SSUMAO TO TALI 



and announced that they could no longer remain with us because 

 we beat the Chinese. At this juncture a new champion entered 

 the lists on our behalf in the person of Sao, who, understanding 

 Chinese, used it to such effect that, having at my suggestion gone 

 among the men and heard their tale, the mutineers were presently 

 brought back to reason and their allegiance. Of course Francois 

 was at the bottom of it all. He had spread falsehoods that 

 the assault had been unprovoked, and that we were brutes, 

 who were going to lead them into a country of brigands with- 

 out pay. Sao scattered this fabrication by the contemptuous 

 assurance that it was a bundle of lies, and that if they left us we 

 should simply get others in their place, who would jump at the 

 wages offered. Next morning Francois came with a discomfited 

 air to be paid, and then asked for a certificate, which I refused 

 point-blank. " But I have worked well," whined he. I rejoined 

 that that was not my experience, and, after judicially summing up 

 his many impertinences to his culminating act of insubordination, 

 dismissed him. So we were well rid of our odious interpreter, and 

 would have to make shift as best we might for the next fortnight 

 till we got to Tali. If our local information should be less, our 

 progress in elementary Chinese would be more. 



During the 12th and 13th (May) we passed over a series of 

 unimportant hills from the bed of the Mong-ma-ta-ho, the course 

 of which we followed for a bit, to that of a swifter stream, the 

 Lan-cho-ho. On the 14th, in the morning, I escaped a nasty 

 accident. I was leading my mule over some rough planks that 

 spanned a shut-in torrent, when he slipped and fell into the rocky 

 chasm. I thought he must be killed, as he lay quite still ; but 

 these animals fall like cats, and it was not long before we had him 

 on his legs again. The same evening we crossed a strong river 



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