tgil) ON CIIINKSK ADVKNTI'RKS 397 
loads would cover 30 to 40 miles a day — salt is got in bores 
sunk with bamboos to nearly a mile in depth; it takes 
two or three generations to sink a bore. The lecturer 
described the Chinese frontier town Quanchin, its people, 
its products, chiefly medicinal musk pods from musk deer. 
Here also the wonderful ancient damming of the river, 
and a temple to the constructor, who wrote, twe nty cen- 
turies ago, * dig out your ditches, but keep your banks 
low/ On we were taken along mountain trails over high 
snow-filled passes and across rivers on bamboo bridges 
to Wassoo, a timber centre from which great rafts of 
lumber arc shot down the river, over fearsome rapids, 
freighted with Chinamen. * They generally come through 
all right/ said the lecturer. 
Higher up the river (Mi 11) live the peaceful Ching 
Ming people, an ancient aboriginal stock, and beyond these 
the wild tribes, the Lolo themselves. Thev made doubtful 
friends with a c hief preparing for war. Means described 
a feast given to them in a barbaric hall hung with skins 
and weapons, the men clad in buckskin dyed red, and 
bristling with arms ; barbaric dishes, barbaric music. 
Then the hunt for new animals ; the Chinese Tarkin, the 
parti-coloured bear, blue mountain sheep, the golden- 
haired monkey, and talk of new fruits and flowers and 
a host of little-known birds. 
More adventures among the wild tribes of the moun- 
tains ; the white lamas, the black lamas and phallic 
worship. Curious prehistoric caves with ancient terra- 
cotta figures resembling only others found in Japan and 
supplying a curious link. A feudal system running with 
