464 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1919. 
keeled over and would have capsized but for the fact that the whole 
boom gave way and we righted ship and raced on before the wind to 
the accompaniment of loud curses from the fishermen on the shore. 
It was their fault, however, for they had failed to mark the opening 
in the boom with the customary red flags. 
At the mouth of the Huifa Ho we turned southward and with con- 
siderable toil towed the boat a few miles up the Sungari till we came 
to likely looking collecting grounds. Then, crossing the river and 
choosing a good site on high ground, we pitched camp once more. I 
was very successful at this place and spent a month there. Besides 
small mammals, of which a large and interesting collection was made, 
numerous specimens of beetles and reptiles were taken at this point, 
while I was able to note and study the bird life that abounded in the 
vicinity. Botanically, too, the spot was ideal, for not only were there 
wooded areas, but there were also rocky cliffs, open uplands, wide 
clear valleys and marshes, all within easy walk of my camping site. 
It was while camped here that I was able to form some idea of the 
amount of timber that is being cut on the slopes at the sources of the 
Sungari and its tributaries. Every hour of the day dozens of huge 
raits of logs came floating past. Some of these contained twenty or 
thirty thousand feet of timber, averaging 3 to 4 feet in diameter, some- 
times much more. This timber, I was informed, was cut and hauled 
to the water’s edge during the winter by native woodcutters, who were 
engaged by timber merchants and their foremen. It was a very 
profitable business, the timber realizing a good price at Kirin City. 
They told me that there were still unlimited supplies of timber on the 
slopes of the Chang Pei Shan. 
At last, having come to the end of my supplies, I decided to return 
to civilization and one morning put off in my little boat and com- 
menced the journey down the Sungari in a fog. It was well for us 
that it was foggy that morning, for in it we were able to slip past a 
band of Hung-hu-tzu that were lying in wait for me at the mouth 
of the Huifa Ho. I should have known nothing about this but for 
the fact that a few nights before I woke up to find a man in my tent. 
By covering him with my revolver and calling my cook up from the 
next tent I made him prisoner. We then found he was armed with 
a long knife, and on his own confession he informed us that he was 
after my rifles so that he could join a band of Hung-hu-tzu across 
the river. Further inquiries of farmers across the river elicited the 
fact that this band of robbers were hanging around to hold me up 
whenever I should start down the river. As a matter of fact, a few 
days later a missionary and his wife, who were traveling by river 
from Chaoyangchen to Kirin, were held up by this same band and 
robbed of all they had. 
