264 The Land of Deep Corrosions 
the scorched rocks. True, in the deep shady gullies the 
vegetation becomes rich and varied with large trees, ferns, 
orchids and creepers, even the wild banana being quite 
common in latitude 26°, but these oases bear but a poor 
relation to the whole valley, which can only be described 
as barren and shrivelled up in appearance, terribly wearisome 
to traverse day after day. 
As to the valleys west of the Salween, I met in A-tun- 
tsi two very interesting Chinese travellers who were able to 
shed some light on the matter. One of them had been from 
the Mekong to India with Prince Henri d'Orléans in 1895, 
the other had only two years previously made a journey, for 
political purposes one must suppose, from the Mekong as 
far west as the ’Nmai-kha, some distance to the north of 
Prince Henri’s route. Both of them described the country 
as covered with dense jungle, the summer rain as incessant, 
and spoke lugubriously of mosquitos, leeches, tigers, and 
other pests associated with such a climate. It is therefore 
abundantly evident that the region west of the Salween gets 
the full benefit of the south-west monsoon. 
It is not till we get further north, where all three ridges 
are suddenly elevated to a great altitude, that the effect of 
the monsoon begins to wear off. 
A little above T ‘sam-p‘u-t‘ong on the Salween the forests 
suddenly disappear; gone are the ferns and orchids, the 
creepers and all the great wealth of vegetation; and gone 
too is that incessant pitiless summer rain. 
Suddenly the rocks begin to rise steeply from the river, 
which becomes more and more shut in by gigantic cliffs, 
apparently bare, but actually supporting a scanty vegetation 
of succulent herbs, withered cryptogams, and dwarf shrubs. 
The valley becomes still more confined, the mountains 
grow steeper, gorge follows gorge. Immense screes devoid 
of any vestiges of life tower upwards for many hundreds 
of feet. A scorching wind rages up the valley sucking the 
vitality from every living thing, as though anxious to reduce 
all to the condition of these naked rocks. The sun glares 
down out of a blue sky intolerable in its monotony, and 
is reflected from the light-coloured cliffs and screes seen 
distorted through a quivering atmosphere. Yet on the 
mountainous ridges to east and west is ceaseless rain! 
