A Journey to the Salween 79 
like way, just as she might have fed the chickens, the 
first shower hitting the wall behind, and the last one 
drenching me. 
I find it difficult to escape the conviction that the 
Lutzu, now essentially an agricultural people, represent a 
jungle tribe in a comparatively advanced stage of civilisa- 
tion. Their short stature, their method of carrying loads 
by means of a strap passing round the forehead, their use 
of the cross-bow, pre-eminently a jungle weapon for jungle 
warfare, owing to its short range and diabolical effective- 
ness, their gourds and bamboo tubes, and their rope bridges, 
all suggest this. 
It is a well-known fact that since the great mountain 
ranges and deserts of Asia stretch east and west, emigra- 
tions on a large scale have, for the most part, taken place 
in this direction also, it being easier to skirt such obstacles 
than to cross them. But a narrow gateway lies open 
southwards through the rampart of mountains which rims 
Central Asia in the region of the parallel rivers, and, 
while marvelling at the one corner of high Asia where 
great emigrations in a north and south direction have 
probably taken place, one should not lose sight of the 
fact that emigration may here also have taken place in an 
east and west direction. 
All night long and all the following morning it poured 
with rain, nor had it entirely ceased when we started after 
lunch. The morning was spent in doctoring the sick, for 
my fame as a healer had gone abroad, and at one time we 
had six mothers with unweaned babies at their breasts 
asking for medicine, till, with my own men and curious 
spectators to a total number of thirty, the hut looked like 
the out-patient room of a London hospital. We had a 
splendid variety of ills, from a bruised shoulder—the result 
of a scuffle—to a sick headache, and we did something 
for all of them. Their gratitude was unbounded, many 
of them bringing me presents of milk and eggs. 
During the day, a big caravan composed of twenty-five 
animals and about forty porters passed through the village, 
carrying silver and supplies of rice, sugar, tea, and so on 
to the troops at Bahang. They had been six days on 
the road from A-tun-tsi, crossing the mountains by the 
