Through the Land of the Cross-bow 203 
In spite of these confusions I usually found that by 
carefully looking through the women folk of a tribe, how- 
ever much they might superficially resemble the Chinese, 
it became possible after a time to fix on a distinct type 
which occurred over and over again, a common factor for 
all the tribal features, so to speak, and this I found to be 
the case both with the Lama and Minchia women. More- 
over a peculiar little cap, rather after the style of a military 
forage cap without the dent in the middle and ornamented 
with large metal studs round the edge, was fashionable 
amongst the Lama and Minchia girls. Set jauntily on the 
head with a metal-studded collar to match, it looked very 
nice, and some of the Lama girls were by no means ill- 
favoured. 
On the following day we reached T‘o-yie on the 
Mekong, exchanging the somewhat cloudy weather which 
had dogged our footsteps while traversing the mountains 
for brilliant sunshine once more. Snow was visible on the 
Mekong-Salween watershed to the west, but such peaks as 
could be seen were not conspicuously high. As hitherto, 
each village of any size through which we passed furnished 
two or three men to act as escort as far as the next village, 
and in this way we picked up some curious specimens of 
humanity, armed with the most ferocious-looking swords 
and cross-bows, these temporary followers already having 
numbered no less than fifteen. 
The fine hot weather of late autumn had now lasted 
for some time and the valley in consequence presented a 
decidedly desiccated appearance. The mountains of purple 
shale or grey metamorphic rocks sparsely covered with tufts 
of spear-grass and scattered pines or oaks were cleft by 
narrow-lipped gullies of great depth, suggesting furious 
rains in the mountains above and a very slight rainfall in 
the valley itself. Down towards the river the gentler 
slopes were extensively cultivated, though villages were 
few, and the high banks were fringed with shrubs, mostly 
evergreen, which hid the river from view. Here and there 
grew dense bushes of prickly pear. We were again in an 
extraordinarily dry region, the appearance of aridity in- 
creasing rather than diminishing as we continued south- 
wards, and though hardly comparable to the true arid region 
