Part 16 (1/2)
The mandarin at Wei-hsi received us hospitably and proved to be one of the most courteous officials whom we met in Yun-nan. We were sorry to learn that 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 hundred rebelled, attacked the city, and captured it after a sharp fight. It was reported that they immediately beheaded the mandarin's wives and children, and boiled him alive in oil.
Although the magistrate offered to a.s.sist us in every way we could obtain no information concerning either hunting grounds or routes of travel. The flying squirrels which we had hoped to find near the city were reported to come from a mountain range beyond the Mekong in Burma, and Wei-hsi was merely a center of distribution for the skins. Moreover, the natives said it would be impossible to obtain squirrels at that time of the year, for the mountain pa.s.ses were so heavily covered with snow that neither men nor caravans could cross them.
It was desirable, however, to descend to the Mekong River in order to determine 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 a half over a thickly forested mountain ridge, frozen and snow-covered, brought us in sight of the green waters of the Mekong which has carved a gorge for itself in an almost straight line from the bleak Tibetan plateaus through Yun-nan and Indo-China to the sea.
Our second camp was on the river at the mouth of a deep valley, near a small village. Wu said that the natives were Lutzus and I was inclined to believe he was right, although Major Davies indicates this region to be inhabited by Lisos. At any rate these people both in physical appearance and dress were quite distinct from the Lisos whom we met later.
They were exceedingly pleasant and friendly and the chief, accompanied by four venerable men, brought a present of rice. I gave him two tins of cigarettes and the natives returned to the village wreathed in smiles.
The garments of the Lutzus were characteristic and quite unlike those of the Mosos, Lisos or Tibetans. The women wore a long coat or jacket of blue cloth, trousers, and a very full pleated skirt. The men were dressed in plum colored coats and trousers.
The natives said that monkeys (probably _Pygathrix_) were often seen when the corn was ripe and that even yet they might be found in the forest across the river. h.e.l.ler spent a day hunting them, but found none and we obtained 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 the Yangtze valley and the intervening country.
For three days we traveled down the Mekong River. Although the natives said that the trail was good, we discovered when it was too late that it was too narrow and difficult to make it practicable for a caravan such as ours. It was necessary to continually remove the loads in order to lift them around sharp corners or over rocks, and the _mafus_ sometimes had to cut away great sections of the bank. Usually only six or seven miles could be traversed after eight or nine hours of exhausting work, and we were glad when we could leave the river.
The Mekong, on an average, is not more than a hundred yards wide in this region and, like the Yangtze, the water is very green from the Tibetan snows. 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 so precipitous 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 the water. Considering the small area available for cultivation there are a considerable number of inhabitants, who have gathered into villages and seldom live in isolated houses as in the Yangtze valley. Wherever a stream comes 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 princ.i.p.al crops. Very few vegetables, such as turnips, squash, carrots or potatoes are raised, which is rather remarkable, as they are so abundant in all the country between the Mekong and the Yangtze rivers. In several places the water was spanned by rope bridges. The cables are made of twisted bamboo, and as one end must necessarily be higher than the other, there are always two ropes, one to cross each way. The traveler is tied by leather thongs in a sitting position to a wooden ”runner” which slides along the bamboo cable and shoots across the river at tremendous speed.
The valley is hopeless from a zoological standpoint. It is too dry for small mammals and the mountain slopes are so precipitous, thinly forested, and generally undesirable, that, except for gorals, no other large game would live there. The bird life is decidedly uninteresting. There are no cranes or sheldrakes and, except for a few flocks of mallards which feed in the rice fields, we saw no other ducks or geese.
On December 20, we turned away from the Mekong valley and began to march southeast by east across an unmapped region toward Ta-li Fu. We camped at night on a pretty ridge thickly covered with spruce trees just above a deep moist ravine. In the morning our traps contained several rare shrews, five silver moles, a number of interesting mice, and a beautiful rufous spiny rat. It was too good a place to leave and I sent Hotenfa to inquire from a family of natives if there was big game of any sort in the vicinity. He reported that there were goral not far away, and at half past eight we rode down 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 which rose two thousand feet above the valley, and for an hour and a half we climbed steadily upward.
We were resting near the summit on the rim of a deep canon when Hotenfa excitedly whispered, ”_gnai-yang_” and held up three fingers. He tried to show the animals to me and at last I caught sight of what I thought was a goral standing on a narrow ledge. I fired and a bit of rock flew into the air while the three gorals disappeared among the trees two hundred feet above the spot where I had supposed them to be.
I was utterly disgusted at my mistake but we started on a run for the other side of the gorge. When we arrived, Hotenfa motioned me to swing about to the right while he climbed along the face of the rock wall. No sooner had he reached the edge of the precipice than I saw him lean far out, fire with my 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 directly under us stood a huge goral, but just as I was about to shoot, the earth gave way beneath my feet and I would have fallen squarely on the animal had Hotenfa 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 from before I fired hurriedly, breaking his fore leg at the knee. Without the slightest sign of injury the ram disappeared behind a corner of the rock. I dashed to the top of the ridge in time to see him running at full speed across a narrow open ledge toward a thick ma.s.s of cover on the opposite side of the canon. I fired just as the animal gained the trees and, at the crash of my rifle, the goral plunged headlong down the mountain, stone dead.
It fell on a narrow slide of loose rock which led nearly to the bottom of the valley and, slipping and rolling in a cloud of red dust, dropped over a precipice. The ram brought up against an unstable boulder five hundred feet below 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 in the fall slipped through my fingers, and away went the goral on another rough and tumble descent, finally stopping on a rock ledge nearly eleven hundred feet from the place where it had been shot. We returned to camp at noon bringing joy with us, for, as my wife had remarked the day before, ”We will soon have to eat chickens or cans.”
h.e.l.ler hunted the gorals unsuccessfully the following day and we left on December 23, camping at night on a flat terrace beside a stream at the end of a moist ravine. We intended to spend Christmas here for it was a beautiful spot, surrounded by virgin forest, but our celebration was to be on Christmas Eve. The following day dawned bright and clear. There had not been a drop of rain for nearly a month and the weather was just warm enough for comfort in the sun with one's coat off, but at night the temperature dropped 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 in to 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 Yvette had been busy and, just before dinner, she ushered us into our tent with great ceremony. It had been most wonderfully transformed. At the far end stood a Christmas tree, blazing with tiny candles and surrounded by ma.s.ses of white cotton, through which shone red holly berries. Holly branches from the forest and spruce boughs lined the tent and hung in green waves from the ridge pole. At the base of the tree gifts which she had purchased in Hongkong in the preceding August were laid out.
h.e.l.ler mixed a fearful and wonderful c.o.c.ktail from the Chinese wine and orange juice, and we drank to each other and to those at home while sitting on the ground and opening our packages. We had purchased two Tibetan rugs in Li-chiang and Wei-hsi, as Christmas presents for Yvette. These rugs usually are blue or red, with intricate designs in the center, and are well woven and attractive.
To the servants and _mafus_ we gave money and cigarettes. When the muleteers were brought to the tent to receive their gifts they evidently thought our blazing tree represented an altar, for they kneeled down and began to make the ”chin, chin joss” which is always done before their heathen G.o.ds.
Our Christmas dinner was a masterpiece. Four days previously I had shot a pair of mallard ducks and they formed the _piece de resistance_. The dinner consisted of soup, ducks stuffed with chestnuts, currant jelly, baked squash, creamed carrots, chocolate cake, cheese and crackers, coffee and cigarettes.
Christmas day we traveled, and in the late afternoon pa.s.sed through a very dirty Chinese town in a deep valley near some extensive salt wells. Red clay dust lay thick over everything and the filth of the streets and houses was indescribable. We camped in a cornfield a mile beyond the village, but were greatly annoyed by the Chinese who insisted on swarming into camp.
Finally, unable longer to endure their insolent stares, I drove them with stones to the top of the hill, where they sat in row upon row exactly as in the ”bleachers” at an American baseball game.