The Wonderful Mekong 149 
me what I[ wrote, and having written out the document, in 
English of course, I left them to write the Chinese version 
as they liked, since I should have been none the wiser had 
I seen it. Had anything happened to me before reaching 
A-tun-tsi, I can well imagine how an astute critic would 
have pointed out that the official’s obligation hardly ended 
with the signing of a document in which neither contracting 
party understood the writing of the other! Nor does it 
seem to have occurred to the official that I might have 
written anything I liked, even to a serious indictment of 
himself. Of course I played the game, but I am glad for 
his sake that he never had reason to show the document to 
the Viceroy, since it was boldly stated that I was returning 
from Y‘a-k‘a-lo to A-tun-tsi by the small road, unknown to 
the local officials! I imagine the first comment the Viceroy 
would have made would be that it was his business to 
know! The official refused me an escort on the ground 
that the journey was quite unofficial, and for that at least I 
was devoutly thankful; but he had no right to stop me, 
and he knew it, in support of which statement I could 
quote no less an authority than the late Warden of the 
Marches and Viceroy of Ssu-chuan, His Excellency Chao. 
And being faint-hearted and fearful, he compromised. 
There was nothing remarkable about the three days’ 
journey down the Mekong except the extraordinary height 
of the road above the river, which gave me a vivid idea of 
the depth of this amazing gutter, for the valley walls still 
towered high above us. Sometimes we must have been 
3000 feet above the water, so that we could look down on 
to great rapids and yet hear no sound. No journey could 
be more appalling in its wearisome monotony than that 
through these arid gorges; climbing up and down over 
the endless spurs, sweeping in round the endless gullies, 
we would make good but a few miles in a straight line after 
hours of riding. 
The morning of August 16 saw the mountains on either 
side covered with snow, but it melted again during the day, 
though two or three snowy peaks were now visible at the 
heads of gullies to the west, again suggesting the continuity 
of the K ‘a-gur-pu snowy range northwards to Ta-miu. The 
plants were those of the arid region, though so high up 
