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 mid-winter 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.
[Illustration: Lolos Seeing Their Photographs for the First Time]
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
then 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 would 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
haillike 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 parklike 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
(_Blarina_). 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.