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 horse-back 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.
[Illustration: The Snow Mountain]
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.
[Illustration: A Cheek Gun Used by One of Our Hunters]
[Illustration: The First Goral Killed on the Snow Mountain]
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 camp-fire 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.