82 A Journey to thé Salween 
Here we were given wine to drink, which was not 
unlike Chinese wine, a sort of crude wood-spirit. Mean- 
while the girls sat on the floor talking, and slowly made 
string by twisting hemp fibre, bobbins of which they 
carried about in their bags, while the men smoked and 
chatted and drank their thick maize wine, which is to them 
much what a cigarette is to an Englishman. Presently 
two of the girls, sisters no doubt, sitting side by side, put 
their heads together and quaffed from the same bamboo 
cup, a proceeding which elicited much mirth. I saw this 
performance on a subsequent occasion, also by members 
of the fair sex, and again there was ill-concealed mirth 
amongst the elders, so that I was inclined to attach some 
unknown significance to it. 
After half-an-hour’s rest we descended to the valley, 
reaching the scattered village of Cho-la just as the rain 
set in heavily once more. The huts are built a hundred 
feet or so above the river on a gently-sloping platform, 
which is evidently an old river terrace, partly built up 
during the flood season and partly the result of tributary 
torrents spreading out their loads of detritus as they 
debouch from the mountains. In the rainy region these 
terraces form a continuous shelf between the outermost 
range and the river, averaging a hundred yards or more 
in breadth on the concave sides of the bends; but as soon 
as we enter the arid region, the river saws its way vertically 
downwards, and in spite of the windings there is nowhere 
any hint of a platform other than an alluvial cove. Every- 
where these terraces are cultivated; rice, wheat, and maize 
being grown in summer and buckwheat in the autumn. 
The house we put up in was large and roomy for a 
Lutzu hut, but I had a smaller building to myself, a tiny 
shanty used as a chapel for the Penates and a storehouse 
for maize cobs. My bed was put up alongside the altar, 
and I slept in the shadow of grotesque gods, while all 
night long the pitiless rain rattled on the shingle roof. 
I slumbered unconsciously through it all. 
