Through the Land of the Cross-bow 199 
comprising but twenty families, is widely scattered on the 
surrounding slopes. Two interpreters had accompanied us 
so far, and two more were detailed to take us on to the next 
halting-place, but as a matter of fact these men were more in 
the nature of guides and escorts, due to me as travelling 
under official protection, than interpreters, who were hardly 
required at any stage of the journey. Usually they were 
armed with big swords and cross-bows, but sometimes they 
carried only long spears in token of the official nature of 
their business. 
I have already remarked that the Lutzu use the cross- 
bow, and the same is true of the Moso, Pé-tzu, Lama, 
Minchia, and Shan tribes with whom I came in contact ; it 
was, in fact, the universal weapon throughout the Mekong 
and Salween valleys as far south as latitude 25°30. I do 
not remember to have entered a single hut between Wei-hsi- 
t‘ing and Kai-t‘ou, where there were not several of these 
weapons, each with its quiver, hung against the wall. 
Except amongst the Shans, who use simply a bamboo tube, 
the quiver is invariably an oblong box made from the skin 
of the black bear, containing two or more bamboo tubes, in 
one of which are kept plain arrows, in the other poisoned 
ones, the poison, or ‘medicine’ as the Chinese with 
unconscious irony term it, being made from a species of 
Aconite. 
The cross-bow has been regarded as the especial attribute 
of the Lissu tribe, or at least as eminently typical of them, 
but this is by no means the case. Its simple structure, 
short range, and diabolical effectiveness mark it as 
emphatically a weapon made by a jungle tribe for jungle 
warfare ; hence there can be little doubt that it originated 
amongst the tribes of the river valleys between Assam and 
China, whence it spread eastwards. The scarcity of birds 
in these valleys is no doubt partly due to the fact that every 
small boy carries a miniature cross-bow and shoots at 
everything he sees, much as the English country boy carries 
a catapult, and probably for the same reason—to amuse 
himself and become skilful in the art of killing things, rather 
than to provide food. Boy is more or less of a barbarian 
everywhere. 
From Ssii-shi-to two of my soldiers turned back, leaving 
