160 THE HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS OF KWEICHOW 



of the C.I.M. kindly entertained us there, and that became 

 our starting point for visiting the aborigines. Directly you 

 leave the city you strike away from the main road and 

 climb up and up among the hills. We were nearly twelve 

 hours reaching our destination and only passed through one 

 village, while rarely did we see a tiny hamlet or isolated 

 house, and very little cultivation. An accident to one of 

 my carrying poles was a matter for some concern under the 

 circumstances, but by great good fortune it happened close 

 to a farm house and the farmer was able to provide us with 

 a pole which he was good enough to part with. As we were 

 waiting here a tribeswoman came along wearing a singular 

 head-dress, with a flat oar-shaped projection behind. Al- 

 though Mr. Slichter had lived and worked for years amongst 

 the tribespeople, he had not either seen or heard of this 

 tribe, and it seems certain there are a large number of tribes 

 whose names even are unknown, not only to foreigners but 

 also to the Chinese of the very provinces where they live, 

 so completely do they live apart. They have been driven 

 back at intervals all through the centuries and their lands 

 taken from them, so that they are always at feud with the 

 Chinese, who despise them on account of their low morality 

 and their illiteracy. The meanest Chinese coolie will not 

 for any amount of pay carry a Miao woman in a travelling 

 chair, and the basis of this refusal is a question of morals. 



To return to our journey: after several hours' travelling 

 we came to a river, which was the boundary beyond which 

 the foreigner was for many many years not allowed to go, 

 because of the hostility felt by the tribespeople against all 

 strangers. As the Chinese have been fighting against them 

 at least 2,700 years (according to historical records), this is 

 hardly a matter for surprise, and although they are nominally 

 no longer independent, in reality they are far from obeying 

 their Chinese masters. The last fight they made less than 

 fifty years ago, when the slaughter was great on both sides. 

 As we looked down upon the swirling river from the heights 

 above, we felt as if that were the Eubicon : it was certainly 

 an astonishing change to spend the ensuing time amongst 

 such different people, as different as passing from one 

 European country to another. 



After a long hot climb we came to a village where a 

 fair was going on, and Mr. Slichter succeeded (with some 

 difficulty) in getting a little water boiled to make tea for us, 

 but it was certainly scant measure and was a great contrast 

 with a Chinese village, where boiling water can always be 

 had. We pursued our journey upward and ever upward, 

 till we saw the village of Tenten nestling on a steep hill 



