1.
k'a
(lör)
4
2.
ni
>>
3.
se
**
4. Z thee-eb
12
Vtu èrh, face
001, head
V meh3,
name
vita, pig
5.
00'
17
6.
六
chuch
7.
lisi
55
tan nhan, Xλ ntză,
8. ++ bei
9.
4,
chü
10. + ts'è
chicken
officer-t'u ssu
The brother told me that the MSS. contained nothing but religious forms, charins, and such like--the only purpose, so far as I have heard, for which the Lolos employ their writing. I now begged one of the MSS. The wife and brother of the absent perma both saw insuperable obstacles, but the T'u-ssu overruled their objections and insisted that I should have one. This MS. is now in the British Museum.
These Lolos had bigger and more irregular features than average Chinese. The colour of the skin seemed much the same, but the eyes were deeper sunk. They are divided into three tribes, known in Chinese as "Hei," "Pai," and "Kan" (Black, White, and Dry) Lolo, or I-jên, a meaningless distinction, but corresponding a real tribal division apparently. They believe in a future state of retribution, burn the dead, worship their ancestors with the sacrifice of an ox, and have no idols. Four pieces of brown paper were said to represent the potentialities of the other world, and three sticks of bamboo their ancestors.
The Tang-tang River is an insignificant stream, but has a broad bed covered with débris from the hills, and is, like the K'o-tu River, no doubt a formidable stream in the rains. At Shih-ya-k'ou we passed the first cart I had seen since leaving Shanghae. This cart we took to be a promise of better things, for it was of such a clumsy construction, with solid wooden wheels, which were worn unevenly into oblate form, that no power of bullock could have dragged it over the roads we had passed. And, sure enough, a turn from the village brought us on to a plain, so that we had actually before us a lovel horizon-the first that I had set eyes on since leaving 1-ch'ang. For the next 10 miles, to the first town in the Yunnan Province-Hsüan-wei Chou-our road ran over an expanse of dry red loam, with scarcely a house or tree in sight.
say.
Hsüan-wei Chou is a town about which a pioneer of commerce cannot find much to My Chinese clerk went out as usual, armed with samples, to discover what the inhabitants paid for foreign imports, but returned to say that the only trade was in hams, and that there was no one in the place worth 2001.
This plain has been almost cleared of wood, probably at the time of the rebellion, when 200,000 men are said to have been encamped here. But the lack of wood in the neighbourhood of towns is the rule in Yünnan. After the ascent from T'ang-t'ang on to the plain coal is met no more, and during the next three months which we are to spend in the Yunnan Province coal will only be once met with (at Lin-yan Fu). Nearly all the towns burn wood, which the Lolos and other inferior races bring in for sale, often having to go 5 miles from the town to find it. On the other hand, in Kuei-chou and Ssu-ch'uan, coal is found everywhere.
Everyone one meets is armed here. Between Hsüan-wei Chou and Chau-i Chou we met a man carrying a weapon I had never seen before, but which I found afterwards to be very common all over the Yunnan Province. It is a rod of iron about 3 feet long, with a sword handle at one end, and at the other a bar at right angles to the rod about 5 inches long, pointed and sharpened on the inner edge. Asked what it was for and how used, the man replied for men or wild beasts it would give a stab by striking or a cut by pulling. This weapon is called kou-lien (hook).
5
There is plenty of food for the gun in this part, and probably for the rifle. The lakes are covered with water-fowl, and the country infested by an enormous bird with black head, black tips to feathers, and slate-coloured body called ching-chuang or huo by the Chinese, probably a kind of crane. I noticed a Proclamation by the Magistrate of Ma-lung Chou offering a reward of 2 dollars cach for wild dogs, whatever that may mean, and other beasts who attack children and dig up dead bodies.
At Ma-lung our road unites with the main western road which runs across China from Hankow to Burmah. This part of it has been described by several travellers, and need not detain us.
At Yang-lin I noticed for the first time a curious custom that appears widely spread over Western China. Wherever there is an overhanging ledge of rock the coolies brought bits of wood and twigs of trees to prop it up. Under some of these ledges there are hundreds of such diminutive supports; the only explanation I could get was that if they helped the rock it would help them in return, and save them from aching feet and back.
On the 3rd December we reached Yünnan Fu, the capital of the province, a bright and clean city for China, evidently containing a well-to-do population. The straight broad streets, new p'ai-fangs blazing in gorgeous colours, and gaily dressed women, who affect light blue gowns with bright red linings to the sleeves, and a red band round the ankle, set off by the magnificent clear bright weather, were very striking after the narrow streets and sombre blue clothing of Ssu-ch'uan.
Although the city has an altitude of 6,420 feet fever is not unknown, and several of our party suffered badly. The north of Yunnan has a climate probably as suited to Europeans as any in this part of the world. It should be noted that Yunnan Fu is situated on a lake which is at the bottom of a gentle but somewhat extensive depression. I was told that formerly there was no outlet for the water of this basin, and that only in the thirteenth century was the canal cut which now carries the water from the south-west side of the lake into a stream that flows north to the Yang-tzu, and is shown on Mr. Baber's chart west of Anning-chou.
It is impossible to convey a clear idea of the commercial capabilities of this city without giving a general sketch of the configuration of the great plateau on which it stands, and thus anticipating the latter portions of this Report. This plateau, if so it may be called, for it is everywhere broken by hills and cut through by rivers, and in some parts even traversed by mountain ranges, is on the eastern slope from the Himalayas to the China Sea, and is nearly conterminous with the Chinese Provinces of Yunnan and Kuei- chou. To show the nature of the ground, I cannot do better than make a circuit of the routes that lead to Yunnan Fu. Starting with the road we have followed, reference to Part I of this Report will show that navigation from the Yang-tzu ended at Yung-ning Hsien, 1,060 feet above the sea, and that in two stages the road reached an elevation of 4,340 feet, and touched 7,770 feet before Yünnan Fu was reached. Next to the west comes the route by Chao-t'ung Fu; here navigation from the Yang-tzu ceases before Lao-wa-t'an (Baber, 1,140) is reached; and the route passes Chao-t'ung Fu (Baber, 6,580) and Tung-ch'uan Fu (Baber, 7,190). West of this comes the neck of high land that connects the plateau with the Thibetan uplands traversed by the Hui-li Chou (Baber, 6,000) route, and by the Wei-hsi route. (See Gill's "River of Golden Sand," vol. ii,
p. 255.)
From Bhamo (430), the terminus of the navigation of the Irrawaddy, the great Burmese trade route runs through Têng-vueh Chou (5,540), Yung-ch'ang Fu (5,880), and Ta-li Fu (6,550). The next route is that by the valley of the Shui-li, past Lung-ling Chou, by which there is said to have been once a considerable traffic, killed since the rebellion. Next comes the caravan route by way of the valley of the Mekong, to Ssu-mao (4,480), and on to Yunnan Fu by an extraordinarily difficult road (see Sketch 3). The next route is that by the Red River, through Lao-kai and Mêng-tzu Hsien. Mêng-tzu is on the southern edge of the plateau, with an elevation of 4,530 feet, from which to Lao-kai there must be a descent of something like 3,500 feet (?). Next comes the Canton West River, by Po-sé (530)-two days above which the navigation comes to an end-to Kuang- nan Fu (4,310). To the east again is the Kwang-si land route, which passes through Ch'ing-yuan Fu (490), and Tu-shan Chou (3,460), to Kuei-yang Fu, the capital of the Kuei-chou Province. Next comes the great western road from Hankow, traversed by Margary, which follows the Tung-ting Lake and the Yuan River to Chên-yuan Fu (altitude not known), where navigation ceases. From Chên-yuan Fu the traffic is by caravan to Kuei-yang Fu (3,530). Lastly, there is the route between Ssu-ch'uan and Kuei-yang Fu, by a tributary of the Yang-tzu to Chi-chiang Hsien (880), where naviga- tion ceases, through Tung-tzu Hsien (3,020) to Kuei-yang Fu.
It appears, then, that Yunnan and Western Kuei-chou are very nearly conterminous
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