On the Li-ti-ping 19 
were covered with brushwood below and with pine forests 
higher up. 
Abruptly came the head of the pass, and the narrow 
plateau seemed quite suddenly to drop away into a big 
blue valley, in the depths of which, down beyond the 
forests, lay hidden the Yang-tze, or as it is called locally, 
the Kin-sha, the famous River of Golden Sand. Far 
beyond there towered into the now cloudless sky the 
Lichiang range—a magnificent snow-clad group of moun- 
tains which have barred the way of the river and thrust it 
aside, thus causing it to sweep round in a vast bend to the 
north, and return almost on itself in a narrow loop which 
adds hundreds of miles to the length of the Yang-tze, 
before it finally sets out on its long journey to the China 
coast. Up and up towered those glittering pinnacles of 
ice and snow, flashing in the sunlight till they melted away 
into the infinite blue. It was a glorious sight. 
Here at the very summit of the pass, over 8000 feet 
-above sea-level, a beautiful little lake nestled close under 
the high wooded cliffs of the eastern ridge, owing its 
origin to an alluvial cone which had swept across the 
valley lower down and dammed back the water. 
This watershed separates the streams flowing directly 
to the Kin-sha from those flowing to the Yang-pi river, 
itself a tributary of the Mekong. Not far to the north, the 
three great rivers, the Salween, Mekong, and Yang-tze, flow 
in their parallel gutters. The descent to the deep-lying 
Kin-sha was extremely precipitous, the valleys on this side 
having been torn out of the mountains by furious and 
sudden rains. However, it was not far to the village of 
Shih-kow, situated by the river, and here we halted for 
lunch, continuing in the afternoon to San-kow. 
The Yang-tze or Kin-sha at this point, 2500 miles from 
its mouth, averages perhaps a hundred yards from bank to 
bank, and though at this season of low water the stream is 
much subdivided by islands of sand and shingle, it runs 
with a strong current. However, it was already the second , 
week in April, and the snows had begun to melt in the far 
north, so that in spite of the sunshine the crystal water 
was bitterly cold, as I had good reason to know ; for 
having shot a Brahminy duck which had settled down 
2—2 
