802 



We had been warned in Luanfu to be very careful, for 

 there was a band of 35 to 40 robbers on the road; well, 

 of course, we carried our firearms all of the time, but 

 luckily we had no encounter and all we saw was a human head 

 hanging in a little wooden cage, hanging in a wild apricot 

 tree along the roadside and grinning at us with its white 

 teeth, showing partly through the dried-up blackened skin. 

 Beneath the cage there dangled a wooden tablet with the 

 man's name on it, as a warning to other evil-minded mortals. 



The whole thing didn't impress us much, for we were 

 passing through a wild and lonely landscape; rugged moun- 

 tains everywhere and wild apricot trees in full fruit and 

 the five soldiers we had with us a convoy over the bad 

 place and we ourselves also, we would have liked to see 

 some robbers come up and test our strength. As nobody 

 came however, we turned to the wild apricots, but they 

 were not good enough to satisfy our tastes or quench our 

 thirst. 



As you may imagine the stopping places we halted or 

 spent the night at were often the "limit". And oh, those 

 rieas by night and the flies by day! Really, I cannot 

 find any good uses for both these pests in the curriculum 

 of our earth. We also had great difficulty in obtaining 

 sufficient nourishing food. As you know, in summer the 

 Chinese eat exceedingly little meat, and the main food is 

 noodles, from wheaten flour and bird's seed; well a white 

 man cannot derive sufficient strength from such a diet and 

 one does not wish to deplete one's supply of canned goods 

 too rapidly when on such a long trip as this. 



My new interpreter and the new coolie are holding out 

 fairly well. The interpreter is by far not as clever as 

 the former one. He is more of an office man; with some 

 training however, we may be able to transform him a bit. 

 Yesterday morning the two were given a beating by some 

 villagers some 10 lis from here and now we are negotiat- 

 ing with the local magistrate to have this beating busi- 

 ness returned to the proper parties. I suppose we will be 

 successful at it. So many things here in old China go 

 differently from what they do in other lands! 



Now as to my plans. Within a few days I hope to be 

 on the road to Wen hsien and Pai hsiang chen to the South 

 of here, then back to Chiang chou and along the Fen river 

 to the Hoang Ho; by ferry across it and then over Tung 

 kwang to Sianfu. From there on S . W. Shensi and to Kansu 

 for Potanin's wild peaches. 



I have collected quite a stack already of herbarium 

 material and as time goes on this will increase many fold 

 these coming months. If it now soon will turn cooler then 

 everything will be all right. 



