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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



of Marco Polo. This obtains as far 

 north as the village of Hsia-ku-de ; be- 

 yond that nothing but maize, which is the 

 staple food of the people, is grown. 



prof'use; ornaments worn by the; 



WOMEN 



The people are all Lissoo, with a 

 strong admixture of Chinese blood. The 

 men mostly dress in Chinese fashion, but 

 the women, while adopting the Chinese 

 cotton cloth, retain the petticoat and pro- 

 fuse decoration of head, with armlets, 

 bracelets, and necklets, which is so char- 

 acteristic of the true Lissoo garb. I have 

 seen young girls with ornaments which 

 in the aggregate must have weighed 15 

 to 20 pounds. It made one positively 

 weary to look at some of them. The 

 necklaces generally consist of discs of 

 polished bone i to i>^ inches in diameter, 

 cowry shells, which are said to be im- 

 ported from Tibet — at any rate, they 

 filter down stream from the north — 

 variously shaped pieces of silver and 

 water-worn pieces of a poor quality of 

 turquoise which is found in the valley. 

 In addition to these there are generally 

 several strings of large blue beads, which, 

 I understand, are brought over as barter 

 from the Mekong Valley by a few Min- 

 chia traders who are daring enough to 

 risk their all dealing with those people. 

 The bangles and armlets are mostly of 

 pure silver, very rarely copper is seen, 

 and in this manner most of the girls carry 

 their dowry about with them. 



Few of the people can speak any Chi- 

 nese except the chiefs and their families. 

 They hardly go beyond their own vil- 

 lages and seem to live happy, quiet lives, 

 only disturbed by the occasional difficulty 

 of obtaining food and by the trouble and 

 petty exactions which attend the work of 

 collecting the chiefs' tribute, or house- 

 tax, of half a tael (= i shilling 4 pence) 

 per annum. The usually peaceable con- 

 dition of this portion of the valley is no 

 doubt due partly to the general absence 

 of interference by the Chinese manda- 

 rins, which is owing to the fact that the 

 country is too poor to be worth squeez- 

 ing. The chiefs have none of the ma- 



chinery and exercise none of the func- 

 tions of a regular government, except 

 collecting their dues, in which they are 

 assisted by a Chinese clerk. Each vil- 

 lage seems to regulate its own affairs 

 through its headman. 



A PECULIAR RIVER 



In this section of its course the Salwin 

 at low water varies from 90 to 130 yards 

 in breadth and in most parts is of great 

 depth. There are no falls, but numer- 

 ous rapids, at some of which the river is 

 contracted to less than 80 yards. The 

 volume of water in the rains is enor- 

 mous ; we found unmistakable signs of 

 the river having risen, in August, over 

 40 feet above its November level. In 

 the fine season the water is intensely 

 cold. The river is here confined, not 

 indeed between precipices, as was sup- 

 posed, but between a series of steep 

 ridges, falling down in endless suc- 

 cession from the Mekong and Irrawadi 

 divides. In many places these ridges 

 have a final sheer drop to the river of 

 5C0 to 1,000 feet, so steep indeed that, 

 even if climatic conditions allowed of 

 traveling at water level, it would be 

 found impossible to circumvent their 

 bases. 



The upper Salwin is quite free from 

 the great bends which characterize the 

 Yangtze ; it also receives no tributary 

 beyond a few mountain torrents, the 

 reason of this being, of course, the ex- 

 treme narrowness of the Salwin basin. 

 At latitude 26° 30' north an airline of 

 18 miles would join the east and west 

 limits of the basin, while in latitude 26° 

 50' north a line of 40 miles would span 

 it and also the basin of the Mekong. 



North of Luchang, on the west or 

 Irrawadi side of the Salwin, the moun- 

 tains are exceedingly precipitous, and 

 come down in a series of fantastic, jagged 

 ridges, divided by deep gutters. Alto- 

 gether our advance up the river was slow 

 in the extreme ; even the river banks at 

 the few places where we risked following 

 them were encumbered by enormous 

 boulders, piled together like Pelion upon 

 Ossa, rendering progress most difficult. 



