14 On the Plateau of Yunnan 
probable that retribution of a sort did fall, as I had 
prophesied, on the wretched village of P‘u-p‘iao, it is 
certain that I did not gain by the transaction, and we 
may surmise that the soldiers, unwilling to take back a 
negative report to the mandarin unless the villagers made 
it well worth their while, reaped the only benefit. 
Next day I found myself furnished willy-nilly with three 
‘braves’ as escort, though they were armed with nothing 
more formidable than a fan and a water-pipe between them. 
These fellows as a rule strolled comfortably along in the 
rear, yelling officiously whenever we met other mules, and 
thoroughly dislocating the traffic, though their avowed 
object was to clear the road for me. 
The plateau of Yunnan is scarred from north to south 
by deep trench-like valleys, at the bottom of which flow 
the Shweli, Salween, Mekong, and other less known rivers, 
all crossed by means of chain suspension bridges which 
have been described by previous travellers on this road. 
The astonishing difference between the comparatively 
broad forested Salween valley, and the narrow rift, its 
stark cliffs almost completely devoid of vegetation, through 
which the Mekong flows, is only a foretaste of what is to 
come later in the north. 
After the Mekong came the Shun-pi river, and drenching 
rain for two days. As we climbed up into the mountains 
again, here of red and green porphyry, it was interesting 
to note how the gullies where the torrents had their source, 
instead of contracting as the streams grew smaller, opened 
out more and more, their funnel-like mouths choked with 
débris, while great fans of rough-hewn rock had been flung 
out athwart and around the now puny stream. This was 
good evidence of the furious summer rains which descend 
upon the mountain summits, sweeping everything before 
them. 
The alders and birches were bursting into leaf now, 
and there were new blossoms on the road—barberry bushes 
with tall pyramids of yellow flowers (Berberzs nepalensis), 
and deliciously scented white jasmine. Sometimes we 
met children carrying balls of these delightful jasmine 
flowers cut off short and tied up in this way, so that each 
ball dangled from a thread, a solid sphere of scented 
