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 readied 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.
[Illustration: A Quiet Curve of the Mekong River]
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 mountain-side
or can be diverted by irrigating ditches, the ground is beautifully
terraced for rice paddys, but in other places, corn and peas appear to
be the 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 cañon 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 cañon. 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 16°+ or 20°+ Fahr. The camp
proved to be a good one, giving us two new mammals and, just after
tiffin, Hotenfa came running in to report that he had discovered seven
gray monkeys (probably _Pygathrix_) in a cornfield a mile away.
The monkeys had disappeared ere we arrived, but while we were gone
Yvette had been busy and, just before dinner, she ushered us into our
tent with great ceremony. It had been most wonderfully transformed.
At the far end stood a Christmas tree, blazing with tiny candles and
surrounded by 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 Hongkong 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 cauldrons 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 Peiping, 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
Hongkong 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.
[Illustration: The Temple in which We Camped at Ta-li Fu]
[Illustration: A Crested Muntjac]
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.