FROM TONKIN TO INDIA 



astonishment and delight of our men ; it was pleasant to see a 

 little cheerfulness among them for a change. 



Roux did not turn up when we paused for the night at 

 Chian-na-liang (?) ; and now we missed Nam, who had lost his 

 way between our two parties. Villagers were sent out to scour 

 the bush. They styled themselves Lolos, though just like the 

 Lochais of the day before. We employed ourselves in watching 

 one of them milling cotton, for which he used a contrivance 

 consisting of two rollers placed on a frame before which he sat. 

 The upper was of wood revolving with a hand-winch, the under 

 of iron, of less diameter, and made to rotate at great speed by 

 a treadle. Between them the cotton fell into a basket, and the 

 seeds remained above. 



Before turning in, I looked in on the sleeping quarters of 

 our men. In the middle of the room were laid the materials 

 for opium-smoking — lamp, snuffers, and pipe. Francois and the 

 makotou, naked to the waist, reclined with some Lolos upon 

 osier stools, and all were steadily stupefying themselves. In 

 one corner a dishevelled, half- clad woman turned her spinning- 

 wheel with measured creak ; presently she desisted, and stretched 

 herself, with a baby at her breast, upon a plank beneath a coarse 

 coverlet, while the men conversed in low tones in Chinese or 

 more guttural Lolo — a strange scene, lit by some bits of resinous 

 wood upon the ground. From below came the chirrup of a 

 cricket, and an occasional impatient shake of a cattle - bell, that 

 spoke the mafous stirring as they tethered the mules tighter 

 against night robbers. Our orders were strict upon this head, for 

 recent experience had taught us watchfulness. 



Next morning, the 21st (April), still no news of Nam, and 

 only bad of Roux. He had found the mule ; the pack was gone. 



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