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Such caravans travel much more slowly than do mule trains although the animals are not loaded as heavily. Two or three of the leading cows usually carry upon their backs large bells hung in wooden frameworks and the music is by no means unmelodious when heard at a distance. Marco Polo, the great Venetian traveler, refers to Yung-chang as "Vochang."
We left Yung-chang with no regret on Monday, January 28. Our stay there would have been exceedingly pleasant under ordinary conditions but it was impossible not to chafe at the delay occasioned by the caravan.
On our way to Yung-chang and for several days after leaving the city, we were continually passing young women mounted on mules or horses and accompanied by servants returning to their homes.
Thus the reign of terror in this portion of the province was ended through the efforts of one courageous man. It is such applied Christianity that has made us respect the missionary and admire his work. The last half of the expedition began January 13 when we left Ta-li Fu with a caravan of thirty miles for Yung-chang, eight days' travel to the south.
In the chapter devoted to Yün-nan-fu I have referred to the military of Tali-fu, but here I saw the men actually at drill, and a finer set of men I have rarely seen in Europe. The military Tao-tai lives here. Progress is phenomenal. At Yung-chang, the westernmost prefecture of the Empire, the commanding officer could even speak English.
Lung-ling is a typical Chinese town except that the streets are wide and it is not as dirty as usual. The mandarin was a jolly rotund little fellow who simulated great sympathy when he informed me that he had received no mail for us. We had left directions to have a runner follow us from Yung-chang and in the event that he did not find our camp to proceed to Lung-ling with the mail.
Yung-chang appears to be almost entirely inhabited by Chinese and in no part of the province did we see foot-binding more in evidence. Practically every woman and girl, young or old, regardless of her station in life was crippled in this brutal way. The women wear long full coats with flaring skirts which hang straight from their shoulders to their knees.
They were bringing tea from P'u-erh and S'su-mao in the south of the province and although they had already been nearly a month upon their journey there was still many long weeks of travel before them ere they reached the wind-blown steppes of their native land. The trip to Yung-chang proved uninteresting and uneventful.
These reptiles, probably alligators, were ten feet long, had two legs armed with claws, and with their large heads and great jaws could at one gulp swallow a man. Five days' journey west of Carajan, Marco Polo took a new route to the south, and entered the province of Zardandan, whose capital Nocian, is the modern town of Yung-chang.
But twenty li south of Yung-chang, just beyond the village of A-shih-wo, there is an enormous cave which is reported to extend entirely through the hill. Whether or not this is true we can not say for although we explored it in part we did not reach the end. The central corridor is about thirty feet wide and at least sixty or seventy high.
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