84 Through the Lutzu Country to Men-kong 
We lunched at the village of Ze-tou, a few miles up the 
river. The alluvial platform was now confined to the right 
bank, but there was not much cultivation, beans and barley 
being the chief crops. Deep gullies cleft the range behind, 
affording glimpses of high forest, and in the shadow of 
these cliffs the vegetation was extremely rich, a considerable 
variety of terrestrial orchids being particularly noticeable, 
also ferns, irises, campanulas, and a single plant of Lzdzum 
giganteum, the only one | saw in flower. It was six feet 
high, but would grow taller yet, with half-a-dozen long 
white trumpet-shaped flowers two or three inches across. 
On the drier slopes were pine trees, ferns of the genus 
Pteris, and a lycopodium, but in the cultivated parts we 
walked between hedgerows of large St John’s Wort and 
yellow roses, lined with blue irises. At last we came to a 
deep ravine, dominated on the other side by a high bluff, 
on which T‘sam-p‘u-t‘ong is built; and at the top there 
stood waiting for us a solitary figure, clearly silhouetted 
against the sky. It was a Chinese soldier. 
With commendable and surprising brevity, he asked 
just sufficient questions to identify me and no more, but | 
had told Gan-ton to be quite vague as to our ultimate 
destination, not being quite certain of it myself. 
T‘sam-p‘u-t‘ong is a small village built on a steep slope, 
backed by a fine limestone cliff. “he wooden huts were 
as usual scattered, the monastery dismantled and falling to 
pieces, the yamen unpretentious, being indeed part of the 
derelict monastery. The thirty priests were apparently 
dispersed ; presumably they are or were Tibetans, not 
Lutzu. The population of the village consisted of perhaps 
thirty families, Lutzu, Tibetan, and a few Chinese, with an 
official and a garrison of ten soldiers. 
The official himself accosted me while my men were 
vainly assaulting the locked doors of the lamasery, and 
introduced himself in an off-hand manner; whereupon we 
repaired to the yamen to drink tea. After a little talk he 
kindly offered to open part of the lamasery for me, but it 
was in a most dismal state of disrepair, though there were 
some excellent wall paintings. The official, having failed 
to discover by what route I intended to return to A-tun-tsi, 
remarked urbanely before taking leave, that of course I 
