190 FINE VIEW 
line of perpetual snow. About here is a great place 
for the medicine collectors, and I found a fine species of 
wild onion of good flavour growing in moist ground. 
There were also many lilies of various species, but none 
in bloom. I took some photographs from this place. 
One night [noticed that the tent was leaking through 
the drip from a pine tree falling on it, and I told a 
coolie to cut it down and to be sure to have a rope 
made fast to clear it of the tent in its fall. He cut the 
tree down but took no precaution, the consequence 
being that it fell right across the ridge pole, and had it 
not been for a tree on the other side, against which it 
fell, everything in the tent must have been smashed. 
As it was, a good deal of damage was done ; but I only 
mention this to show how careless these people are. 
On May 23 I received a letter from Father Soulié, 
telling me that two of my collectors had come in from 
Wa-ssu-kou, and were in want of more collecting boxes 
and a larger cyanide bottle. I was, therefore, obliged 
to return to Ta-tsien-lu to see to their requirements. 
Crossing the pass, the weather being fine and clear, 
splendid views were obtained both to the south, over 
the forest-clad valley as far as the eye could reach 
beyond Mo-si-mien, and to the north, as far as the snow- 
clad mountains beyond Ta-tsien-lu. To the left was a 
conical-shaped mountain covered with snow—a most 
