58 A-tun-tsi 
The cynically-minded will add that the argument applies 
equally well in favour of polygamy. The Lutzu however, 
who come much into contact with the Tibetans, and all 
the other tribes of this region, so far as I am aware, are 
monogamous, which adds the weight of negative evidence 
in favour of the above theory, since the tribes are notorious 
stay-at-homes. 
We slept at Chia-pieh on the third night, and next day 
passed through a dismal defile, overhung with rugged cliffs. 
One of the soldiers informed me that during the Tibetan 
rising of 1905, four hundred Chinese soldiers who were 
coming up from Wei-hsi to the relief of A-tun-tsi were 
ambushed here, and slaughtered to a man, the Tibetans, 
hidden up in the cliffs, rolling rocks down and hurling them 
into the river. There must be some truth in the story, but 
the numbers are probably exaggerated. Talking of fighting, 
curious tall watch-towers of mud, square in plan and exten- 
sively loopholed, frequently occur on prominent eminences 
near the villages, and there are more of them on the 
Yang-tze. I believe they date back only some fifty years, 
having been built by the Chinese when they subdued the 
Mantze tribes of Yunnan and Ssu-chuan in the neighbour- 
hood of the main roads. 
Leaving the Mekong behind, we ascended the narrow 
valley towards A-tun-tsi. The stream higher up was lined 
with tamarisk bushes, and just before we reached the city 
we had a glorious view of K‘a-gur-pu, its triple peak block- 
ing up the entire mouth of the valley, and rising apparently 
to a prodigious height. But to launch out into superlatives 
when one has not the. most prosaic instrument for the 
measurement of angles is unwise. 
The first person I met in A-tun-tsi was M. Perronne, a 
French gentleman who was there for the season buying 
musk from the Tibetans. He had been in A-tun-tsi during 
the summer months for the last six years, knew everybody 
of any importance in the village, and was always extremely 
hospitable, so that when in A-tun-tsi I enjoyed many hours 
in his company, while his knowledge of the language and 
people was always at my disposal in any difficulty. I dined 
with him that evening, and learnt a good deal about the 
village which was to be my base camp for the next six 
