a third Journey to the Yang-tze 169 
the highest alpine plants whether I had seen them in flower 
or not, since they were likely to be of interest from a 
botanical point of view. 
It was now or never, if I wished to cross the Mekong- 
Yang-tze divide by the pass which leads to Mo-ting ; for 
Chao and the senior military officer—a dandy from Yunnan-fu 
who wore a smart Japanese uniform with a long sword and 
white kid gloves—had gone on a tour, and there was no 
one in A-tun-tsi with sufficient authority to prevent me. 
The man from whom I hoped to obtain permission was the 
junior military officer, a friend of mine who often came in 
for a chat, to look at my automatic pistol and other marvels, 
or to beg some gun oil. He would not be likely to refuse 
my request. True, Chao himself might have given me 
permission to go, for he had left me to my own devices 
recently; but he had several times complained bitterly that 
I always wanted to go off the main roads to the most 
obscure places, and the path to Mo-ting was used only by 
a few Tibetan caravans going into the very heart of the 
Mantze mountains. 
I grew restless as on moonlight nights I heard the 
steady thump, thump of the flails on the house-roofs near 
me, the droning songs of the Tibetan girls, a shout of 
laughter or snatches of conversation; restless as | worked 
in my room drying and packing seeds; still more restless 
as I climbed the now familiar mountains in the chill 
October drizzle swept in my face by fierce gusts of wind. 
The high mountains which shut in the village were already 
white with snow again, and so cold was it that I always 
had a big 4o-p‘an of red-hot charcoal in my room. 
By October 17 everything was ready, and on the 18th 
we started for Mo-ting, Kin remaining behind to collect 
seeds and attend to those that were drying. For inter- 
preter I had a local Tibetan who proved very satisfactory, 
and subsequently requested me to employ him permanently 
should I return to A-tun-tsi. 
Our route lay up the valley I had already ascended 
several times, but instead of turning off into any of the 
hanging valleys which opened into it, we kept on up 
the main valley. Accompanied by one of the men, | 
ascended slowly to within sight of the pass, and stopped by 
