FROM TONKIN TO INDIA 



rough shelter lay two dead bodies. Truly a day of mortality : 

 we had left skeletons only to find corpses. 



We quitted these undesirable companions for a spot half an hour 

 lower down, where lodging was obtained in the wattled bamboo 

 dwelling of the son of the chief of the district, which was called 

 Toulong. Here, as at Tamalou, we encountered further delays in 

 procuring supplies and carriers. At our first approach the alarmed 

 inhabitants began to hide their food in the mountains. Luckily, 

 they were of a gentle, timid race, Kioutses, so named from the 

 Kiou-kiang, though they styled themselves Tourong or Toulong, 

 and the river Toulong-remai. In speech and appearance they 

 differed but little from the Loutses, save that in frame they 

 were rather more robust. The men mostly had a twig or 

 thorn in the ear as ornament ; the women sometimes a large 

 silver ear-ring. The latter also were tattooed in green round 

 the mouth. Formerly they used to be unmolested, but the Loutses 

 made war on them, and it was then that they lived for precaution 

 in holes under the trees. By degrees, when they found we gave 

 them presents of blue atoutzi yarn (here held in high estimation) 

 and cotton, and paid well, they became tamer ; and again we 

 traced our indebtedness to an emissary of the Yetche mokoua. 

 The collector of revenue (called in Lissou, nerba) had received 

 instructions from his superior in our favour, and in him we found 

 a valuable auxiliary. As if as a further aid there also arrived 

 at this period from Tamalou a Chinese itinerant trader, who had 

 been instrumental in helping us when there. These two together 

 used all their influence on our behalf. Still, our patience was never 

 more tried : the natives could not be brought to understand the 

 need of diligence. The longer our large troop remained stationary 

 the more it exhausted the available supplies on the spot. The 



