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These valleys to the north of Ta Li form a considerable market for foreign goods. Among the very attractive Minchia ladies, I fancied that I noticed an unappeased longing for finery, such as cheap laces, ribbons, and Turkey reds, while their capacity for consuming all kinds of sweetstuff is considerable. They share the labours of the sterner sex, and so add to the labour power of the valleys, which they inhabit.
After Hei Nui Shao, we continued somewhat north of east, through fine hill country, with fields and scrub, where an exciting pheasant drive was organized, until we saw the wide plain of Hoching, with its 200 villages spread like a chess board at our feet. We descended the windings of a long spur to the level ground, and struck a wide-paved causeway, some 3 miles south of Hoching city. It was market day, and the traffic was very heavy. Many of the hill Minchia women near Hoching have retained their native kilts and the men their arms, leather shoes, and felt or fur caps, so that they present a picturesque aspect on their return home from market.
Hoching Valley can be recommended to the attention of those who would have us believe that Yunnan is a poverty-stricken wilderness. The plain is about 24 miles by 5 miles, and contains about 200 villages, excellently built. The city itself has about 12,000 inhabitants, and is clean and well built, with but little empty space in the walls. The streets are densely crowded every ten days for the market. The place is an important salt and opium entrepôt, and the general prosperity of the inhabitants attracts all sorts of trade. Even dried lichees from Canton may be bought at stalls on the streets. A weaving industry is now springing up, yarn being brought under transit pass from Teng Yueh. I think that the great majority of the people are still clad in Hsin Hsing or Shasi cloth, and only about eighty muleloads of Manchester goods per annum are sold in Hoching, but throughout the valley, the chance of extending Burmah trade seems excellent; some of the merchants with whom I conversed are well acquainted with the commercial advantages offered by the opening of the Teng Yueh Customs; indeed, they stated that before that event, the foreign trade of the valleys north of Ta Li was exceedingly risky, owing to the irregular imposts of all sorts to which it was exposed. The crushing impositions of the Teng Yuch and Yung Chang tax collectors formed but a part of the mischief. I have already noticed the mules of Hoching.
Leaving the North Gate of Hoching, the stone causeway passes some lagoons, and leaving the valley bottom, leads over some downs and through some firwoods to the li-kin station of Chi Ho. The valley is well peopled all along, and the traffic on the road is very considerable.
The next day we crossed the rocky col of the Lion Hill (Ssu Tzu Shan) and a gentle descent through firwoods brings the traveller out on to the wide plain of Li Chiang. The river which waters the Hoching Plain issues from the north-east of the Lichiang Plain, flows south, under the east foot of the Lion Pass, and so down the Hoching Valley, from the south-east corner of which it issues and joins the Yang-tsze.
Lichiung-fu, the Snow Mountain, and the Yang-tsze Bend.
While descending from the Lion Pass to the Lichiang Plain, the clouds which had obscured for some days the tops of the ranges, among which we had been travelling, slightly lifted, and disclosed the sharp snow-striped triple peak of the snow mountain, towards which we had been marching for five days. The lower slopes of the mountain were still enfolded in mist, and the impression given was one of enormous height. The Lichiang Snow Mountain—it has no other name—is known far and wide among the natives, and the geographical problems regarding the country at its feet are of sufficient interest to merit a particular description.
The Lichiang Plain may be considered as divided into three portions, first there is the main valley with the Lion Pass on the south, the city and the range at the back of it on the north, and the hills crossed by the high road from Lichiang to the Yang-tsze and Yung-peh on the east. This covers about 40 square miles, and is, roughly, 8 miles by 6 miles. Then there is the northern section of the plain, which runs up at the back of the city along the east flank of the Snow Mountain for some 9 miles, and, thirdly, over a low col on the west of the main plain, there is the Lashi Pa, a circular valley, with a diameter of 4 miles, sloping gradually down on all sides to a lake in the ...
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...middle. The main road from Lichiang, west to the Ashi Ferry, on the Yang-tsze, en route to Thibet, runs along the north of this lake, while the road to Chien Chuan skirts the south-east of it, passing under the Wen Pi, or Pencil Hill, a conspicuous wedge-shaped peak, which overhangs the south-west of the main valley. The Pencil Hill, together with the Snow Mountain, balances the geomantic influences, and secures the prosperity of Lichiang.
The Lichiang Valley possesses a good dark soil which is suitable for opium. Little rice is grown, but the dry land cereals abound. The population is not so dense as that of Hoching Valley, the villages being smaller and further apart. The city itself contains about 8,000 inhabitants, and is situated on the north of the valley near the great snow peak which can be seen from nearly every street corner. It is quite unlike any other prefectural city in China; in the first place, it is at an altitude of 8,100 feet; in the second place there is no wall, the Magistrate's Yamên being quite out in the country; thirdly, streams of pure water issuing from the Dragon pool of the Lung Wang Miao to the north of the city flow alongside the pavement, houses and shops being pleasantly diversified with gardens and orchards; fourthly, it is at the foot of a great snow mountain; and fifthly, the majority of the inhabitants are not Chinese. The houses on the outskirts of the city are well built in the Minchia style, while the centre of the city is a square market-place, where a busy daily market is held. From this square branch three business streets of small wooden shops, where the sellers of cotton cloth, Thibetan wools, and copper and iron-workers are conspicuous. There is also a small paper industry, the paper being made from the bark of the kou tree, while a number of Chinese medicine and musk buyers frequent the place.
To the north of the city runs the north section of the plain under the east flank of the snow hill; this plain is closed on the north by the spurs through which the Hei Shui, or Blackwater Stream, runs eastward to the Yang-tsze. At the south end of this plain, some 5 miles west of Lichiang, is the market of Pei Sha and several villages, but further north it is barren, stony, and windswept.
Some 6 miles west of Lichiang city a low col which joins the Snow Mountain to Pencil Hill divides the main section of the plain from the Lashi section. Lashi Pa, with its lake, is densely populated and has twenty large villages. Quantities of rice are grown and a number of beasts are bred. The whole of the Lashi Pa is surrounded by pine-clad heights and presents a very beautiful view.
The inhabitants of the Lichiang Plain and its dependencies fall under three heads: These are the Chinese, mostly immigrants from Hoching; the Minchia, who are chiefly in the south of the valley; and the so-called "pun ti," or natives. These latter call themselves Lashi, and though their language is not the same as that of the Ku Tsung Thibetans of Chung Tien, the difference seems to be dialectic only, and I cannot doubt that the Lashi are the most southern branch of the true Thibetan stock. Their sepia complexion, their fondness for lamaseries and woollen garments and their high cheek bones all proclaim their affinity. The young women usually wear hats like Chinamen, but with long tassels and gilt embroidery. The Lashis form the majority of the inhabitants of Lichiang city, the bulk of the population of Lashi Pa, and they seem to entirely monopolize the Yang-tsze bend. In the latter country their houses are often made of nothing but wood, while substantial log-huts in the Canadian backwoods style are supplied for the cattle. The Lashi mostly speak a little "pidgin" Chinese, and have ancestral tablets in their houses. They are friendly and hospitable, good carpenters and blacksmiths, and it is to be hoped that their language and history will be studied by some traveller who has time. It will probably be found that they are closely related to the Mosso tribe on the Upper Mekong.
The inhabitants of Lichiang are sportsmen, and fond of falconry. The hawks, which they fly at pheasants and ducks, are heavy birds, and a good deal of care is spent in looking after them.
I am able to throw some light on the question of the Yang-tsze bend to the north of Lichiang. M. Bonin, the well-known French traveller, who in 1894 went from Yang-tzse bend to Ashi, and, having crossed the Tang-tsze there, proceeded north-east to Tachienlu, surmises that the course of the Yang-tsze was wrongly marked on our old maps, and that the river makes a great curve to the north from Ashi, sweeping round to the south again from a point a little to the south of Yung Ning. I can confirm the truth of M. Bonin's suggestion; there is, in fact, no doubt about the matter. It is perfectly well known to the Yamens at Lichiang that if you go from the city to the Chin Chiang (Golden River), as the Yang-tsze is locally known, in a westerly direction, you strike the stream at Ashi, one long day's march. If you go in an easterly direction you reach the stream on the second day from Lichiang on the Yung-peh road; but if you go in a northerly direction you have to travel six days from Lichiang to reach the Yang-tsze at the northern apex of the bend. The concave or south side of the bend is all in the jurisdiction of Lichiang, while the convex bank belongs to Yung-peh, Yung Ning, and Chung Tien respectively.
The other question is the trend of the range of which the Lichiang Snow Mountain is such a conspicuous feature. On a survey sketch published by the Government of ...
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