FROM TONKIN TO INDIA 



After this digression let us resume. In the afternoon we 

 entered woods of pine and hohn oak, the latter a speciality 

 among the trees of Thibet. At night the men made a great 

 fire, for there was no stint of fuel, and a picturesque oval- 

 shaped camp was formed round it, while we took a long rest 

 before the morrow. 



13th ([uly). • — Descent continued; we shortly sighted the 

 Mekong again running in discoloured rapids. Coming so recently 

 from the Salwen, it seemed small, and its valley more confined 

 and less green than the latter. Hamlets, with a few rice-fields, 

 began to appear, and near them large drying stacks like gibbets. 

 We stopped in the Minchia village of Piao-tsen, surrounded by 

 a white mud wall with half-demolished flanking bastions. When 

 we entered the enclosure there were but few houses to be seen, 

 and the ground was chiefly occupied by tobacco plantations. 

 Here we were only a three-days' foot journey from Fey-long- 

 kiao ; but I did not regret the elbow we had made, since it had 

 allowed of our e.xploring the Salwen, and deriving much useful 

 information towards the solution of an important geographical 

 problem. 



At Piao-tsen we installed ourselves in a pagoda, and here we 

 celebrated the Fourteenth of July with a sweet omelette and 

 cigars. For eighteen days we had not seen what the Chinese 

 term a la iifan, or place of any size, and our regaining a little 

 more comfort was the signal for four of our men to abandon us. 

 I made no attempt to prevent them ; our troop must weed itself 

 out into the survival of the fittest for the still more arduous 

 work remaining. Among the deserters was Chantzeu, a man 

 who had been with us ever since Mongtse, and who had had 

 less toil and more indulgence than the others. We had been 



