Chapter 37

153I observe that it is so marked in Waddell's map attached to his recent book on the British expedition to Lhasa.154For a brief discussion of the ethnology of this country, seechap. xv.155Gold-washing is carried on here to a considerable extent, as in nearly all the rivers of western Ssuch'uan.156Journey to the Eastern Frontier of Tibet, pp. 24-25.157SeeNote 20(p. 424).158Mrs Moyes (then Mrs Rijnhart) is the well-known author of the book,With the Tibetans in Tent and Temple, in which she ably describes the life of adventure and hardship which she led in the far interior of Tibet, where she lost both husband and child.159SeeNote 21(p. 425).160Hosie,Journey to the Eastern Frontier of Tibet.161Yule,Marco Polo(Cordier's edition), vol. ii. p. 49.162The wordAmban, now so well known to Europeans, is Manchu, and is applied to many high Chinese officials serving in the Mongolian and Tibetan dependencies of China, besides the Resident at Lhasa.163甲哪.164甲宜齋.165SeeNote 22(p. 425).166Land of the Lamas, p. 276.167The Chinese is烏拉, which is merely phonetic. The wordulais Mongolian. Rockhill observes thatula(oulâk) was known in India in mediæval times.—(Land of the Lamas, p. 52.)168Huan-t'ieh(換帖), literally "the exchange of cards."169See p. 358 of that work.170For the origin of the Prayer (or perhaps ratherPraising) Wheel, see Rhys Davids'Hibbert Lectures(1881), p. 138 (4th ed.). See also Tylor'sPrimitive Culture, ii. 372-373 (4th ed.)171A Mongolian word which the Chinese have naturalised aso-pu(阿卜).172Major H. R. Davies, whose admirable survey and exploration work are well known, visited the Muli lamasery before me, but our routes only touched at that point. He has unfortunately published no account of his journey from Mien-ning-hsien to Chung-tien.173For M. Bonin's see theBulletin de la Société de Géographie, 1898, pp. 389seq.For Mr Amundsen's, see theGeographical Journalfor June and November 1900.174How few, may be judged from the fact that I met only one caravan in the course of a month's journey.175The complications and variations in currency and money values constitute one of the greatest vexations to a European traveller in China. As is well known, the ordinary medium of exchange in China for small purchases is the "cash" (t'ung ch'ien) of which about 1,000 (sometimes more and sometimes less) are equivalent to a dollar (Mex). In larger transactions silver sycee or "broken" silver is used, in which case payments are made by weight and according to the "touch" or fineness of the silver. The ingots are cut up by the use of sycee-shears into small or large portions as required. The larger ingots—which in Ssuch'uan are generally of the approximate value of ten taels each (equivalent to nearly two pounds)—usually bear the guarantee "chops" of bankers and large merchants. In the west of Ssuch'uan the Indian rupee became many years ago a well-known and much appreciated coin, and very largely took the place of broken silver. Its convenient size and shape specially commended it to the Chinese and Tibetan merchants who had trade relations with Burma, Tibet and India: and as its exchange-value in and about Tachienlu was in excess of its face-value many Yunnanese merchants used to bring mule-loads of rupees to that city from Tali-fu, thereby making a very considerable profit. The coin was generally known as thelama-t'ouor Lama's Head—Queen Victoria's head being supposed to be that of a lama—and also asyang ch'ienor "foreign money," the same term that is often applied in other parts of China to the Mexican and British dollars. Recently the provincial Government prohibited the circulation of Indian rupees in Ssuch'uan, and began to issue a similar coin of its own at the Mint in Ch'êng-tu. The new coin is almost exactly equivalent in value to the Indian rupee, and resembles it in size and appearance: but it bears the head of the emperor of China instead of that of the emperor of India. It is interesting as being the first Chinese coin, so far as I am aware, to bear the sovereign's head. Probably had it borne no head at all it would have been regarded with suspicion and dislike by those who had for years been accustomed to the Indian rupee. One of the Ssuch'uanese coins (a half-rupee) is illustrated in the text, along with the obverse and reverse of a Tibetan coin also in common use about Tachienlu and western Ssuch'uan. I found the new Ssuch'uan rupee was accepted fairly willingly by the people between Tachienlu and Pa-U-Rong, less willingly by those of the Muli country. South of Yung-ning I again had recourse to broken silver; but west of Tali-fu the Indian rupee is generally accepted, and at the town of Hsia Kuan, near Tali-fu, Indian rupees can be bought in any quantity by travellers and merchants bound for Burma. The Indian rupee is now a rare coin in Ssuch'uan, but sometimes it is treated like broken silver, being cut into pieces and sold by weight. I have in my possession several mutilated rupees which were weighed out to me as small change. The late queen-empress's head has been treated with small respect by the silver-merchants.176SeeNote 23(p. 428).177It has been pointed out by Griesbach that the central Himālayan glaciers are receding, and once extended much lower than at present. Apparently the same is the case in the "Himālayas" of Tibetan Ssuch'uan. I saw few living glaciers; but in many ravines there were evident traces of lateral and terminal moraines.178This I take to be thecrossoptilon Tibetanum. It is quite unknown in China proper.179SeeNote 24(p. 428).180The Tibetanja-ndong.181SeeNote 25(p. 428).182Yule'sMarco Polo(Cordier's edition), vol. ii. p. 45.183Travels of a Pioneer of Commerce.184It is now well known that in parts of the Himalāyas which form the watershed of the great Indian rivers the line of perpetual snow is as high as 18,000 or even 20,000 feet.185There is a fine poplar grove close to Tachienlu, fringing the "royal" parade-ground. Sarat Chandra Das (Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet) mentions a poplar at Lhasa which is supposed by the Tibetans to have sprung from the hair of the Buddha.186Thefelis fontanieri, besides other members of the Cat tribe.187Customs of this kind seem to exist or to have existed all over the world. For Tibet, see Sarat Chandra Das'sJourney to Lhasa and Central Tibet, and several recent works. Frazer, in theGolden Bough(2nd edn. vol. iii. pp. 4-6), has an interesting note in which he mentions the same or similar customs in the Solomon and Banks Islands, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Central and South Africa, Bolivia, Burma and Korea. He says: "The act is not a religious rite, for the thing thrown on the heap is not an offering to spiritual powers, and the words which accompany the act are not a prayer. It is nothing but a magical ceremony for getting rid of fatigue, which the simple savage fancies he can embody in a stick, leaf, or stone, and so cast it from him." Gipsies have a custom of leaving heaps of stones and bits of stick at cross-roads, to guide members of their band who have fallen behind. I do not propose to argue from this fact that the gipsy race was originally a Tibetan tribe, in spite of the facts that both gipsies and Tibetans love a wandering life, and that the gipsies of Persia and the Tibetans use almost the same word for "tent," which isguriin Persia andgur(གུར་) in Tibet.188River of Golden Sand, vol. ii. p. 136.189Royal Geographical Society'sSupplementary Papers, vol. i. p. 96.190Sometimes, however, the door is several feet above the level of the ground, so that ladders of some kind must have been used for entrance and exit.191The wordDrungor Dr'ong (གྲོང་) is the Tibetan word for Village.192Lais the Tibetan word for a Mountain Pass.Ri, which often occurs in the names of villages and passes, means Mountain, andRongValley.193See above, p. 143.194See above, p. 145.195Many of the villages between Tachienlu and Yung-ning have been given Chinese names by the Yunnanese, who occasionally send merchandise by this route. The Chinese name, as a rule, has no connection with the Tibetan or Man-tzŭ name.Wu Chia-tzŭ, for instance, means a "Village of Five Families";San Chia-tzŭa "Village of Three Families."196See illustration of this tower, which is a fair sample of the rest,to face p. 171.197Modern Painters, I. II. chap. iv. p. 2.198See John Tyndall's description of his ascent of the Finsteraarhorn (Glaciers of the Alps).199SeeNote 26(p. 429).200SeeNote 27(p. 429).201Les Lolos, by M. Paul Vial, Catholic missionary (Shanghai, 1898).202See chap. xv. below, on the ethnology of the Lolos and other border tribes.203See Appendix A.204There is, however, a system of written characters peculiar to the Lolos. It appears to be unknown among these colonists.205See above, p. 55.206SeeNote 28(p. 429).207SeeNote 29(p. 430).208Mr Amundsen states that he crossed by a raft made of two pieces of timber, with a plank in the middle to stand on.—(Geographical Journal, vol. xv. p. 621).209In Captain Gill'sThe River of Golden Sand(John Murray), p. 121, where there is a good illustration of the single-rope bridges.210See above, p. 128.211Yule'sMarco Polo, edited by Cordier. [London: John Murray.] See vol. ii. p. 67.212See above, pp. 43-44.213流入岷江. Similarly we read of the Han River (which flows into the Yangtse at Hankow)joining the Min(合岷江).214SeeNote 30(p. 430).215This is on Mr Amundsen's authority. SeeGeographical Journal, Nov. 1900, p. 534.216See illustration, p. 152 (No. 2). The plaques may also be seen on the women's heads, p. 188.217I travelled up the valley of this river in 1902, and heard much of its deadliness. Rocher, in his excellent history of Yunnan, remarks that the only people who could live on the banks of the Red River with comparative immunity were some indigenous non-Chinese tribes and Cantonese merchants. As regards the Cantonese, the jealous Yunnanese supposed that their immunity was derived from the fact that they possessed a sovereign remedy for the disease, but kept the secret of it to themselves so that they alone should obtain the benefit. Some of the Yunnanese told Rocher that they would go into battle rather than brave a visit to the banks of the Red River.—(La Province Chinoise du Yunnan, vol. i. pp. 229, 230, and 286.)218See below, pp. 305seq.219གའུ་220Tibetan brTen (སྲུང་བ་) pronouncedten, or Srung-ba (སྲུང་བ་) pronouncedsung-wa, the original meaning of which is simply "protection."221The reader will not, I hope, require to be reminded of "The Bad Child's Book of Beasts," in which the poem to which I refer finds an honourable place.222It would appear from the recent Indian Survey map prepared by Major H. R. Davies, that this must be the Litang River, and therefore starts its course much further north.223Seep. 216.224Ruskin,Proserpina, II. IV.225Spelt in Tibetan mCh'od-rTen.226See illustration, p. 207.227Land of the Lamas, p. 63.228Lamaism in Tibet, pp. 263-264.229See accompanying illustration.230SeeNote 31(p. 431).231Royal Geographical Society'sSupplementary Papers, vol. i. p. 96. The conjecture about the monastery was correct.232黃(Yellow) and皇(Imperial).233Judging from the dates in theT'ung Chih, it cannot have been earlier than 1729.234"Nearly every great monastery," says Waddell, "has its own reincarnate Lama as its chief."—(Lamaism in Tibet, p. 230. For the numbers of these reincarnated saints, seeibid., p. 243.) These are the personages generally known by Europeans as Living Buddhas. One of them presides over the great lamasery in Peking.235Spelt mk'an-po (མཁན་པོ་)236This word literally means the "house of a god, or shrine" (ལྷ་ཁང་) It is the same lamasery as that otherwise known as Wa-chin, referred to on p. 204.237SeeNote 32(p. 431).238ཕྱག་མཛོད་(ch'ag-mDzod), literally the "treasury-hand."239སྐུ་ཚབ་(sku-ts'ab), literally "vice-gerent" or "lieutenant."240SeeNote 33(p. 431).241Known by the Tibetans as Re-wo-tse-nga. The monastery there is said to be the oldest in China, and is visited annually by thousands of pilgrims, Tibetan, Mongolian, and Chinese.242Spelt Ha-dBar-bDe-Ligs(ཧ་དབར་བདེ་ལིགསརྒྱ་ལ་བོ་).243SeeNote 34(p. 432).244For further information regarding the position of the ruler of Muli and the history of his state, seeNote 34(p. 432).245Travellers to Mecca have recorded the same fact with regard to that city.246གྲྭ་པ་247SeeNote 35(p. 433).248See pp. 280-281.249Major H. R. Davies informs me that he found some Miao-tzŭ between Mien-ning-hsien and the Yalung on the way to Muli, but that is much further east.250SeeNote 34(p. 432).251Cf. Marco Polo's description of the burial customs of certain Yunnan tribes, vol. ii. pp. 122-123. (Cordier's edition, 1903.)252See Rockhill,Land of the Lamas, pp. 286-287. See also p. 81, where he states that "the remains of the dead are exposed on the hillsides in spots selected by lamas; if the body is rapidly devoured by wild beasts and birds of prey, the righteousness of the deceased is held to be evident, but if it remains a long time undevoured, his wickedness is proved." See also theZend-Avesta,Sacred Books of the East, vol. iv. pp. 74-75 and 97-98. It is interesting to note that Friar Odoric's account of "Tebek" is almost literally true, if we except the remark about the tusked ladies.253SeeNote 36(p. 434).254See below, chap. xv.255From information obtained later I gather that these travellers were the Count de Marsay and the Count L. de Las Cases.256One of their earrings is illustrated at p. 152.257開基.258See Royal Geographical Society'sSupplementary Papers, vol. i. p. 97.259"In Ceylon the joint husbands are always brothers, and this is also the case among the tribes residing at the foot of the Himalaya mountains." (Lord Avebury'sOrigin of Civilisation, 6th ed. p. 153.) A fuller account of polyandry in Ceylon may be found in Tennent'sCeylon(Longmans, 1859, 2nd ed. vol. ii. pp. 428seq.). Tennent points out that polyandry can be traced back to very ancient times. It "receives a partial sanction in the Institutes of Manu," and is referred to without reproach in the Mahabharata. Herbert Spencer (Principles of Ethics, pt. ii. ch. 13) says that in Tibet, "polyandry appears more conducive to social welfare than any other relation of the sexes. It receives approval from travellers, and even a Moravian missionary defends it: the missionary holding that superabundant population, in an unfertile country, must be a great calamity and produce 'eternal welfare or eternal want.'" See alsoPrinciples of Sociology. Polyandry is forbidden in the Shan States, though polygamy is sanctioned. (SeeGazetteer of Upper Burma, pt. i. vol. i. p. 325.)260SeeNote 37(p. 434).261See illustrationto face page 236.262A similar great bend, only recently discovered, occurs in the course of the Yalung. In travelling between Mien-ning-hsien, north of Ning-yuan-fu, and Muli, the Yalung must, on account of this bend, be crossed no less than three times. The bend was discovered by Major H. R. Davies.263See page 233.264A similar story, apparently, was told to Mr Amundsen with reference to a locality in the Muli territory.265This is, I have been told, a common practice among the people of the Upper Mekong valley, especially about Atuntzŭ.266鳴音汲.267SeeNote 38(p. 435).268See above, p. 150.269Known to the Tibetans as A-jol (འཇོལ་)270Both names are Chinese. The first means "Below the Pass," the second "The Foot of the Hill."271See below, pp. 289seq.272Literally "Tail of the Lake."273Snow is said to exist in patches on the summit of the Tali mountains all the year round; and is hawked in the streets of Hsia Kuan, near Tali-fu, in the summer months.274In Yunnan the wordchieh(which means either "street" or "village") is always pronouncedKai, as in the Cantonese dialect.275The officialAnnalsof Yunnan contain records of very many disastrous earthquakes in this province.276The Pai Sha (White Sand) river is no whit more entitled to that appellation than the Cher would be.277There are two roads from Shang Kuan to Tali-fu: one lying near the lake, the other near the mountain. My road was the latter.278Marco Polo's description of Tali-fu and the district of which it was capital (Carajan) is well worth reading. The terrifying serpents which he mentions as having "eyes bigger than a great loaf of bread," are said to have been crocodiles. (See Cordier's edition of Yule'sMarco Polo, vol. ii. pp. 76-84.)279SeeNote 39(p. 435).280In his valuable workLa Province Chinoise du Yunnan(Paris, 1880).281The Chinese name for the lofty mountains behind Tali-fu is Ts'ang Shan (蒼山), "Azure Hills."282Two young children survived the catastrophe. Yang Wei was the Sultan's son-in-law and principal general of his army.283楊玉科, an imperialist general.284China: Her History, Diplomacy and Commerce, p. 9.285西番and土番.286See Rockhill'sLife of the Buddha, pp. 215-216, and T. W. Kingsmill's article in theJournalof the Royal Asiatic Society (China Branch), vol. xxxvii. pp. 26-27.287བོད་The last letter of the Tibetan word is not pronounced, but it modifies the phonetic value of the vowel sound. As regards the Chinese character番of which the phonetic value in modern Chinese is generallyfan, we find several cases in which the sound is stillboorpo. Mr Kingsmill mentions鄱p'o(as in the characters used for the P'o Yang Lake). The characters嶓,皤and播are similar instances.

153I observe that it is so marked in Waddell's map attached to his recent book on the British expedition to Lhasa.

154For a brief discussion of the ethnology of this country, seechap. xv.

155Gold-washing is carried on here to a considerable extent, as in nearly all the rivers of western Ssuch'uan.

156Journey to the Eastern Frontier of Tibet, pp. 24-25.

157SeeNote 20(p. 424).

158Mrs Moyes (then Mrs Rijnhart) is the well-known author of the book,With the Tibetans in Tent and Temple, in which she ably describes the life of adventure and hardship which she led in the far interior of Tibet, where she lost both husband and child.

159SeeNote 21(p. 425).

160Hosie,Journey to the Eastern Frontier of Tibet.

161Yule,Marco Polo(Cordier's edition), vol. ii. p. 49.

162The wordAmban, now so well known to Europeans, is Manchu, and is applied to many high Chinese officials serving in the Mongolian and Tibetan dependencies of China, besides the Resident at Lhasa.

163甲哪.

164甲宜齋.

165SeeNote 22(p. 425).

166Land of the Lamas, p. 276.

167The Chinese is烏拉, which is merely phonetic. The wordulais Mongolian. Rockhill observes thatula(oulâk) was known in India in mediæval times.—(Land of the Lamas, p. 52.)

168Huan-t'ieh(換帖), literally "the exchange of cards."

169See p. 358 of that work.

170For the origin of the Prayer (or perhaps ratherPraising) Wheel, see Rhys Davids'Hibbert Lectures(1881), p. 138 (4th ed.). See also Tylor'sPrimitive Culture, ii. 372-373 (4th ed.)

171A Mongolian word which the Chinese have naturalised aso-pu(阿卜).

172Major H. R. Davies, whose admirable survey and exploration work are well known, visited the Muli lamasery before me, but our routes only touched at that point. He has unfortunately published no account of his journey from Mien-ning-hsien to Chung-tien.

173For M. Bonin's see theBulletin de la Société de Géographie, 1898, pp. 389seq.For Mr Amundsen's, see theGeographical Journalfor June and November 1900.

174How few, may be judged from the fact that I met only one caravan in the course of a month's journey.

175The complications and variations in currency and money values constitute one of the greatest vexations to a European traveller in China. As is well known, the ordinary medium of exchange in China for small purchases is the "cash" (t'ung ch'ien) of which about 1,000 (sometimes more and sometimes less) are equivalent to a dollar (Mex). In larger transactions silver sycee or "broken" silver is used, in which case payments are made by weight and according to the "touch" or fineness of the silver. The ingots are cut up by the use of sycee-shears into small or large portions as required. The larger ingots—which in Ssuch'uan are generally of the approximate value of ten taels each (equivalent to nearly two pounds)—usually bear the guarantee "chops" of bankers and large merchants. In the west of Ssuch'uan the Indian rupee became many years ago a well-known and much appreciated coin, and very largely took the place of broken silver. Its convenient size and shape specially commended it to the Chinese and Tibetan merchants who had trade relations with Burma, Tibet and India: and as its exchange-value in and about Tachienlu was in excess of its face-value many Yunnanese merchants used to bring mule-loads of rupees to that city from Tali-fu, thereby making a very considerable profit. The coin was generally known as thelama-t'ouor Lama's Head—Queen Victoria's head being supposed to be that of a lama—and also asyang ch'ienor "foreign money," the same term that is often applied in other parts of China to the Mexican and British dollars. Recently the provincial Government prohibited the circulation of Indian rupees in Ssuch'uan, and began to issue a similar coin of its own at the Mint in Ch'êng-tu. The new coin is almost exactly equivalent in value to the Indian rupee, and resembles it in size and appearance: but it bears the head of the emperor of China instead of that of the emperor of India. It is interesting as being the first Chinese coin, so far as I am aware, to bear the sovereign's head. Probably had it borne no head at all it would have been regarded with suspicion and dislike by those who had for years been accustomed to the Indian rupee. One of the Ssuch'uanese coins (a half-rupee) is illustrated in the text, along with the obverse and reverse of a Tibetan coin also in common use about Tachienlu and western Ssuch'uan. I found the new Ssuch'uan rupee was accepted fairly willingly by the people between Tachienlu and Pa-U-Rong, less willingly by those of the Muli country. South of Yung-ning I again had recourse to broken silver; but west of Tali-fu the Indian rupee is generally accepted, and at the town of Hsia Kuan, near Tali-fu, Indian rupees can be bought in any quantity by travellers and merchants bound for Burma. The Indian rupee is now a rare coin in Ssuch'uan, but sometimes it is treated like broken silver, being cut into pieces and sold by weight. I have in my possession several mutilated rupees which were weighed out to me as small change. The late queen-empress's head has been treated with small respect by the silver-merchants.

176SeeNote 23(p. 428).

177It has been pointed out by Griesbach that the central Himālayan glaciers are receding, and once extended much lower than at present. Apparently the same is the case in the "Himālayas" of Tibetan Ssuch'uan. I saw few living glaciers; but in many ravines there were evident traces of lateral and terminal moraines.

178This I take to be thecrossoptilon Tibetanum. It is quite unknown in China proper.

179SeeNote 24(p. 428).

180The Tibetanja-ndong.

181SeeNote 25(p. 428).

182Yule'sMarco Polo(Cordier's edition), vol. ii. p. 45.

183Travels of a Pioneer of Commerce.

184It is now well known that in parts of the Himalāyas which form the watershed of the great Indian rivers the line of perpetual snow is as high as 18,000 or even 20,000 feet.

185There is a fine poplar grove close to Tachienlu, fringing the "royal" parade-ground. Sarat Chandra Das (Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet) mentions a poplar at Lhasa which is supposed by the Tibetans to have sprung from the hair of the Buddha.

186Thefelis fontanieri, besides other members of the Cat tribe.

187Customs of this kind seem to exist or to have existed all over the world. For Tibet, see Sarat Chandra Das'sJourney to Lhasa and Central Tibet, and several recent works. Frazer, in theGolden Bough(2nd edn. vol. iii. pp. 4-6), has an interesting note in which he mentions the same or similar customs in the Solomon and Banks Islands, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Central and South Africa, Bolivia, Burma and Korea. He says: "The act is not a religious rite, for the thing thrown on the heap is not an offering to spiritual powers, and the words which accompany the act are not a prayer. It is nothing but a magical ceremony for getting rid of fatigue, which the simple savage fancies he can embody in a stick, leaf, or stone, and so cast it from him." Gipsies have a custom of leaving heaps of stones and bits of stick at cross-roads, to guide members of their band who have fallen behind. I do not propose to argue from this fact that the gipsy race was originally a Tibetan tribe, in spite of the facts that both gipsies and Tibetans love a wandering life, and that the gipsies of Persia and the Tibetans use almost the same word for "tent," which isguriin Persia andgur(གུར་) in Tibet.

188River of Golden Sand, vol. ii. p. 136.

189Royal Geographical Society'sSupplementary Papers, vol. i. p. 96.

190Sometimes, however, the door is several feet above the level of the ground, so that ladders of some kind must have been used for entrance and exit.

191The wordDrungor Dr'ong (གྲོང་) is the Tibetan word for Village.

192Lais the Tibetan word for a Mountain Pass.Ri, which often occurs in the names of villages and passes, means Mountain, andRongValley.

193See above, p. 143.

194See above, p. 145.

195Many of the villages between Tachienlu and Yung-ning have been given Chinese names by the Yunnanese, who occasionally send merchandise by this route. The Chinese name, as a rule, has no connection with the Tibetan or Man-tzŭ name.Wu Chia-tzŭ, for instance, means a "Village of Five Families";San Chia-tzŭa "Village of Three Families."

196See illustration of this tower, which is a fair sample of the rest,to face p. 171.

197Modern Painters, I. II. chap. iv. p. 2.

198See John Tyndall's description of his ascent of the Finsteraarhorn (Glaciers of the Alps).

199SeeNote 26(p. 429).

200SeeNote 27(p. 429).

201Les Lolos, by M. Paul Vial, Catholic missionary (Shanghai, 1898).

202See chap. xv. below, on the ethnology of the Lolos and other border tribes.

203See Appendix A.

204There is, however, a system of written characters peculiar to the Lolos. It appears to be unknown among these colonists.

205See above, p. 55.

206SeeNote 28(p. 429).

207SeeNote 29(p. 430).

208Mr Amundsen states that he crossed by a raft made of two pieces of timber, with a plank in the middle to stand on.—(Geographical Journal, vol. xv. p. 621).

209In Captain Gill'sThe River of Golden Sand(John Murray), p. 121, where there is a good illustration of the single-rope bridges.

210See above, p. 128.

211Yule'sMarco Polo, edited by Cordier. [London: John Murray.] See vol. ii. p. 67.

212See above, pp. 43-44.

213流入岷江. Similarly we read of the Han River (which flows into the Yangtse at Hankow)joining the Min(合岷江).

214SeeNote 30(p. 430).

215This is on Mr Amundsen's authority. SeeGeographical Journal, Nov. 1900, p. 534.

216See illustration, p. 152 (No. 2). The plaques may also be seen on the women's heads, p. 188.

217I travelled up the valley of this river in 1902, and heard much of its deadliness. Rocher, in his excellent history of Yunnan, remarks that the only people who could live on the banks of the Red River with comparative immunity were some indigenous non-Chinese tribes and Cantonese merchants. As regards the Cantonese, the jealous Yunnanese supposed that their immunity was derived from the fact that they possessed a sovereign remedy for the disease, but kept the secret of it to themselves so that they alone should obtain the benefit. Some of the Yunnanese told Rocher that they would go into battle rather than brave a visit to the banks of the Red River.—(La Province Chinoise du Yunnan, vol. i. pp. 229, 230, and 286.)

218See below, pp. 305seq.

219གའུ་

220Tibetan brTen (སྲུང་བ་) pronouncedten, or Srung-ba (སྲུང་བ་) pronouncedsung-wa, the original meaning of which is simply "protection."

221The reader will not, I hope, require to be reminded of "The Bad Child's Book of Beasts," in which the poem to which I refer finds an honourable place.

222It would appear from the recent Indian Survey map prepared by Major H. R. Davies, that this must be the Litang River, and therefore starts its course much further north.

223Seep. 216.

224Ruskin,Proserpina, II. IV.

225Spelt in Tibetan mCh'od-rTen.

226See illustration, p. 207.

227Land of the Lamas, p. 63.

228Lamaism in Tibet, pp. 263-264.

229See accompanying illustration.

230SeeNote 31(p. 431).

231Royal Geographical Society'sSupplementary Papers, vol. i. p. 96. The conjecture about the monastery was correct.

232黃(Yellow) and皇(Imperial).

233Judging from the dates in theT'ung Chih, it cannot have been earlier than 1729.

234"Nearly every great monastery," says Waddell, "has its own reincarnate Lama as its chief."—(Lamaism in Tibet, p. 230. For the numbers of these reincarnated saints, seeibid., p. 243.) These are the personages generally known by Europeans as Living Buddhas. One of them presides over the great lamasery in Peking.

235Spelt mk'an-po (མཁན་པོ་)

236This word literally means the "house of a god, or shrine" (ལྷ་ཁང་) It is the same lamasery as that otherwise known as Wa-chin, referred to on p. 204.

237SeeNote 32(p. 431).

238ཕྱག་མཛོད་(ch'ag-mDzod), literally the "treasury-hand."

239སྐུ་ཚབ་(sku-ts'ab), literally "vice-gerent" or "lieutenant."

240SeeNote 33(p. 431).

241Known by the Tibetans as Re-wo-tse-nga. The monastery there is said to be the oldest in China, and is visited annually by thousands of pilgrims, Tibetan, Mongolian, and Chinese.

242Spelt Ha-dBar-bDe-Ligs(ཧ་དབར་བདེ་ལིགསརྒྱ་ལ་བོ་).

243SeeNote 34(p. 432).

244For further information regarding the position of the ruler of Muli and the history of his state, seeNote 34(p. 432).

245Travellers to Mecca have recorded the same fact with regard to that city.

246གྲྭ་པ་

247SeeNote 35(p. 433).

248See pp. 280-281.

249Major H. R. Davies informs me that he found some Miao-tzŭ between Mien-ning-hsien and the Yalung on the way to Muli, but that is much further east.

250SeeNote 34(p. 432).

251Cf. Marco Polo's description of the burial customs of certain Yunnan tribes, vol. ii. pp. 122-123. (Cordier's edition, 1903.)

252See Rockhill,Land of the Lamas, pp. 286-287. See also p. 81, where he states that "the remains of the dead are exposed on the hillsides in spots selected by lamas; if the body is rapidly devoured by wild beasts and birds of prey, the righteousness of the deceased is held to be evident, but if it remains a long time undevoured, his wickedness is proved." See also theZend-Avesta,Sacred Books of the East, vol. iv. pp. 74-75 and 97-98. It is interesting to note that Friar Odoric's account of "Tebek" is almost literally true, if we except the remark about the tusked ladies.

253SeeNote 36(p. 434).

254See below, chap. xv.

255From information obtained later I gather that these travellers were the Count de Marsay and the Count L. de Las Cases.

256One of their earrings is illustrated at p. 152.

257開基.

258See Royal Geographical Society'sSupplementary Papers, vol. i. p. 97.

259"In Ceylon the joint husbands are always brothers, and this is also the case among the tribes residing at the foot of the Himalaya mountains." (Lord Avebury'sOrigin of Civilisation, 6th ed. p. 153.) A fuller account of polyandry in Ceylon may be found in Tennent'sCeylon(Longmans, 1859, 2nd ed. vol. ii. pp. 428seq.). Tennent points out that polyandry can be traced back to very ancient times. It "receives a partial sanction in the Institutes of Manu," and is referred to without reproach in the Mahabharata. Herbert Spencer (Principles of Ethics, pt. ii. ch. 13) says that in Tibet, "polyandry appears more conducive to social welfare than any other relation of the sexes. It receives approval from travellers, and even a Moravian missionary defends it: the missionary holding that superabundant population, in an unfertile country, must be a great calamity and produce 'eternal welfare or eternal want.'" See alsoPrinciples of Sociology. Polyandry is forbidden in the Shan States, though polygamy is sanctioned. (SeeGazetteer of Upper Burma, pt. i. vol. i. p. 325.)

260SeeNote 37(p. 434).

261See illustrationto face page 236.

262A similar great bend, only recently discovered, occurs in the course of the Yalung. In travelling between Mien-ning-hsien, north of Ning-yuan-fu, and Muli, the Yalung must, on account of this bend, be crossed no less than three times. The bend was discovered by Major H. R. Davies.

263See page 233.

264A similar story, apparently, was told to Mr Amundsen with reference to a locality in the Muli territory.

265This is, I have been told, a common practice among the people of the Upper Mekong valley, especially about Atuntzŭ.

266鳴音汲.

267SeeNote 38(p. 435).

268See above, p. 150.

269Known to the Tibetans as A-jol (འཇོལ་)

270Both names are Chinese. The first means "Below the Pass," the second "The Foot of the Hill."

271See below, pp. 289seq.

272Literally "Tail of the Lake."

273Snow is said to exist in patches on the summit of the Tali mountains all the year round; and is hawked in the streets of Hsia Kuan, near Tali-fu, in the summer months.

274In Yunnan the wordchieh(which means either "street" or "village") is always pronouncedKai, as in the Cantonese dialect.

275The officialAnnalsof Yunnan contain records of very many disastrous earthquakes in this province.

276The Pai Sha (White Sand) river is no whit more entitled to that appellation than the Cher would be.

277There are two roads from Shang Kuan to Tali-fu: one lying near the lake, the other near the mountain. My road was the latter.

278Marco Polo's description of Tali-fu and the district of which it was capital (Carajan) is well worth reading. The terrifying serpents which he mentions as having "eyes bigger than a great loaf of bread," are said to have been crocodiles. (See Cordier's edition of Yule'sMarco Polo, vol. ii. pp. 76-84.)

279SeeNote 39(p. 435).

280In his valuable workLa Province Chinoise du Yunnan(Paris, 1880).

281The Chinese name for the lofty mountains behind Tali-fu is Ts'ang Shan (蒼山), "Azure Hills."

282Two young children survived the catastrophe. Yang Wei was the Sultan's son-in-law and principal general of his army.

283楊玉科, an imperialist general.

284China: Her History, Diplomacy and Commerce, p. 9.

285西番and土番.

286See Rockhill'sLife of the Buddha, pp. 215-216, and T. W. Kingsmill's article in theJournalof the Royal Asiatic Society (China Branch), vol. xxxvii. pp. 26-27.

287བོད་The last letter of the Tibetan word is not pronounced, but it modifies the phonetic value of the vowel sound. As regards the Chinese character番of which the phonetic value in modern Chinese is generallyfan, we find several cases in which the sound is stillboorpo. Mr Kingsmill mentions鄱p'o(as in the characters used for the P'o Yang Lake). The characters嶓,皤and播are similar instances.

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