1 58 



THE HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS OF KAYEICHOW 



nearly all the cultivable land was used for growing opium 

 poppy, the cultivation of which we were told was greatly on 

 the increase. What had evidently been formerly rice fields 

 was now poppy, and it is no wonder that the people look so 



poverty-stricken. 



The second stage after crossing the border was peculiarly 

 interesting, because we passed such strange shaped hills : 

 there was a whole series of round, low mounds, like pudding 

 basins, in contrast to the lofty jagged mountains which we 

 had just crossed, and in the midst was a curious tumbled 

 heap, looking as if some colossal earth worms had ejected it 

 from the plain {see Sketch 1). Sir A. Hosie says that there 

 is another row of these rounded hills about ten miles to the 

 south: they run east and west. — ("On the Trail of the 

 Opium Poppy" — Vol. II, p. 111. I am indebted to him for 

 the names of trees). Other curious hills we saw at this 

 time were remarkably like those in old Chinese pictures, 

 which one had always supposed to be conventional forms. 



We had been warned to take a liberal supply of pro- 

 visions with us, owing to the extreme poverty of the country, 

 and the fact that it is so little visited by travellers that no 

 provision is made for them, so we took one coolie load, but 

 it proved much more than we required. Certainly the 

 villages looked miserably poor, and in the markets there 

 were only things of singularly little value for sale. We saw 

 in most of them small groups of tribespeople — not mixing 

 much with the cheerful Chinese, but sullen-looking and 

 aloof, bartering their scanty produce of eggs, fowls, pigs and 

 vegetables. Bunches of azalea, too, they had brought in 



