FROM TONKIN TO INDIA 



we had had much more of this sort of work we should have learned 

 to meet the Chinese upon their own ground. As it was, I was dis- 

 gusted and tired of having any dealings with these rapacious 

 scoundrels, whose every breath, word, and thought was money, 

 money, money ; from those who would see a comrade wounded 

 without a sign of compassion beyond a shrug of the shoulders, down 

 to the interpreter, who, at the makotou's departure, stripped the 

 very cap off his head because it was new, and because "he would 

 have no need of it now that he had ceased to serve the Tajen." 

 The Chinese have a big lesson to learn from themselves. For my 

 own part 1 now knew more than enough of them, and hastened the 

 time when we should get away from their sordid, contemptible 

 natures to live among lawless savages and brigands, who at least 

 would have one respectable attribute of freedom or personal pride. 



Having given the title and functions of makotou to a young fellow 

 in the troop called Lichatan, we resumed our journey, and passed 

 the remainder of the day climbing the larch and oak-covered hills 

 that marked the interval between the Mekong and the Salwen 

 basins. We camped in the open. 



The event of the 8th (May) was the meeting with a few sheep. 



We had not seen any for two months, and our stomachs yearned 



at the sight. To point out a " p^ i ang " (white sheep) to 



Chantzeu, strike a bargain with the shepherd, and to have it strapped 



on Fa's shoulders was the work of no time. As when the Ainos 



kill a bear they celebrate the event and call it the Bear Feast, so 



we, almost as hirsute as the "sons of dogs," now held the Feast 



of Sheep, and revelled in the varied dressings of the unwonted 



food, which we wetted with Japanese wine and finished with 



coffee and "real Habanas " of our own manufacture. 



As we marched next day still up the Mekong valley the track 



114 



