CHAPTER XIII 



A MODERN REHOBOAM AND HIS CAPITAL 



You come to Choni the town of the Two Pines 

 by way of Taochow, the New City, a mushroom 

 growth of some six hundred years, not the Old ; 

 that lies farther to the west. The wall of New 

 Taochow (it is pronounced Tow-jo) straggles up a 

 hill-side and round a sharply rising knoll which 

 makes a fine natural watch tower. Two- thirds of 

 the area enclosed is devoted to cultivation, while 

 the town itself, flat-roofed, and in some cases two- 

 storied, meanders about the lower slopes. It is 

 almost entirely inhabited by Thibetan Moham- 

 medans, and is in reality the border town between 

 Thibet and China, though Thibet proper lies a 

 day's march to the west. A few li from the city 

 a low pass gives a magnificent view of the Min- 

 shan Mountains. They look down on a mass of 

 gradually lowering hills, torn and intersected by 

 green, rushing mountain streams from which 

 radiate an interminable series of birch and fir- 

 clad gullies. From the summit of the pass one 

 drops between narrow grass-covered corries to 

 the Tao and to the little town if such it can 

 be called of Choni (pronounced Jornee). I 

 was reminded of the lines : 



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