46 Up the Mekong Valley 
times invited me to take supper with them, showing me 
over the cathedral—a wonderful little building considering 
the limited resources of the district—and helping me in 
many ways. Pére Mombeig had been through the rebellion 
of 1905, and from the wild mountains to which he fled from 
his pursuers, had watched his home and church burning. 
Then for many days he had wandered half-starved in 
the mountains and amongst the Lutzus and Lissus of the 
Salween valley, before finally escaping to the south. 
It was through Pere Mombeig also that I secured the 
services of Gan-ton, the man | had met when I first 
crossed the river, as guide and interpreter during some 
of my journeys, though I cannot record that he turned 
out entirely satisfactory. However, as he plays an im- 
portant part in my first two journeys, I must say something 
about him. 
He was in the first place that rather curious mixture, a 
Catholic Tibetan, speaking Yunnanese and Lutzu fluently, 
and sufficient of the Moso and Lissu tongues to make 
facetious remarks to almost any tribesman we met; but 
he did not take his religion very seriously, and was a 
proselyte or a staunch Lamaist indifferently according to 
the nature of the task he was called upon to perform. 
Nevertheless he was intelligent and resourceful, always 
cheerful, and though in some respects a knave, I found 
him invaluable as guide, interpreter, and companion during 
two trying journeys. 
The French priests now put at my disposal a small 
outhouse belonging to a family of Catholic Tibetans at 
Tsu-kou, my men occupying another room in the same 
house. The houses of the poorer Tibetan families in the 
Mekong valley, as of the Lutzu in the Salween valley, 
consist usually of a single room, sometimes with a partition, 
very different from the large two-storied Tibetan manor 
houses met with elsewhere, and when other rooms are 
required—cattle byres, store-houses for grain and so on— 
they are built separately. 
We had not been here long before I had to dismiss 
Ho-shing. For some time I had noticed that my stores 
were rapidly diminishing, and enquiry elicited the fact that 
Ho-shing, who alone had access to them, was the responsible 
