20 On the Li-ti-ping 
on an island, I was compelled to strip off my clothes and 
swim across a narrow backwater in order to secure my 
meal. When summer comes with its continuous drenching 
rain on the Tibetan plateau, a vast brown flood of water 
rages down here, filling the broad channel from bank to 
bank, submerging the islands, and sweeping everything 
before it. Then, as the fine autumn weather sets in and 
the iron frosts lock up the mountain torrents again, the 
water falls gradually, growing clearer and bluer, the duck 
return to the islands, and the gold washers come back to 
their re-sorted gravel pits. It is only another phase of the 
far-reaching monsoon. 
The closely investing mountains rise several thousands 
of feet above the river, but the valley is sufficiently broad 
to allow of considerable cultivation on the right bank, 
where a platform averaging a quarter of a mile in breadth 
separates the river bank from the mountain foot. No such 
facilities exist on the left bank, however, and villages on 
that side are practically confined to the wide-mouthed 
breaches opened out by tributary torrents. At this season 
there are no rapids to speak of, but the swift current makes 
the river useless for navigation except locally, where ferries 
ply across, and fishing is carried on from large scows. 
As to the people who inhabit this stretch of the 
Kin-sha, they seem to be mainly a cross between Chinese 
and Tibetan, with a considerable admixture of Moso blood 
from the immediate north and Minchia blood from the 
Mekong valley to the west. The women have peculiarly 
broad faces, which give them a merry, good-humoured 
expression. They are fond of wearing small ear-rings 
consisting of a silver ring, like a broad finger ring, from 
which is suspended a jade disc, pierced in the centre; 
otherwise they affect little ornamentation. 
From day to day we passed groups of people washing 
for gold, the method of procedure being as follows : 
The gravel at some chosen spot exposed during the 
dry season is shovelled into a basket, which is rocked by 
hand on the edge of a long inclined sieve, water being 
poured in to wash the fine mud through the interstices of 
the basket, the remaining stones being flung aside. As 
the mud and water trickle down the sieve, the water drips 
