CAMPS
AND TRAILS IN CHINA
A NARRATIVE
OF EXPLORATION, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT IN LITTLE-KNOWN CHINA
BY
ROY
CHAPMAN ANDREWS, M.A.
ASSOCIATE
CURATOR OF MAMMALS
IN THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
AND LEADER OF THE MUSEUM'S ASIATIC ZOÖLOGICAL EXPEDITION OF 1916-1917;
FELLOW NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES;
CORRESPONDING MEMBER ZOÖLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON,
MEMBER OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON;
AUTHOR OF WHALE HUNTING WITH GUN AND CAMERA
AND
YVETTE
BORUP ANDREWS
PHOTOGRAPHER
OF THE ASIATIC ZOÖLOGICAL EXPEDITION
1918
THIS
BOOK IS DEDICATED TO PRESIDENT HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN
AS AN EXPRESSION OF GRATITUDE AND ADMIRATION
Let us
probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us;
Let us journey to a lonely land I know.
There's a whisper on the night-wind, there's a star agleam to
guide us,
And the Wild is calling, calling . . . let us go.
—Service
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
XIII
Camping
in the Clouds
Moso hunters—Primitive
guns—Crossbows and poisoned arrows—Dogs—A porcupine—New
mammals—We find a new camp on the mountain
CHAPTER
XIV
The
First Goral
Killed near camp—A
sacrifice to the God of the Hunt—Small mammals—The second
goral
CHAPTER
XV
More
Gorals
Gorals almost invisible—Heller
shoots a kid—Collecting material for a Museum group—A
splendid hunt—Two gorals—A crested muntjac
CHAPTER
XVI
The
Snow Mountain Temple
The first illness
in camp—Serow—Death of the leading dog—Rain—Two
more serows—Lolos—Non-Chinese tribes of Yün-nan
CHAPTER
XVII
Gorals
and Serows
Relationship—Appearance
of the serow—Habits—Gorals
CHAPTER
XVIII
The
"White Water"
Y.
B. A.
Our new camp—A
serow—We go to Li-Chiang—A burial ceremony—Ancestor
worship
CHAPTER
XIX
Across
the Yangtze Gorge
Traveling to the river—Inaccuracy
of the Chinese—First view of the gorge—The Taku ferry—Caves
CHAPTER
XX
Through
Unmapped Country
Along the rim of the
gorge—A beautiful camp at Habala—New mammals—Photographic
work—Phete village—Stupid inhabitants—Strange natives—The
"Windy Camp"—Hotenfa
CHAPTER
XXI
Traveling
Toward Tibet
A hard climb—Our
highest camp—A Lolo village—Thanksgiving with the Lolos
CHAPTER
XXII
Stalking
Tibetans with a Camera
Y.
B. A.
Caravans—Tibetans—Dress—Appearance—Photographing
frightened natives—Reason for suspicion
CHAPTER
XXIII
Westward
to the Mekong River
Snow—Photographing
natives—The Snow Mountain again—The Shih-ku ferry—Cranes—"Brahminy
ducks"—A well-deserved beating—Chinese soldiers
CHAPTER
XXIV
Down
the Mekong Valley
Arrival at Wei-hsi—The
Mekong River—Lutzu natives—Difficulties in the valley—An
unexpected goral—Christmas—The salt wells—A snow
covered pass—Duck shooting—Return to Ta-li Fu
CHAPTER
XXV
Missionaries
We Have Known
Our observations on
work of missionaries in Fukien and Yün-nan Provinces—Mode
of living—Servants—Voluntary exile—Medical missionaries—A
missionary's experience with the brigands at Yuchi
CAMPS AND TRAILS IN
CHINA
CAMPING IN THE CLOUDS
We hired four Moso
hunters in the Snow Mountain village. They were picturesque fellows,
supposedly dressed in skins, but their garments were so ragged
and patched that it was difficult to determine the original material
of which they were made.
One of them was armed
with a most extraordinary gun which, it was said, came from Tibet.
Its barrel was more than six feet long, and the stock was curved
like a golf stick. A powder fuse projected from a hole in the
side of the barrel, and just behind it on the butt was fastened
a forked spring. At his waist the man carried a long coil of rope,
the slowly burning end of which was placed in the crotched spring.
When about to shoot the native placed the butt of the weapon against
his cheek, pressed the spring so that the burning rope's end touched
the powder fuse, and off went the gun.
The three other hunters
carried crossbows and poisoned arrows. They were remarkably good
shots and at a distance of one hundred feet could place an arrow
in a six-inch circle four times out of five. We found later that
crossbows are in common use throughout the more remote parts of
Yün-nan and were only another evidence that we had suddenly dropped
back into the Middle Ages and, with our high-power rifles and
twentieth century equipment, were anachronisms.
The natives are able
to obtain a good deal of game even with
such primitive weapons for they depend largely upon dogs which
bring gorals and serows to bay against a cliff and hold them until
the men arrive. The dogs are a mongrel breed which appears to
be largely hound, and some are really excellent hunters. White
is the usual color but a few are mixed black and brown, or fox
red. Hotenfa, one of our Mosos, owned a good pack and we all came
to love its big red leader. This fine dog could be depended upon
to dig out game if there was any in the mountains, but his life
with us was short for he was killed by our first serow. Hotenfa
was inconsolable and the tears he shed were in sincere sorrow
for the loss of a faithful friend.
Almost every family
owns a dog. Some of those we saw while passing through Chinese
villages were nauseating in their unsightliness, for at least
thirty per cent of them were more or less diseased. Barely able
to walk, they would stagger across the street or lie in the gutter
in indescribable filth. One longed to put them out of their misery
with a bullet but, although they seemed to belong to nobody, if
one was killed an owner appeared like magic to quarrel over the
damages.
The dogs of the non-Chinese
tribes were in fairly good condition and there seemed to be comparatively
little disease among them. Our hunters treated their hounds kindly
and fed them well, but the animals themselves, although loyal
to their masters, manifested but little affection. In Korea dogs
are eaten by the natives, but none of the tribes with which we
came in contact in Yün-nan used them for food.
On our first day in
the temple Heller went up the Snow Mountain for a reconnaissance
and the party secured a fine porcupine. It is quite a different
animal from the American tree porcupines
and represents a genus (Hystrix) which is found in Asia,
Africa, and southern Europe. This species lives in burrows and,
when hunting big game, we were often greatly annoyed to find that
our dogs had followed the trail of one of these animals. We would
arrive to see the hounds dancing about the burrow yelping excitedly
instead of having a goral at bay as we had expected.
Some of the beautiful
black and ivory white quills are more than twelve inches long
and very sharp. A porcupine will keep an entire pack of dogs at
bay and is almost sure to drive its murderous weapons into the
bodies of some of them unless the hunters arrive in a short time.
The Mosos eat the flesh which is white and fine.
Although we were only
twelve miles from Li-chiang the traps yielded four shrews and
one mouse which were new to our collection. The natives brought
in three bats which we had not previously seen and began a thriving
business in toads and frogs with now and then a snake.
The temple was an
excellent place for small mammals but it was evident that we would
have to move high up on the slopes of the mountain if gorals and
other big game were to be obtained. Accordingly, while Heller
prepared a number of bat skins we started out on horseback to
hunt a camp site.
It was a glorious
day with the sun shining brilliantly from a cloudless sky and
just a touch of autumn snap in the air. We crossed the sloping
rock-strewn plain to the base of the mountain, and discovered
a trail which led up a forested shoulder to the right of the main
peaks. An hour of steady climbing brought us to the summit of
the ridge where we struck into the woods
toward a snow-field on the opposite slope. The trail led us along
the brink of a steep escarpment from which we could look over
the valley and away into the blue distance toward Li-chiang. Three
thousand feet below us the roof of our temple gleamed from among
the sheltering pine trees, and the herds of sheep and cattle massed
themselves into moving patches on the smooth brown plain.
We pushed our way
through the spruce forest with the glistening snow bed as a beacon
and suddenly emerged into a flat open meadow overshadowed by the
ragged peaks. "What a perfectly wonderful place to camp," we both
exclaimed. "If we can only find water, let's come tomorrow."
The hunters had assured
us that there were no streams on this end of the mountain but
we hoped to find a snow bank which would supply our camp for a
few days at least. We rode slowly up the meadow reveling in the
grandeur of the snow-crowned pinnacles and feeling very small
and helpless amid surroundings where nature had so magnificently
expressed herself.
At the far end of
the meadow we discovered a dry creek bed which led upward through
the dense spruce forest. "Where water has been, water may be again,"
we argued and, leading the horses, picked our way among the trees
and over fallen logs to a fairly open hill slope where we attempted
to ride, but our animals were nearly done. After climbing a few
feet they stood with heaving sides and trembling legs, the breath
rasping through distended nostrils. We felt the altitude almost
as badly as the horses for the meadow itself was twelve thousand
feet above the level of the sea and the air was very thin.
There seemed to be
no hope of finding even a suitable snow bank when it was slowly
borne in upon us that the subdued roaring in our ears was the
sound of water and not the effect of altitude as we both imagined.
Above and to the left was a sheer cliff, hundreds of feet in height,
and as we toiled upward and emerged beyond timber line we caught
a glimpse of a silver ribbon streaming down its face. It came
from a melting snow crater and we could follow its course with
our eyes to where it swung downward along a rock wall not far
from the upper end of the meadow. It was so hidden by the trees
that had we not climbed above timber line, it never would have
been discovered.
This solved the question
of our camp and we looked about us happily. On the way through
the forest we had noticed small mammal runways under almost every
log and, when we stood above the tree limit, the grassy slope
was cut by an intricate network of tiny tunnels. These were plainly
the work of a meadow vole (Microtus) and at this altitude
it certainly would prove to be a species new to our collection.
The sun had already
dropped behind the mountain and the meadow was in shadow when
we reached it again on our homeward way. By five o'clock we were
in the temple eating a belated tiffin and making preparations
for an early start. But our hopes were idle, for in the morning
three of the mules had strayed, and we did not arrive at the meadow
until two o'clock in the afternoon.
Our camp was made
just at the edge of the spruce forest a few hundred yards from
the snow stream. As soon as the tents were up we climbed to the
grassy slope above timber line, with Heller, to set a string of
traps in the vole runways and under logs
and stumps in the forest.
The hunters made their
camp beside a huge rock a short distance away and slept in their
ragged clothes without a blanket or shelter of any kind. It was
delightfully warm, even at this altitude, when the sun was out,
but as soon as it disappeared we needed a fire and the nights
were freezing cold; yet the natives did not seem to mind it in
the slightest and refused our offer of a canvas tent fly.
We never will forget
that first night on the Snow Mountain. As we sat at dinner about
the campfire we could see the somber mass of the forest losing
itself in the darkness, and felt the unseen presence of the mighty
peaks standing guard about our mountain home. We slept, breathing
the strong, sweet perfume of the spruce trees and dreamed that
we two were wandering alone through the forest opening the treasure
boxes of the Wild.
THE FIRST GORAL
We were awakened before
daylight by Wu's long drawn call to the hunters, "L-a-o-u H-o,
L-a-o-u H-o, L-a-o-u H-o." The steady drum of rain on our
tent shot a thrill of disappointment through me as I opened my
eyes, but before we had crawled out of our sleeping-bags and dressed
it lessened to a gentle patter and soon ceased altogether. It
left a cold, gray morning with dense clouds weaving in and out
among the peaks but, nevertheless, I decided to go out with the
hunters to try for goral.
Two of the men took
the dogs around the base of a high rock shoulder sparsely covered
with scrub spruce while I went up the opposite slope accompanied
by the other two. We had not been away from camp half an hour
when the dogs began to yelp and almost immediately we heard them
coming around the summit of the ridge in our direction. The hunters
made frantic signs for me to hurry up the steep slope but in the
thin air with my heart pounding like a trip hammer I could not
go faster than a walk.
We climbed about three
hundred yards when suddenly the dogs appeared on the side of the
cliff near the summit. Just in front of them was a bounding gray
form. The mist closed in and we lost both dogs and animals but
ten minutes later a blessed gust of wind drifted the fog away
and the goral was indistinctly visible
with its back to a rock ledge facing the dogs. The big red leader
of the pack now and then dashed in for a nip at the animal's throat
but was kept at bay by its vicious lunges and sharp horns.
It was nearly three
hundred yards away but the cloud was drifting in again and I dropped
down for a shot. The hunters were running up the slope, frantically
waving for me to come on, thinking it madness to shoot at that
distance. I could just see the gray form through the sights and
the first two shots spattered the loose rock about a foot low.
For the third I got a dead rest over a stone and as the crash
of the little Mannlicher echoed up the gorge, the goral threw
itself into the air whirling over and over onto the rocks below.
The hunters, mad with
excitement, dashed up the hill and down into the stream bed, and
when I arrived the goral lay on a grassy ledge beside the water.
The animal was stone dead, for my bullet had passed through its
lungs, and, although the front teeth had been smashed on the rocks,
its horns were uninjured and the beautiful gray coat was in perfect
condition. It so happened that this ram was the largest which
we killed on the entire trip.
When the hunters were
carrying the goral to camp we met Yvette and Heller on their way
to visit the traps just below snow line, and she returned with
me to photograph the animal and to watch the ceremonies which
I knew would be performed. One of the natives cut a leafy branch,
placed the goral upon it and at the first cut chanted a prayer.
Then laying several leaves one upon the other he sliced off the
tip of the heart, wrapped it carefully in the leaves and placed
it in a nearby tree as an offering to the God of the Hunt.
I have often seen
the Chinese and Korean hunters perform similar ceremonies at the
death of an animal, and the idea that it is necessary to propitiate
the God of the Hunt is universal. When I was shooting in Korea
in 1912, and also in other parts of China, if luck had been against
us for a few days the hunters would invariably ask me to buy a
chicken, or some animal to sacrifice for "good joss."
After each dog had
had a taste of the goral's blood we again climbed the cliff at
the end of the meadow. When we were nearly 2,000 feet above camp
the clouds shut in and, as the impenetrable gray curtain wrapped
itself about us, we could only sit quietly and wait for it to
drift away.
After an hour the
fog began to thin and the men sent the hounds toward a talus slope
at the base of the highest peak. Almost immediately the big red
dog picked up a trail and started across the loose rock with the
pack yelping at his heels. We followed as rapidly as possible
over such hard going but before we reached the other side the
dogs had rounded a sharp pinnacle and disappeared far below us.
Expecting that the goral would swing about the base of the peak
the hunters sent me back across the talus to watch for a shot,
but the animal ran down the valley and into a heavily wooded ravine
where the dogs lost his trail only a short distance above camp.
I returned to find
that Heller had secured a rich haul from the traps. As we supposed,
the runways which Yvette and I had discovered above timber line
were made by a meadow vole (Microtus) and in the forest
almost every trap had caught a white-footed mouse (Apodemus).
He also had several new shrews and we caught
eight different species of these important little animals at this
one camp.
Wu, the interpreter,
hearing us speak of shrews, came to me one day in great perplexity
with his Anglo-Chinese dictionary. He had looked up the word "shrew"
and found that it meant "a cantankerous woman!"
The following day
Heller went out with the hunters and saw two gorals but did not
get a shot. In the meantime Yvette and I ran the traps and prepared
the small mammals. While we were far up on the mountainside, Baron
Haendel-Mazzetti appeared armed with ropes and an alpine snow
ax. He was about to attempt to climb the highest peak which had
never been ascended but the drifts turned him back several hundred
feet from the summit. He dined at our camp and as all of us carefully
refrained from "war talk" we spent a very pleasant evening. During
his three years in Yün-nan he had explored and mapped many sections
of the province which had not been visited previously by foreigners
and from him we obtained much valuable information.
On the third morning
we were up before daylight and I left with the hunters in the
gray dawn. We climbed steadily for an hour after leaving camp
and, when well up on the mountainside, skirted the base of a huge
peak through a dense forest of spruce and low bamboo thickets,
emerging upon a steep grassy meadow; this abutted on a sheer rock
wall at the upper end, and below ran into a thick evergreen forest.
As we entered the
meadow the big red leading dog, trotted off by himself toward
the rock wall above us, and in a few moments we heard his sharp
yelps near the summit. Instantly the pack
was off stringing out in a long line up the hillside.
We had nearly crossed
the open slope and were standing on the edge of a deep gully when
the dogs gave tongue and as soon as the hunters were sure they
were coming in our direction we hurried to the bottom of the gorge
and began the sharp ascent on the other side. It was almost straight
up and before we had gone a hundred feet we were all gasping for
breath and my legs seemed like bars of lead, but the staccato
yelps of the dogs sounding closer and closer kept us going.
When we finally dropped
on the summit of the hill I was absolutely done. I lay flat on
my back for a few minutes and got to my knees just as the goral
appeared on the opposite cliff. The sight of the magnificent animal
bounding like rubber from ledges which his feet seemed hardly
to touch down the face of a sheer wall, will remain in my memory
as long as I live. He seemed the very spirit of the mountains,
a thing born of peaks and crags, vibrant with the breath of the
clouds. Selecting a spot which he must touch in the next flying
leap, I waited until his body darkened the sights and then pulled
the trigger.
The game little brute
collapsed, then struggled to his feet, and with a tremendous leap
landed on a projecting shelf of rock four yards below. Instantly
I fired again and he sank down in a crumpled gray mass not two
feet from the edge of the precipice which fell away in a dizzy
drop of six hundred feet.
The dogs were on him
long before we had worked our way down the canyon and up to the
shelf where he lay. He was a fine ram nearly as large as the first
one I had killed. I wanted to rest the dogs for they
were very tired from their two days of hunting, so I decided to
return to camp with the men. On the way a second goral was started
but it swung about the summit of the wooded ridge instead of coming
in my direction, giving one of the hunters a shot with his crossbow,
which he missed.
It was a beautiful
day. Above us the sky was clear and blue but the clouds still
lay thickly over the meadow and the camp was invisible. The billowy
masses clung to the forest line, but from the slopes above them
we could look far across the valley into the blue distance where
the snow-covered summits of range after range of magnificent mountains
lay shining in the sun like beaten silver. There was a strange
fascination about those mountains, and I thrilled with the thought
that for twelve long months I was free to roam where I willed
and explore their hidden mysteries.
MORE GORALS
Both gorals were fine
old rams with perfect horns. Their hair was thick and soft, pale
olive-buff tipped with brownish, and the legs on the "cannon bones"
were buff-yellow like the margins of the throat patches. Their
color made them practically invisible against the rocks and when
I killed the second goral my only distinct impression as he dashed
down the face of the precipice, was of four yellowish legs entirely
separated from a body which I could hardly see.
This invisibility,
combined with the fact that the Snow Mountain gorals lived on
almost inaccessible cliffs thickly covered with scrub spruce forest,
made "still hunting" impossible. In fact, Baron Haendel-Mazzetti,
who had explored this part of the Snow Mountains fairly thoroughly
in his search for plants, had never seen a goral, and did not
know that such an animal existed there.
Heller hunted for
two days in succession and, although he saw several gorals, he
was not successful in getting one until we had been in camp almost
a week. His was a young male not more than a year old with horns
about an inch long. It was a valuable addition to our collection
for I was anxious to obtain specimens of various ages to be mounted
as a "habitat group" in the Museum and we lacked only a female.
The preparation of
the group required the greatest care and
study. First, we selected a proper spot to reproduce in the Museum,
and Yvette took a series of natural color photographs to guide
the artist in painting the background. Next she made detail photographs
of the surroundings. Then we collected portions of the rocks and
typical bits of vegetation such as moss and leaves, to be either
dried or preserved in formalin. In a large group, perhaps several
thousand leaves will be required, but the field naturalist need
select typical specimens of only five or six different sizes from
each of which a plaster mold can be made at the Museum and the
leaves reproduced in wax.
After two days of
rain during which I had a hard and unsuccessful hunt for serows
we decided to return to the temple at the foot of the mountain
which was nearer to the forests inhabited by these animals. We
had already been in our camp on the meadow for nine days and,
besides the gorals, had gathered a large and valuable collection
of small mammals. The shrews were especially varied in species
and, besides a splendid series of meadow voles, Asiatic mice and
rats, we obtained a new weasel and a single specimen of a tiny
rock-cony or little chief hare, an Asiatic genus (Ochotona)
which is also found in the western part of North America on the
high slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Although we set dozens of
traps among the rocks we did not get another on the entire expedition
nor did we see indications of their presence in other localities.
The almost complete
absence of carnivores at this camp was a great surprise. Except
for weasels we saw no others and the hunters said that foxes or
civets did not occur on this side of the mountain even though
food was abundant.
On the day before
we went to the temple I had a magnificent hunt. We left camp at
daylight in a heavy fog and almost at once the dogs took up a
serow trail. We heard them coming toward us as we stood at the
upper edge of a little meadow and expected the animal to break
cover any moment, but it turned down the mountain and the hounds
lost the trail in the thick spruce woods.
We climbed slowly
toward the cliffs until we were well above the clouds, which lay
in a thick white blanket over the camp, and headed for the canyon
where I had shot my second goral. Hotenfa wished to go lower down
into the forests but I prevailed upon him to stay along the open
slopes and, while we were resting, the big red dog suddenly gave
tongue on a ridge above and to the right of us. It was in the
exact spot where my second goral had been started and we were
on the qui vive when the rest of the pack dashed up the
mountainside to join their leader.
In a few moments they
all gave tongue and we heard them swinging about in our direction.
Just then the clouds, which had been lying in a solid bank below
us, began to drift upward in a long, thin finger toward the canyon
On and on it came, and closer sounded the yelps of the dogs. I
was trembling with impatience and swearing softly as the gray
vapor streamed into the gorge. The cloud thickened, sweeping rapidly
up the ravine, until we were enveloped so completely that I could
hardly see the length of my gun barrel. A moment later we heard
the goral leaping down the cliff not a hundred yards away.
With the rifle useless
in my hands I listened to each hoof beat and the stones which
his flying feet sent rattling into the
gorge. Then the dogs came past, and we heard them follow down
the rocks, their yelps growing fainter and fainter in the valley
far below. The goral was lost, and as though the Fates were laughing
at us, ten minutes later a puff of wind sucked the cloud out of
the canyon as swiftly as it had come, and above us shone a sky
as clear and blue as a tropic sea.
Hotenfa's disgust
more than equaled my own for I had loaned him my three-barrel
gun (12 gauge and .303 Savage) and he was as excited as a child
with a new toy. He was a remarkably intelligent man and mastered
the safety catches in a short time even though he had never before
seen a breach-loading gun.
There was nothing
to do but hurry down the mountain for the dogs might bring the
goral to bay on one of the cliffs below us, and in twenty minutes
we stood on a ridge which jutted out from the thick spruce forest.
One of the hunters picked his way down the rock wall while Hotenfa
and I circled the top of the spur.
We had not gone a
hundred yards when the hunter shouted that a goral was running
in our direction. Hotenfa reached the edge of the ridge before
me, and I saw him fire with the three-barrel gun at a goral which
disappeared into the brush. His bullet struck the dirt only a
few feet behind the animal although it must have been well beyond
a hundred yards and almost straight below us.
Hardly had we drawn
back when a yell from the other hunter brought us again to the
edge of the cliff just in time to see a second goral dash into
the forest a good three hundred yards away in the very bottom
of the gorge.
Rather disappointed
we continued along the ridge and Hotenfa
made signs which said as plainly as words, "I told you so. The
gorals are not on the peaks but down in the forest. We ought to
have come here first."
There were not many
moments for regret, however, for this was "our busy day." Suddenly
a burst of frantic yelps from the red dog turned us off to the
left and we heard him nearing the summit of the spur which we
had just left. One of the other hunters was standing there and
his crossbow twanged as the goral passed only a few yards from
him, but the wicked little poisoned dart stuck quivering into
a tree a few inches above the animal's back.
The goral dashed over
the ridge almost on top of the second hunter who was too surprised
to shoot and only yelled that it was coming toward us on the cliff
below. Hotenfa leaped from rock to rock, almost like a goat himself,
and dashed through the bushes toward a jutting shelf which overhung
the gorge.
We reached the rim
at the same moment and saw a huge ram standing on a narrow ledge
a hundred yards below. I fired instantly and the noble animal,
with feet wide spread, and head thrown back, launched himself
into space falling six hundred feet to the rocks beneath us.
As the goral leaped
Hotenfa seemed suddenly to go insane. Yelling with joy, he threw
his arms about my neck, rubbing my face with his and pounding
me on the back until I thought he would throw us both off the
cliff. I was utterly dumfounded but seized his three-barrel gun
to unload it for in his excitement there was imminent danger that
he would shoot either himself or me.
Then I realized what
it was all about. We had both fired simultaneously
and neither had heard the other's shot. By mistake Hotenfa had
discharged a load of buckshot and it was my bullet which had killed
the goral but his joy was so great that I would not for anything
have disillusioned him.
It was a half hour's
hard work to get to the place where the goral had fallen. The
dogs were already there lying quietly beside the animal when we
arrived. My bullet had entered the back just in front of the hind
leg and ranged forward through the lungs flattening itself against
the breast bone; the jacket had split, one piece tearing into
the heart, so that the ram was probably dead before it struck
the rocks.
I photographed the
goral where it lay and after it had been eviscerated, and the
hunters had performed their ceremonies to the God of the Hunt,
I sent one of them back with it while Hotenfa and I worked toward
the bottom of the canyon in the hope of finding the other animals.
It was a delightfully
warm day and Hotenfa told me in his vivid sign language that the
gorals were likely to be asleep on the sunny side of the ravine;
therefore we worked up the opposite slope.
It was the hardest
kind of climbing and for two hours we plodded steadily upward,
clinging by feet and hands to bushes and rocks, and were almost
exhausted when we reached a small open patch of grass about two
thirds of the way to the summit.
We rested for half
an hour and, after a light tiffin, toiled on again. I had not
gone thirty feet, and Hotenfa was still sitting down, when I saw
him wave his arm excitedly and throw up his gun to shoot. I leaped
down to his side just as he fired at a big female goral which
was sound asleep in an open patch of grass
on the mountainside
Hotenfa's bullet broke
the animal's foreleg at the knee but without the slightest sign
of injury she dashed down the cliff. I fired as she ran, striking
her squarely in the heart, and she pitched headlong into the bushes
a hundred feet below.
How Hotenfa managed
to pack that animal to the summit of the ridge I never can understand,
for with a light sack upon my back and a rifle it was all I could
do to pull myself up the rocks. He was completely done when we
finally threw ourselves on the grass at the edge of the meadow
which we had left in the morning. Hotenfa chanted his prayer when
we opened the goral, but the God of the Hunt missed his offering
for my bullet had smashed the heart to a pulp.
On our way back to
camp the red dog, although dead tired, disappeared alone into
the heavy forest below us. Suddenly we heard his deep bay coming
up the hill in our direction. Hotenfa and I dropped our burdens
and ran to an opening in the forest where we thought the animal
must pass.
Instead of coming
out where we expected, the dog appeared higher up at the heels
of a crested muntjac (Elaphodus), which was bounding along
at full speed, its white flag standing straight up over its dark
bluish back. I had one chance for a shot at about one hundred
and fifty yards as the pair crossed a little opening in the trees,
but it was too dangerous to shoot for, had I missed the deer,
the dog certainly would have been killed.
I was heartbroken
over losing this animal, for it is an exceedingly rare species,
but a few days later a shepherd brought
in another which had been wounded by one of our Lolo hunters and
had run down into the plains to die.
When we reached the
hill above camp Yvette ran out to meet us, falling over logs and
bushes in her eagerness to see what we were carrying. No dinner
which I have ever eaten tasted like the one we had of goral steak
that night and after a smoke I crawled into my sleeping bag, dead
tired in body but with a happy heart.
THE SNOW MOUNTAIN
TEMPLE
On October 22, we
moved to the foot of the mountain and camped in the temple which
we had formerly occupied. This was directly below the forests
inhabited by serow, and we expected to devote our efforts exclusively
toward obtaining a representative series of these animals.
Unfortunately I developed
a severe infection in the palm of my right hand almost immediately,
and had it not been for the devoted care of my wife I should not
have left China alive. Through terrible nights of delirium when
the poison was threatening to spread over my entire body, she
nursed me with an utter disregard of her own health and slept
only during a few restless hours of complete exhaustion. For three
weeks I could do no work but at last was able to bend my "trigger
finger" and resume hunting although I did not entirely recover
the use of my hand for several months.
However, the work
of the expedition by no means ceased because of my illness. Mr.
Heller continued to collect small mammals with great energy and
the day after we arrived at the temple we engaged eight new native
hunters. These were Lolos, a wandering unit from the independent
tribe of S'suchuan and they proved to be excellent men.
The first serow was
killed by Hotenfa's party on our third day in the temple. Heller
went out with the hunters but in a few
hours returned alone. A short time after he had left the natives
the dogs took up the trail of a huge serow and followed it for
three miles through the spruce forest. They finally brought the
animal to bay against a cliff and a furious fight ensued. One
dog was ripped wide open, another received a horn-thrust in the
side, and the big red leader was thrown over a cliff to the rocks
below. More of the hounds undoubtedly would have been killed had
not the hunters arrived and shot the animal.
The men brought the
serow in late at night but our joy was considerably dampened by
the loss of the red dog. Hotenfa carried him in his arms and laid
him gently on a blanket in the temple but the splendid animal
died during the night. His master cried like a child and I am
sure that he felt more real sorrow than he would have shown at
the loss of his wife; for wives are much easier to get in China
than good hunting dogs.
The serow was an adult
male, badly scarred from fighting, and had lost one horn by falling
over a cliff when he was killed. He was brownish black, with rusty
red lower legs and a whitish mane. His right horn was nine and
three-quarters inches in length and five and three-quarters inches
in circumference at the base and the effectiveness with which
he had used his horns against the dogs demonstrated that they
were by no means only for ornaments. In the next chapter the habits
and relationships of the gorals and serows will be considered
more fully.
On the morning following
the capture of the first serow the last rain of the season began
and continued for nine days almost without ceasing. The weather
made hunting practically impossible for
the fog hung so thickly over the woods that one could not see
a hundred feet and Heller found that many of his small traps were
sprung by the raindrops. The Lolos had disappeared, and we believed
that they had returned to their village, but they had been hunting
in spite of the weather and on the fifth day arrived with a fine
male serow in perfect condition. It showed a most interesting
color variation for, instead of red, the lower legs were buff
with hardly a tinge of reddish.
November 2, the sun
rose in an absolutely cloudless sky and during the remainder of
the winter we had as perfect weather as one could wish. Yvette's
constant nursing and efficient surgery combined with the devotion
of our interpreter, Wu, had checked the spread of the poison in
my hand and my nights were no longer haunted with the strange
fancies of delirium, but I was as helpless as a babe. I could
do nothing but sit with steaming cloths wrapped about my arm and
rail at the fate which kept me useless in the temple.
The Lolos killed a
third serow on the mountain just above our camp but the animal
fell into a rock fissure more than a hundred feet deep and was
recovered only after a day's hard work. The men wove a swinging
ladder from tough vines, climbed down it, and drew the serow bodily
up the cliff; as it weighed nearly three hundred pounds this was
by no means an easy undertaking.
Our Lolo hunters were
tall, handsome fellows led by a slender young chief with patrician
features who ruled his village like an autocrat with absolute
power of life and death. The Lolos are a strange people who at
one time probably occupied much of the region south
of the Yangtze River but were pushed south and west by the Chinese
and, except in one instance, now exist only in scattered units
in the provinces of Kwei-chau and Yün-nan.
In S'suchuan the Lolos
hold a vast territory which is absolutely closed to the Chinese
on pain of death and over which they exercise no control. Several
expeditions have been launched against the Lolos but all have
ended in disaster.
Only a few weeks before
we arrived in Yün-nan a number of Chinese soldiers butchered nearly
a hundred Lolos whom they had encountered outside the independent
territory, and in reprisal the Lolos burned several villages almost
under the walls of a fortified city in which were five hundred
soldiers, massacred all the men and boys, and carried off the
women as slaves.
The pure blood Lolos
"are a very fine tall race, with comparatively fair complexions,
and often with straight features, suggesting a mixture of Mongolian
with some more straight-featured race. Their appearance marks
them as closely connected by race with the eastern Tibetans, the
latter being, if anything, rather the bigger men of the two."
[Footnote: "Yün-nan, the Link between India and the Yangtze,"
by Major H.R. Davies, 1909, p. 389.] They are great wanderers
and over a very large part of Yün-nan form the bulk of the hill
population, being the most numerous of all the non-Chinese tribes
in the province.
Like almost every
race which has been conquered by the Chinese or has come into
continual contact with them for a few generations, the Lolos of
Yün-nan, where they are in isolated villages, are being absorbed
by the Chinese. We found, as did Major Davies, that in some
instances they were giving up their language and beginning to
talk Chinese even among themselves. The women already had begun
to tie up their feet in the Chinese fashion and even disliked
to be called Lolos.
Those whom we employed
were living entirely by hunting and, although we found them amiable
enough, they were exceedingly independent. They preferred to hunt
alone, although they recognized what an increased chance for game
our high-power rifles gave them, and eventually left us while
I was away on a short trip, even though we still owed them considerable
money.
The Lolos are only
one of the non-Chinese tribes of Yün-nan. Major Davies has considered
this question in his valuable book to which I have already referred,
and I cannot do better than quote his remarks here.
The numerous non-Chinese
tribes that the traveler encounters in western China, form perhaps
one of the most interesting features of travel in that country.
It is safe to assert that in hardly any other part of the world
is there such a large variety of languages and dialects, as
are to be heard in the country which lies between Assam and
the eastern border of Yün-nan and in the Indo-Chinese countries
to the south of this region.
The reason of this
is not hard to find. It lies in the physical characteristics
of the country. It is the high mountain ranges and the deep
swift-flowing rivers that have brought about the differences
in customs and language, and the innumerable tribal distinctions,
which are so perplexing to the inquirer into Indo-Chinese ethnology.
A tribe has entered
Yün-nan from their original Himalayan or Tibetan home, and after
increasing in numbers have found the land they have settled
on not equal to their wants. The natural result has been the
emigration of part of the colony. The
emigrants, having surmounted pathless mountains and crossed
unbridged rivers on extemporized rafts, have found a new place
to settle in, and have felt no inclination to undertake such
a journey again to revisit their old home.
Being without a
written character in which to preserve their traditions, cut
off from all civilizing influence of the outside world, and
occupied merely in growing crops enough to support themselves,
the recollection of their connection with their original ancestors
has died out. It is not then surprising that they should now
consider themselves a totally distinct race from the parent
stock. Intertribal wars, and the practice of slave raiding so
common among the wilder members of the Indo-Chinese family,
have helped to still further widen the breach. In fact it may
be considered remarkable that after being separated for hundreds,
and perhaps in some case for thousands, of years, the languages
of two distant tribes of the same family should bear to each
other the marked general resemblance which is still to be found.
The hilly nature
of the country and the consequent lack of good means of communication
have also naturally militated against the formation of any large
kingdoms with effective control over the mountainous districts.
Directly we get to a flat country with good roads and navigable
rivers, we find the tribal distinctions disappear, and the whole
of the inhabitants are welded into a homogeneous people under
a settled government, speaking one language.
Burmese as heard
throughout the Irrawaddy valley is the same everywhere. A traveler
from Rangoon to Bhamo will find one language spoken throughout
his journey, but an expedition of the same length in the hilly
country to the east or to the west of the Irrawaddy valley would
bring him into contact with twenty mutually unintelligible tongues.
The same state of
things applies to Siam and Tong-king—one nation speaking
one language in the flat country and a Tower of Babel in the
hills (loc. cit., pp. 332-333).
GORALS AND SEROWS
Gorals and serows
belong to the subfamily Rupicaprinae which is an early
mountain-living offshoot of the Bovidae; it also includes
the chamois, takin, and the so-called Rocky Mountain goat of America.
The animals are commonly referred to as "goat-antelopes" in order
to express the intermediate position which they apparently hold
between the goats and antelopes. They are also sometimes called
the Rupicaprine antelopes from the scientific name of the chamois
(Rupicapra).
The horns of all members
of the group are finely ridged, subcylindrical and are present
in both sexes, being almost as long in the female as in the male.
Although no one would suspect that the gorals are more closely
related to the takins than to the serows, which they resemble
superficially, such seems to be the case, but the cranial differences
between the two genera are to a certain extent bridged over by
the skull of the small Japanese serow (Capricornulus crispus).
This species is most interesting because of its intermediate position.
In size it is larger than a goral but smaller than a serow; its
long coat and its horns resemble those of a goral but it has the
face gland and short tail of a serow. It is found in Japan, Manchuria
and southern Siberia.
The principal external
difference between the gorals and serows, besides that of size,
is in the fact that the serows have a short tail and a well developed
face gland, which opens in front of the
eyes by a small orifice, while the gorals have a long tail and
no such gland.
In the cylindrical
form of their horns the serows are similar to some of the antelopes
but in their clumsy build, heavy limbs and stout hoofs as well
as in habits they resemble goats. The serow has a long, melancholy-looking
face and because of its enormous ears the Chinese in Fukien Province
refer to it as the "wild donkey" but in Yün-nan it is called "wild
cow."
The specific relationships
of the serows are by no means satisfactorily determined. Mr. Pocock,
Superintendent of the London Zoölogical Society's Gardens, has
recently devoted considerable study to the serows of British India
and considers them all to be races of the single species Capricornis
sumatrensis. With this opinion I am inclined to agree, although
I have not yet had sufficient time in which to thoroughly study
the subject in the light of our new material.
These animals differ
most strikingly in external coloration, and fall into three groups
all of which partake more or less of the characters of each other.
Chinese serows usually have the lower legs rusty red, while in
Indian races they are whitish, and black in the southern Burma
and Malayan forms.
The serows which we
killed upon the Snow Mountain can probably be referred to Capricornis
sumatrensis milne-edwardsi, those of Fukien obtained by Mr.
Caldwell represent the white-maned serow Capricornis sumatrensis
argyrochaetes and one which I shot in May, 1917, near Teng-yueh,
not far from the Burma frontier, is apparently an undescribed
form.
Our specimens have
brought out the fact that a remarkable individual variation exists
in the color of the legs of these animals;
this character was considered to be of diagnostic value, and probably
is in some degree, but it is by no means as reliable as it was
formerly supposed to be.
Two of the serows
killed on the Snow Mountain have the lower legs rusty red, while
in two others these parts are buff colored. The animals, all males
of nearly the same age, were taken on the same mountain, and virtually
at the same time. Their skulls exhibit no important differences
and there is no reason to believe that they represent anything
but an extreme individual variation.
The two specimens
obtained by Mr. Caldwell at Yen-ping are even more surprising.
The old female is coal black, but the young male is distinctly
brownish-black with a chestnut stripe from the mane to the tail
along the mid-dorsal line where the hairs of the back form a ridge.
The horns of the female are nearly parallel for half their extent
and approach each other at the tips; their surfaces are remarkably
smooth. The horns of the young male diverge like a V from the
skull and are very heavily ridged. The latter character is undoubtedly
due to youth.
These serows are an
excellent example of the necessity for collecting a large number
of specimens from the same locality. Only by this means is it
possible to learn how the species is affected by age, sex and
individual variation and what are its really important characters.
In the case of the gorals, our Expedition obtained at Hui-yao
such a splendid series of all ages that we have an unequaled opportunity
for intelligent study. Serows are entirely Asian and found in
China, Japan, India, Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula.
On the Snow Mountain
we found them living singly at altitudes of from 9,000 to 13,000
feet in dense spruce forests, among the cliffs. The animals seemed
to be fond of sleeping under overhanging rocks, and we were constantly
finding beds which gave evidence of very extensive use. Apparently
serows seldom come out into the open, but feed on leaves and grass
while in the thickest cover, so that it is almost impossible to
kill them without the aid of dogs or beaters.
Sometimes a serow
will lead the dogs for three or four miles, and eventually lose
them or it may turn at bay and fight the pack after only a short
chase; a large serow is almost certain to kill several of the
hounds if in a favorable position with a rock wall at its back.
The animal can use its strong curved horns with deadly effect
for it is remarkably agile for a beast of its size.
In Fukien we hunted
serows on the summit of a high mountain clothed with a dense jungle
of dwarf bamboo. It was in quite different country from that which
the animals inhabit in Yün-nan for although the cover was exceedingly
thick it was without such high cliffs and there were extensive
grassy meadows. We did not see any serows in Fukien because of
the ignorance of our beaters, although the trails were cut by
fresh tracks. The natives said that in late September the animals
could often be found in the forests of the lower mountain slopes
when they came to browse upon the new grown mushrooms.
Mr. Caldwell purchased
for us in the market the skin of a splendid female serow and a
short time later obtained a young male. The latter was seen swimming
across the river just below the city wall and was caught alive
by the natives. The female weighed three hundred
and ten pounds and the male two hundred and ninety pounds.
Serows are rare in
captivity and are said to be rather dangerous pets unless tamed
when very young. We are reproducing a photograph taken and kindly
loaned by Mr. Herbert Lang, of one formerly living in the Berlin
Zoölogical Garden; we saw a serow in the Zoölogical Park at Calcutta
and one from Darjeeling is owned by the London Zoölogical Society.
Gorals are pretty
little animals of the size of the chamois. The species which we
killed on the Snow Mountain can probably be referred to Naemorhedus
griseus, but I have not yet had an opportunity to study our
specimens carefully. Unlike the serows these gorals have blackish
brown tails which from the roots to the end of the hairs measure
about 10 inches in length. The horns of both sexes are prominently
ridged for the basal half of their length and perfectly smooth
distally. The male horns are strongly recurved and are thick and
round at the base but narrow rapidly to the tips; the female horns
are straighter and more slender. The longest horns in the series
which we received measured six inches in length and three and
three-quarters inches in circumference at the base. Like the serows,
gorals are confined to Asia and are found in northern India, Burma,
and China, and northwards through Korea and southern Manchuria.
We hunted gorals with
dogs on the Snow Mountain for in this particular region they could
be killed in no other way. There was so much cover, even at altitudes
of from 12,000 to 15,000 feet and the rocks were so precipitous,
that a man might spend a month "still hunting" and never see a
goral. They are vicious fighters, and often
back up to a cliff where they can keep the dogs at a distance.
One of our best hounds while hunting alone, brought a goral to
bay and was found dead next day by the hunters with its side ripped
open.
On the Snow Mountain
we found the animals singly but at Hui-yao, not far from the Burma
frontier, where we hunted another species in the spring, they
were almost universally in herds of from six to seven or eight.
It was at the latter place that we had our best opportunity to
observe gorals and learn something of their habits. We were camping
on the banks of a branch of the Shwelie River, which had cut a
narrow gorge for itself; on one side this was seven or eight hundred
feet deep. A herd of about fifty gorals had been living for many
years on one of the mountain sides not far from the village, and
although they were seen constantly the natives had no weapons
with which to kill them; but with our high-power rifles it was
possible to shoot across the river at distances of from two hundred
to four hundred yards.
We could scan every
inch of the hillside through our field glasses and watch the gorals
as they moved about quite unconscious of our presence. At this
place they were feeding almost exclusively upon the leaves of
low bushes and the new grass which had sprung up where the slopes
had been partly burned over. We found them browsing from daylight
until about nine o'clock, and from four in the afternoon until
dark. They would move slowly among the bushes, picking off the
new leaves, and usually about the middle of the morning would
choose a place where the sun beat in warmly upon the rocks, and
go to sleep.
Strangely enough they
did not lie down on their sides, as do
many hoofed animals, but doubled their forelegs under them, stretched
their necks and hind legs straight out, and rested on their bellies.
It was a most uncomfortable looking attitude, and the first time
I saw an animal resting thus I thought it had been wounded, but
both Mr. Heller and myself saw them repeatedly at other times,
and realized that this was their natural position when asleep.
When frightened, like
our own mountain sheep or goats, they would run a short distance
and stop to look back. This was usually their undoing, for they
offered excellent targets as they stood silhouetted against the
sky. They were very difficult to see when lying down among the
rocks, but our native hunters, who had most extraordinary eyesight,
often would discover them when it was almost impossible for me
to find them even with the field glasses. We never could be sure
that there were no gorals on a mountainside, for they were adepts
at hiding, and made use of a bunch of grass or the smallest crevice
in a rock to conceal themselves, and did it so completely that
they seemed to have vanished from the earth.
Like all sheep and
goats, they could climb about where it seemed impossible for any
animal to move. I have seen a goral run down the face of a cliff
which appeared to be almost perpendicular, and where the dogs
dared not venture. As the animal landed on a projecting rock it
would bounce off as though made of rubber, and leap eight or ten
feet to a narrow ledge which did not seem large enough to support
a rabbit.
The ability to travel
down such precipitous cliffs is largely due to the animal's foot
structure. Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn has investigated this
matter in the mountain goat and as his
remarks apply almost equally well to the goral, I cannot do better
than quote them here:
The horny part of
the foot surrounds only the extreme front. Behind this crescentic
horn is a shallow concavity which gives the horny hoof a chance
to get its hold. Both the main digits and the dewclaws terminate
in black, rubber-like, rounded and expanded soles, which are
of great service in securing a firm footing on the shelving
rocks and narrow ledges on which the animal travels with such
ease. This sole, Smith states, softens in the spring of the
year, when the snow is leaving the ground, a fresh layer of
the integument taking its place. The rubber-like balls with
which the dewclaws are provided are by no means useless; they
project back below the horny part of the hoof, and Mr. Smith
has actually observed the young captive goats supporting themselves
solely on their dewclaws on the edge of a roof. It is probable
that they are similarly used on the rocks and precipices, since
on a very narrow ledge they would serve favorably to alter the
center of gravity by enabling the limb to be extended somewhat
farther forward.*
*"Mountain
Goat Hunting with the Camera," by Henry Fairfield Osborn.
Reprinted from the tenth Annual Report of the New York
Zoölogical Society, 1906, pp. 13-14.
There were certain
trails leading over the hill slopes at Hui-yao which the gorals
must have used continually, judging by the way in which these
were worn. We also found much sign beneath overhanging rocks and
on projecting ledges to indicate that these were definite resorts
for numbers of the animals. Many which we saw were young or of
varying ages running with the herds, and it was interesting to
see how perfectly they had mastered the art of self-concealment
even when hardly a year old. Although at Hui-yao almost all
were on the east side of the river, they did not seem to be especially
averse to water, and several times I watched wounded animals swim
across the stream.
Gorals are splendid
game animals, for the plucky little brutes inspire the sportsman
with admiration, besides leading him over peaks which try his
nerve to the utmost, and I number among the happiest hours of
my life the wonderful hunts in Yün-nan, far above the clouds,
at the edge of the snow.
THE "WHITE WATER"
Y. B. A.
October had slipped
into November when we left the temple and shifted camp to the
other side of the Snow Mountain at the "White Water." It was a
brilliant day and the ride up the valley could not have been more
beautiful. Crossing the gangheisa or "dry sea," a great
grassy plain which was evidently a dry lake basin, we followed
the trail into the forest and down the side of a deep canyon to
a mountain stream where the waters spread themselves in a thin,
green veil over a bed of white stones.
We pitched our tents
on a broad terrace beside the stream at the edge of the spruce
forest. Above us towered the highest peak of the mountain, with
a glacier nestling in a basin near its summit, and the snow-covered
slopes extending in a glorious shining crescent about our camp.
The moon was full, and each night as we sat at dinner before the
fire, the ragged peaks turned crimson in the afterglow of the
sun, and changed to purest silver at the touch of the white moonlight.
We have had many camps in many lands but none more beautiful than
the one at the "White Water."
The weather was perfect.
Every day the sun shone in a cloudless blue sky and in the morning
the ground was frozen hard and covered with snow-like frost, but
the air was marvelously stimulating. We
felt that we could be happy at the "White Water" forever, but
it did not prove to be as good a hunting ground as that on the
other side of the mountain. The Lolos killed a fine serow on the
first day and Hotenfa brought in a young goral a short time later,
but big game was by no means abundant. At the "White Water" we
obtained our first Lady Amherst's pheasant (Thaumalea amherstiae)
one of the most remarkable species of a family containing the
most beautiful birds of the world. The rainbow colored body and
long tail of the male are made more conspicuous by a broad white
and green ruff about the neck. The first birds brought alive to
England were two males which had been presented to the Countess
Amherst after whom the species was named. We found this pheasant
inhabiting thick forests where it is by no means easy to discover
or shoot. It is fairly abundant in Yün-nan, Eastern Tibet and
S'suchuan but its habits are not well known. Although the camp
yielded several small mammals new to our collection, we decided
to go into Li-chiang to engage a new caravan for our trip across
the Yangtze River while Heller remained in camp.
The direct road to
Li-chiang was considerably shorter than by way of the Snow Mountain
village and at three o'clock in the afternoon our beloved "Temple
of the Flowers" was visible on the hilltop overlooking the city.
As we rode up the steep ascent we saw a picturesque gathering
on the porch and heard the sound of many voices laughing and talking.
The beautiful garden-like courtyard was filled with women and
children of every age and description, and all the doors from
one side of the temple had been removed, leaving a large open
space where huge caldrons were boiling
and steaming.
We sat down irresolutely
on the inner porch but the young priest was delighted to see us
and insisted that we wait until Wu arrived. We were glad that
we did not seek other quarters for we were to witness an interesting
ceremony, which is most characteristic of Chinese life. It seemed
that about five years before a gentleman of Li-chiang had "shuffled
off this mortal coil." His soul may have found rest, but "his
mortal coil" certainly did not. Unfortunately his family inherited
a few hundred dollars several years later and the village "astrologer"
informed them that according to the feng-shui, or omnipotent
spirits of the earth, wind, and water, the situation of the deceased
gentleman's grave was ill-chosen and that if they ever hoped to
enjoy good fortune again they must dig him up, give the customary
feast in his honor and have another burial site chosen.
Every village has
a "wise man" who is always called upon to select the resting place
of the dead, his remuneration varying from two dollars to two
thousand dollars according to the circumstances of the deceased's
relatives. The astrologer never will say definitely whether or
not the spot will prove a propitious one and if the family later
sell any property, receive a legacy, or are known to have obtained
money in other ways, the astrologer usually finds that the feng-shui
do not favor the original place and he will exact another fee
for choosing a second grave.
The dead are never
buried until the astrologer has named an auspicious day as well
as an appropriate site, with the result that unburied coffins
are to be seen in temples, under roadside
shelters, in the fields and in the back yards of many houses.
Any interference by
foreigners with this custom is liable to bring about dire results
as in the case of the rioting in Shanghai in 1898. A number of
French residents objected to a temple near by being used to store
a score or more of bodies until a convenient time for burial and
the result was the death of many people in the fighting which
ensued. Mr. Tyler Dennet cites an amusing anecdote regarding the
successful handling of the problem by a native mandarin in Yen-ping
where we visited Mr. Caldwell:
The doctor pointed
out how dangerous to public health was the presence of these
coffins in Yen-ping. The magistrate had a census taken of the
coffins above ground in the city and found that they actually
numbered sixteen thousand. The city itself is estimated to have
only about twenty thousand inhabitants.
It was a difficult
problem for the magistrate. He might easily move in such a way
as to bring the whole city down about his head. But the Chinese
are clever in such situations, perhaps the cleverest people
on earth. He finally devised a way out. A proclamation was issued
levying a tax of fifty cents on every unburied coffin. The Chinese
may be superstitious, but they are even more thrifty. For a
few weeks Yen-ping devoted itself to funerals, a thousand a
week, and now this little city, one of the most isolated in
China, can truly be said to be on the road to health.*
*"Doctoring
China," by Tyler Dennet, Asia, February, 1918, p. 114.
There are very few
such progressive cities in China, however, and a missionary told
us that recently a young child and his grandfather were buried
on the same day although their deaths had
been nearly fifty years apart. The funeral rites are in themselves
fairly simple, but it is the great ambition of every Chinese to
have his resting place as near as possible to those of his ancestors.
That is one of the reasons why they are so loath to emigrate.
We often passed eight
or ten coolies staggering under the load of a heavy coffin, transporting
a body sometimes a month's journey or more to bury it at the dead
man's birthplace. A rooster usually would be fastened to the coffin
for, according to the Yün-nan superstition, the spirit of the
man enters the bird and is conveyed by it to his home.
There is a strange
absence of the fear of death among the Chinese. One often sees
large planks of wood stored in a corner of a house and one is
told that these are destined to become the coffins of the man's
father or mother, even though his parents may at the time be enjoying
the most robust health. Indeed, among the poorer classes, a coffin
is considered a most fitting gift for a son to present to his
father.
We established our
camp on the porch of the temple at Li-chiang and from its vantage
point could watch the festivities going on about us. The feasting
continued until after dark and at daylight the kettles were again
steaming to prepare for the second day's celebration.
By ten o'clock the
court was crowded and a hour later there came a partial stillness
which was broken by a sudden burst of music (?) from Chinese violins
and pipes. Going outside we found most of the guests standing
about an improvised altar. The foot of the coffin was just visible
in the midst of the paper decorations and
in front of it were set half a dozen dishes of tempting food.
These were meant as an offering to the spirit of the departed
one, but we knew this would not prevent the sorrowing relatives
from eating the food with much relish later on.
In a few moments a
group of women approached, supporting a figure clothed in white
with a hood drawn over her face. She was bent nearly to the ground
and muffled shrieks and wails came from the depths of her veil
as she prostrated herself in front of the altar. For more than
an hour this chief mourner, the wife of the deceased, lay on her
face, her whole figure shaking with what seemed the most uncontrollable
anguish. This same lady, however, moved about later among her
guests an amiable hostess, with beaming countenance, the gayest
of the gay. But every morning while the festivities lasted, promptly
at eleven o'clock she would prostrate herself before the coffin
and display heartrending grief in the presence of the unmoved
spectators in order to satisfy the demands of "custom."
Custom and precedent
have grown to be divinities with the Chinese, and such a display
of feigned emotion is required on certain prescribed occasions.
As one missionary aptly described it "the Chinese are all face
and no heart." Mr. Caldwell told us that one night while passing
down a deserted street in a Chinese village he was startled to
hear the most piercing shrieks issuing from a house nearby. Thinking
someone was being murdered, he rushed through the courtyard only
to find that a girl who was to be married the following day, according
to Chinese custom, was displaying the most desperate anguish at
the prospect of leaving her family, even
though she probably was enchanted with the idea.
On the third day of
the celebration in the temple at Li-chiang the feasting ended
in a burst of splendor. From one o'clock until far past sundown
the friends and relatives of the departed one were fed. Any person
could receive an invitation by bringing a small present, even
if it were only a bowl of rice or a few hundred cash (ten or fifteen
cents).
All during the morning
girls and women flocked up the hill with trays of gifts. There
were many Mosos and other tribesmen among them as well as Chinese.
The Moso girls wore their black hair cut short on the sides and
hanging in long narrow plaits down their backs. They wore white
leather capes (at least that was the original shade) and pretty
ornaments of silver and coral at their throats, and as they were
young and gay with glowing red cheeks and laughing eyes they were
decidedly attractive. The guests were seated in groups of six
on the stones of the temple courtyard. Small boys acted as waiters,
passing about steaming bowls of vegetables and huge straw platters
heaped high with rice. As soon as each guest had stuffed himself
to satisfaction he relinquished his place to someone else and
the food was passed again. We were frequently pressed to eat with
them and in the evening when the last guest had departed the "chief
mourner" brought us some delicious fruit candied in black sugar.
She told Wu that they had fed three hundred people during the
day and we could well believe it. The next morning the coffin
was carried down the hill to the accompaniment of anguished wails
and we were left once more to the peace and quiet of our beautiful
temple courtyard.
Sometimes a family
will plunge itself into debt for generations to come to provide
a suitable funeral for one of its members, because to bury the
dead without the proper display would not only be to "lose face"
but subject them to the possible persecution of the angered spirits.
This is only one of the pernicious results of ancestor worship
and it is safe to say that most of the evils in China's social
order today can be traced, directly or indirectly, to this unfortunate
practice.
A man's chief concern
is to leave male descendants to worship at his grave and appease
his spirit. The more sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons who
walk in his funeral procession, the more he is to be envied. As
a missionary humorously says "the only law of God that ever has
been obeyed in China is to be fruitful and multiply." Craving
for progeny has brought into existence thousands upon thousands
of human beings who exist on the very brink of starvation. Nowhere
in the civilized world is there a more sordid and desperate struggle
to maintain life or a more hopeless poverty. But fear and self-love
oblige them to continue their blind breeding. The apparent atrophy
of the entire race is due to ancestor worship which binds it with
chains of iron to its dead and to its past, and not until these
bonds are severed can China expect to take her place among the
progressive nations of the earth.
ACROSS THE YANGTZE
GORGE
In mid-November we
left the White Water with a caravan of twenty-six mules and horses.
Following the road from Li-chiang to the Yangtze, we crossed the
"Black Water" and climbed steadily upward over several tremendous
wooded ridges, each higher than the last, to the summit of the
divide.
The descent was gradual
through a magnificent pine and spruce forest. Some of the trees
were at least one hundred and fifty feet high, and were draped
with beautiful gray moss which had looped itself from branch to
branch and hung suspended in delicate streamers yards in length.
The forest was choked with underbrush and a dense growth of dwarf
bamboo, and the hundreds of fallen logs, carpeted with bronze
moss, made ideal conditions for small mammal collecting. However,
as all the species would probably be similar to those we had obtained
on the Snow Mountain, we did not feel that it was worth while
stopping to trap.
At four-thirty in
the afternoon we camped upon a beautiful hill in a pine forest
which was absolutely devoid of underbrush, and where the floor
was thinly overlaid with brown pine needles. Although the Moso
hunter, who acted as our guide, assured us that the river was
only three miles away, it proved to be more than fifteen, and
we did not reach the ferry until half past one the next afternoon.
We were continually
annoyed, as every traveler in China is, by the inaccuracy of the
natives, and especially of the Chinese. Their ideas of distance
are most extraordinary. One may ask a Chinaman how far it is to
a certain village and he will blandly reply, "Fifteen li
to go, but thirty li when you come back." After a short
experience one learns how to interpret such an answer, for it
means that when going the road is down hill and that the return
uphill will require double the time.
Caravans are supposed
to travel ten li an hour, although they seldom do more
than eight, and all calculations of distance are based upon time
so far as the mafus are concerned. If the day's march is
eight hours you invariably will be informed that the distance
is eighty li, although in reality it may not be half as
great.
In "Chinese Characteristics,"
Dr. Arthur H. Smith gives many illuminating observations on the
inaccuracy of the Chinese. In regard to distance he says:
It is always necessary
in land travel to ascertain, when the distance is given in "miles"
(li), whether the "miles" are "large" or not! That there
is some basis for estimates of distances we do not deny,
but what we do deny is that these estimates or measurements
are either accurate or uniform.
It is, so far as
we know, a universal experience that the moment one leaves a
great imperial highway the "miles" become "long." If 120 li
constitute a fair day's journey on the main road, then on country
roads it will take fully as long to go 100 li, and in
the mountains the whole day will be spent in getting over 80
li (p. 51).
In like manner,
a farmer who is asked the weight of one of his oxen gives a
figure which seems much too low, until he explains
that he has omitted to estimate the bones! A servant who was
asked his height mentioned a measure which was ridiculously
inadequate to cover his length, and upon being questioned admitted
that he had left out of account all above his shoulders! He
had once been a soldier, where the height of the men's clavicle
is important in assigning the carrying of burdens. And since
a Chinese soldier is to all practical purposes complete without
his head, this was omitted.
Of a different sort
was the measurement of a rustic who affirmed that he lived "ninety
li from the city," but upon cross-examination he consented
to an abatement, as this was reckoning both to the city and
back, the real distance being as he admitted, only "forty-five
li one way!" (p. 49) ...
The habit of reckoning
by "tens" is deep-seated, and leads to much vagueness. A few
people are "ten or twenty," a "few tens," or perhaps "ever so
many tens," and a strictly accurate enumeration is one of the
rarest of experiences in China.... An acquaintance told the
writer that two men had spent "200 strings of cash" on a theatrical
exhibition, adding a moment later, "It was 173 strings, but
that is the same as 200—is it not?" (p. 54).
A man who wished
advice in a lawsuit told the writer that he himself "lived"
in a particular village, though it was obvious from his narrative
that his abode was in the suburbs of a city. Upon inquiry, he
admitted that he did not now live in the village, and
further investigation revealed the fact that the removal took
place nineteen generations ago! "But do you not almost consider
yourself a resident of the city now?" he was asked. "Yes," he
replied simply, "we do live there now, but the old root is in
that village."
...The whole Chinese
system of thinking is based on a line of assumptions different
from those to which we are accustomed, and they can ill comprehend
the mania which seems to possess the Occidental to ascertain
everything with unerring exactness. The Chinese does not know
how many families there are in his native
village, and he does not wish to know. What any human being
can want to know this number for is to him an insoluble riddle.
It is "a few hundred," "several hundreds," or "not a few," but
a fixed and definite number it never was and never will be.
(p. 55.)
After breaking camp
on the day following our departure from the "White Water" we rode
along a broad trail through a beautiful pine forest and in the
late morning stood on an open summit gazing on one of the most
impressive sights which China has to offer. At the left, and a
thousand feet below, the mighty Yangtze has broken through the
mountains in a gorge almost a mile deep; a gorge which seems to
have been carved out of the solid rock, sharp and clean, with
a giant's knife. A few miles to the right the mountains widen,
leaving a flat plain two hundred feet above the river. Every inch
of it, as well as the finger-like valleys which stretch upward
between the hills, is under cultivation, giving support for three
villages, the largest of which is Taku.
The ferry is in a
bad place but it is the only spot for miles where the river can
be crossed. The south bank is so precipitous that the trail from
the plain twists and turns like a snake before it emerges upon
a narrow sand and gravel beach. The opposite side of the river
is a vertical wall of rock which slopes back a little at the lower
end to form a steep hillside covered with short grass. The landing
place is a mass of jagged rocks fronting a small patch of still
water and the trail up the face of the cliff is so steep that
it cannot be climbed by any loaded animal; therefore all the packs
must be unstrapped and laboriously carted up the slope on the
backs of the mafus.
At two-thirty in the
afternoon we were loading the boat, which carried only two animals
and their packs, for the first trip across the river. It was difficult
to get the mules aboard for they had to be whipped, shoved and
actually lifted bodily into the dory. One of the ferrymen first
drew the craft along the rocks by a long rope, then climbed up
the face of what appeared to be an absolutely flat wall, and after
pulling the boat close beneath him, slid down into it. In this
way the dory was worked well up stream and when pushed into the
swift current was rowed diagonally to the other side.
After four loads had
been taken over, the boatmen decided to stop work although there
was yet more than an hour of daylight and they could not be persuaded
to cross again by either threats or coaxing. It was an uncomfortable
situation but there was nothing to do but camp where we were even
though the greater part of our baggage was on the other side,
with only the mafus to guard it, and therefore open to
robbery.
About a third of a
mile from the ferry we found a sandy cornfield on a level shelf
just above the water, and pitched our tents. A slight wind was
blowing and before long we had sand in our shoes, sand in our
beds, sand in our clothes, and we were eating sand. Heller went
down the river with a bag of traps while we set forty on the hills
above camp, and after a supper of goral steak, which did much
to allay the irritation of the day, we crawled into our sandy
beds.
At daylight Hotenfa
visited the ferry and reported that the loads were safe but that
one of the boatmen had gone to the village and no one knew when
he would return. We went to the river with Wu as soon as breakfast
was over and spent an aggravating hour trying
by alternate threats and cajoling to persuade the remaining ferryman
to cross the river to us. But it was useless, for the louder I
swore the more frightened he became and he finally retired into
a rock cave from which the mafus had to drag him out bodily
and drive him into the boat.
The second boatman
ambled slowly in about ten o'clock and we felt like beating them
both, but Wu impressed upon us the necessity for patience if we
ever expected to get our caravan across and we swallowed our wrath;
nevertheless, we decided not to leave until the loads and mules
were on the other side, and we ate a cold tiffin while sitting
on the sand.
Heller employed his
time by skinning the twenty small mammals (one of which was a
new rat) that our traps had yielded. We took a good many photographs
and several rolls of "movie" film showing the efforts of the mafus
to get the mules aboard. Some of them went in quietly enough but
others absolutely refused to step into the boat. One of the mafus
would pull, another push, a third twist the animal's tail and
a fourth lift its feet singly over the side. With the accompaniment
of yells, kicks, and Chinese oaths the performance was picturesque
to say the least.
By five o'clock the
entire caravan had been taken across the racing green water and
we had some time before dark in which to investigate the caverns
with which the cliffs above the river are honeycombed. They were
of two kinds, gold quarries and dwelling caves. The latter consist
of a long central shaft, just high enough to allow a man to stand
erect; this widens into a circular room. Along the sides of the
corridor shallow nests have been scooped out to serve as beds
and all the cooking is done not far from
the door. The caves, although almost dark, make fairly comfortable
living quarters and are by no means as dirty or as evil smelling
as the ordinary native house. The mines are straight shafts dug
into the cliffs where the rock is quarried and crushed by hand.
THROUGH UNMAPPED COUNTRY
We left the Taku ferry
by way of a steep trail through an open pine and spruce forest
along the rim of the Yangtze gorge where the view was magnificent.
Someone has said that when a tourist sees the Grand Canyon for
the first time he gasps "Indescribable" and then immediately begins
to describe it. Thus it was with us, but no words can picture
the grandeur of this titanic chasm. In places the rocks were painted
in delicate tints of blue and purple; in others, the sides fell
away in sheer drops of hundreds of feet to the green torrent below
rushing on to the sea two thousand five hundred miles away.
The caravan wound
along the edge of the gorge all day and we were left far behind,
for at each turn a view more beautiful than the last opened out
before us, and until every color plate and negative in the holders
had been exposed we worked steadily with the camera.
We were traveling
northwestward through an unmapped region which Baron Haendel-Mazzetti
had skirted and reported to be one of vast forests and probably
rich in game. After six hours of riding over almost bare mountainsides
we passed through a park-like spruce forest and reached Habala,
a long thin village of mud and stone houses scattered up the sides
of a narrow valley.
Above and to the left
of the village rose ridge after ridge of dense spruce forest overshadowed
by a snow-crowned peak and cut by deep ravines, the gloomy depths
of which yielded fascinating glimpses of rocky cliffs—a veritable
paradise for serow and goral. Our camping place was a grassy lawn
as flat and smooth as the putting green of a golf course. Just
below the tents a streamlet of ice-cold water murmured comfortably
to itself and a huge dead tree was lying crushed and broken for
the camp fire.
The boys turned the
beautiful spot into "home" in half an hour and, after setting
a line of traps, we wandered slowly back through the darkness
guided by the brilliant flames of the fires which threw a warm
yellow glow over our little table spread for dinner.
We sent men to the
village to bring in hunters and after dinner four or five picturesque
Mosos appeared. They said that there were many serow, goral, muntjac
and some wapiti in the forests above the village, and we could
well believe it, for there was never a more "likely looking" spot.
Although the men did not claim to be professional hunters, nevertheless
they said that they had good dogs and had killed many muntjac
and other animals.
They agreed to come
at daylight and arrived about two hours late, which was doing
fairly well for natives. It was a brilliant day just warm enough
for comfort in the sun and we left camp with high hopes. However
it did not take many hours to demonstrate that the men knew almost
nothing about hunting and that their dogs were useless. Because
of the dense cover "still hunting" was out of the question and,
after a hard climb, we returned to camp to spend the remainder
of the afternoon developing photographs
and preparing small mammals.
Our traps had yielded
three new shrews and a silver mole as well as a number of mice,
rats, and meadow voles of species identical with those taken on
the Snow Mountain. It was evident, therefore, that the Yangtze
River does not act as an effective barrier to the distribution
of even the smallest forms and that the region in which we were
now working would not produce a different fauna. This was an important
discovery from the standpoint of our distribution records but
was also somewhat disappointing.
The photographic work
already had yielded excellent results. The Paget color plates
were especially beautiful and the fact that everything was developed
in the field gave us an opportunity to check the quality of each
negative.
For this work the
portable dark room was invaluable. It could be quickly erected
and suspended from a tree branch or the rafters of a temple and
offered an absolutely safe place in which to develop or load plates.
The moving-picture film required special treatment because of
its size and we usually fastened in the servants' tent the red
lining which had been made for this purpose in New York. Even
then the space was so cramped that we were dead tired at the end
of a few hours' work.
One who sits comfortably
in a theater or hall and sees moving-picture film which has been
obtained in such remote parts of the world does not realize the
difficulties in its preparation. The water for developing almost
invariably was dirty and in order to insure even a moderately
clear film it always had to be strained.
For washing the negative pailful after pailful had to be carried
sometimes from a very long distance, and the film exposed for
hours to the carelessness or curiosity of the natives. In our
cramped quarters perhaps a corner of the tent would be pushed
open admitting a stream of light; the electric flash lamp might
refuse to work, leaving us in complete darkness to finish the
developing "by guess and by gosh," or any number of other accidents
occur to ruin the film. At most we could not develop more than
three hundred feet in an afternoon and we never breathed freely
until it finally was dried and safely stored away in the tin cans.
We left Habala, on
November 23, for a village called Phete where the natives had
assured us we would find good hunters with dogs. For almost the
entire distance the road skirted the rim of the Yangtze gorge
and there the view of the great chasm was even more magnificent
than that we had left. While its sides are not fantastically sculptured
and the colors are softer than those of the Grand Canyon of the
Colorado, nevertheless its grandeur is hardly less imposing and
awe-inspiring. If Yün-nan is ever made accessible by railroads
this gorge should become a Mecca for tourists, for it is without
doubt one of the most remarkable natural sights in the world.
About two o'clock
in the afternoon we saw three clusters of houses on a tableland
which juts into a chasm cut by a tributary of the great river.
One of them was Phete and it seemed that we would reach the village
in half an hour at least, but the road wound so tortuously around
the hillside, down to the stream and up again that it was an hour
and a half before we found a camping place
on a narrow terrace a short distance from the nearest houses.
Next day we could
not go to the village to find hunters until mid-forenoon because
the natives of this region are very late risers and often have
not yet opened their doors at ten o'clock. This is quite contrary
to the custom in many other parts of China where the inhabitants
are about their work in the first light of dawn.
The hills above Phete
are bare or thinly forested and every available inch of level
ground is under cultivation with corn and a few rice paddies near
the creek; the latter were a great surprise, for we had not expected
to find rice so far north. The village itself was exceedingly
picturesque but never have we met people of such utter and hopeless
stupidity as its inhabitants. They were pleasant enough and always
greeted us with a smile and salutation, but their brains seemed
not to have kept pace with their bodies and when asked the simplest
question they would only stare stupidly without the slightest
glimmering of intelligence.
It required an hour's
questioning of a dozen or more people to glean that there were
no hunters in the village where they had lived all their lives,
but Wu, our interpreter, finally discovered a Chinese who told
us of a hunter in the mountains. He asked how far and the answer
was "Not very far."
"Well, is it ten li?"
"I don't know how
many li."
"Have you ever been
there?"
"Yes; it is only a
few steps."
"How long will it
take to get there?"
"About the time of
one meal."
We were not to be
deceived, for we had had experience with
native ideas of distance, and we ate our tiffin before starting
out on the "few steps." A steep trail led up the valley and after
three hours of steady riding we reached the hunter's village of
three large houses on a flat strip of cleared ground in the midst
of a dense forest.
The people looked
much like those of Phete but were rather anemic specimens, and
five out of eight had enormous goiters. They were exceedingly
shy at first, watching us with side glances and through cracks
in the wall. Wu learned that we were the first white persons they
had ever seen. I imagine that much of their unhealthiness was
due to too close intermarriage, for these families had little
intercourse with the people in Phete who were only "a few steps"
away.
As we were leaving
they began to eat their supper in the courtyard. The principal
dish consisted of mixed cornmeal and rice, boiled squash and green
vegetables. All the women were busy husking corn which was hung
to dry on great racks about the house. These racks we had noticed
in every village since leaving Li-chiang and they seemed to be
in universal use in the north.
The hunter had a flock
of sheep and we purchased one for $4.40 (Mexican) but there was
considerable difficulty in paying for it since these people had
never seen Chinese money even though living in China itself. For
currency they used chunks of silver the size of a walnut and worth
about one dollar (Mexican). The Chinese guide finally persuaded
the people of the genuineness of our money and we purchased a
few eggs and a little very delicious wild honey besides the sheep.
These people as well as those of Phete spoke the Li-chiang dialect
but with such variation that even our mafus
could understand them only with the greatest difficulty.
When we returned to
camp we found that the coolie who had been engaged to carry the
motion-picture camera and tripod had left without the formality
of saying "good-by" or asking for the money which was due him.
We had had considerable trouble with the camera coolies since
leaving Li-chiang. The first one carried the camera to the Taku
ferry with many groans, and there engaged a huge Chinaman to take
his place, for he thought the load too heavy. It only weighed
fifty pounds, and in the Fukien Province where men seldom carry
less than eighty pounds and sometimes as much as one hundred and
fifty, it would have been considered as only half a burden. In
Yün-nan, however, animals do most of the pack carrying, and coolies
protest at even an ordinary load.
We left Phete in the
early morning and camped about five hundred feet above the hunter's
cabin in a beautiful little meadow. It was surrounded with splendid
pine trees, and a clear spring bubbled up from a knoll in the
center and spread fan-shaped in a dozen little streams over the
edge of a deep ravine where a mountain torrent rushed through
a tangled bamboo jungle. The gigantic fallen trees were covered
inches deep with green moss, and altogether it was an ideal spot
for small mammals. Our traps, however, yielded no new species,
although we secured dozens of specimens every night.
There were a few families
of Lolos about two miles away and these were engaged as hunters.
They told us that serow and muntjac were abundant and that wapiti
were sometimes found on the mountains several
miles to the northward. Although the men had a large pack of good
dogs they were such unsatisfactory hunters that we gave up in
disgust after three days. They never would appear until ten or
eleven o'clock in the morning when the sun had so dried the leaves
that the scent was lost and the dogs could not follow a trail
even if one were found. Moreover, the camp was a very uncomfortable
one, due to the wind which roared through the trees night and
day.
We were rejoined here
by Hotenfa, who had left us at the Taku ferry to see if he could
get together a pack of dogs. He brought three hounds with him
which he praised exuberantly, but we subsequently found that they
did not justify our hopes. Nevertheless, we were glad to have
Hotenfa back, for he was one of the most intelligent, faithful,
and altogether charming natives whom we met in all Yün-nan. He
was an uncouth savage when he first came to us, but in a very
short time he had learned our camp ways and was as good a servant
as any we had.
TRAVELING TOWARD TIBET
Since the hunters
at the "Windy Camp" had proved so worthless and the traps had
yielded no small mammals new to our collection, we decided to
cross the mountains toward the Chung-tien road which leads into
Tibet.
The head mafu
explored the trail and reported that it was impassable but, after
an examination of some of the worst barriers, we decided that
they could be cleared away and ordered the caravan to start at
half past seven in the morning.
Before long we found
that the mafus were right. The trail was a mass of tangled
underbrush and fallen logs and led straight up a precipitous mountain
through a veritable jungle of dwarf bamboo. It was necessary to
stop every few yards to lift the loads over a barrier or cut a
passage through the bamboo thickets, and had it not been for the
adjustable pack saddles we never could have taken the caravan
over the trail.
Late in the afternoon
the exhausted men and animals dragged themselves to the summit
of the mountain, for it was not a pass. In a few hours we had
come from autumn to midwinter where the ground was frozen and
covered with snow. We were at an altitude of more than 15,000
feet and far above all timber except the rhododendron forest which
spread itself out in a low gray mass along the ridges. It was
difficult to make the slightest exertion
in the thin air and a bitterly cold wind swept across the peaks
so that it was impossible to keep warm even when wrapped in our
heaviest coats.
The servants and mafus
suffered considerably but it was too late to go on and there was
no alternative but to spend the night on the mountain. As soon
as the tents were up the men huddled disconsolately about the
fire, but we started out with a bag of traps while Heller went
in the opposite direction. We expected to catch some new mammals
during the night, for there were great numbers of runways on the
bare hillsides. The ground was frozen so solidly that it was necessary
to cut into the little Microtus tunnels with a hatchet
in order to set the traps and we were almost frozen before the
work was completed. The next morning we had caught twenty specimens
of a new white-bellied meadow vole and a remarkable shrew with
a long curved proboscis.
Everyone had spent
an uncomfortable night, for it was bitterly cold even in our sleeping
bags and the men had sat up about the fire in order to keep from
freezing. There was little difficulty in getting the caravan started
in the gray light of early dawn and after descending abruptly
four thousand feet on a precipitous trail to a Lolo village strung
out along a beautiful little valley we were again in the pleasant
warmth of late autumn.
The natives here had
never before seen a white person and in a few moments our tents
were surrounded by a crowd of strange-looking men and boys. The
chief of the village presented us with an enormous rooster and
we made him happy by returning two tins of cigarettes. The Lolo
women, the first we had seen, were especially surprising because
of their graceful figures and handsome
faces. Their flat turbans, short jackets, and long skirts with
huge flounces gave them a rather old-fashioned aspect, quite out
of harmony with the metal neck-bands, earrings, and bracelets
which they all wore.
The men were exceedingly
pleasant and made a picturesque group in their gray and brown
felt capes which they gather about the neck by a draw string and,
to the Lolos and Mosos alike, are both bed and clothing. We collected
all the men for their photographs, and although they had not the
slightest idea what we were about they stood quietly after Hotenfa
had assured them that the strange-looking instrument would not
go off. But most interesting of all was their astonishment when
half an hour later they saw the negative and were able to identify
themselves upon it.
The Lolos are apparently
a much maligned race. They are exceedingly independent, and although
along the frontier of their own territory in S'suchuan they wage
a war of robbery and destruction it is not wholly unprovoked.
No one can enter their country safely unless he is under the protection
of a chief who acts as a sponsor and passes him along to others.
Mr. Brooke, an Englishman, was killed by the Lolos, but he was
not properly "chaperoned," and Major D'Ollone of the French expedition
lived among them safely for some time and gives them unstinted
praise.
Whenever we met tribesmen
in Yün-nan who had not seen white persons they behaved much like
all other natives. They were, of course, always greatly astonished
to see our caravan descend upon them and were invariably fascinated
by our guns, tents, and in fact everything about us, but were
generally shy and decidedly less offensive
in their curiosity than the Chinese of the larger inland towns
to whom foreigners are by no means unknown. As a matter of fact
we have found that our white skins, light eyes, and hair are a
never failing source of interest and envy to almost all Orientals.
Yvette usually excited
the most curiosity, especially among the women, and as she wore
knickerbockers and a flannel shirt there were times when the determination
of her sex seemed to call forth the liveliest discussion. Her
long hair, however, usually settled the matter, and when the women
had decided the question of gender satisfactorily they often made
timid, and most amusing, advances. One woman said she greatly
admired her fair complexion and asked how many baths she took
to keep her skin so white. Another wondered whether it was necessary
to ever comb her hair and almost everyone wished to feel her clothes
and shoes. She always could command more attention than anyone
else by her camera operations, and a group would stand in speechless
amazement to see her dodge in and out of the portable dark room
when she was developing photographs or loading plates.
We made arrangements
to go with a number of the Lolos to a spot fifteen miles away
on the Chung-tien road to hunt wapiti (probably Cervus macneilli)
which the natives call maloo. Our American wapiti, or elk,
is a migrant from Asia by way of the Bering Strait and is probably
a relative of the wapiti which is found in Central Asia, China,
Manchuria and Korea.
At present these deer
are abundant in but few places. Throughout the Orient, and especially
in China, the growing horns when they are soft, or in the "velvet,"
are considered of great medicinal value
and, during the summer, the animals are trapped and hunted relentlessly
by the natives. In Yün-nan, when we were there, a pair of horns
were worth $100 (Mexican).
Thanksgiving morning
dawned gray and raw with occasional flurries of hail-like snow,
but we did not heed the cold, for the trail led over two high
ridges and along the rim of a tremendous gorge. To the south the
white summits of the Snow Mountain range towered majestically
above the surrounding peaks and, in the gray light, the colors
were beautiful beyond description. To the north we could see heavily
wooded mountain slopes interspersed with open park-like meadows—splendid
wapiti country.
Our tents were pitched
two hundred yards from the Chung-tien road just within the edge
of a stately, moss-draped forest. That night we celebrated with
harmless bombs from the huge fires of bamboo stalks which exploded
as they filled with steam and echoed among the trees like pistol
shots. Marco Polo speaks of the same phenomenon which he first
witnessed in this region over six hundred and thirty years ago.
About nine o'clock
in the evening we ran our traps with a lantern and besides several
mice (Apodemus) found two rare shrews and a new mole (Balkan).
I went out with the hunters at dawn but saw nothing except an
old wapiti track and a little sign. All during the following day
a dense fog hung close to the ground so that it was impossible
to hunt, and, on the night of December 2, it snowed heavily. The
morning began bright and clear but clouded about ten o'clock and
became so bitterly cold that the Lolos would not hunt. They really
suffered considerably and that night they
all left us to return to their homes. We were greatly disappointed,
for we had brilliant prospects of good wapiti shooting but without
either men or dogs and in an unknown country there was little
possibility of successful still hunting.
The mafus were
very much worried and refused to go further north. They were certain
that we would not be able to cross the high passes which lay between
us and the Mekong valley far to the westward and complained unceasingly
about the freezing cold and the lack of food for their animals.
It was necessary to visit the Mekong River, for even though it
might not be a good big game region it would give us a cross-section,
as it were, of the fauna and important data on the distribution
of small mammals. Therefore we decided to leave for the long ride
as soon as the weather permitted.
STALKING TIBETANS
WITH A CAMERA
Y. B. A.
The road near which
we were camped was one of the great trade routes into Tibet and
over it caravans were continually passing laden with tea or pork.
Many of them had traveled the entire length of Yün-nan to S'su-mao
on the Tonking frontier where a special kind of tea is grown,
and were hurrying northward to cross the snow-covered passes which
form the gateways to the "Forbidden Land."
The caravans sometimes
stopped for luncheon or to spend the night near our camp. As the
horses came up, one by one the loads were lifted off, the animals
turned loose, and after their dinner of buttered tea and tsamba
[Footnote: Tsamba is parched oats or barley, ground finely.]
each man stretched out upon the ground without shelter of any
kind and heedless of the freezing cold. It is truly the life of
primitive man and has bred a hardy, restless, independent race,
content to wander over the boundless steppes and demanding from
the outside world only to be let alone.
They are picturesque,
wild-looking fellows, and in their swinging walk there is a care-free
independence and an atmosphere of the bleak Tibetan steppes which
are strangely fascinating. Every Tibetan is a study for an artist.
He wears a fur cap and a long loose coat
like a Russian blouse thrown carelessly off one shoulder and tied
about the waist, blue or red trousers, and high boots of felt
or skin reaching almost to the knees. A long sword, its hilt inlaid
with bright-colored bits of glass or stones, is half concealed
beneath his coat, and he is seldom without a gun or a murderous
looking spear.
In the breast of his
loose coat, which acts as a pocket, he carries a remarkable assortment
of things; a pipe, tobacco, tea, tsamba, cooking pots,
a snuff box and, hanging down in front, a metal charm to protect
him from bullets or sickness.
The eastern Tibetans
are men of splendid physique and great strength, and are frequently
more than six feet in height. They have brick-red complexions
and some are really handsome in a full-blooded masculine way.
Their straight features suggest a strong mixture of other than
Mongolian stock and they are the direct antithesis of the Chinese
in every particular. Their strength and virility and the dashing
swing of their walk are very refreshing after contact with the
ease-loving, effeminate Chinaman whom one sees being carried along
the road sprawled in a mountain chair.
Of all natives whom
we tried to photograph the Tibetans were the most difficult. It
was almost impossible to bribe them with money or tin cans to
stand for a moment and when they saw the motion picture camera
set up beside the trail they would make long detours to avoid
passing in front of it.
What we could not
get by bribery we tried to do by stealth and concealed ourselves
behind bushes with the camera focused on a certain spot upon the
road. The instant a Tibetan discovered it he would run like a
frightened deer and in some mysterious
way they seemed to have passed the word along that our camp was
a spot to be avoided. Sometimes a bottle was too great a temptation
to be resisted, and one would stand timidly like a bird with wings
half spread, only to dash away as though the devil were after
him, when he saw my head disappear beneath the focusing hood.
Wu and a mafu
who could speak a little Tibetan finally captured one picturesque
looking fellow. He carefully tucked the tin cans, given for advance
payment, inside his coat, and with a great show of bravery allowed
me to place him where I wished. But the instant the motion picture
camera swung in his direction he dodged aside, and jumped behind
it. Wu tried to hold him but the Tibetan drew his sword, waved
it wildly about his head and took to his heels, yelling at the
top of his lungs. He was well-nigh frightened to death and when
he disappeared from sight at a curve in the road he was still
"going strong" with his coat tails flapping like a sail in the
wind.
One caravan came suddenly
upon the motion picture camera unawares. There were several women
in the party and, as soon as the men realized that there was no
escape, each one dodged behind a woman, keeping her between him
and the camera. They were taking no chances with their precious
selves, for the women could be replaced easily enough if necessary.
The trouble is that
the Tibetan not unnaturally has the greatest possible suspicion
and dislike for strangers. The Chinese he loathes and despises,
and foreigners he knows only too well are symptoms of missionaries
and punitive expeditions or other disturbances of his immemorial
peace. He is confirmed in his attitude by the
Church which throughout Tibet has the monopoly of all the gold
in the country. And the Church utterly declines to believe that
any foreigner can come so far for any end less foolish than the
discovery of gold and the infringing of the ecclesiastical monopoly.
Major Davies, who
saw much of the Yün-nan Tibetans, has remarked that it is curious
how little impression the civilization and customs of the Chinese
have produced on the Tibetans. Elsewhere, one of the principal
characteristics of Chinese expansion is its power of absorbing
other races, but with the Tibetans exactly the reverse takes place.
The Chinese become Tibetanized and the children of a Chinaman
married to a Tibetan woman are usually brought up in the Tibetan
customs.
Probably the great
cause which keeps the Tibetan from being absorbed is the cold,
inhospitable nature of his country. There is little to tempt the
Chinese to emigrate into Tibet and consequently they never are
there in sufficient numbers to influence the Tibetans around them.
A similar cause has preserved some of the low-lying Shan states
from absorption, the heat in this case being the reason that the
Chinese do not settle there.
WESTWARD TO THE MEKONG
RIVER
During the night of
December 4, there was a heavy fall of snow and in the morning
we awoke to find ourselves in fairyland. We were living in a great
white palace, with ceiling and walls of filmy glittering webs.
The long, delicate strands of gray moss which draped themselves
from tree to tree and branch to branch were each one converted
into threads of crystal, forming a filigree lacework, infinitely
beautiful.
It was hard to break
camp and leave that silver palace, for every vista through the
forest seemed more lovely than the one before, but we knew that
another fall of snow would block the passes and shut us out from
the Mekong valley. The mafus even refused to try the direct
route across the mountains to Wei-hsi and insisted on going southward
to the Shih-ku ferry and up the Yangtze River on the main caravan
route.
It was a long trip
and we looked forward with no pleasure to eight days of hard riding.
The difficulty in obtaining hunters since leaving the Snow Mountain
had made our big game collecting negligible although we had traveled
through some excellent country. The Mekong valley might not be
better but it was an unknown quantity and, whether or not it yielded
specimens, the results from a survey of the mammal distribution
would be none the less important, and we felt that
it must be done; otherwise we should have turned our backs on
the north and returned to Ta-li Fu.
As we rode down the
mountain trail we passed caravan after caravan of Tibetans with
heavily loaded horses, all bound for that land of mystery beyond
the snow-capped barriers. Often we tried to stop some of the red-skinned
natives and persuade them to pose for a color photograph, but
usually they only shook their heads stubbornly and hurried past
with averted faces. We finally waylaid a Chinese and a Tibetan
who were walking together. The Chinaman was an amiable fellow
and by giving each of them a glass jam tumbler they halted a moment.
As soon as the photograph had been taken the Chinese indicated
that he expected us to produce one and was thoroughly disgusted
when we showed him that it was impossible.
Repassing the Lolo
village, we followed the river gorge at the upper end of which
Chung-tien is located and left the forests when we emerged on
the main road. From the top of a ten thousand foot pass there
was a magnificent view down the canyon to the snow-capped mountains,
which were beautiful beyond description in their changing colors
of purple and gold.
Just after leaving
the pass we met a caravan of several hundred horses each bearing
two whole pigs bent double and tied to the saddles. The animals
had been denuded of hair, salted, and sewn up, and soon would
be distributed among the villages somewhere in the interior of
Tibet.
On the second day
we saw before us seven snow-crowned peaks as sharp and regular
as the teeth of a saw rising above the mouth of the stream where
it spreads like a fan over a sandy delta and empties into
the Yangtze. Here the mighty river, flowing proudly southward
from its home in the wind-blown steppes of the "Forbidden Land,"
countless ages ago found the great Snow Mountain range barring
its path. Thrust aside, it doubled back upon itself along the
barrier's base, still restlessly seeking a passage through the
wall of rock. Far to the north it bit hungrily into the mountain's
side again, broke through, and swung south gathering strength
and volume from hundreds of tributaries as it rushed onward to
the sea.
For two days we rode
along the river bank and crossed at the Shih-ku ferry. There was
none of the difficulty here which we had experienced at Taku,
for the river is wide and the current slow. It required only two
hours to transport our entire caravan while at the other ferry
we had waited a day and a half. Strangely enough, although there
are dozens of villages along the Yangtze and the valley is highly
cultivated, we saw no sign of fishing. Moreover, we passed but
three boats and five or six rafts and it was evident that this
great waterway, which for fifteen hundred miles from its mouth
influences the trade of China so profoundly, is here used but
little by the natives.
On the ride down the
river we had good sport with the huge cranes (probably Grus
nigricollis) which, in small flocks, were feeding along the
river fields. The birds stood about five feet high and we could
see their great black and white bodies and black necks farther
than a man was visible. It was fairly easy to stalk them to within
a hundred yards, but even at that distance they offered a rather
small target, for they were so largely wings, neck, legs, and
tail. We were never within shotgun range and indeed it would be
difficult to kill the birds with anything
smaller than BB or buckshot unless they were very near.
Heller shot our first
cranes with his .250-.300 Savage rifle. He stole upon five which
were feeding in a meadow and fired while two were "lined up."
One of the huge birds flapped about on the ground for a few moments
and lay still, but the larger was only wing-tipped and started
off at full speed across the fields. Two mafus left the
caravan, yelling with excitement, and ran for nearly half a mile
before they overtook the bird. Then they were kept at bay for
fifteen minutes by its long beak which is a really formidable
weapon. As food the cranes were perfectly delicious when stuffed
with chestnut dressing and roasted. Each one provided two meals
for three of us with enough left over for hash and our appetites
were by no means birdlike.
Although the natives
attempt to kill cranes they are not often successful, for the
birds are very watchful and will not allow a man within a hundred
yards. Such a distance for primitive guns or crossbows might as
well be a hundred miles, but with our high-power rifles we were
able to shoot as many as were needed for food.
The birds almost invariably
followed the river when flying and fed in the rice, barley, and
corn fields not far from the water. It was an inspiring sight
to see a flock of the huge birds run for a few steps along the
ground and then launch themselves into the air, their black and
white wings flashing in the sunlight. They formed into orderly
ranks like a company of soldiers or strung out in a long thin
line across the sky.
When we disturbed
a flock from especially desirable feeding grounds they would sometimes
whirl and circle above the fields, ascending higher and higher
in great spirals until they were lost to
sight, their musical voices coming faintly down to us like the
distant shouts of happy children.
When we returned to
Ta-li Fu in early January, cranes were very abundant in the fields
about the lake. They had arrived in late October and would depart
in early spring, according to Mr. Evans. We often saw the birds
on sand banks along the Yangtze, but they were usually resting
or quietly walking about and were not feeding; apparently they
eat only rice, barley, corn, or other grain.
This species was discovered
by the great traveler and naturalist, Lieutenant Colonel Prjevalsky,
who found it in the Koko-nor region of Tibet, and it was later
recorded by Prince Henri d'Orleans from Tsang in the Tibetan highlands.
Apparently specimens from Yün-nan have not been preserved in museums
and the bird was not known to occur in this portion of China.
Along the Yangtze
on our way westward we shot a good many mallard ducks (Anas
boscas) and ruddy sheldrakes (Casarca casarca); the
latter are universally known as "brahminy ducks" by the foreigners
in Burma and Yün-nan, but they are not true ducks. The name is
derived from the bird's beautiful buff and rufous color which
is somewhat like that of the robes worn by the Brahmin priests.
In America the name "sheldrake" is applied erroneously to the
fish-eating mergansers, and much confusion has thus arisen, for
the two are quite unrelated and belong to perfectly distinct groups.
The mergansers have narrow, hooked, saw-toothed beaks quite unlike
those of the sheldrakes, and their habits are entirely dissimilar.
The brahminy ducks,
although rather tough, are not bad eating.
We usually found them feeding in fields not far from the river
or in flooded rice dykes, and very often sitting in pairs on the
sand banks near the water. They have a bisyllabic rather plaintive
note which is peculiarly fascinating to me and, like the honk
of the Canada goose, awakens memories of sodden, wind-blown marshes,
bobbing decoys, and a leaden sky shot through with V-shaped lines
of flying birds.
Mallards were frequently
to be found with the sheldrakes, and we had good shooting along
the river and in ponds and rice fields. We also saw a few teal
but they were by no means abundant. Pheasants were scarce. We
shot a few along the road and near some of our camps, but we found
no place in Yün-nan where one could have even a fair day's shooting
without the aid of a good dog. This is strikingly different from
Korea where in a walk over the hillsides a dozen or more pheasants
can be flushed within an hour.
After two and one-half
days' travel up the Yangtze we turned westward toward Wei-hsi
and camped on a beautiful flat plain beside a tree-bordered stream.
It was a cold clear night and after dinner and a smoke about the
fire we all turned in.
Both of us were asleep
when suddenly a perfect bedlam of angry exclamations and Chinese
curses roused the whole camp. In a few moments Wu came to our
tent, almost speechless with rage and stammered, "Damn fool soldiers
come try to take our horses; say if mafu no give them horses
they untie loads. Shall I tell mafu break their heads?"
We did not entirely understand the situation but it seemed quite
proper to give the mafus permission to do the head-breaking,
and they went at it with a will. After
a volley of blows, there was a scamper of feet on the frozen ground
and the soldiers retired considerably the worse for wear.
When the battle was
over, Wu explained matters more fully. It appeared that a large
detachment of soldiers had recently passed up this road to A-tun-tzu
and four or five had remained behind to attend to the transport
of certain supplies. Seeing an opportunity for "graft" the soldiers
were stopping every caravan which passed and threatening to commandeer
it unless the mafus gave a sufficient bribe to buy their
immunity. Our mafus, with the protection which foreigners
gave them, had paid off a few old scores with interest. That they
had neglected no part of the reckoning was quite evident when
next morning two of the soldiers came to apologize for their "mistake."
One of them had a black and swollen eye and the other was nursing
a deep cut on his forehead; they were exceedingly humble and did
not venture into camp until they had been assured that we would
not again loose our terrible mafus upon them.
Such extortions are
every day occurrences in many parts of China and it is little
wonder that the military is cordially hated and feared by the
peasants. The soldiers, taking advantage of their uniform, oppress
the villagers in numberless ways from which there is no redress.
If a complaint is made a dozen soldiers stand ready to swear that
the offense was justified or was never committed, and the poor
farmer is lucky if he escapes without a beating or some more severe
punishment. It is a disgrace to China that such conditions are
allowed to exist, and it is to be hoped that ere many
years have passed the country will awake to a proper recognition
of the rights of the individual. Until she does there never can
be a national spirit of patriotism in China and without patriotism
the Republic can be one in name only.
DOWN THE MEKONG VALLEY
On December 11, we
had tiffin on the summit of a twelve thousand foot pass in a beautiful
snow-covered meadow, from which we could see the glistening peaks
of the vast mountain range which forms the Mekong-Salween divide.
In the afternoon we reached Wei-hsi and camped in a grove of splendid
pine trees on a hill overlooking the city. The place was rather
disappointing after Li-chiang. The shops were poor and it was
difficult to buy rice even though the entire valley was devoted
to paddy fields, but we did get quantities of delicious persimmons.
Wu told us that seven
different languages were spoken in the city, and we could well
believe it, for we recognized Mosos, Lolos, Chinese, and Tibetans.
This region is nearly the extreme western limit of the Moso tribe
which appears not to extend across the Mekong River.
The mandarin at Wei-hsi
received us hospitably and proved to be one of the most courteous
officials whom we met in Yün-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 assist 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 passes 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 Yün-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. Heller 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 mountainside or can be diverted by irrigating ditches,
the ground is beautifully terraced for rice paddies, but in other
places, corn and peas appear to be the principal 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 zoölogical 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 canyon 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
mass of cover on the opposite side of the canyon 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."
Heller 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°+ F. 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 masses 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 Hong Kong
in the preceding August were laid out.
Heller mixed a fearful
and wonderful cocktail 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 gods.
Our Christmas dinner
was a masterpiece. Four days previously I had shot a pair of mallard
ducks and they formed the pièce de résistance. 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 passed 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.
When we left the following
day we passed dozens of caravans and groups of men and women carrying
great disks of salt. Each piece was stamped in red with the official
mark for salt is a government monopoly and only licensed merchants
are allowed to deal in it; moreover, the importation of salt from
foreign countries is forbidden. For the purposes of administration,
China is divided into seven or eight main circuits, each of which
has its own sources of production and the salt obtained in one
district may not be sold in another.
In Yün-nan the salt
of the province is supplied from three regions. The water from
the wells is boiled in great caldrons for several days, and the
resulting deposit is earth impregnated with salt. This is crushed,
mixed with water, and boiled again until only pure salt remains.
After passing a village of considerable size called Pei-ping,
we began the ascent of an exceedingly steep mountain range twelve
thousand feet high. All the afternoon we toiled upward in the
rain and camped late in the evening at a pine grove on a little
plateau two-thirds of the way to the summit. During the night
it snowed heavily and we awoke to find ourselves in a transformed
world.
Every tree and bush
was dressed in garments of purest white and between the branches
we could look westward across the valley toward the Mekong and
the purple mountain wall of the Burma border. There were
still one thousand feet of climbing between us and the summit
of the pass. The trail was almost blocked, but by slow work we
forced our way through the drifts. Some of the mules were already
weak from exposure and underfeeding, and two of them had to be
relieved of their loads; they died the next day. Our mafus
did not appear to suffer greatly although their legs were bare
from the knees down and their feet had no covering except straw
sandals. Indeed when we discovered, on the summit of the pass,
a tiny hut in which a fire was burning, they waited only a few
moments to warm themselves.
We met two other caravans
fighting their way up the mountain from the other side, and by
following the trail which they had broken through the drifts we
made fairly good time on the descent. There had been no snow on
the broad, flat plain which we reached in the late afternoon and
we found that its ponds and fields were alive with ducks, geese,
and cranes. The birds were wild but we had good shooting when
we broke camp in the morning and killed enough to last us several
days.
On December 31, our
weary days of crossing range after range of tremendous mountains
were ended, and we stood on the last pass looking down upon the
great Chien-chuan plain. Outside the grim walls of the old city,
which lies on the main A-tun-tzu—Ta-li Fu road, are two large
marshy ponds and, away to the south, is an extensive lake. We
camped just without the courtyard of a fine temple, and at four
o'clock Yvette and I went over to the water which was swarming
with ducks and geese.
Neither of us will
ever forget that shoot in the glorious afternoon sunlight. Cloud
after cloud of ducks rose as we neared the pond and circled high
above our heads, but now and then a straggling
mallard or "pin tail" would swing across the sky within range;
as my gun roared out the birds would whirl to the ground like
feathered bombs or climb higher with frightened quacks if the
shot went wild. An hour before dark the brahminy ducks began to
come in. We could hear their melodious plaintive calls long before
we could see the birds, and we flattened ourselves out in the
grass and mud. Soon a thin, black line would streak the sky, and
as they drew nearer, Yvette would draw such seductive notes from
a tiny horn of wood and bone that the flock would swing and dive
toward us in a rush of flashing wings. When we could see the brown
bodies right above our heads I would sit up and bang away.
Now and then a big
white goose would drop into the pond or an ibis flap lazily overhead,
seeming to realize that it had nothing to fear from the prostrate
bodies which spat fire at other birds. The stillness of the marsh
was absolute save for the voices of the water fowl mingled in
the wild, sweet clamor so dear to the heart of every sportsman.
As the day began to die, hung about with ducks and geese, we walked
slowly back across the rice fields, to the yellow fires before
our tents. It was our last camp for the year and, as if to bid
us farewell as we journeyed toward the tropics, the peaks of the
great Snow Mountain far to the north, had draped themselves in
a gorgeous silver mantle and glistened against a sky of lavender
and gold like white cathedral spires.
On January 3, we camped
early in the afternoon on a beautiful little plain beside a spring
overhung with giant trees at the head of Erh Hai, or Ta-li Fu
Lake, which is thirty miles long. The fields and marshes were
alive with ducks, geese, cranes, and lapwings, and we had a
glorious day of sport over decoys and on the water before we went
on to Ta-li Fu.
Mr. Evans was about
to leave for a long business trip to the south of the province
and we took possession of a pretty temple just within the north
gate of the city. Here we read a great accumulation of mail and
learned that a thousand pounds of supplies which we had ordered
from Hong Kong had just arrived.
Through the good offices
of Mr. Howard Page, manager of the Standard Oil Company of Yün-nan
Fu, their passage through Tonking had been facilitated, and he
had dispatched the boxes by caravan to Ta-li Fu. Mr. Page rendered
great assistance to the Expedition in numberless ways, and to
him we owe our personal thanks as well as those of the American
Museum of Natural History.
All the servants except
our faithful Wu left at Ta-li Fu but, with the aid of Mr. Hanna,
we obtained a much better personnel for the trip to the Burma
frontier. The cook, who was one of Mr. Hanna's converts, was an
especially fine fellow and proved to be as energetic and competent
as the other had been lazy and helpless.
Our work in the north
had brought us a collection of thirteen hundred mammals, as well
as several hundred birds, much material for habitat groups, and
a splendid series of photographic records in Paget color plates,
black and white negatives, and motion picture film. But what was
of first importance, we had covered an enormous extent of diverse
country and learned much about the distribution of the fauna of
northern Yün-nan. The thirteen hundred mammals of our collection
were taken in a more or less continuous line across six tremendous
mountain ranges, and furnish an illuminating cross section
of the entire region from Ta-li-Fu, north to Chung-tien, and west
to the Mekong River.
It is apparent that
in this part of the province, which is all within one "life zone,"
even the smallest mammals are widely spread and that the principal
factor in determining distribution is the flora. Neither the highest
mountain ridges nor such deep swift rivers as the Yangtze and
the Mekong appear to act as effective barriers to migration, and
as long as the vegetation remains constant, the fauna changes
but little.
MISSIONARIES WE HAVE
KNOWN
During our work in
Fukien Province and in various parts of Yün-nan we came into intimate
personal contact with a great many missionaries; indeed every
traveler in the interior of China will meet them unless he purposely
avoids doing so. But the average tourist seldom sees the missionary
in his native habitat because, for the most part, he lives and
works where the tourist does not go.
Nevertheless, that
does not prevent the coastwise traveler from carrying back with
him from the East a very definite impression of the missionary,
which he has gained on board ships or in Oriental clubs where
he hears him "damned with faint praise." Almost unconsciously
he adopts the popular attitude just as he enlarges his vocabulary
to include "pidgin English" and such unfamiliar phrases as "tiffin,"
"bund" and "cumshaw."
This chapter is not
a brief for the missionary, but simply a matter of fair play.
We feel that in justice we ought to present our observations upon
this subject, which is one of very general interest, as impartially
as upon any phase of our scientific work. But it should be distinctly
understood that we are writing only of those persons whom
we met and lived with, and whose work we had an opportunity to
know and to see; we are not attempting generalizations on the
accomplishments of missionaries in any other part of China.
There are three charges
which we have heard most frequently brought
against the missionary: that he comes to the East because he can
live better and more luxuriously than he can at home; that he
often engages in lucrative trade with the natives; and that he
accomplishes little good, either religious or otherwise. It is
said that his converts are only "rice Christians," and treaty-port
foreigners have often warned us in this manner, "Don't take Christian
servants; they are more dishonest and unreliable than any others."
It is often true that
the finest house in a Chinese town will be that of the resident
missionary. In Yen-ping the mission buildings are imposing structures,
and are placed upon a hill above and away from the rest of the
city. Any white person who has traveled in the interior of China
will remember the airless, lightless, native houses, opening,
as they all do, on filthy streets and reeking sewers and he will
understand that in order to exist at all a foreigner must be somewhat
isolated and live in a clean, well-ventilated house.
Every missionary in
China employs servants—many more servants than he could afford
at home. So does every other foreigner, whatever his vocation.
There is no such thing in China as the democracy of the West,
and the missionary's status in the community demands that certain
work in his house be done by servants; otherwise he and his family
would be placed on a level with the coolie class and the value
of his words and deeds be discounted. But the chief reason is
that the missionary's wife almost always has definite duties to
which she could not attend if she were not relieved from some
of the household cares. She leads in work among the women of the
community by organizing clubs and "Mutual Improvement Societies"
and in teaching in the schools or hospitals
where young men and women are learning English as an asset to
medical work among their own people. Servants are unbelievably
cheap. While we were in Foochow a cook received $3.50 (gold) per
month, a laundryman $1.75 (gold) per month, and other wages were
in proportion.
In Fukien Province
the missionaries receive two months' vacation. Anyone who has
lived through a Fukien summer in the interior of the province
will know why the missionaries are given this vacation. If they
were not able to leave the deadly heat and filth and disease of
the native cities for a few weeks every year, there would be no
missionaries to carry on the work. The business man can surround
himself with innumerable comforts both in his home and in his
office which the missionary cannot afford and, during the summer,
life is not only made possible thereby but even pleasant.
Yen-ping is eight
days' travel from Foochow up the Min River and it is by no means
the most remote station in the province. Very few travelers reach
these places during the year and the white inhabitants are almost
isolated. Miss Mabel Hartford lives alone at Yuchi and at one
time she saw only one foreigner in eight months. Miss Cordelia
Morgan is the sole foreign resident of Chu-hsuing Fu, a large
Chinese city six days from Yün-nan Fu. In Ta-li Fu, Reverend William
J. Hanna, his wife and two other women, are fourteen days' ride
from the nearest foreign settlement. In Li-chiang, Reverend and
Mrs. A. Kok and their three small children live with two women
missionaries. They are twenty-one days' travel from a doctor,
and for four years previous to our visit they had not seen a white
woman.
These are some instances
of missionaries whom we met in China who
have voluntarily exiled themselves to remote places where they
expect to spend their entire lives surrounded by an indifferent
if not hostile population. Can anyone possibly believe that they
have chosen this life because it is easier or more luxurious than
that at home?
Some of the men whom
we met had left lucrative business positions to take up medical
or evangelistic work in China where their compensation is pitifully
small—not one-third of the salary they were commanding at
home.
We did not meet any
missionaries who were engaging in trade with the natives even
though in some places there were excellent business opportunities.
Consider the doctors
as examples of the civilizing influences which missionaries bring
with them. We saw them in various parts of China doing a magnificent
work. Dr. Bradley has established a great leper hospital at Paik-hoi
where these human outcasts are receiving the latest and most scientific
treatment and beginning to look at life with a new hope. In Yen-ping,
at the time of the rebellion, we saw Dr. Trimble working hour
after hour over wounded and broken men without a thought of rest.
In Yün-nan Fu, Dr. Thompson's hospital was filled with patients
suffering from almost every known disease. In Ta-li Fu we saw
Mr. Hanna and his wife dispensing medicines and treating the minor
ills of patients waiting by the dozen, the fees received being
not enough to pay for the cost of the medicines. Why is it that
every traveling foreigner in the interior of China is supposed
to be able to cure diseases? Certainly an important reason is
because of the work done by the medical missionaries who have
penetrated to the farthest corners of the most remote provinces.
Aside from their medical
work, missionaries are in many instances the real pioneers of
western civilization. They bring to the people new standards of
living, both morally and physically. They open schools and emancipate
the Chinese children in mind and body. They fight the barbarous
customs of foot binding and the killing and selling of girl babies.
Until recent years it was not unusual to meet the village "baby
peddler" with from two to six tiny infants peddling his "goods"
from village to village. Not many years ago such a man appeared
before the mission compound at Ngu-cheng (Fukien) with four babies
in his basket. Three of these had expired from exposure and the
kerosene oil which had been poured down their throats to stupefy
them and drown their cries. The fourth was purchased by the wife
of the native preacher for ten cents in order to save its life.
This child was reared and has since graduated from the mission
schools with credit. In Foochow a stone tablet bearing the following
inscription stands beside a stagnant pool: "Hereafter the throwing
of babies into this pool will be punished by law." This was a
result of the work of the missionaries.
Their task is by no
means easy and, as Mr. Hanna once remarked, "Yün-nan Province
has broken the heart of more than one missionary." The Chinese
do not understand their point of view, and it is difficult to
make them see it. A Chinaman is a rank materialist and pure altruism
does not enter into his scheme of life. As a rule he has but two
thoughts, his stomach and his cash bag. It is well-nigh impossible
to make him realize that the missionary has not come with an ulterior
motive—if not to engage in trade, perhaps as a spy for his
government. Others believe that it is because China is so vastly
superior to the rest of the world that
the missionaries wish to live there. Eventually the suspicions
of the natives become quieted and they accept the missionary at
some part of his true worth.
At the time of the
rebellion in Yen-ping we saw Harry Caldwell, Mr. Bankhardt and
Dr. Trimble save the lives of hundreds of people and the city
from partial destruction because the Chinese officers of the opposing
forces would trust the missionaries when they would not trust
each other.
An excellent piece
of practical missionary work was done in Fukien Province, not
long after our visit there. As we have related in Chapter III,
several large bands of brigands were established in the hills
about Yuchi. Brigandage began there in the following way. During
a famine when the people were on the verge of starvation, a wealthy
farmer, Su Ek by name, decided to do his share in relieving conditions
by offering for sale a quantity of rice which he had accumulated.
He approached another man of similar wealth who agreed with him
to sell his grain at a reasonable price. Su Ek accordingly disposed
of his rice to the suffering people and, when he had remaining
only enough to sustain his own family until the following harvest,
he sent the peasants to the second man who had also agreed to
dispose of his grain.
This farmer refused
to sell at the stipulated price, and the people, angered at his
treachery, looted his sheds. He immediately went to Foochow and
reported to the governor that there was a band of brigands abroad
in Yuchi County under the leadership of Su Ek, and that they had
robbed and plundered his property.
Without warning a
company of soldiers swooped down upon the
community and arrested a number of men whose names the informer
had given. Su Ek made his escape to the hills but he was pursued
as a brigand chief, and was later joined by other farmers who
had been similarly persecuted. Unable to return to their homes
on pain of death they were forced to rob in order to live.
Su Ek and others were
finally decoyed to Foochow upon the promise that their lives would
be spared if they would induce their band to surrender. They met
the conditions but the government officials broke faith and the
men were executed. Similar attempts were made to enter into negotiations
with the brigands and in 1915 two hundred were trapped and beheaded
after pardons had been promised them. Naturally the robbers refused
to trust the government officials again.
The months which elapsed
between this act of treachery and the spring of 1916, were filled
with innumerable outrages. Many townships were completely devastated,
either by the bandits or the Chinese soldiers. Little will ever
be known of what actually took place under the guise of settling
brigandage, behind the mountains which separate Yuchi from the
outer world. It is well that it should not be known.
During the spring
of 1916 a missionary visited Yuchi. Business called him outside
the city wall and just beyond the west gate he saw the bodies
of ten persons who had that day been executed. Among these were
two children, brothers, the sons of a man who was reported to
have "sold rice to the brigands." The smaller child had wept and
pleaded to be permitted to kneel beside his older brother further
up in the row. He was too small to realize
what it all meant but he wanted to die beside his brother.
In the middle of the
field lay a man whose head was partly severed from his body and
who had been shot through and through by the soldiers. He was
lying upon his back in the broiling sun pleading for a cup of
tea or for someone to put him out of his misery. The missionary
learned the man's story. It appeared that years ago a law suit
in which his father had been concerned had been decided in his
favor. In order to square the score between the clans, the son
of the man who had lost the suit had reported that he had seen
this man carrying rice to the brigands. He had been arrested by
the soldiers, partially killed, and left to lie in the glaring
sun from nine o'clock in the morning until dark suffering the
agonies of crucifixion. Not one of those who heard his moans dared
to moisten the parched lips with tea lest he too be executed for
having administered to a brigand.
The missionary returned
to the city that night vowing that he would make a recurrence
of such a thing impossible or he would leave China. He took up
the matter with the authorities in Peking in a quiet way and later
with the military governor in Foochow. He was well known to the
brigands by reputation and visited several of the chiefs in their
strongholds. They declared that they had confidence in him but
none in the government—or its representatives. It was only
after assuming full responsibility for any treachery that the
brigands agreed to discuss terms.
Upon invitation to
accompany him to the 24th Township, the missionary was escorted
out to civilization by twenty-five picked men to whom the chief
had entrusted an important charge. As the
group neared the township the missionary sent word ahead to the
commander of the northern soldiers to prepare to receive the brigands.
[Illustration:
SEAL OF A PARDONED BRIGAND.]
As the twenty-five
bandits appeared upon the summit of a hill overlooking the city,
soldiers could be seen forming into squads outside the barracks.
Instantly the brigands halted, snapped back the bolts of their
rifles, and threw in shells. The missionary realized that they
suspected treachery and turning about he said, "I
am the guarantee for your lives. If a shot is fired kill me first."
With two loaded guns
at his back and accompanied by the brigands he marched into the
city, where they were received by the officials with all the punctilious
ceremony so dear to the heart of the Chinese. It had been a dangerous
half hour for the missionary. If a rifle had been fired by mistake,
and Chinese are always shooting when they themselves least expect
to, he would have been instantly killed.
This conference, and
others which followed, resulted in several hundred pardons being
distributed to the brigands by the missionary himself. The men
then returned to their abandoned homes and again took up their
lives as respectable farmers. Thus the reign of terror in this
portion of the province was ended through the efforts of one courageous
man. It is such applied Christianity that has made us respect
the missionary and admire his work.
PART
ONE
PART
THREE
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