218 The Revolutionist Occupation of La-chi-mi 
entirely obsequious, carried my things in, made up the fire, 
prepared tea, and played the host as only a Chinaman can. 
In accordance with immemorial custom he covered his 
retreat by shouting to half-a-dozen people to do things 
immediately, and remained extremely affable till I left. 
I was scarcely dressed next morning when there arrived 
in hot haste a runner bearing cards from Li, on which it 
was set forth that Mr Wha, who was on his way to the 
Consulate at T‘eng-yueh, collecting plants during his 
travels, was to be accorded every facility for the successful 
prosecution of the journey, was on no account to be inter- 
fered with by the villagers, and was further to be furnished 
with escorts from village to village, to see that these orders 
were carried out. And in proof of the respect in which Li 
was held, whether because the tribesmen sympathised with 
the revolutionists or more probably because they repre- 
sented the most concrete form of authority with which they 
had ever come in contact, I may say that wherever I pre- 
sented Li’s cards I was accorded the best the villagers had 
to offer. 
There is, in addition to the ferry, a single-rope bridge 
across the Mekong at Ying-p‘an-kai, whence a foot-path 
leads over the mountains to that region of the Salween 
where dwell the ‘black’ Lissus; but I was not recom- 
mended to try it. 
We now continued our journey down the dreary valley, 
alternately toiling over high spurs round which the river, 
far below us, swept with a dull roar in big §-shaped curves, 
and descending to the bottom of deep ravines cut out by 
the torrents. Vegetation became less and less abundant, 
a horrible dryness pervaded everything, penetrated every- 
where, and poor Ah-poh, with head and tail hung low, 
trotted along behind us in a very dejected mood. Perhaps 
he was thinking of the snows and the cruel winds of his 
native plateau, his spirit obsessed by the dun-coloured 
world and blue roof which day after day he saw before 
him. 
Whole mountain sides of red shale showed not a vestige 
of life, and where vegetation clothed the nakedness of the 
rocks, it consisted almost entirely of a terrible grass which 
thrust its awned seeds into anything that came against it. 
