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It is by no means abundant in the parts of Yün-nan which we visited and, moreover, lives in such dense jungle that it is difficult to find. The natives sometimes snare the birds and offer them for sale alive. We also saw monkeys at our camp on the Salween River, but were not successful in killing any.
But in similar places only a few miles away, where there is an abundance of cover, the natives said the animals had never been seen, and neither were they known on the opposite side of the mountain range where the Teng-yueh Tali-Fu road crosses the Salween valley.
It was three stages from Lung-ling and, toward evening of the second day, we again descended to the Salween River. The valley at this point is several miles wide and is so dry that the few shrubs and bushes seem to be parched and barely able to live. At the upper end a picturesque village is set among extensive rice fields.
An early start in the morning and we descended quickly to the River Shweli. The Salween River is at an elevation of 2600 feet. Forty-five li further the road reaches at Fengshui-ling a height of 8730, from which point, in thirty-five li, it dips again to the River Shweli, 4400 feet above sea level. There was the usual suspension bridge at the river, and the inevitable likin-barrier.
The country through which we passed was a succession of dry treeless hills, brown and barren and devoid of animal life. On the evening of the third day we reached the Salween at a ferry a few miles from the village of Changlung where the river begins its great bend to the eastward and sweeps across the border from China into Burma.
Because of the fever the valleys are largely inhabited by "Chinese Shans" who differ in dress and customs from the Southern Shans of the Nam-ting River. Few of the men were tattooed and the women all wore the enormous cylindrical turban which we had seen once before in the Salween Valley. At noon of the fifth day we crossed the Yün-nan border into Burma.
Very few natives crossed at the ferry during our stay, for it is a long way from the main road and the climb out of the gorge is too formidable to be undertaken if the Salween can possibly be crossed higher up where the valley is wide and shallow.
The Salween was formerly the boundary between Burma and China, and it is to be regretted that at the annexation of Upper Burma England did not push her frontier back to its former position. But the delimitation of the frontier of Burma is not yet complete. No time could be more opportune for its completion than the present, when China is distracted by her difficulties with Japan.
We were en route to Lung-ling, a town of considerable size, where there was a possibility that mail might be awaiting us in care of the mandarin. Although ordinarily a three days' journey, it was more than four days before we arrived, because I had a sharp attack of malaria shortly after leaving the Salween River and we had to travel half stages.
It is a tiny village built into the mountain-side with hardly fifty yards of level ground about it, but commanding a magnificent view over the Salween valley. Although we reached there at half past two in the afternoon the mafus insisted on camping because they swore that there was no water within fifty li up the mountain.
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