Part 25 (1/2)

It was a splendid male, carrying a magnificent pair of antlers which measured twenty-seven inches in length. The deer was about the size of an American wapiti, or elk, and must have weighed at least seven hundred pounds, for it required eight men to lift it. The Chinese hunters were wild with excitement, but especially so when we began to eviscerate the animal, for they wished to save the blood which is considered of great medicinal value. They filled caps, sacks, bamboo joints, and every receptacle which they could find after each man had drunk all he could possibly force down his throat and had eaten the huge clots which choked the thorax.

When the sambur was brought to camp a regular orgy was held by our servants, _mafus_, and dozens of villagers who gathered to buy, beg, or steal some of the blood. Our interpreter, Wu, took the heart as his perquisite, carefully extracted the blood, and dried it in a basin. The liver also seemed to be an especial desideratum, and in fact every part of the viscera was saved. Because the antlers were hard they were not considered of especial value, but had they been in the velvet we should have had to guard them closely; then they would have been worth about one hundred dollars (Mexican).

We expected from our easy hunt of the morning that it would not be difficult to get sambur, and indeed, h.e.l.ler did see another in the afternoon but failed to kill it. Unfortunately, a relative of one of the hunters died suddenly during the night and all the men went off with their dogs to the burial feast which lasted several days, and we were not able to find any other good hounds.

There were undoubtedly several sambur in the vicinity of our camp but they fed entirely during the night and spent the day in such thick cover that it was impossible to drive them out except with good beaters or dogs. We hunted faithfully every morning and afternoon but did not get another shot and, after a week, moved camp to the base of a great mountain range six miles away near a Liso village.

The scenery in this region is magnificent. The mountain range is the same on which we hunted at Ho-mu-shu and reaches a height of 11,000 feet near Wa-tien. It is wild and uninhabited, and the splendid forests must shelter a good deal of game.

The foothills on which we were camped are low wooded ridges rising out of open cultivated valleys, which often run into the jungle-filled ravines in which the sambur sleep. Why the deer should occur in this particular region and not in the neighboring country is a mystery unless it is the proximity of the great forested mountain range. But in similar places only a few miles away, where there is an abundance of cover, the natives said the animals had never been seen, and neither were they known on the opposite side of the mountain range where the Teng-yueh--Tali-Fu road crosses the Salween valley.

On May 20, we started back to Hui-yao to spend three or four days hunting monkeys before we returned to Teng-yueh to pack our specimens and end the field work of the Expedition. On the way my wife and I became separated from the caravan but as we had one of our servants for a guide we were not uneasy.

The man was a lazy, stupid fellow named Le Ping-sang (which we had changed to ”Leaping Frog” because he never did leap for any cause whatever), and before long he had us hopelessly lost.

It would appear easy enough to ask the way from the natives, but the Chinese are so suspicious that they often will intentionally misdirect a stranger. They do not know what business the inquirer may have in the village to which he wishes to go and therefore, just on general principles, they send him off in the wrong direction.

Apparently this is what happened to us, for a farmer of whom we inquired the way directed us to a road at nearly right angles to the one we should have taken, and it was late in the afternoon before we finally found the caravan.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

LAST DAYS IN CHINA

It was of paramount importance to pack our specimens before the beginning of the summer rains. They might be expected to break in full violence any day after June 1, and when they really began it would be impossible to get our boxes to Bhamo, for virtually all caravan travel ceases during the wet season. Therefore our second stay at Hui-yao was short and we returned to Teng-yueh on May 24, ending the active field work of the Expedition exactly a year from the time it began with our trip up the Min River to Yeng-ping in f.u.kien Province.

Mr. Grierson had kindly invited us again to become his guests and no place ever seemed more delightful, after our hot and dusty ride, than his beautiful garden and cool, shady verandah where a dainty tea was served.

Our days in Teng-yueh were busy ones, for after the specimens were packed and the boxes sealed it was necessary to wrap them in waterproof covers; moreover, the equipment had to be sorted and sold or discarded, a caravan engaged, and nearly a thousand feet of motion-picture film developed. This was done in the s.p.a.cious dark room connected with Mr. Grierson's house which offered a welcome change from the cramped quarters of the tent which we had used for so many months.

Much of the success of our motion film lay in the fact that it was developed within a short time after exposure, for had we attempted to bring or send it to Shanghai, the nearest city with facilities for doing such work, it would inevitably have been ruined by the climatic changes.

Although cinematograph photography requires an elaborate and expensive outfit and is a source of endless work, nevertheless, the value of an actual moving record of the life of such remote regions is worth all the trouble it entails.

The Paget natural color plates proved to be eminently satisfactory and were among the most interesting results of the expedition. The stereoscopic effects and the faithful reproduction of the delicate atmospheric shading in the photographs are remarkable. Although the plates had been subjected to a variety of climatic conditions and temperatures by the time the last ones were exposed in Burma, a year and a half after their manufacture, they showed no signs of deterioration even when the ordinary negatives which we brought with us from America had been ruined. The other photographs, some of which are reproduced in this book, speak for themselves.

The entire collections of the Expedition were packed in forty-one cases and included the following specimens: 2,100 mammals 800 birds 200 reptiles and batrachians 200 skeletons and formalin preparations for anatomical study 150 Paget natural color plates 500 photographic negatives 10,000 feet of motion-picture film.

Since the Expedition was organized primarily for the study of the mammalian fauna and its distribution, our efforts were directed very largely toward this branch of science, and other specimens were gathered only when conditions were especially favorable. I believe that the mammal collection is the most extensive ever taken from China by a single continuous expedition, and a large percentage undoubtedly will prove to represent species new to science. Our tents were pitched in 108 different spots from 15,000 feet to 1,400 feet above sea level, and because of this range in alt.i.tudes, the fauna represented by our specimens is remarkably varied.

Moreover, during our nine months in Yun-nan we spent 115 days in the saddle, riding 2,000 miles on horse or mule back, largely over small roads or trails in little known parts of the province.

In Teng-yueh we were entertained most hospitably and the leisure hours were made delightful by golf, tennis, riding, and dinners. Mr. Grierson was a charming host who placed himself, as well as his house and servants, at our disposal, utter strangers though we were, and we shall never forget his welcome.