144 THE WILD SHEEP OF WESTERN KANSU 



watch the marmots, perkily erect, as they whistled 

 cheerily about their burrows, and Lao- Wei's child- 

 like delight at their antics. The sheep were not 

 there that day, it is true ; but about me, encircling, 

 enveloping, was the God-sent grandeur of a 

 September day — so who was I to grumble? 



Later we saw a ram and a small band of ewes 

 in the early morning sunlight, but they had seen 

 us too, and we never set eyes on them again. 



Our camp was set down close to a track which 

 led far off into the mountains. On several 

 occasions wandering parties of T'e-pus passed with 

 their guns, women, and cross-bred yaks. It was 

 a curious sight to see the great shaggy animals 

 wandering along laden with side-packs. Cattle 

 disease had broken out below Archuen, and the 

 villagers drove a large number of their cattle up 

 into the hills beyond us to be out of the way 

 of infection. 



A couple of T'e-pu lamas were our most enter- 

 taining visitors. They were on their way to 

 Sung-pan, a border town between Thibet and 

 Szechuan, having just completed a pilgrimage to 

 various lamaserais. They came into our camp 

 and begged for some rice and potatoes. On 

 receiving these they signified their thanks by 

 holding up both thumbs, scratching their heads 

 and bowing. The more important of the two 

 offered to perform a dance in return for a bowl 

 of rice. He accordingly donned a cloth mask 

 with eyelet-holes. It was decorated with a wispy 

 moustache, one side black, the other white, a thin 

 black beard and a cluster of red and yellow 

 ribands at the back. He then began a monotonous 



