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of steep bad road we reached a Buddhist monastery built at the highest point in a pass through a range that runs east and west—the Hsueh Shan, marked Su Shan on European maps. The pass I make 5,550 feet above the sea; there hung in the monastery an antithetical couplet, presented by an official early in the century, which may be paraphrased as follows:—
To have a nature broad, strong, and under control is to be God ("Ji"), and Prince, and Spirit, and Buddha: to be of high virtue is to be Ruler, and General, and Prophet, and God ("Shên").
In countries where religion is taken seriously, one might be astonished that such a Catholic text should figure in a Buddhist temple dedicated to the God of War.
Having taken lunch, and boiled our thermometer under the shade of this inscription, we proceeded south. No sooner were we out of the monastery door than a steep descent began along the dip of strata running down towards the river. We descended right away for about 8 miles, and struck the river at a level of 2,040 feet above the sea, having descended 3,480 feet from the monastery. It was dusk when we reached the river—the Chih-shui Ho—but it appeared a swift stream, 70 yards wide, and shallow for the most part. It takes its rise, according to a Map lent me by the Magistrate of the Pi-chieh district, in the mountains to the west, not far from Lao-wa-t'an, and flows hence to join the Yang-tzu at Ho-chiang Hsien, forming, where we crossed it, the boundary between Ssu-ch'uan and Kuei-chou. It is not navigable here.
We crossed the river in a ferry-boat, and set foot in the Province of Kuei-chou by the light of Venus and the new moon, set in the purple light of the sun some time sunk beneath the horizon. Heads of General Pao's braves in cages lined the road, and were in keeping with the dusky stillness of the scene. The opposite ascent begins at once. The regular inns were all crowded with General Pao's braves; but we found a cottage, some 200 feet above the river, which we rented for 8d., a sum that included the services of a cadet of the family, who sat up all night to watch my sedan, and to keep the pig out of doors. Next day we continued the ascent, leaving the sandstone which prevails at the level of the river, through calcareous rocks—chalk, shale, and limestone—dipping to the north-east, and broken into deep precipices on the south-west, beneath the upper edge of the strike. Three miles from the river, at Kao-shan P'u, observation of boiling-point gave an elevation of 4,068 feet. Thus, the valley of the Chih-shui Ho is a huge ravine causing, within 11 miles of road, a descent of 3,480 feet, and a corresponding ascent of 2,000 feet, a crux for the railway engineer who may come this way.
Eight miles further south, at a village named Pai-ai, I saw for the first time Miao-tzu, or aborigines of Kuei-chou. Next to nothing is known in Europe about the non-Chinese races of Southern China, although they probably form much more than half the population of Yün-nan and Kwang-si, and are very numerous in Kuei-chou and Western Hunan,* a rich district lying between the 22nd and 28th degree of latitude, and larger than France in area.
The subject is as interesting from the point of view of science or history as from that of politics and commerce. All the information I was able to gather about these races will be found collected in Appendix II, where the facts are recorded on which the occasional remarks given in the body of this Report are based.
An overcast sky, which greeted us when we turned out from our quarters at E-lo-mi, grew thicker as the morning advanced, and an east wind brought down the temperature to 40 degrees Fahrenheit, quite enough to make people who had just passed through the Chung-ch'ing summer thoroughly miserable. Sleet and the want of breakfast further embittered our condition, for there was not a house for miles. Snow stopped us at a miserable village named Chin-yin-shan, where the whole place was occupied by braves. We had to put up at inn with six of them. They (the landlord and his wife) all smoked opium, and kept talking half the night, as the manner of opium-smokers is, adding walnuts to their feast of opium and flow of soul, and cracking them on the wooden partitions with the nearest piece of furniture. About midnight some of their friends arrived from a neighbouring inn to discuss the abortive campaign, so that sleep was difficult.
On the 12th November we reached Pi-chieh Hsien, a busy district town situated in a long fertile valley yielding good crops of opium and rice. The place is sufficiently supplied with piece-goods from Yung-ning Hsien, and the prices were little dearer than at that town. However, half the population are Lo-lo and Miao-tzu, the district Map, which I borrowed from the Magistrate, being so covered with aboriginal Chieftainships and exceptions to the jurisdiction as to have the interesting appearance of a geological survey.
* Exclusive of Western Ssu-ch'uan and the Thibetan marches, the abode of Lo-lo, Ku-isung, and Si-fan.