CO129-326 - Foreign Office - 1904 — Page 576

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after we had crossed the downs to the north and had come out upon the river again that we found even a service road. That road ceases at Siao-ho-koa (kilom. 311) opposite to a sandspit on which the engineers have built up an encampment with tent) and brushwood huts. Here M. Son most kindly gave us tiffin, providing a fine large fish, one of a score he had secured that morning with a dynamite cartridge.

Between kilom. 311 and the I-liang Plain (kilom. 385) is one continuous gorge, broken only where, as near Lu-feng Tsun, an affluent enters the river. The river describes two great bends, and as. moreover, the service road has not yet been hegun, still less any work on the permanent way, I took the usual short cut past Schiel to Lu-feng Ts'un. This means, as a rule, spending the night in a temple at Schiel; not a converted temple, but one still in its natural condition of dirt and dilapidation. "Schiel," it should be observed, would be written in Wade's system "Hsi-êrl"; it is the unfortunate, French equivalent for the evasive burr that destines the village to go down to posterity as Schi-eul, or rather as Schiel.

From Hsi-erh Kai the road mounts steeply to a second Siao-lung-t'an (“Little Dragon Pool ") and thence descends by an easy slope to a clear stream. (A good stage, it may be worth mentioning, would be, when travelling northwards, to spend the night, not at Hsi-êrh, but at Siao-lung-tan, for that would make feasible a morning bath in and breakfast by this stream.) Here I came up with M. Briquet, Chief of this, the seventh, section, and received an invitation to dine and sleep at his "pagode" at Lu-feng Ts'un. The road hence passes through Lu-chou, a village to be avoided, full of slime and flies, to Wai-lu. Here we (M. Kalos was again with me) tiffined under a spreading tree above the village. All this stage is very pretty (Lu-chou excepted), with but little cultivation. The last valley leading down to Lui-feng Ts'un is full of dwarf azaleas (now over) and large white rhododendrons, the first I have seen since Chiang-Chuau, on the third stage south from Yunnan-fu.

At Lu-feng Ts'un, a "Siao-bo" or little river, joins the main stream. The little river was then (24th May) a mass of boulders, amid which ran two rivulets spanned by bridges of pine and brush wood. Just before reaching it we were caught in a violent thunderstorm of rain and wind. I lost sight of my companions, who pushed on to Lu-feng Tsun; I was myself taken into the hospital compound recently erected for Dr. Gervais and his wife. Mme. Gervais, that she may the more readily accompany her husband, has cut her hair quite short, and wears on occasion, she confesses, the habits of our inferior sex. She had only lately arrived, and the whole compound, infirmary, garden, well, and the rest, was still in the making. The oasis on which the hospital stands is separated from Lu-feng hamlet by paddy fields, over which my bearers stumbled and splashed. Outside the hamlet stands a three-storied "lou," which has been converted into offices, dwelling-rooms, and bedchambers, and below which a compound has been laid out with numerous servants' huts and a cabbage garden. A strong stream of water, diverted from the "little river," a mile or more up the valley, flows under the "lou.”

M. Briquet, a Swiss, put us up for the night. On his staff is a young fellow who, after six years in the Soudan, finds Yünnan Province dull.

The road from Lu-feng Ts'un continues up the valley of the "little river," and is not particularly interesting until, at 20 li (7 miles), the village of T'ang Shan is passed. Then, after a mile or so, the road mounts to a plateau-a long stiff climb. As the summit is approached the trees grow more numerous, but the plateau itself consists of rolling downs from which a magnificent view is had in all directions. There are springs at intervals on the downs, and near one of these, by the edge of a coppice, we tiffined. The downs continue right up to the I-liang Plain. to which the traveller may descend at once, as our convoys did, or not for some 3 miles further, when he will be nearly abreast of Hua-So, the goal of this stage.

At Hua-So, a small untidy village, we passed the night in the main shrine of a shiftless temple at the feet of the Buddhist pantheon. Iua-So is on the eastern edge of the plain, and just opposite, on the western edge, is the mouth of the long defile up from Lu-feng Ta'uu. The road to I-liang slants across the plain to a village near which is a ferry and ford. Crossing this, the road inclines to the west until at last it arrives at the little walled town of I-liang Hsien, built up against a spur of the bills. On the east is an extensive suburb, and in this suburb are the two compounds of the second division and of the ninth section. The former is in charge of M. Prud'homme, the latter of M. de Violini. M. Prud'homme is installed in the usual couverted temple, but, thanks, doubtless, to the fact that Mme. Prud'homme is with him, most comfort- ably installed, with dining and drawing rooms, both well furnished, and cosy bedrooms on an upper floor. An attempt is being made to produce a flower garden; in short, here, as in A-mi Chou, are all the signs of an expected lengthy residence. The

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The land

compound is extensive, with a brick tennis-court, just completed, and a "magasiu." The sectional compound, also originally a temple, is not much more than half the ize. M. de Violini had lately shifted his quarters to the gorge by Su-kia Tou (kilom. 360), and Mme. de Violini and their two young sons were preparing to join him.

Up the I-liang Plain the line will run in a perfectly straight course. for this portion of the railroad has not yet been bought, nor will work be com- menced there for the present. I-liang "Patzů" is, to all appearances, a fertile and well-cultivated plain, producing two, and sometimes three, crops a year, mainly opium and rice. Land, therefore, is valuable, and it is desired to accustom the people to the idea that the railway will be of benefit to them before expropriating so much of their fields. An official of prefect's rank has lately gone down the line in great slate (I met his procession at Lu-feng Ts'un on the 25th May) to arrange for the purchase of fields and graves.

From 1-liang to Yunnan-fu "double traction will be required, as also, I believe, in the Nam-hti Valley. The line continues, it is true, perfectly level for the first 3 or 4 miles, but it then turns up a valley to the west, and begins to climb the gorge that serves as a "déversoir" for the lovely little Lake of Yang-tsung. A service road has been cut high up along the south side of this defile, and this road I followed, sending my baggage by the short cut of the regular route.

Work was proceeding at half-a-dozen places in the gorge, apparently at points where tunnels are to be made. Huts for the accommodation of the contractor's Italian foremen were to be seen in different stages of completion. The Chinese coolies here, as elsewhere along the line, make for themselves low shelters of brush- wood or burrow into the hillside. Their work often looks perilous in the extreme, yet so far there bad, I was told, been only one fatal accident; I was to hear of another that evening.

The gorge, after many twists and turns, ends at Ku-pa Ts'un (or Ho-pa Tsun), whence the ground is practically level as far as the village of Tang Ch'il ("Hot- water Tank"), At Ku-pa Ts'un a "pagode" had been taken for the railwaynen. Here I found a young Italian "conducteur" down with fever, a fever contracted Transfer on the Yerbay-Laokai section, which he had left less than a month before. from the foothills to the Yunnan Plateau almost invariably brings out latent fever, but each attack is less severe than the last until the patient finally recovers. The temple swarmed with flies; all along the line these pests were much in evidence, particularly in the villages. The numerous cases of ophthalmia are ascribable, one would think, not less to the flies than to the ravages of small-pox.

After tiffin I followed the permanent-way westwards from Ku-pa Ts'un. Here for the first time I noticed that paddy fields had already been taken up and that the embankment was being pushed across them. Indeed, material for the embankment

At the end of · was being dug from neighbouring fields, left for this purpose untilled. the embankment, about a mile out, as I could see no further trace of the railway and was anxious to visit the "hot-water tanks," I took the ordinary road through Tang Chih. The tank (I saw only one) is a stone well, some 10 feet square, surrounded by benches and covered in. The water, where deliberate bubbles were breaking, looked and smelt most vile; but whether this was due to sulphurous emanations or to Chinese bathers I did not stop to inquire. In sober truth it is doubtless a sulphur spring, and there is already some talk among the railwaymen of utilizing it, or rather of tapping a similar spring in the neighbourhood, away from the ineffable villagers.

After Tang Chih the stone road crosses a low hill and comes down nearly to the shore of Yang-tsung Lake. This, the loveliest and bluest of Yünuan lakes, is shut in on the west by a towering ridge covered with trees and shrubs. Up a gully in the ridge the road twists. Slashed, across ridge and road, high above the lake, is the "chemin de service on the left (the south), and on the right, both the "chemin de service" and a portion of the permanent way. Blasting was going on in this eyrie, and here (as I learnt at the end of the stage) a coolie had that morning, stepping carelessly, fallen over the precipice and been killed.

I climbed painfully up to the service road; a dizzy ledge overhanging the lake, and so continued southwards, then round a bend westwards. Here a short tunnel, already commenced, is to bring the line into the Chitien Plain. Some 2 or 3 miles further on I picked up my convoy again, and we entered Chitien village together. At the far end is the temple rented by the Construction Company. Here I found an Italian conducteur," who had only lately been transferred from Yunnan-fu and was most kindly, but quite needlessly, distressed because the improvements he designed in

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