104 Doker-la—the Sacred Mountain 
torrents flow directly down from the mountains, and the 
main spurs are always at right angles to the watershed and 
consequently the passage of the range is less fatiguing, 
though not necessarily any shorter. 
We camped far down in the forest that night, and saw 
the stars shining overhead once more, both Kin and I feeling 
very much better, though dead tired. 
It may be interesting at this stage to institute a com- 
parison between the plant formations on the mountain range 
we had now crossed for the second time and the Mekong- 
Yang-tze divide, where I had been climbing in May and 
subsequently crossed several times. 
The sequence of belts on the Mekong-Salween divide, 
starting from the Mekong, is roughly as follows :—(i) Grass- 
land and bracken, with scattered pines, rhododendrons and 
so on, (ii) Forest, with fir trees and giant rhododendrons, 
numerous shrubs, and deciduous-leaved trees. In the 
shady gullies this temperate rain forest descends right 
down to the Mekong and Salween, (iii) Forests of birch 
and alder with dense undergrowth, (iv) Alpine meadow, 
(v) Alpine grass-land or turf. 
Turning now to the mountains above A-tun-tsi, we 
find that two of the above belts, namely birch forest and 
alpine meadow, are entirely wanting; that the larch becomes 
an important constituent of the upper forests on north- 
facing slopes; and that a new element, namely the scree 
flora, makes its appearance. 
A full consideration of these facts is beyond the scope 
of a story of travel however, and it will suffice to say that 
these differences are directly or indirectly traceable to the 
difference of rainfall on the two ranges of mountains; that 
the composition of the forests on the two ranges differs 
more than the composition of the alpine flora on account 
of the greater importance of rain to forest land than to 
grass-land; that in the alpine meadow of the Mekong- 
Salween divide are to be found several plants, particularly 
Liliaceae, which are not found on the Mekong-Yang-tze 
divide ; and finally, that the limit of plants is substantially 
lower on the former than on the latter, in accordance with 
the lower snow-line, the extra ground available on the 
Mekong-Yang-tze divide being favourable for the production 
