A Journey to the Salween sia 
very much in the dark. However with the help of Gan-ton, 
who resurrected such symptoms as he could from the 
mother’s mind, and a thermometer, we diagnosed the case 
and prescribed simple but innocuous remedies, leaving the 
rest to faith—the parent’s faith, that is, which was infinite. 
I found too, after a little more experience of sick babies in 
this region, that they rang the changes on two or three 
mild maladies which I eventually became quite expert in 
coping with, 
We were a lively crowd in the one room of the hut. 
I had a corner to myself where my bed was set up under 
a small square window cut out of the log wall; there was 
no shutter to it, but in spite of the incessant rain it was 
not very cold. Round two fires in the middle of the room 
were gathered my eight men, the woman of the house, her 
three children, and four more men. What may be called 
the floating population, who looked in occasionally and 
sauntered out again at will, included several of the villagers, 
a calf, a cat, two or three pariah dogs, and a flock of hens, 
while the odour and grunts of sundry pigs rose up between 
the loose floor-boards. 
The Lutzu tribe, amongst whom we now found our- 
selves, are interesting for the reason that they seem to 
indicate an irruption of tribes from the west. That they 
have come down the Salween valley from Tibet, repre- 
senting one of the links in a chain of emigration in that 
direction, I do not believe, and so far as language is any 
test, the Lutzu tongue seems to bear no more resemblance 
to Tibetan than could be accounted for by the fact that the 
Lutzu are a small tribe enclosed by Tibetans who, being 
great travellers and traders, have long been in and out 
amongst them. The English language has been influenced 
in much the same way by Norman, but is not related to it. 
The Lutzu on the other hand, are not traders at all, 
being in the enviable position of having everything they 
require, hemp for their clothes which are woven by the 
women during the winter, tobacco, maize, wheat, buck- 
wheat, apples, oranges, and so on. Bamboos and gourds 
supply them with vessels, and with the cross-bow they 
shoot game. Though not a drunken people, they certainly 
drink large quantities of liquor made by fermenting maize ; 
