch of the ground below, but were almost beyond the range of a shotgun. Sometimes we climbed upwardalmost on our hands and knees, grasping vines and creepers, drawingourselves up by tree trunks, crawling under thorny shrubs and bushes, slipping, falling, scrambling through the indescribable tangle. We wentforward only when the calls were echoing through the jungle, and stoodmotionless as the wailing ceased. But in spite of all our care they wouldsee or hear us. Then in sudden silence there would be a tremor of thebranches, splash after splash of leaves, and the herd would swing awaythrough the trackless tree tops. The gibbons are well named _Hylobates_ or "tree-walkers" for they areentirely arboreal and, although awkward and almost helpless on the ground, once their long thin hands touch a branch they become transformed as by amiracle. They launch themselves into space, catch a limb twenty feet away, swing foran instant, and hurl themselves to another. It is possible for them totravel through the trees faster than a man can run even on open ground, andwhen one examines their limbs the reason is apparent. The fore arms are soexceedingly long that the tips of the fingers can touch the ground when theanimal stands erect, and the slender hands are longer than the feet. The gibbons were exceedingly difficult to kill and would never drop untilstone dead. Once I shot an old male with my 6-1/2 mm. Mannlicher rifle atabout one hundred yards and, even though the ball had gone clear throughhis body, he hung for several minutes before he dropped into a tangle ofvines. It was fifteen minutes before we were able to work our way through thejungle to the spot where the animal had fallen, and we had been searchingfor nearly half an hour when suddenly my wife shouted that a monkey wasrunning along a branch above our heads. I fired with the shotgun at a massof moving leaves and killed a second gibbon which had been hiding in thethick foliage. Instead of running the animals would sometimes disappear ascompletely as though they had vanished in the air. After being fooledseveral times we learned to conceal ourselves in the bushes where we couldwatch the trees, and sooner or later the monkeys would try to steal away. The langurs and baboons were by no means as wild as the gibbons and werefound in larger herds. Some of the langurs were carrying babies which clungto their mothers between the fore legs and did not seem to impede them inthe slightest on their leaps through the tree tops. The young of this species are bright orange-red and strangely unlike thegray adults. As they grow older the red hair is gradually replaced by gray, but the tail is the last part of the body to change. Heller captured one ofthe tiny red monkeys and brought it back to camp in his coat pocket. Thelittle fellow was only a few days old, and of course, absolutely helpless. When it was wrapped in cotton with only its queer little wizened face andblue eyes visible it had a startling resemblance to a human baby until itslong tail would suddenly flop into sight and dispel the illusion. It livedonly four days in spite of constant care. There are fifty-five species of langurs (_Pygathrix_) all of which areconfined to the Orient. In some parts of India the animals are sacred andclimb about the houses or wander in the streets of villages quite withoutfear. At times they do so much damage to crops that the natives who do notdare to kill the animals themselves implore foreigners to do so. Thelangurs are not confined to the tropics, but in the Tibetan mountains rangefar up into the snow and enjoy the cold weather. In the market at Li-chiangwe saw several skins of these animals which had been brought down by theTibetans; the hair was long and silky and was used by the Chinese for rugsand coats. The species which we killed at the Nam-ting River camp, like all others ofthe genus _Pygathrix_, was interesting because of the long hairs of thehead which form a distinct ridge on the occiput. We never heard the animalsutter sounds, but it is said that the common Indian langur, _Pygathrixentellus_, gives a loud whoop as it runs through the tree tops. Often whena tiger is prowling about the jungle the Indian langurs will follow thebeast, keeping in the branches just above its head and scolding loudly. The baboon, or macaque, which we killed on the Nam-ting was a closerelative of the species (_Macacus rhesus_) which one sees parading solemnlyabout the streets of Calcutta, Bombay, and other Indian cities. In Agra, the home of the beautiful Taj Mahal, the Monkey Temple is visited by everytourist. A large herd of macaques lives in the grounds and at a fewchuckling calls from the native attendants will come trooping over thewalls for the food which is kept on sale at the gate. These animals aresurprisingly tame and make most amusing pets. On one of our hunts my wife and I discovered a water hole in the midst of adense jungle where the mud was trodden hard by sambur, muntjac, wild boar, and other animals. We decided to spend a night watching beside it, but the"Dying Rabbit" who was enthusiastic in the day time lost his courage as thesunlight waned. Very doubtfully he consented to go. Although the trip netted us no tangible results it was an experience ofwhich we often think. We started just at dusk and installed ourselves inthe bushes a few yards from the water hole. In half an hour the forest wasenveloped in the velvety blackness of the tropic night. Not a star nor agleam of light was visible and I could not see my hand before my face. We sat absolutely motionless and listened to the breath of the jungle, which although without definite sound, was vibrant with life. Now and thena muntjac barked hoarsely and the roar of a sambur stag thrilled us like anelectric shock. Once a wild boar grunted on the opposite bank of the river, the sound coming to us clear and sharp through the stillness although theanimal was far away. Tiny forest creatures rustled all about us in the leaves and a small animalran across my wife's lap, leaping frantically down the hill as it felt hermove. For five hours we sat there absolutely motionless. Although noanimals came to the water hole we were silent with a great happiness as wegroped our way back to camp, for we had been close to the heart of thejungle and were thrilled with the mystery of the night. CHAPTER XXXI THE SHANS OF THE BURMA BORDER We saw many Shans at the Nam-ting River, for not only was there a villagehalf a mile beyond our camp, but natives were passing continually along thetrail on their way to and from the Burma frontier. The village was namedNam-ka. Its chief was absent when we arrived, but the natives were cordialand agreed to hunt with us; when the head man returned, however, he wasmost unfriendly. He forbade the villagers from coming to our camp andarguments were of no avail. It soon became evident that only force couldchange his attitude, and one morning, with all our servants and _mafus_, wevisited his house. He was informed that unless he ceased his opposition andordered his men to assist us in hunting we would take him to Meng-ting fortrial before the mandarin. He grudgingly complied and we had no furthertrouble. We found the Shans at Nam-ka to be simple and honest people but abnormallylazy. During our three weeks' stay not a single trap was stolen, althoughthe natives prized them highly, and often brought to us those in whichanimals had been caught. Shans were continually about our camp where boxeswere left unlocked, but not an article of our equipment was missed. The Nam-ka Shans elevated their houses on six-foot poles and built an openporch in front of the door, while the dwellings at Meng-ting and farther upthe valley were all placed upon the ground. The thatched roofs overhungseveral feet and the sides of the houses were open so that the free passageof air kept them delightfully cool. Moreover, they were surprisingly clean, for the floors were of split bamboo, and the inmates, if they wore sandals, left them at the door. In the center of the single room, on a large flatstone, a small fire always burned, but much of the cooking was done on theporch where a tiny pavilion had been erected over the hearth. The Shans at Nam-ka had "no visible means of support. " The extensive ricepaddys indicated that in the past there had been considerable cultivationbut the fields were weed-grown and abandoned. The villagers purchased alltheir vegetables from the Mohammedan hunter and two other Chinese who liveda mile up the trail, or from passing caravans whom they sometimesentertained. In all probability they lived upon the sale of smuggled opiumfor they were only a few miles from the Burma border. Virtually every Shan we saw in the south was heavily tattooed. Usually theright leg alone, but sometimes both, were completely covered from the hipto the knee with intricate designs in black or red. The ornamentationsoften extended entirely around the body over the abdomen and waist, butless frequently on the breast and arms. All the natives were inordinately proud of these decorations and usuallyfastened their wide trousers in such a way as to display them to the bestadvantage. We often could persuade a man to pose before the camera byadmiring his tattoo marks and it was most amusing to watch his childlikepleasure. The Shan tribe is a large one with many subdivisions, and it is probablethat at one time it inhabited a large part of China south of the YangtzeRiver; indeed, there is reason to believe that the Cantonese Chinamen arechiefly of Shan stock, and the facial resemblance between the two racescertainly is remarkable. Although the Shans formerly ruled a vast territory in Yün-nan before itsconquest by the Mongol emperors of China in the thirteenth century A. D. , and at one time actually subdued Burma and established a dynasty of theirown, at present the only independent kingdom of the race is that of Siam. By far the greatest number of Shans live in semi-independent statestributary to Burma, China, and Siam, and in Yün-nan inhabit almost all ofthe southern valleys below an altitude of 4, 000 feet. The reason that the Chinese allow them to hold such an extent of fertileland is because the low plains are considered unhealthy and the Chinesecannot, or will not, live there. Whether or not the malarial fever ofthe valleys is so exceedingly deadly remains to be proved, but theChinese believe it to be so and the result is the same. Where theShans are numerous enough to have a chief of their own they live in asemi-independent state, for although their head man is subordinate to thedistrict Chinese official, the latter seldom interferes with the internalaffairs of the tribe. The Shans are a short, strongly-built race with a distinct Mongolian typeof features and rather fair complexions. Their dress varies decidedly withthe region, but the men of the southern part of the province on theNam-ting River wear a pair of enormous trousers, so baggy that they arealmost skirtlike, a white jacket, and a large white or pink turbansurmounted by a huge straw hat. The women dress in a white jacket and skirtof either striped or dark blue cloth; their turbans are of similar materialand may be worn in a high cylinder, a low oval, or many other shapesaccording to the particular part of the province in which they live. CHAPTER XXXII PRISONERS OF WAR IN BURMA _Y. B. A. _ The camp at Nam-ka was a supremely happy one and we left it on March 7, with much regret. Its resources seemed to be almost exhausted and theMohammedan hunter assured us that at a village called Ma-li-ling we wouldfind excellent shooting. We asked him the distance and he replied, "About along bamboo joint away. " It required three days to get there! Whether the man had ever been to Ma-li-ling we do not know but weeventually found it to be a tiny village built into the side of a hill inan absolutely barren country where there was not a vestige of cover. Ourjourney there was not uneventful. We left Nam-ka with high hopes which weresomewhat dampened after a day's unsuccessful hunting at the spot where ourcaravan crossed the Nam-ting River. With a Shan guide we traveled due north along a good trail which ledthrough dense jungle where there was not a clearing or a sign of life. Inthe afternoon we noted that the trail bore strongly to the west andascended rapidly. Soon we had left the jungle and emerged into anabsolutely treeless valley between high barren hills. We knew that theBurma frontier could not be far away, and in a few moments we passed alarge square "boundary stone"; a hundred yards on the other side the hillswere covered with bright green stalks and here and there a field glistenedwith white poppy blossoms. The guide insisted that we were on the directroad to Ma-li-ling which for the first time he said was in Burma. On ourmap it was marked well over the border in Chinese territory and we weregreatly puzzled. About six o'clock the brown huts of a village were silhouetted against thesky on a tiny knoll in the midst of a grove of beautiful trees, and wecamped at the edge of a water hole. The pool was almost liquid mud, but wewere told that it was the only water supply of the village and its cattle. As though to prove the statement a dozen buffalos ambled slowly down thehill, and stood half submerged in the brown liquid, placidly chewing theircuds; meanwhile blue-clad Shan women with buckets in their hands wereconstantly arriving at the pond for their evening supply of water. We hadno filter and it was nauseating to think of drinking the filthy liquid butthere was no alternative and after repeated boiling and several strainingswe settled it with alum and disguised its taste in tea and soup. After dinner we questioned the few natives who spoke Chinese, but we becameonly more and more confused. They knew of no such place as Ma-li-ling andour Shan guide had discreetly disappeared. But they were familiar with thetrail to Ma-li-pa, a village farther west in Burma and, moreover, they saidthat two hundred foreign soldiers were stationed there. We were quitecertain that they must be native Indian troops but thought that a whiteofficer might perhaps be in command. We did not wish to cross the frontier because of possible politicaldifficulties since we had no permits to shoot in Burma, but there seemed tobe no alternative, for we were hopelessly bewildered by the mythicalMa-li-ling. We eventually discovered that there were two villages by thatname--one in Burma, and the other in China, where it was correctly placedon the map which we were using. While we were discussing the matter a tremendous altercation arose betweenthe Chinese _mafus_ and the servants. For some time Roy did not interfere, supposing it to be a personal quarrel, but the disturbance at last becameunbearable. Calling Wu we learned that because we had been so careful toavoid English territory the _mafus_ had conceived the idea that for somereason we were afraid to meet other foreigners. Since we had inadvertentlycrossed into Burma it appeared to them that it would be an opportune timeto extort an increase of wages. They announced, therefore, that unlessextra money was given them at once they would untie the loads and leave us. They were hardly prepared for what followed, however. Taking his Mannlicherrifle, Roy called the _mafus_ together and told them that if any mantouched a load he would begin to shoot the mules and that if they made theslightest resistance the gun would be turned on them. A _mafus_' mulesrepresent all his property and they did not relish the turn affairs hadtaken. They subsided at once, but we had the loads guarded during thenight. In the morning the _mafus_ were exceedingly surprised when theylearned that we were going to Ma-li-pa and their change of front waslaughable; they were as humble and anxious to please as they had beenbelligerent the night before. The trail led over the same treeless rolling hills through which we hadpassed on the previous afternoon. There was only one village, but it wassurrounded by poppy fields in full blossom. It must be a rather difficultmatter for a native living in China near the border to understand why heshould not be allowed to produce the lucrative opium while only a few yardsaway, over an imaginary line, it can be planted without restriction. Poppies seem to grow on hillsides better than on level ground. The plantsbegin to blossom in late February and the petals, when about to fall, arecollected for the purpose of making "leaves" with which to cover the ballsof opium. The seed pods which are left after the petals drop off arescarified vertically, at intervals of two or three days, by means of asharp cutting instrument. The operation is usually performed about fouro'clock in the afternoon, and the opium, in the form of dried juice, iscollected the next morning. When China, in 1906, forbade the consumption ofopium and the growing of poppies, it was estimated that there were fromtwenty-five to thirty millions of smokers in the Empire. We reached Ma-li-pa about one o'clock in the afternoon and found it to be astraggling village built on two sides of a deep ravine, with a mixedpopulation of Shans and Chinese. It happened to be the weekly market dayand the "bazaar" was crowded. A number of Indian soldiers in khaki werestanding about, and I called out to Roy, "I wonder if any of them speakEnglish. " Instantly a little fellow approached, with cap in hand, and said, "Yes, Madame, I speak English. " One cannot realize how strange it seemed to hear our own language from anative in this out-of-the-way spot! He was the "compounder, " or medicalassistant, and told us that the hundred native troops were in charge of awhite officer whose house was on the opposite side of the river gorge. Heguided us to a temple and, while the mules were being unloaded, in walked atall, handsome young British officer who introduced himself as CaptainClive. He was almost speechless with surprise at seeing me, for he had notspoken a sentence in English or seen a white person since his arrival atthis lonely post five months before. He asked us at once to come to his quarters for tiffin and we acceptedgladly. On the way he gave us our first news of the outside world, for wehad been beyond communication of any sort for months, and we learned thatthe United States had severed diplomatic relations with Germany. Captain Clive's bungalow was a two-room bamboo house with a broad verandaand thatched with straw. It was delightfully cool and dark after the glareof the yellow sun-baked plains about us, and in perfect order. The carewhich Britishers take to keep from "letting down" while guarding thefrontiers of their vast empire is proverbial, and Captain Clive was asplendid example of the Indian officer. He was as clean-shaved andwell-groomed as though he had been expecting us for days and the tiffin towhich we sat down was as dainty and well served as it could have been inthe midst of civilization. The great Lord Clive of India was an ancestor of our young officer who hadbeen temporarily detached from his regiment, the 129th Baluchis, and senton border duty. He was very unhappy, for his brother officers were inactive service in East Africa, and he had cried to resign several times, but the Indian government would not release him. When we reached Rangoonsome months later we were glad to learn that he had rejoined his regimentand was at the front. Ma-li-pa was a recently established "winter station"and in May would be abandoned when the troop returned to Lashio, ten days'journey away. Comfortable barracks, cook houses, and a hospital had beenerected beside a large space which had been cleaned of turf for a paradeground. Captain Clive was in communication by heliograph with Lashio, at the end ofthe railroad, and received a _résumé_ of world news two or three times aweek. With mirrors during the day and lanterns at night messages wereflashed from one mountain top to another and, under favorable conditions, reached Lashio in seven or eight hours. We pitched our tents a short distance from the barracks in an open field, for there was no available shade. Although Captain Clive was perfectlysatisfied with our passports and credentials he could not let us proceeduntil he had communicated with the Indian government by heliograph. Theborder was being guarded very closely to prevent German sympathizers fromcrossing into Burma from China and inciting the native tribes to rebellion. In December, 1915, a rather serious uprising among the Kachins in theMyitkyina district on the upper waters of the Irawadi River had beenincited by a foreigner, I believe, and Clive had assisted in suppressingit. The Indian government was taking no further chances and had givenstrict orders to arrest and hold anyone, other than a native, who crossedthe border from China. Very fortunately H. B. M. Consul-General Goffe at Yün-nan Fu had communicatedwith the Lieutenant-Governor of Burma concerning our Expedition and weconsequently expected no trouble, but Captain Clive could not let usproceed until he had orders to do so from the Superintendent of theNorthern Shan States. Through a delayed message this permission did notreach him for five days and in the meantime we made the most of the limitedcollecting resources which Ma-li-pa afforded. Clive ordered his day like all the residents of Burma. He rose at sixo'clock and after coffee and rolls had drill for two hours. At half pastten a heavy meal took the place of breakfast and tiffin; tea, withsandwiches and toast, was served at three o'clock, and dinner at eight. Hiscompany was composed of several different native tribes, and each religiouscaste had its own cook and water carrier, for a man of one caste could notprepare meals for men of another. It is an extraordinary system but onewhich appears to operate perfectly well under the adaptable Englishgovernment. Certainly one of the great elements in the success of theBritish as colonizers is their respect for native customs andsuperstitions! The company drilled splendidly and we were surprised to hear all commandsgiven in English although none of the men could understand that language. This is done to enable British and Indian troops to maneuver together. Captain Clive, himself, spoke Hindustani to his officers. In the eveningthe men played football on the parade ground and it seemed as though we hadsuddenly been transported into civilization on the magic carpet of theArabian Nights. Every morning we went shooting at daylight and returned about nine o'clock. Conditions were not favorable for small mammals and although we couldundoubtedly have caught a few civets, mongooses, and cats we did not set aline of steel traps for we expected to leave at any time. Our attention wasmostly devoted to bird collecting and we obtained about two hundredinteresting specimens. We had our mid-morning meal each day with Captain Clive and he dined withus in the evening. He had brought with him from Lashio a large quantity ofsupplies and lived almost as well as he could have done at home. Althoughthe days were very warm, the nights were cold and a camp fire was mostacceptable. Captain Clive was on excellent terms with the Chinese authorities and, while we were there, a very old mandarin, blind and infirm, called topresent his compliments. He had been an ardent sportsman and was especiallyinterested in our guns; had we been willing to accept the commission hewould have paid us the money then and there to purchase for him a Savage. 250-. 300 rifle like the one we were carrying. The old gentleman always hadbeen very loyal to the British and had received several decorations for hisservices. A few days after our arrival a half dead Chinaman crawled into camp withhis throat terribly cut. He had been attacked by brigands only a few milesover the border and had just been able to reach Ma-li-pa. The company"compounder" took him in charge and, when Clive asked him about thepatient, his evasive answers were most amusing; like all Orientals he wouldnot commit himself to any definite statement because he might "lose face"if his opinion proved to be wrong. Captain Clive said to him, "Do you think the Chinaman will die?" Lookingvery judicial the native replied, "Sir, he _may_ die, and yet, he maylive. " "But, " said Clive, "he will probably die, won't he?" "Yes, " was theanswer, "and yet perhaps he will live. " That was all the satisfaction hewas able to get. Clive told us of another native who formerly had been in his company. Hehad been transferred and one day the Captain met him in Rangoon. When askedif his pay was satisfactory the answer was typical, "Sir, it is good, butnot _s-o-o_ good!" On the afternoon of our fourth day in Ma-li-pa a heliograph from Rangoonannounced that "The Asiatic Zoölogical Expedition of the American Museum ofNatural History is especially commended to His Majesty's Indian Governmentand permission is hereby granted to carry on its work in Burma wherever itmay desire. " This was only one of the many courtesies which we receivedfrom the British. The morning following the receipt of the heliogram we broke camp atdaylight. When the last mule of the caravan had disappeared over the brownhills toward China we regretfully said farewell and rode away. If we areever again made "prisoners of war" we hope our captor will be as delightfula gentleman as Captain Clive. CHAPTER XXXIII HUNTING PEACOCKS ON THE SALWEEN RIVER From Ma-li-pa we traveled almost due north to the Salween River. Thecountry through which we passed was a succession of dry treeless hills, brown and barren and devoid of animal life. On the evening of the third daywe reached the Salween at a ferry a few miles from the village of Changlungwhere the river begins its great bend to the eastward and sweeps across theborder from China into Burma. The stream has cut a tremendous gorge for itself through the mountains andthe sides are so precipitous that the trail doubles back upon itself adozen times before it reaches the river 3, 500 feet below. The upper half ofthe gorge is bare or thinly patched with trees, but in the lower part thegrass is long and rank and a thin dry jungle straggles along the water'sedge. The Salween at this point is about two hundred yards wide, butnarrows to half that distance below the ferry and flows in a series ofrapids between rocky shores. The valley is devoid of human life except for three boatmen who tend theferry, but the deserted rice fields along a narrow shelf showed evidence offormer cultivation. On the slopes far up the side of the cañon is a Miaovillage, a tribe which we had not seen before. Probably the valley is toounhealthy for any natives to live close to the water's edge and, even atthe time of our visit in early March, the heated air was laden withmalaria. The ferrymen were stupid fellows, half drugged with opium, and assured usthat there were no mammals near the river. They admitted that theysometimes heard peacocks and, while our tents were being pitched on a steepsand bank beneath a giant tree, the weird catlike call of a peacock echoedup the valley. It was answered by another farther down the river, and thereport of my gun when I fired at a bat brought forth a wild "pe-haun, ""pe-haun, " "pe-haun" from half a dozen places. The ferry was a raft built of long bamboo poles lashed together with vinesand creepers. It floated just above the surface and was half submerged whenloaded. The natives used a most extraordinary contrivance in place of oars. It consisted of a piece of tightly woven bamboo matting three feet long andtwo feet wide at right angles to which was fastened a six-foot handle. Withthese the men nonchalantly raked the water toward them from the bow andstern when they had poled the raft well into the current. The investedcapital was not extensive, for when the ferry or "propellers" neededrepairs a few hours' work in the jungle sufficed to build an entirely newoutfit. All of the peacocks were on the opposite side of the river from our campwhere the jungle was thickest. On the first morning my wife and I floateddown the river on the raft for half a mile and landed to stalk a peacockwhich had called frequently from a rocky point near the water's edge. Wepicked our way through the jungle with the utmost caution but the wary oldcock either saw or heard us before we were within range, and I caught justa glimpse of a brilliant green neck as he disappeared into the bushes. Asecond bird called on a point a half mile farther on, but it refused tocome into the open and as we started to stalk it in the jungle we heard apatter of feet among the dry leaves followed by a roar of wings, and sawthe bird sail over the tree tops and alight on the summit of a bush-cladhill. This was the only peacock which we were ever able to flush when it hadalready gained cover. Usually the birds depend entirely upon their abilityto hide or run through the bushes. After several attempts we learned thatit was impossible to stalk the peacocks successfully. The jungle was socrisp and parched that the dry leaves crackled at every step and even smallbirds made a loud noise while scratching on the ground. The only way to get the peacocks was to watch for them at the river whenthey came to drink in the early morning and evening. Between two rockypoints where we had first seen the birds there was a long curved beach offine white sand. One morning Heller waited on the point nearest camp whilemy wife and I posted ourselves under a bush farther down the river. We hadbeen sitting quietly for half an hour when we heard a scratching in thejungle. Thinking it was a peacock feeding we turned our backs to the waterand sat motionless peering beneath the bushes. Meanwhile, Heller witnessedan interesting little drama enacted behind us. An old male peacock with a splendid train stole around the point close tothe water, jumped to a high stone within thirty yards of us and stood for afull minute craning its beautiful green neck to get a better view as wekneeled in front of him totally unconscious of his presence. After he hadsatisfied his curiosity he hopped off the observation pinnacle and, withhis body flattened close to the ground, slipped quietly away. It was anexcellent example of the stalker being stalked and had Heller not witnessedthe scene we should never have known how the clever old bird had fooled us. The following morning we got a peahen at the same place. Heller hadconcealed himself in the bushes on one side of the point while I watchedthe other. Shortly after daylight an old female sailed out of the jungle onset wings and alighted at the water's edge. She saw Heller almostinstantly, although he was completely covered by the vines, and started tofly, but he dropped her with a broken wing. Recovering herself, she dartedaround the rocky point only to meet a charge of B. B. 's from my gun. She wasa beautiful bird with a delicate crown of slender feathers, a yellow andblue face patch and a green neck and back, but her plumes were short andinconspicuous when compared with those of the male. Probably these birds had never before been hunted but they were exceedinglyshy and difficult to kill. Although they called more or less during theentire day and we could locate them exactly, they were so far back in thejungle that the crackling of the dry leaves made a stalk impossible. Wetried to drive them but were unsuccessful, for the birds would never flushunless they happened to be in the open and cut off from cover. Apparentlyrealizing that their brilliant plumage made them conspicuous objects, thebirds relied entirely upon an actual screen of bushes and their wonderfulsight and hearing to protect themselves from enemies. They usually came to the river to drink very early in the morning and justbefore dusk in the afternoon, but on cloudy days they might appear atalmost any hour. If undisturbed they would remain near the water's edge fora considerable time or strut about the sand beach just at the edge of thejungle. At the sound of a gun or any other loud sharp noise the peacockswould answer with their mournful catlike wail, exactly as the domesticatedbirds will do. The Chinese believe that the flesh of the peafowl is poison and ourservants were horrified when they learned that we intended to eat it. Theyfully expected that we would not survive the night and, even when they sawwe had experienced no ill effects, they could not be persuaded to touch anyof it themselves. An old peacock is too tough to eat, but the younger birdsare excellent and when stuffed with chestnuts and roasted they are almostthe equal of turkey. The species which we killed on the Salween River is the green peafowl(_Pavo munticus_) which inhabits Burma, Sumatra, Java, and the MalayPeninsula. Its neck is green, instead of purple, as is that of the commonIndian peacock (_Pavo cristatus_), and it is said that it is the mostbeautiful bird of the world. The long ocellated tail coverts called the "train" are dropped about Augustand the birds assume more simple barred plumes, but the molt is veryirregular; usually the full plumage is resumed in March or even earlier. The train is, of course, an ornament to attract the female and, when a cockis strutting about with spread plumes, he sometimes makes a most peculiarrustling sound by vibrating the long feathers. The eight or ten eggs are laid on the bare ground under a bush in the densejungle, are dull brownish white and nearly three inches long. The chicksare sometimes domesticated, but even when born in captivity, it is saidthey are difficult to tame and soon wander away. The birds are omnivorous, feeding on insects, grubs, reptiles, flower buds, young shoots, and grain. The common peafowl (_Pavo cristatus_) is a native of India, Ceylon, andAssam. It is held sacred by some religious castes and we saw dozens of thebirds wandering about the grounds of the temples in Benares, Agra, andDelhi. Peafowl are said to be rather disagreeable pets because they oftenattack infirm persons and children and kill young poultry. In some parts of Ceylon and India the birds are so abundant and easilykilled that they do not furnish even passable sport, but in other placesthey are as wild and difficult to shoot as we found them to be on theSalween River. In India it is a universal belief among sportsmen thatwherever peafowls are common, there tiger will be found. A very beautiful variety which seems to have arisen abruptly indomestication is the so-called "japanned" or black-shouldered peacock named_Pavo nigripennis_ by Mr. Sclater. In some respects it is intermediatebetween _P. Munticus_ and _P. Cristatus_ and apparently "breeds true" butnever has been found in a wild state. Albino specimens are by no meansunusual and are a feature of many zoölogical gardens. Peacocks have been under domestication for many centuries and are mentionedin the Bible as having been imported into Palestine by Solomon; althoughthe bird is referred to in mythology, the Greeks probably had but littleknowledge of it until after the conquests of Alexander. In the thick jungle only a few hundred yards from our camp on the SalweenRiver I put up a silver pheasant (_Euplocamus nycthemerus_), one of theearliest known and most beautiful species of the family Phasianidae. Itswhite mantle, delicately vermiculated with black, extends like a weddingveil over the head, back and tail, in striking contrast to the blue-blackunderparts, red cheek patches, and red legs. This bird was formerly pictured in embroidery upon the heart and backbadges of the official dresses of civil mandarins to denote the rank of thewearer, and is found only in southern and western China. It is by no meansabundant in the parts of Yün-nan which we visited and, moreover, lives insuch dense jungle that it is difficult to find. The natives sometimes snarethe birds and offer them for sale alive. We also saw monkeys at our camp on the Salween River, but were notsuccessful in killing any. They were probably the Indian baboon (_Macacusrhesus_) and, for animals which had not been hunted, were mostextraordinarily wild. They were in large herds and sometimes came down tothe water to skip and dance along the sand and play among the rocks. Themonkeys invariably appeared on the opposite side of the river from us andby the time we hunted up the boatmen and got the clumsy raft to the othershore the baboons had disappeared in the tall grass or were merrily runningthrough the trees up the mountain-side. The valley was too dry to be a very productive trapping ground for eithersmall or large mammals, but the birds were interesting and we secured agood many species new to our collection. Jungle fowl were abundant andpigeons exceedingly so, but we saw no ducks along the river and only twocormorants. Very few natives crossed at the ferry during our stay, for it is a long wayfrom the main road and the climb out of the gorge is too formidable to beundertaken if the Salween can possibly be crossed higher up where thevalley is wide and shallow. While we were camped at the river the heat wasmost uncomfortable during the middle of the day and was but littlemitigated by the wind which blew continually. During mid-summer the valleyat this point must be a veritable furnace and doubtless reeks with fever. We slept under nets at night and in the early evening, while we werewatching for peacocks, the mosquitoes were very troublesome. CHAPTER XXXIV THE GIBBONS OF HO-MU-SHU It is a long hard climb out of the Salween valley. We left on March 24 andall day crawled up the steep sides on a trail which doubled back and forthupon itself like an endless letter S. From our camp at night the river wasjust visible as a thin green line several thousand feet below, and for thefirst time in days, we needed a charcoal fire in our tents. We were _en route_ to Lung-ling, a town of considerable size, where therewas a possibility that mail might be awaiting us in care of the mandarin. Although ordinarily a three days' journey, it was more than four daysbefore we arrived, because I had a sharp attack of malaria shortly afterleaving the Salween River and we had to travel half stages. When we were well out of the valley and at an altitude of 5, 000 feet, wearrived at a Chinese town. Its dark evil-smelling houses, jammed togetherin a crowded mass, and the filthy streets swarming with ragged children andfoot-bound women, were in unpleasant contrast to the charming little Shanvillages which we had seen in the low country. The inhabitants themselvesappeared to no better advantage when compared with their Shan neighbors, for their stares and insolent curiosity were almost unbearable. The region between the Salween River at Changlung and Lung-ling is asuninteresting to the zoölogist as it could possibly be, for the hills aredry and bare and devoid of animal life. Lung-ling is a typical Chinese townexcept that the streets are wide and it is not as dirty as usual. Themandarin was a jolly rotund little fellow who simulated great sympathy whenhe informed me that he had received no mail for us. We had left directionsto have a runner follow us from Yung-chang and in the event that he did notfind our camp to proceed to Lung-ling with the mail. We learned some weekslater that the runner had been frightened by brigands and had turned backlong before he reached Meng-ting. We had heard from our _mafus_ and other natives that black monkeys were tobe found on a mountain pass not far from the village of Ho-mu-shu, on themain Yung-chang-Teng-yueh road and, as we were certain that they wouldprove to be gibbons, we decided to make that our next hunting camp. It wasthree stages from Lung-ling and, toward evening of the second day, we againdescended to the Salween River. The valley at this point is several miles wide and is so dry that the fewshrubs and bushes seem to be parched and barely able to live. At the upperend a picturesque village is set among extensive rice fields. Although afew Chinese live there, its inhabitants are chiefly Shans who are in atransitory state and are gradually adopting Chinese customs. The houses arejoined to each other in the Chinese way and are built of mud, thatched withstraw. In shape as well as in composition they are quite unlike thedwellings of the southern Shans. The women wore cylindrical turbans, abouteighteen inches high, which at a distance looked like silk hats, and themen were dressed in narrow trousers and jackets of Chinese blue. I believethat some of the Shan women also had bound feet but of this I cannot becertain. We camped on a little knoll under an enormous tree at the far end of thevillage street, and a short time after the tents were up we had a visitfrom the Shan magistrate. He was a dapper energetic little fellow wearingforeign dress and quite _au courant_ with foreign ways. He even owned abreech-loading shotgun, and, before we left, sent to ask for shells. Hepresented us with the usual chickens and I returned several tins ofcigarettes. He appeared to be quite a sportsman and directed us to a placeon the mountain above the village where he said monkeys were abundant. We left early in the morning with a guide and, after a hard climb, arrivedat a little village near the forest to which the magistrate had directedus. Not only did the natives assure us that they had never seen monkeys butwe discovered for ourselves that the only water was more than a mile away, and that camping there was out of the question. The next day, April 1, we went on to Ho-mu-shu. It is a tiny village builtinto the mountain-side with hardly fifty yards of level ground about it, but commanding a magnificent view over the Salween valley. Although wereached there at half past two in the afternoon the _mafus_ insisted oncamping because they swore that there was no water within fifty _li_ up themountain. Very unwillingly I consented to camp and the next morning found, as usual, that the _mafus_ had lied for there was a splendid camping placewith good water not two hours from Ho-mu-shu. It was useless to rage forthe Chinese have no scruples about honesty in such small matters, and thehead _mafu_ blandly admitted that he knew there was a camping place fartheron but that he was tired and wanted to stop early. As we gained the summit of the ridge we were greeted with a ringing"hu-wa, " "hu-wa, " "hu-wa, " from the forest five hundred feet below us; theywere the calls of gibbons, without a doubt, but strikingly unlike those ofthe Nam-ting River. We decided to camp at once and, after considerableprospecting, chose a flat place beside the road. It was by no means idealbut had the advantage of giving us an opportunity to hunt from either sideof the ridge which for its entire length was scarcely two hundred feet inwidth. The sides fell away for thousands of feet in steep forest-cladslopes and, as far as our eyes could reach, wave after wave of mountainsrolled outward in a great sea of green. Our camp would have been delightful except for the wind which swept acrossthe pass night and day in an unceasing gale. My wife and I set a line oftraps along a trail which led down the north side of the ridge, whileHeller chose the opposite slope. We were entranced with the forest. Thetrees were immense spreading giants with interlaced branches that formed asolid roof of green 150 feet above the soft moss carpet underneath. Everytrunk was clothed in a smothering mass of vines and ferns and parasiticplants and, from the lower branches, thousands of ropelike creepers swayedback and forth with every breath of wind. Below, the forest was fairly opensave for occasional patches of dwarf bamboo, but the upper canopy was soclose and dense that even at noon there was hardly more than a sombertwilight beneath the trees. Our first night on the pass was spent in a terrific gale which howled upthe valley from the south and swept across the ridge in a torrent of wind. The huge trees around us bent and tossed, and our tents seemed about to betorn to shreds. Amid the crashing of branches and the roar of the wind itwas impossible to hear each other speak and sleep was out of the question. We lay in our bags expecting every second to have the covering torn fromabove our heads, but the tough cloth held, and at midnight the gale beganto lull. In the morning the sun was out in a cloudless sky but the windnever ceased entirely on the pass even though there was a breathless calmamong the trees a few hundred feet below. My wife and I had just returned from inspecting our line of traps aboutnine o'clock in the morning when the forest suddenly resounded with the"hu-wa, " "hu-wa, " "hu-wa" of the gibbons. It seemed a long way off atfirst, but sounded louder and clearer every minute. At the first note weseized our guns and dashed down the mountain-side, slipping, stumbling, andfalling. The animals were in the giant forest about five hundred feet belowthe summit of the ridge and as we neared them we moved cautiously from treeto tree, going forward only when they called. It was one of the mostexciting stalks I have ever made, for the wild, ringing howls seemed alwaysclose above our heads. We were still a hundred yards away when a huge black monkey leaped out of atree top just as I stepped from behind a bush, and he saw me instantly. Fora full half minute he hung suspended by one arm, his round head thrustforward staring intently; then launching himself into the air as thoughshot from a catapult he caught a branch twenty feet away, swung to another, and literally flew through the tree tops. Without a sound save the swish ofthe branches and splash after splash in the leaves, the entire herdfollowed him down the hill. It was out of range for the shotgun and my wifewas ten feet behind me with the rifle, but had I had it in my hand I doubtif I could have hit one of those flying balls of fur. We returned to camp with sorrow in our hearts, but two days later weredeemed ourselves and brought in the first new gibbons. We were sitting ona bed of fragrant pine needles watching for a squirrel which had beenchattering in the upper branches of a giant tree, when suddenly the wildcall of the monkeys echoed up the mountain-side. They were far away to the left, and we ran toward them, stumbling andslipping on the moss-covered rocks and logs, the "hu-wa, " "hu-wa, " "hu-wa"sounding louder every moment. They seemed almost under us at times and wewould stand motionless and silent only to hear the howls die away in thedistance. At last we located them on the precipitous side of a deep gorgefilled with an impenetrable jungle of palms and thorny plants. It was animpossible place to cross, and we sat down, irresolute and discouraged. Ina few moments a chorus of howls broke out and we saw the big black apesswinging along through the trees, two hundred yards away. Finally theystopped and began to feed. They were small marks at that distance but Irested my little Mannlicher on a stump and began to shoot while Yvettewatched them with the glasses. One big fellow swung out on a branch andhung with one arm while he picked a cluster of leaves with the other. Yvette saw my first shot cut a twig above his head but he did not move, andat the roar of the second he dropped heavily into the vines below. A brownfemale ran along the branch a few seconds later and peered down into thejungle where the first monkey had fallen. I covered her carefully with theivory head of the front sight, pulled the trigger, and she pitched headlongoff the tree. For a few seconds there was silence, then a splash of leaves and three hugeblack males leaped into full view from the summit of a tall tree. They weresilhouetted against a patch of sky and I fired twice in quick successionregistering two clean misses. The bullets must have whizzed too close forcomfort and they faded instantly into the forest like three black shadows. For ten minutes we strained our eyes into the dense foliage hoping to catcha glimpse of a swaying branch. Suddenly Yvette heard a rustling in the lowtree beneath which we were sitting and seized me violently by the arm, screaming excitedly, "There's one, right above us. Quick, quick, he'sgoing!" I looked up and could hardly believe my eyes for not twenty feet away hunga huge brown monkey half the size of a man. Almost in a daze I fired withthe shotgun. The gibbon stopped, slowly pivoted on one long arm and a pairof eyes blazing like living coals, stared into mine. I fired again pointblank as the huge mouth, baring four ugly fangs, opened and emitted abloodcurdling howl. The monkey slowly swung back again, its arm relaxed andthe animal fell at my feet, stone dead. It was a magnificent old female. By a lucky chance we had chosen, from allthe trees in the forest, to sit under the very one in which the gibbon hadbeen hiding and she had tried to steal away unnoticed. While my wife waited to direct me from the rim of the gorge, I climbed downinto the jungle to try and make my way up the opposite side where the othermonkeys had fallen. It was dangerous work, for the rocks were covered witha thin layer of earth which supported a dense growth of vegetation. If Itried to let myself down a steep slope by clinging to a thick fern it wouldalmost invariably strip away with a long layer of dirt and send meheadlong. After two bad falls I reached the bottom of the ravine where a mountaintorrent leaped and foamed over the rocks and dropped in a beautiful cascadeto a pool fifty or sixty feet below. The climb up the opposite side wasmore difficult than the descent and twice I had to return after finding theway impassable. A sheer, clean wall almost seventy feet high separated me from the spotwhere the gibbons had fallen. I skirted the rock face and had laboriouslyworked my way around and above it when a vine to which I had been clingingstripped off and I began to slide. Faster and faster I went, dragging amass of ferns and creepers with me, for everything I grasped gave way. I thought it was the end of things for me because I was hardly ten feetabove the precipice which fell away to the jagged rocks of the stream bedin a drop of seventy feet. The rifle slung to my back saved my life. Suddenly it caught on a tiny ragged ledge and held me flattened out againstthe cliff. But even then I was far from safe, as I realized when I tried totwist about to reach a rope of creepers which swung outward from a bushabove my head. How I managed to crawl back to safety among the trees I can remember onlyvaguely. I finally got down to the bottom of the cañon, but felt weak andsick and it was half an hour before I could climb up to the place where mywife was waiting. She was already badly frightened for she had not seen mesince I left her an hour before and, when I answered her call, she wasabout to follow into the jungle where I had disappeared. We left the twomonkeys to be recovered from above and went slowly back to camp. The gibbons of Ho-mu-shu are quite unlike those of the Nam-ting River. Theyrepresent a well-known species called the "hoolock" (_Hylobates hoolock_)which is also found in Burma. The males, both old and young, are coal black with a fringe of white hairsabout the face, and the females are light brown. Their note is totallyunlike the Nam-ting River gibbons and, instead of sitting quietly in thetop of a dead tree to call to their neighbors across the jungle for an houror two, the hoolocks howl for about twenty minutes as they swing throughthe branches and are silent during the remainder of the day. They calledmost frequently on bright mornings and we seldom heard them during cloudyweather. Apparently they had regular feeding grounds, which were visited every day, but the herds seemed to cover a great deal of territory. Like the gibbonsof the Nam-ting River, the hoolocks traveled through the tree tops atalmost unbelievable speed, and one of the most amazing things which I haveever witnessed was the way in which they could throw themselves from onetree to another with unerring precision. On April 5, we received the first mail in nearly three months and our shareamounted to 105 letters besides a great quantity of magazines. Wu hadridden to Teng-yueh for us and, as well as the greatly desired mail, had abasket of delicious vegetables and a sheaf of Reuter's cablegrams whichwere kindly sent by Messrs. Palmer and Abertsen, gentlemen in the employ ofthe Chinese Customs, who had cared for our mail. Mr. Abertsen also sent anote telling us of a good hunting ground near Teng-yueh. We spent an entire afternoon and evening over our letters and papers and, through them, began to get in touch with the world again. It is strange howlittle one misses the morning newspaper once one is beyond its reach andhas properly adjusted one's mental perspective. And it is just as strangehow essential it all seems immediately one is again within reach of suchadjuncts of civilization. On April 6, we had the first rain for weeks. The water fell in torrents, and the roar, as it drummed upon the tent, was so incessant that we couldbarely hear each other shout. Because of the long dry spell our camp hadnot been made with reference to weather and during the night I waked tofind that we were in the middle of a pond with fifteen inches of water inthe tent. Shoes, clothes, guns, and cameras were soaked, and the surface ofthe water was only an inch below the bottoms of our cots. This was thebeginning of a ten days' rain after which we had six weeks of as delightfulweather as one could wish. CHAPTER XXXV TENG-YUEH; A LINK WITH CIVILIZATION After a week on the pass above Ho-mu-shu we shifted camp to a villagecalled Tai-ping-pu, ten miles nearer Teng-yueh on the same road. The ridealong the summit of the mountain was a delight, for we passed through groveafter grove of rhododendrons in full blossom. The trees were sometimesthirty feet in height and the red flowers glowed like clusters of livingcoals among their dark green leaves. In the northern part of Yün-nan therhododendrons grow above other timber line on mountains where it is toohigh even for spruces. It rained continually during our stay at Tai-ping-pu. I had another attackof the Salween malaria and for five or six days could do little work. Heller, however, made good use of his time and killed a beautiful hornedpheasant, Temmick's tragopan (_Ceriornis temmincki_), besides half a dozenlangurs of the same species as those we had collected on the Nam-tingRiver. He also was fortunate in shooting one of the huge flying squirrels(_Petaurista yunnanensis_) which we had hoped to get at Wei-hsi. He saw theanimal in the upper branches of a dead tree on the first evening we were inTai-ping-pu but was not able to get a shot. The next night he watched thesame spot and killed the squirrel with a charge of "fours. " It measuredforty-two and one-quarter inches from the nose to the end of the tail andwas a rich mahogany red grizzled with whitish above; the underparts werecream white. As in all flying squirrels, the four legs were connected by asheet of skin called the "patagium" which is continuous with the body. Thisacts as a parachute and enables the animal to sail from tree to tree for, of course, it cannot fly like a bat. As these huge squirrels are strictlynocturnal, they are not often seen even by the natives. We were told by theLutzus on the Mekong River that by building huge fires in the woods theycould attract the animals and shoot them with their crossbows. A few weeks later we purchased a live flying squirrel from a native andkept it for several days in the hope that it might become tame. The animalwas exceedingly savage and would grind its teeth angrily and spring atanyone who approached its basket. It could not be tempted to eat or drinkand, as it was a valuable specimen, we eventually chloroformed it. Just below our camp in a pretty little valley a half dozen familiesof Lisos were living, and we hired the men to hunt for us. They weregood-natured fellows, as all the natives of this tribe seem to be, andworked well. One day they brought in a fine muntjac buck which had beenkilled with their crossbows and poisoned darts. The arrows were abouttwelve inches long, made of bamboo and "feathered" with a triangular pieceof the same wood. Those for shooting birds and squirrels were sharpened toa needle point, but the hunting darts were tipped with steel or iron. Thepoison they extracted from a plant, which I never saw, and it was said thatit takes effect very rapidly. The muntjac which the Lisos killed had been shot in the side with a singlearrow and they assured us that only the flesh immediately surrounding thewound had been spoiled for food. These natives like the Mosos, Lolos, andothers carried their darts in a quiver made from the leg skin of a blackbear, and none of the men wished to sell their weapons; I finally didobtain a crossbow and quiver for six dollars (Mexican). Two days before we left Tai-ping-pu, three of the Lisos guided my wife andme to a large cave where they said there was a colony of bats. The cavernwas an hour's ride from camp, and proved to be in a difficult and dangerousplace in the side of a cliff just above a swift mountain stream. We strungour gill net across the entrance and then sent one of the natives inside tostir up the animals while we caught them as they flew out. In less thanhalf an hour we had twenty-eight big brown bats, but our fingers were cutand bleeding from the vicious bites of their needle-like teeth. They allrepresented a widely distributed species which we had already obtained atYün-nan Fu. From Lung-ling I had sent a runner to Mr. Evans at Ta-li Fu asking him toforward to Teng-yueh the specimens which we had left in his care, and theday following our visit to the bat cave the caravan bearing our casespassed us at Tai-ping-pu. We, ourselves, were about ready to leave and twodays later at ten o'clock in the morning we stood on a precipitous mountainsummit, gazing down at the beautiful Teng-yueh plain which lay before uslike a relief map. It is as flat as a plain well can be and, except where adozen or more villages cluster on bits of dry land, the valley is one vastwatery rice field. Far in the distance, outside the gray city walls, wecould see two temple-like buildings surrounded by white-walled compounds, and Wu told us they were the houses of the Customs officials. Teng-yueh, although only given the rank of a "ting" or second-class Chinesecity, is one of the most important places in the province, for it stands asthe door to India. All the trade of Burma and Yün-nan flows back and forththrough the gates of Teng-yueh, over the great caravan road to Bhamo on theupper Irawadi. An important post of the Chinese Foreign Customs, which are administered bythe British government as security for the Boxer indemnity, is situated inthis city, and we were looking forward with the greatest interest tomeeting its white population. At the time of our visit the foreignersincluded Messrs. H. G. Fletcher and Ralph C. Grierson, respectively ActingCommissioner and Assistant Commissioner of Customs; Messrs. W. R. Palmer andAbertsen, also of the Customs; Mr. Eastes, H. B. M. Consul; Dr. Chang, IndianMedical Officer, and Reverend and Mrs. Embry of the China Inland Mission;Mr. Eastes, accompanied by the resident mandarin, was absent on a threemonths' opium inspection tour so that we did not meet him. We reached Teng-yueh on Sunday morning and camped in a temple outside thecity walls. Immediately after tiffin we called upon Mr. Grierson and wentwith him to the Customs House where Messrs. Abertsen and Palmer wereliving. We found there a Scotch botanist, Mr. Forrest, an old traveler inYün-nan who was _en route_ to A-tun-zu on a three-year plant-huntingexpedition for an English commercial firm. We had heard much of Forrestfrom Messrs. Kok and Hanna and were especially glad to meet him because ofhis wide knowledge of the northwestern part of the province. Mr. Forrestwas interested chiefly in primroses and rhododendrons, I believe, and informer years obtained a rather remarkable collection of these plants. From Mr. Grierson we first learned that the United States had declared waron Germany. It had been announced only a week before, and the informationhad reached Teng-yueh by cable and telegraph almost immediately. It came aswelcome news to us Americans who had been vainly endeavoring to justify toourselves and others our country's lethargy in the face of Teutoninsolence, and made us feel that once again we could acknowledge ournationality with the pride we used to feel. On Monday Mr. Grierson invited us to become his guests and to move ourcaravan and belongings to his beautiful home. We were charmed with it andour host. The house was built with upturned, temple-like gables, and fromhis cool verandah we could look across an exquisite flower-filled garden tothe blue mountains from which we had had our first view of Teng-yueh theday before. The interior of the dwelling was as attractive as itssurroundings, and the beautifully served meals were as varied and dainty asone could have had in the midst of a great city. Like all Britishers, the Customs men had carried their sport with them. Just beyond the city walls an excellent golf course had been laid out withChinese graves as bunkers, and there was a cement tennis court behind theCommissioner's house. Mr. Grierson had two excellent polo ponies, besidesthree trained pointer dogs, and riding and shooting over the beautifulhills gave him an almost ideal life. We found that Mr. Fletcher had areally remarkable selection of records and an excellent Victrola. Afterdinner, as we listened to the music, we had only to close our eyes andfloat back to New York and the Metropolitan Opera House on the divineharmony of the sextet from "Lucia" or Caruso's matchless voice. But none ofus wished to be there in body for more than a fleeting visit at least, andthe music already brought with it a lingering sadness because our days inthe free, wild mountains of China were drawing to a close. During the week we spent with Mr. Grierson we dried and packed all ourspecimens in tin-lined boxes which were purchased from the agent of theBritish American Tobacco Company in Teng-yueh. They were just the rightsize to carry on muleback and, after the birds and mammals had been wrappedin cotton and sprinkled with napthalene, the cases were soldered and madeair tight. The most essential thing in sending specimens of any kindthrough a moist, tropical climate such as India is to have them perfectlydry before the boxes are sealed; otherwise they will arrive at theirdestination covered with mildew and absolutely ruined. On the day of our arrival in Teng-yueh we purchased from a native two bearcubs (_Ursus tibetanus_) about a week old. Each was coal black except for aV-shaped white mark on the breast and a brown nose. When they first came tous they were too young to eat and we fed them diluted condensed milk from aspoon. The little chaps were as playful as kittens and the story of their amusingways as they grew older is a book in itself. After a month one of the cubsdied, leaving great sorrow in the camp; the other not only lived andflourished but traveled more than 16, 000 miles. He went with us on a pack mule to Bhamo, down the Irawadi River to Rangoon, and across the Bay of Bengal to Calcutta. He then visited many cities inIndia, and at Bombay boarded the P. & O. S. S. _Namur_ for Hongkong andbecame the pet of the ship. From China we took him to Japan, across thePacific to Vancouver, and finally to our home at Lawrence Park, Bronxville, New York. After an adventurous career as a house pet, when his exploits hadmade him famous and ourselves disliked by all the neighbors, we regretfullysent him to the National Zoölogical Park, Washington, D. C. , where he isliving happily at the present time. He was the most delightful little petwe have ever owned and, although now he is nearly a full grown bear, hisearly life is perpetuated in motion pictures and we can see him still as hecame to us the first week. He might well have been the model for theoriginal "Teddy Bear" for he was a round ball of fur, mostly head and earsand sparkling little eyes. CHAPTER XXXVI A BIG GAME PARADISE A few months previous to our arrival, Mr. Abertsen had discovered asplendid hunting ground near the village of Hui-yao, about eighty _li_ fromTeng-yueh. He had been shooting rabbits and pheasants and, while passingthrough the village, the natives told him that a large herd of _gnai-yang_or "wild goats" lived on the side of a hill through which a branch of theShweli River had cut a deep gorge. Although Abertsen was decidedly skeptical as to the accuracy of the reporthe spent two days hunting and with his shotgun killed two gorals; moreover, he saw twenty-five others. We examined the two skins and realized at oncethat they represented a different species from those of the Snow Mountain. Therefore, when we left Teng-yueh our first camp was at Hui-yao. Heller and I started with four natives shortly after daylight. We crossed atumbledown wooden bridge over the river at a narrow cañon where the sideswere straight walls of rock, and followed down the gorge for about twomiles. On the way Heller, who was in front, saw two muntjac standing in thegrass on an open hillside, and shot the leader. The deer pitched headlongbut got to its feet in a few moments and struggled off into the thick coverat the edge of the meadow. It had disappeared before Heller reached theclearing but he saw the second deer, a fine doe, standing on a rock. Although his bullet passed through both lungs the animal ran a quarter of amile, and he finally discovered her several hours later in the bushesbeside the river. In a short time we reached an open hillside which rose six or seven hundredfeet above the river in a steep slope; the opposite side was a sheer wallof rock bordered on the rim by an open pine forest. We separated at thispoint. Heller, with two natives, keeping near the river, while I climbed upthe hill to work along the cliffs half way to the summit. In less than ten minutes Heller heard a loud snort and, looking up, sawthree gorals standing on a ledge seventy-five yards above him. He firedtwice but missed and the animals disappeared around a corner of the hill. Afew hundred yards farther on he saw a single old ram but his two shotsapparently had no effect. Meanwhile I had continued along the hillside not far from the summit for amile or more without seeing an animal. Fresh tracks were everywhere andwell-cut trails crossed and recrossed among the rocks and grass. I hadreached an impassable precipice and was returning across a steep slope whenseven gorals jumped out of the grass where they had been lying asleep. Iwas in a thick grove of pine trees and fired twice in quick succession asthe animals appeared through the branches, but missed both times. I ran out from the trees but the gorals were then nearly two hundred yardsaway. One big ram had left the herd and was trotting along broadside on. Iaimed just in front of him and pulled the trigger as his head appeared inthe peep sight. He turned a beautiful somersault and rolled over and overdown the hill, finally disappearing in the bushes at the edge of the water. The other gorals had disappeared, but a few seconds later I saw a small oneslowly skirting the rocks on the very summit of the hill. The first shotkicked the dirt beside him, but the second broke his leg and he ran behinda huge boulder. I rested the little Mannlicher on the trunk of a tree, covering the edge of the rock with the ivory head of the front sight andwaited. I was perfectly sure that the goral would try to steal out, and intwo or three minutes his head appeared. I fired instantly, boring himthrough both shoulders, and he rolled over and over stone dead lodgingagainst a rock not fifty yards from where we stood. The two natives were wild with excitement and, yelling at the top of theirlungs, ran up the hill like goats to bring the animal down to me. It was ayoung male in full summer coat, and with horns about two inches long. Ourpleasure was somewhat dampened, however, when we went to recover the firstgoral for we found that when it had landed in the grass at the edge of theriver it had either rolled or crawled into the water. We searched along thebank for half a mile but without success and returned to Hui-yao just intime for tiffin. In the afternoon we shifted camp to a beautiful little grove on theopposite side of the river behind the hunting grounds. Heller, instead ofgoing over with the caravan, went back along the rim of the gorge in thepine forest where he could look across the river to the hill on which wehad hunted in the morning. With his field glasses he discovered five goralsin an open meadow, and opened fire. It was long shooting but the animalsdid not know which way to run, and he killed three of the herd before theydisappeared. Our first day had, therefore, netted us one deer and fourgorals which was better than at any other camp we had had in China. We realized from the first day's work that Hui-yao would prove to be awonderful hunting ground, and the two weeks we spent there justified allour hopes. At other places the cover was so dense or the country so roughthat it was necessary to depend entirely upon dogs and untrained natives, but here the animals were on open hillsides where they could be stillhunted with success. Moreover, we had an opportunity to learn somethingabout the habits of the animals for we could watch them with glasses fromthe opposite side of the river when they were quite unconscious of ourpresence. There was only one day of our stay at Hui-yao that we did not bring in oneor more gorals and even after we had obtained an unrivaled series, dozenswere left. Shooting the animals from across the river was rather anunsportsmanlike way of hunting but it was a very effective method ofcollecting the particular specimens we needed for the Museum series. Thedistance was so great that the gorals were unable to tell from where thebullets were coming and almost any number of shots might be had before theanimals made for cover. It became simply a case of long range targetshooting at seldom less than three hundred yards. Still hunting on the cliffs was quite a different matter, however, and wasas good sport as I have ever had. The rocks and open meadow slopes were soprecipitous that there was very real danger every moment, for one misstepwould send a man rolling hundreds of feet to the bottom where he wouldinevitably be killed. The gorals soon learned to lie motionless along the sheerest cliffs or tohide in the rank grass, and it took close work to find them. I used mostfrequently to ride from camp to the river, send back the horse by a _mafu_, and work along the face of the rock wall with my two native boys. Theireyesight was wonderful and they often discovered gorals lying among therocks when I had missed them entirely with my powerful prism binoculars. Their eyes had never been dimmed by study and I suppose were as keen asthose of primitive man who possibly hunted gorals or their relativesthousands of years ago over these same hills. There were many glorious hunts and it would be wearisome were I to describethem all, but one afternoon stands out in my memory above the others. Itwas a brilliant day, and about four o'clock I rode away from camp, acrossthe rice fields and up the grassy valley to the long sweep of open meadowon the rim of the river gorge. Sending back the horse, "Achi, " my native hunter, and I crawled carefullyto a jutting point of rocks and lay face down to inspect the cliffs aboveand to the left. With my glasses I scanned every inch of the gray wall, butcould not discover a sign of life. Glancing at Achi I saw him gazingintently at the rock which I had just examined, and in a moment hewhispered excitedly "_gnai-yang_. " By putting both hands to the side of hishead he indicated that the animal was lying down, and although he pointedwith my rifle, it was full five minutes before I could discover the goralflat upon his belly against the cliff, with head stretched out, and forelegs doubled beneath his body. He was sound asleep in the sun and looked asthough he might remain forever. By signs Achi indicated that we were to climb up above and circle aroundthe cliff to a ragged promontory which jutted into space within a hundredyards of the animal. It was a good three quarters of an hour before wepeered cautiously between two rocks opposite the ledge where the goral hadbeen asleep. The animal was gone. We looked at each other in blankamazement and then began a survey of the ground below. Halfway down the mountain-side Achi discovered the ram feeding in an openmeadow and we began at once to make our way down the face of the cliff. Itwas dangerous going, but we gained the meadow in safety and workedcautiously up to a grassy ridge where the goral had been standing. Again wecrawled like snakes among the rocks and again an empty slope of wavinggrass met our eyes. The goral had disappeared, and even Achi could notdiscover a sign of life upon the meadow. With an exclamation of disgust I got to my feet and looked around. Instantly there was a rattle of stones and a huge goral leaped out of thegrass thirty yards away and dashed up the hill. I threw up my rifle andshot hurriedly, chipping a bit of rock a foot behind the animal. Swearingsoftly at my carelessness, I threw in another shell, selected a spot infront of the ram, and fired. The splendid animal sank in its tracks withouta quiver, shot through the base of the neck. I had just ejected the empty shell when Achi seized me by the arm, whispering "_gnai-yang, gnai-yang, gnai-yang, na, na, na, na_, " andpointing to the cliffs two hundred yards above us. I looked up just in timeto see another goral flash behind a rock on the very summit of the ridge. An instant later he appeared again and stopped broadside on with his noblehead thrown up, silhouetted against the sky. It was a perfect target and, resting my rifle on a flat rock, I covered the animal with the white beadand centered it in the rear sight. As I touched the hair trigger and theroar of the high-power shell crashed back from the face of the cliff, theanimal leaped with legs straight out, whirling over and over down themeadow and bringing up against a boulder not twenty yards from the firstgoral. That night as I walked over the hills in the cool dusk I would not havechanged my lot with any man on earth. The breathless excitement of thestalk and the wild thrill of exultation at the clean kill of two splendidrams were still rioting in my veins. I came out of the valley and acrossthe rice fields to the blazing camp fire. Yvette ran to the edge of thegrove, her hands filled with wet photographic negatives. "How many?" shecalled. "Two, " I answered, "and both big ones. How many for you?" "Fourteencolor plates, " she sung back happily, "and all good. " CHAPTER XXXVII SEROW AND SAMBUR We had a delightful visit from Mr. Grierson during our first week in camp. He rode out on Thursday afternoon and remained until Sunday, bringing usmail, war news, and fresh vegetables, and returning with goral meat for allthe foreigners in Teng-yueh. On the afternoon of his visit I had killedthree monkeys which represented a different species from any we hadobtained before. They were the Indian baboon (_Macacus rhesus_) and wereprobably like those of the Salween River at Changlung. I found two great troupes of the monkeys running along the opposite riverbank. The first herd was climbing up the almost perpendicular rock walls, swinging on the bushes and sometimes almost disappearing in the tufts ofgrass. I could not approach nearer than one hundred and fifty yards and didsome very bad shooting at the little beasts, but a running monkey at thatdistance is a pretty uncertain mark, and it requires a much better shotthan I am to register more hits than misses. I did kill two, but bothdropped into the river and promptly sank, so that I gave it up. Less than a half mile farther on another and larger troupe appeared amongthe boulders just at the water's edge. Profiting by my experience, I keptout of sight among the bushes and watched the animals play about until onehopped to a rock and sat quietly for an instant. I got six in this way, butwe were able to recover only three of them from the water. Heller shot three muntjac at Hui-yao, besides the doe which he killed onthe first day. One of the largest bucks had a pair of beautiful antlersthree and one half inches long from the burr to the tip. The skin-coveredprojections, or pedicels, of the frontal bone, from the summits of whichthe antlers grow, measured two and one-half inches from the skull to theburrs. Evidently the muntjac are somewhat irregular in shedding for, although they were all in full summer pelage, two already had lost theirantlers while the other had not. I can think of no more delicious meat thanthe flesh of these little deer and they seem to be as highly esteemed bythe English sportsmen of India as they are by the foreigners of China. I did not see a muntjac while at Hui-yao, but was fortunate in killing asplendid coal-black serow which represents a sub-species new to science;although the natives said that serow were known to occur in the thickjungle on the south side of the river, none had been seen for years. Hellerand I had gone to this part of the gorge to hunt for a troupe of monkeyswhich he had located on the previous day. We had separated, Heller keepingclose to the water while I skirted the cliffs near the summit not far fromthe road which led through the pine forest. I was walking just under the rim of the gorge when suddenly with a snort alarge animal dashed out of a thicket below and to the left. I caught aglimpse of a great coal-black body and a pair of short curved horns as thebeast disappeared in a shallow gully, and realized that it was a serow. Afew seconds later it reappeared, running directly away from me along theupper edge of the gorge. I fired and the animal dropped, gave a convulsivetwist, rolled over, and plunged into the cañon. As the serow disappeared we heard a chorus of excited yells from below, andit was evident that some natives near the water had seen it fall. I hadslight hope that they might have rescued it from the river, but my heartwas heavy as we worked along the cliff trying to find a place where it waspossible to descend. A wood cutter whom we discovered a short distance awayguided us down a trail so steep that it seemed impossible for a human beingto walk along it, and in proof I slid the last half of the way to the rocksat the river's edge, narrowly escaping a broken neck. When we reached the stream it was only to find a flat wall against whichthe water surged in a mass of white foam, separating us from the placewhere the serow had fallen. I tried to wade around the rock but in twosteps the water was above my waist. It was evident that we would have toswim, and I began to undress, inviting Achi and the wood cutter to follow;the former refused, but the latter pulled off his few clothes withconsiderable hesitation. It was a swim of only about forty feet around the face of the cliff but thecurrent was strong and it was no easy matter to fight my way to the otherside. After I had climbed out upon the rocks I called to the wood cutter tofollow and he slipped into the water. Evidently the current was more thanhe had bargained for and a look of fear crossed his face, but he wentmanfully at it. He had almost reached the rock on which I was standing with outstretchedhand when his strength seemed suddenly to go and he cried out in terror. Ijumped into the water, hanging to the rocks with one hand and letting mylegs float out behind. The wood cutter just managed to reach my big toe, towhich he clung as if it had in reality been the straw of the drowning manand I dragged him up stream until, to my intense relief, he could grasp therocks. We picked our way among the boulders for a few yards and suddenly came uponthe serow lying partly in the water. I felt like dancing with delight butthe sharp rocks were not conducive to any such demonstrations and I merelyyelled to Achi who understood from the tone, if not from my words, that theanimal was safe. The men who had shouted when the animal fell over the cliff were only fiftyfeet away, but they too were separated from it by a wall of rock andsurging water. They said that there was an easier way up the cliff than theone by which we had descended, and prepared a line of tough vines, one endof which they let down to us. We made it fast to the serow and I kept asecond vine rope in my hands, swimming beside the animal as they dragged itto the other shore. It was landed safely and the wood cutter was hauledover by the same means. I had intended to swim back for my clothes but discovered that Achi haddisappeared, taking my garments and those of the wood cutter with him. Heevidently intended to meet us on the hilltop, but it left us in the ratherawkward predicament of making our way through the thick brush with only theproverbial smile and minus even the necktie. The men fastened together the serow's four legs, slipped a pole beneaththem and toiled up the steep slope preceded by a naked brown figure andfollowed by a white one. The side of the gorge was covered with vines andcreepers, many of them thorny, and pushing through them with no bodilyprotection was far from comfortable. When we arrived at the road on the rim of the gorge I was dismayed to findthat Achi was not there with my clothes. The wood cutter did not appear tobe greatly worried and indicated that we would find him farther up theroad. I walked on dubiously, expecting every second to meet some person, and sure enough, a Chinese woman suddenly appeared over a little hill. Idived into the tall ferns beside the road, burrowing like a rabbit, andfrom the frightened way in which she hurried past, she must have thoughtshe had seen one of her ancestral spirits stalking abroad. We eventuallyfound the boy, and, decently dressed, I faced the world again withconfidence and happiness. On the way back to camp we saw a goral on the cliffs across the river. Itwas high up and fully three hundred and fifty yards away but, of course, quite unconscious of our presence. My first two shots struck close besidethe animal, but at the third it rolled over and over down the hill, lodgingamong the rocks just above the river. Our entry into camp was triumphal, for fully half the village acted as anescort to the serow, an animal which few had ever seen. It was a female, and probably weighed about two hundred and fifty pounds. The mane was shortand black and strikingly unlike the long white manes of the Snow Mountainserows; the horns were almost smooth. Getting this specimen was one of thelucky chances which sometimes come to a sportsman, for one might hunt forweeks in the same place without ever seeing another serow, as the jungle isexceedingly dense and the cliffs so steep that it is impossible to walkexcept in a few spots. The animal had been feeding on the new grass just atthe edge of the heavy cover and probably had been sleeping under a bushwhen she was disturbed. Besides mammals and birds we made a fairly good collection of reptiles andlizards at Hui-yao, but in all other parts of the province which we visitedthey were exceedingly scarce. In fact, I have never been in a place wherethere were so few reptiles and batrachians. We obtained only one species ofpoisonous snake here. It was a small green viper which we sometimes sawcoiled on a low bush watching mouse holes in the grass. Several species ofnonpoisonous snakes were more common but were nowhere really abundant. We left Hui-yao the day after I killed the serow for a village calledWa-tien where there was a report of sambur. None of us had any real hope offinding the huge deer after our former unsuccessful hunts, but we camped inthe early afternoon on an open hilltop five miles from Wa-tien where thenatives assured us the animals often came to eat the young rice during thenight. We engaged four men with three dogs as hunters, but awoke to find a densefog blanketing the valley and mountains. It was not until half past ninethat the gray mist yielded to the sun and left the hills clear enough forus to hunt. We climbed a wooded ridge directly behind the camp and skirtedthe edge of a heavily forested ravine which the men wished to drive. Heller took a position in a bean field while I climbed to a sharp ridgeabove and beyond him. In less than half an hour the dogs began to yelp inan uncertain way. I saw one of them running down hill, nose to the ground, and a few seconds later Heller fired twice in quick succession. Two samburhad skirted the edge of the wood less than one hundred yards away, but hehad missed with both shots. The trail led into a deep ravine filled with dense underbrush. In a fewmoments the dogs began to yelp again and, while Heller remained on thehillside to watch the open fields, I followed the hounds along the creekbed. Suddenly the whiplike crack of his Savage 250-300 rifle sounded fivetimes in quick succession just above our heads, and we climbed hurriedlyout of the gorge. Heller shouted that he had fired at a huge sambur running along the edge ofa bean field but the animal showed no sign of being hit. We easily pickedup the trail in the soft earth and in a few moments found several drops ofblood, showing that at least one bullet had found its mark. The blood soonceased and we began to wonder if the sambur had not been merely scratched. Heller had seen the deer disappear in a second ravine, a branch of the oneout of which it had first been driven, and while he watched the upper sideI worked my way to the bottom to look for tracks. A few moments later thenatives began to shout excitedly just above me, and Heller called out thatthey had found the deer, which was lying stone dead half way down the sideof the gorge in a mass of thick ferns. The sambur had been hit only oncebut the powerful Savage bullet had crashed through the shoulder into thelungs; it was quite sufficient to do the work even on such a huge animaland the deer had run less than one hundred yards from the place where ithad been shot. It was a splendid male, carrying a magnificent pair of antlers whichmeasured twenty-seven inches in length. The deer was about the size of anAmerican wapiti, or elk, and must have weighed at least seven hundredpounds, for it required eight men to lift it. The Chinese hunters were wildwith excitement, but especially so when we began to eviscerate the animal, for they wished to save the blood which is considered of great medicinalvalue. They filled caps, sacks, bamboo joints, and every receptacle whichthey could find after each man had drunk all he could possibly force downhis throat and had eaten the huge clots which choked the thorax. When the sambur was brought to camp a regular orgy was held by ourservants, _mafus_, and dozens of villagers who gathered to buy, beg, orsteal some of the blood. Our interpreter, Wu, took the heart as hisperquisite, carefully extracted the blood, and dried it in a basin. Theliver also seemed to be an especial desideratum, and in fact every part ofthe viscera was saved. Because the antlers were hard they were notconsidered of especial value, but had they been in the velvet we shouldhave had to guard them closely; then they would have been worth about onehundred dollars (Mexican). We expected from our easy hunt of the morning that it would not bedifficult to get sambur, and indeed, Heller did see another in theafternoon but failed to kill it. Unfortunately, a relative of one of thehunters died suddenly during the night and all the men went off with theirdogs to the burial feast which lasted several days, and we were not able tofind any other good hounds. There were undoubtedly several sambur in the vicinity of our camp but theyfed entirely during the night and spent the day in such thick cover that itwas impossible to drive them out except with good beaters or dogs. Wehunted faithfully every morning and afternoon but did not get another shotand, after a week, moved camp to the base of a great mountain range sixmiles away near a Liso village. The scenery in this region is magnificent. The mountain range is the sameon which we hunted at Ho-mu-shu and reaches a height of 11, 000 feet nearWa-tien. It is wild and uninhabited, and the splendid forests must sheltera good deal of game. The foothills on which we were camped are low wooded ridges rising out ofopen cultivated valleys, which often run into the jungle-filled ravines inwhich the sambur sleep. Why the deer should occur in this particular regionand not in the neighboring country is a mystery unless it is the proximityof the great forested mountain range. But in similar places only a fewmiles away, where there is an abundance of cover, the natives said theanimals had never been seen, and neither were they known on the oppositeside of the mountain range where the Teng-yueh--Tali-Fu road crosses theSalween valley. On May 20, we started back to Hui-yao to spend three or four days huntingmonkeys before we returned to Teng-yueh to pack our specimens and end thefield work of the Expedition. On the way my wife and I became separatedfrom the caravan but as we had one of our servants for a guide we were notuneasy. The man was a lazy, stupid fellow named Le Ping-sang (which we had changedto "Leaping Frog" because he never did leap for any cause whatever), andbefore long he had us hopelessly lost. It would appear easy enough to ask the way from the natives, but theChinese are so suspicious that they often will intentionally misdirect astranger. They do not know what business the inquirer may have in thevillage to which he wishes to go and therefore, just on general principles, they send him off in the wrong direction. Apparently this is what happened to us, for a farmer of whom we inquiredthe way directed us to a road at nearly right angles to the one we shouldhave taken, and it was late in the afternoon before we finally found thecaravan. CHAPTER XXXVIII LAST DAYS IN CHINA It was of paramount importance to pack our specimens before the beginningof the summer rains. They might be expected to break in full violence anyday after June 1, and when they really began it would be impossible to getour boxes to Bhamo, for virtually all caravan travel ceases during the wetseason. Therefore our second stay at Hui-yao was short and we returned toTeng-yueh on May 24, ending the active field work of the Expedition exactlya year from the time it began with our trip up the Min River to Yeng-pingin Fukien Province. Mr. Grierson had kindly invited us again to become his guests and no placeever seemed more delightful, after our hot and dusty ride, than hisbeautiful garden and cool, shady verandah where a dainty tea was served. Our days in Teng-yueh were busy ones, for after the specimens were packedand the boxes sealed it was necessary to wrap them in waterproof covers;moreover, the equipment had to be sorted and sold or discarded, a caravanengaged, and nearly a thousand feet of motion-picture film developed. Thiswas done in the spacious dark room connected with Mr. Grierson's housewhich offered a welcome change from the cramped quarters of the tent whichwe had used for so many months. Much of the success of our motion film lay in the fact that it wasdeveloped within a short time after exposure, for had we attempted to bringor send it to Shanghai, the nearest city with facilities for doing suchwork, it would inevitably have been ruined by the climatic changes. Although cinematograph photography requires an elaborate and expensiveoutfit and is a source of endless work, nevertheless, the value of anactual moving record of the life of such remote regions is worth all thetrouble it entails. The Paget natural color plates proved to be eminently satisfactory and wereamong the most interesting results of the expedition. The stereoscopiceffects and the faithful reproduction of the delicate atmospheric shadingin the photographs are remarkable. Although the plates had been subjectedto a variety of climatic conditions and temperatures by the time the lastones were exposed in Burma, a year and a half after their manufacture, theyshowed no signs of deterioration even when the ordinary negatives which webrought with us from America had been ruined. The other photographs, someof which are reproduced in this book, speak for themselves. The entire collections of the Expedition were packed in forty-one cases andincluded the following specimens: 2, 100 mammals 800 birds 200 reptiles and batrachians 200 skeletons and formalin preparations for anatomical study 150 Paget natural color plates 500 photographic negatives10, 000 feet of motion-picture film. Since the Expedition was organized primarily for the study of the mammalianfauna and its distribution, our efforts were directed very largely towardthis branch of science, and other specimens were gathered only whenconditions were especially favorable. I believe that the mammal collectionis the most extensive ever taken from China by a single continuousexpedition, and a large percentage undoubtedly will prove to representspecies new to science. Our tents were pitched in 108 different spots from15, 000 feet to 1, 400 feet above sea level, and because of this range inaltitudes, the fauna represented by our specimens is remarkably varied. Moreover, during our nine months in Yün-nan we spent 115 days in thesaddle, riding 2, 000 miles on horse or mule back, largely over small roadsor trails in little known parts of the province. In Teng-yueh we were entertained most hospitably and the leisure hours weremade delightful by golf, tennis, riding, and dinners. Mr. Grierson was acharming host who placed himself, as well as his house and servants, at ourdisposal, utter strangers though we were, and we shall never forget hiswelcome. We decided to take four man-chairs to Bhamo because of the rain which wasexpected every day, and the coolies made us very comfortable upon oursleeping bags which were swung between two bamboo poles and covered with astrip of yellow oil-cloth. They were the regulation Chinese "mountainschooner, " at which we had so often laughed, but they proved to beinfinitely more desirable than riding in the rain. With the forty-one cases of specimens we left Teng-yueh on June 1, behind acaravan of thirty mules for the eight-day journey to Bhamo on the outskirtsof civilization. Our chair-coolies were miserable specimens of humanity. They were from S'suchuan Province and were all unmarried which alone isalmost a crime in China. Every cent of money, earned by the hardest sort ofwork, they spent in drinking, gambling, and smoking opium. As Wu terselyput it "they make how much--spend how much!" About every two hours they would deposit us unceremoniously in the midst ofa filthy village and disappear into some dark den in spite of ourremonstrances. We would grumble and fume and finally, getting out of ourchairs, peer into the hole. In the half light we would see them huddled ona "kang" over tiny yellow flames sucking at their pipes. At tiffin each onewould stretch out under a tree with a stone for a pillow and his broadstraw hat propped up to screen him from the wind. With infinite care hewould extract a few black grains from a dirty box, mix them with a littlewater, and cook them over an alcohol lamp until the opium bubbled and wasalmost ready to drop. Then placing it lovingly in the bowl of his pipehe would hold it against the flame and draw in long breaths of thesickly-sweet smoke. The men could work all day without food, but opium wasa prime necessity. It was almost impossible to start them in the morning and it became myregular duty to make the rounds of the filthy holes in which they slept, seize them by the collars and drag them into the street. Force made theonly appeal to their deadened senses and we were heartily sick of thembefore we reached Bhamo. The road to Bhamo is a gradual descent from five thousand feet to almostsea level. Because of the fever the valleys are largely inhabited by"Chinese Shans" who differ in dress and customs from the Southern Shans ofthe Nam-ting River. Few of the men were tattooed and the women all wore theenormous cylindrical turban which we had seen once before in the SalweenValley. At noon of the fifth day we crossed the Yün-nan border into Burma. It is abeautiful spot where a foaming mountain torrent rushes out of the jungle ina series of picturesque cascades and loses itself in a living wall ofgreen. The stream is spanned by a splendid iron bridge from which a finewide road of crushed stone leads all the way to Bhamo. What a difference between the country we were leaving and the one we wereabout to enter! It is the "deadly parallel" of the old East and the newWest. On the one side is China with her flooded roads and bridges ofrotting timber, the outward and visible signs of a nation still living inthe Middle Ages, fighting progress, shackled by the iron doctrines ofConfucius to the long dead past. Across the river is English Burma, witheyes turned forward, ever watchful of the welfare of her people, her ironbridges and macadam roads representing the very essence of modern thoughtand progress. With paternal care of her officials the British government has provided_dâk_ (mail) bungalows at the end of each day's journey which are open toevery foreign traveler. They are comfortable little houses set on piles. Each one has a spacious living room, with a large teakwood table andinviting lounge chairs. In a corner stands a cabinet of cutlery, china, andglass, all clean and in perfect order. The two bedrooms are provided withadjoining baths and a covered passageway connects the kitchen with thehouse. All is ready for the tired traveler, and a boy can be hired for atrifling sum to make the punkah "punk. " Such comforts can only beappreciated when one has journeyed for months in a country where they donot exist. Our last night on the road was spent at a _dâk_ bungalow near a villageonly a few miles from Bhamo. We were seated at the window, when, with arattle of wheels, the first cart we had seen in nine months passed by. Thatcart brought to us more forcibly than any other thing a realization thatthe Expedition was ended and that we were standing on the threshold ofcivilization. As Yvette turned from the window her eyes were wet with unshed tears, and alump had risen in my throat. Not all the pleasures of the city, the love offriends or relatives, could make us wish to end the wild, free life of theyear gone by. Silently we left the house and walked across the sunlit roadinto a grove of graceful, drooping palms; a white pagoda gleamed betweenthe trees, and the pungent odor of wood smoke filled the air. The spot was redolent with the atmosphere of the lazy East; the East which, like the fabled "Lorelei, " weaves a mystic spell about the wanderer whomshe has loved and taken to her heart, while yet he feels it not. And whenhe would cast her off and return to his own again she knows full well thather subtle charm will bring him back once more. * * * * * The next morning we entered Bhamo. It is a city of low, cool houses, widelawns and tree-decked streets built on the bank of the muddy Irawadi River. Only a few miles away the railroad reaches Katha, and palatial steamers runto Mandalay and Rangoon. We called upon Mr. Farmer, the DeputyCommissioner, who offered the hospitality of the "Circuit House" and in theevening took us with him to the Club. A military band was playing and men in white, well-dressed women, andofficers in uniform strolled about or sipped iced drinks beside the tenniscourt. We felt strange and shy but doubtless we seemed more strange to themfor we were newly come from a far country which they saw only as a mystic, unknown land. On June 9, at noon, we embarked for the 1, 200-mile journey to Rangoon, exactly nine months after we had ridden away from Yün-nan Fu toward theMountain of Eternal Snow. Our further travels need not be related here. When we reached civilization we expected that our transport difficultieswere ended; instead they had only begun. India was well-nigh isolated fromthe Pacific and to expose our valuable collection to the attacks of Germanpirates in the Mediterranean and Atlantic was not to be considered eventhough it necessitated traveling two thirds around the world to reachAmerica safely. We left Rangoon for Calcutta, crossed India with all our baggage to Bombay, and after a seemingly endless wait eventually succeeded in arriving atHongkong by way of Singapore. There we separated from our faithful Wu andsent him to his home in Foochow. It was hard to say "good-by" to Wu, forhis efficient service, his enthusiastic interest in the work of theExpedition, and, above all, his willingness to do whatever needed to bedone, had won our gratitude and affection. We ourselves went northward toJapan, across the Pacific to Vancouver, and overland to New York, arrivingon October 1, 1917, nearly nineteen months from the time we left. We werenever separated from our collections for, had we left them, I doubt if theywould ever have reached America. It was difficult enough to gather them inthe field, but infinitely more so to guide the forty-one cases through thetangled shipping net of a war-mad world. They reached New York without the loss of a single specimen and are nowbeing prepared in the American Museum of Natural History for the studywhich will place the scientific results of the Asiatic ZoölogicalExpedition before the public. * * * * * The story of our travels is at an end. Once more we are indefinable unitsin a vast work-a-day world, bound by the iron chains of convention to thecustoms of civilized men and things. The glorious days in our beloved Eastare gone, and yet, to us, the Orient seems not far away, for the miles ofland and water can be traversed in a thought. Again we stand before ourtent with the fragrant breath of the pines about us, watching theglistening peaks of the Snow Mountain turn purple and gold in the settingsun; again, we feel the mystic spell of the jungle, or hear the low, sweettones of a gibbon's call. We have only to shut our eyes to bring back apicture of the bleak barriers of the Forbidden Land or the sunlit streetsof a Burma village. Thank God, we saw it all together and such blessedmemories can never die. INDEX Abercrombie & Fitch Co. Abertsen, Mr. , Chinese Customs, employee of; discovered hunting ground near Hui-yao; killed two goralsAfricaAkeley, Carl E. AlaskaAllen, Dr. J. A. American flagsAmerican Legation, PekingAmerican Museum JournalAmerican Museum of Natural History; trustees of, specimens being prepared atAmericansAmmunition, loss ofAmoy_Anas boscas_ (Mallard ducks)Anglo-Chinese CollegeAnimal life, lack ofAnnamitsAntlersApe, gray (_Pygathrix_)_Apodemus_ (white-footed mouse)Asia_Asia_ Magazine, quoted fromAsiatic Zoölogical Expedition; members ofAssamAssistantsA-tun-zu Babies, killing and selling ofBaboon, brown (_Macacus_)Baboon, Indian (_Macacus rhesus_)Bamboo chickensBandits, attack ofBankhardt, Mr. Bat apartment houseBat cave, description of; experience of girl inBats, method of killingBatrachiansBear cubs (_Ursus tibetanus_), purchased at Teng-yuegBeddingBerger, Anna Katherine, acknowledgment toBering StraitBernheimer, Mr. And Mrs. Charles L. Betel nutBhamo; railroad from; road to; description ofBig Ravine, description of; temples nearBirds, game_Blarina_Boat, Chinese, eye onBode, Mr. Bohea HillsBound feetBowdoin, GeorgeBradley, Dr. ; established leper hospital at Paik-hoiBrahmin priestsBrahminy ducks; habits ofBridge, suspension, description ofBridges, ropeBrigand, seal of a pardonedBrigandageBrigands; beheading of; infest Yün-nan; description ofBritish American Tobacco Co. , HongkongBritish East AfricaBrooke, Englishman, killed by LolosBuffaloes; waterBui-taoBureau of Foreign Affairs, Director ofBurial, expenses ofBurma; border of; girls of; mammals caught near; frontier of; boundary ofBurmans CalcuttaCaldwell, Rev. Harry R. ; letter from; house of; stationed at Futsing; tiger hunting, method of; obtains serows at Yen-ping; purchases serow skins in FukienCalifornia_Callosciurus erythraeus_Camera equipmentCanadian Pacific R. R. Co. , Hongkong, General Passenger Agent ofCantonese, chiefly of Shan stock_Capricornulus crispus__Capricornis sumatrensis__Capricornis sumatrensis argyrochaetes__Capricornis sumatrensis milne-edwardsi_Caravan, robbing of; buying of; renting ofCaravan poniesCaravans, distance traveled byCary, F. W. , Commissioner of Customs_Casarca casarca_ (ruddy sheldrake)CavernsCentral AsiaCentral Asian plateau_Cervus macneilli_Chair-cooliesChairs, description ofChang, Dr. Chang-hu-fan; night atChanglung; ferry atChien-chuanChi-liChina; aboriginal inhabitants of; press; inland missionChinaman, CantoneseChinese, Republic; army of; face saving; Foreign Office; screaming, habit of; lack of sympathy of; not affected by sun; love of companionship; bride of; wedding of; dress of; Commissioner of Foreign Affairs, meeting with; education of; villages, description of; etiquette of; New Year; collecting debts ofChipmunk (_Tamiops macclellandi_)Chi-yuen-kangChou ChouChristians, native, persecution ofChristianity, lesson inChristmas; celebration ofChu-hsuing FuChung-tienCivet (_Viverra_)Clive, CaptainClothingColgate, Mr. And Mrs. Sidney M. Collecting caseColor platesConfucius, rules ofCook, difficulty in obtaining; description ofCooliesCormorantsCornCows, used as burden-bearers by ChineseCranes; habits ofCrossbowsCui-kau; description of Da-DaDaing-nei_Dâk_ (mail) bungalowsDa-MingDarjeelingDavies, Major H. R. ; quotedDead, burying ofDeerDeer, barkingDenby, Hon. CharlesDennet, Tyler, quotedD'Ollone, Major, member French ExpeditionD'Orleans, Prince HenriDog, red, death ofDogs, description of; for foodDoumer, M. , Governor-General of French Indo-ChinaDuai UongDucks brahminy; shooting ofDupontès, Georges Chemin, assistance of, to expedition Eastes, Mr. , ConsulEducation, foreign_Elaphodus_ElephantsElkEllsworth, LincolnEmbry, Rev. And Mrs. , China Inland Mission, members ofEmpress Dowager; issued edict prohibiting opium growingEquipment, purchase ofErh Hai or Ta-li Fu LakeEtiquetteEuropeEuropean warEvans, H. G. ; assistance ofExpedition, announcement of; applicants for positions on; results ofExpeditions, preliminaryEye on Chinese boat Farmer, Mr. Fauna, mammalian_Felis temmicki__Felis uncia_FerryFletcher, H. G. Flying squirrelFoochow; foreign residents of; streets of; mail from; schools for native girls at; woman's college atFood boxFoot binding, origin of; method of; Natural Foot Society of; agitation againstForbidden CityFord, James B. Foreign OfficeForest conservation, lack ofFormosaForrest, Mr. Fossil animals; bedsFrancolinsFrench ConsulFrick, ChildsFrick, Henry C. Fukien Province, China; deforestation of; mammals of; climate and temperature of; collecting in summer at; birds of; herpetology of; trapping for small mammals at; zoölogical study of; language of; travel in; servants in; serows hunted in; missionary work inFuneral customsFutsing; blue tiger hunting at Galápagos Islands_Gallus gallus__Gallus lafayetti__Gallus sonnerati__Gallus varius_GamblersGeeseGen-kangGibbon (_Hylobates_); description of; hunting ofGoffe, Consul-General at Yün-nan FuGoitre, prevalence ofGorals; first hunt for; ceremonies at death of; collecting for groups; color of; invisibility of; description of; horns of; distribution of; hunting of; fighting of; habits of; feet of; hunting of, at Hui-yaoGreat InvisibleGrierson, Ralph C. _Grus communis__Grus nigricollis_ Habala; hunting atHainan, description of; fauna ofHaiphong; arrival atHanna, Rev. William J. Hanoi, description of_Harper's Magazine_Hartford, MabelHeller, EdmundHimalaya MountainsHoi-hauHomesHo-mu-shu; monkeys found nearHongkong, purchase of supplies atHoolock (_Hylobates hoolock_)HornbillHorses, size ofHospital attendantsHotenfaHsia-kuan, description ofHui-yao; reptiles and lizards found atHunanHung-HsienHuntersHutchins, Commander ThomasHwa Shan (Flower Mountain), massacre at_Hylobates__Hylomys__Hystrix_ IndiaInnsIrawadi River JapanJapanese newspaper reportersJoline, Mrs. Adrian HoffmanJungle fowl; habits of Kachins; women, appearance ofKathaKellogg, C. R. Kok, Rev. And Mrs. A. ; Pentecostal missionary; assistance ofKoko-norKoo, WellingtonKorea; pheasants found inKraemer, M. KuchengKwang-siKwei-chau Province Lane & Crawford Company of HongkongLang, Herbert, photograph of serow loaned byLanguages and dialects, number of; reason forLangurLangurs (_Pygathrix_)Lao-kay, first hotel on railroadLapwingsLasLashioLegge, Prof. J. , quotedLeopardsLeper hospital_Li_, length ofLi-chang; animal life on route to; arrival at; camp in; collecting in; mammals of; important fur market at; inhabitants of; return toLi-Hung ChangLing-suik, monastery of; description of; priests at; collecting atLisosLivingstone, H. W. Loads, weight ofLolos; depredations of; independence of; dress of; capes worn byLondon Zoölogical Society's GardenLong Ravine, blue tiger seen atLucas, Dr. F. A. , acknowledgment toLui, Mr. , salt commissioner at Tsia-kuanLung-lingLung-taoLutzus McMurray, J. V. A. _Macacus rhesus__Mafus_, description ofMailMalariaMalay PeninsulaMa-li-lingMa-li-pa; poppy fields atMallard ducksMammals, small, importance of; preparing ofMan, primitive, migrations ofMan-eater, killing ofMandalayMandarins, relations withMa-po-lo, low valley at; game at; fog inMarco PoloMassacre in Hwa Shan (Flower Mountain)Mazzetti-Haendel, BaronMeadow vole (_Microtus_)MekongMekong river, description ofMekong-Salween divideMekong valley; vegetables in; zoölogy ofMeng-ting; description of; mandarin of; Buddhist monastery at; market at; Cantonese visit and buy opium at; fog at; valley at; birds atMergansersMethodist missionMexicoMiao villageMice_Micromys__Microtus_, meadow voleMin River; life onMission hospital; China InlandMissionaries; servants of; natives trading with; civilizing influence ofMohammedan Chinese, married to a ShanMohammedan hunterMohammedan warMoleMolloy, Agnes F. , acknowledgment toMoney, carrying of; transmitting ofMonkeyMonkey templeMooseMorgan, CordeliaMosos; description of; capes worn byMotion pictures; developing ofMountain goat"Mountain Goat Hunting with Camera, " quoted fromMouse (_Micromys_)Moving picture filmMu-chengMuntjac, description ofMuseum authoritiesMustelidaeMyitkyina district _Naemorhedus griseus_Nam-ka, Shans at; description of; camp atNam-ting River, ferry at; camping at; hunters at; camp on; polecat trapped at; monkeys, hunting at; hornbill, seen at; monkeys found at; Shans seen at; caravan crossed_Namur_, S. S. Natives; inaccuracy ofNew York, return toNgu-chengNon-Chinese tribesNorth AmericaNorthern soldiersNorthern troops Opium; growing of; inspection of; scandal; smuggling of; smoking ofOsborn, Henry Fairfield, quoted Pack saddle, description ofPack, weight ofPage, HowardPaget color platesPagoda AnchoragePaik-hoi; leper hospital atPalaungsPalmer, Mr. Pandas, coats ofPangolin, scales ofParrotsPartridges, bambooPassports_Pavo cristatus__Pavo munticus_Peacock, black-shoulderedPeacock, hunting of; habits of; eggs of; domestication ofPeacock, IndianPeafowl, killed on Salween River; flesh ofPeking_Petaruista yunnanensis_PhasiandaePheasants, shooting of; Lady Amherst's; silver; hornedPhete; country about; natives ofPhotographic workPhotographs in natural colorsPhotography, cinematographPigeonsPigs, killing of; wild; treatment ofPin-tailPleistocenePocock, Mr. PolecatPolo, Marco; quotedPoppy blossomsPoppy fieldsPorcupine, description ofPortable dark roomPrjevalsky, Lieutenant-ColonelP'u-erh_Pygathrix_ (monkeys) Railroad, Hanoi to Yün-nan; description ofRain, last of the seasonRainey, Paul J. Rangoon_Ratufa gigantea_Rebellion of 1913Reinsch, Hon. PaulRepublicRhododendronsRiceRice fieldsRifle, Mannlicher; Savage; WinchesterRiot in ShanghaiRoads, descriptions ofRocky Mountain sheepRoosevelt, Colonel Theodore_Rupicapra_Rupicaprine antelopes, horns of Salt, preparation ofSalween River; heat ofSambur; hunting of; blood ofSammons, Mr. , American Consul-GeneralSampans, first night inSan FranciscoScandinavian steamerSchools for native girlsSclater, Mr. Screaming, Chinese habit ofSedan chairsSerows; hunt for; habits of; hunting for; description of; color variation of; Japanese; difference from gorals; horns of; relationship of; appearance of; killed on Snow Mountain; obtained by Mr. Caldwell at Yen-ping; distribution of; habits of; weight of; hunting of at Hui-yaoServants, wages ofShanghai; riot inShans; description of village of; houses of; heavily tattooed; tribes of; description ofSheldrakesSherwood, George H. , assistance rendered to Expedition byShia-chaiShie-tien; bird life at; natives, curiosity ofShih-ku ferryShoverling, Daly & Gales, ammunition, guns, tents, furnished byShrewShwelie RiverSingaporeSlave raidingSmith, Arthur H. , quotedSnow Mountain, camp at; traveling to; description of hunters at; mammalogy of; camp on slopes of; mammals collected at; serows killed onSoldiers, guard of; guns of; expense of; use of; treatment by natives of; fight with; extortions ofSouth AmericaSpecimens, packing ofSquirrel, flying (_Petaurista yunnanensis_); _Ratufa gigantea_; red-bellied (_Callosciurus erythraeus_)S'suchuan ProvinceS'su-maoStandard Oil Co. ; launch ofSu EkSun-birds_Sung-kiang_, S. S. Tablets, ancestral, description ofTai-ping-puTakuTaku ferryTa-li Fu; soldiers guard to; road to; graves at; lake at; mandarin at; pagodas atTa-li Fu Lake, description of_Tamiops macclellandi_Taoist temple_Tao-tai_TartarsTemple, camp inTeng-yueh; return toTents_Tenyo Maru_Thompson, Dr. Tibet; monopoly of gold inTibetan plateausTibetans, description of; photographing of; dislike for strangers of; influence of Chinese onTiger; man-eating; lairs of; stalking a goat; habits of; daring of; strength of; excitement of hunting; weight of; blood of; skins in temples of; food of; hunting in lair of; flesh and bones of; marking trees by; skins ofTiger, blue; description of; hunting of; trying to trapTonkingTragopan, Temmick'sTransportation, difficulties ofTrapping, methods ofTraps, steel; method of settingTrees, marking of, by tigerTribes, non-Chinese, description ofTrimble, Dr. ; house ofTrowbridge, Captain HarryTsai-ao, General_Tsamba_Tsang mountainsTsinan-fu_Tupaia belangeri chinensis_ United StatesUniversal Camera_Ursus tibetanus_ Vegetarians_Viverra_ViverridaeVochangVoleVon Hintze, Admiral WapitiWar, MohammedanWasWaterholeWa-tienWei-hsiWhite Water; camp at; weather atWild boarWilden, Henry M. , French ConsulWolvesWoman's college at FoochowWomen, position of, in ChinaWorship, ancestorWu-Hung-tao, interpreter _Yamen_Yangtze River; road to; crossing of; barrier to mammalsYangtze gorge, description ofYen-ping; climate of; description of; residence of Mr. Caldwell at; Methodist Mission at; trapping at; rebellion in; refugees from; fighting in; attacked by rebels in; wounded in; schools for native girls at; Chinese wedding at; missionary buildings ofYokohamaYuanYuan-Shi-kai; death ofYuchi; brigands at Yung-chang, Chinese New Year at; road to; water buffaloes at; battle atYung-chang-Teng-yueh roadYün-nan; size of; topography of; boundaries of; fauna of; natives of; language of; infested with brigands; zoölogical study of; meaning of; summer climate ofYün-nan Fu; foreign residents of; foreign office at; Dr. Thompson's hospital at Zoölogical Garden, BerlinZoölogical Park, Calcutta