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This Yang, however, was such a brute of a man that no young girl was safe where he was; however, as a soldier he was indomitable. Some years ago, so the wags say, when Tali-fu was threatened by rebels, Kwan-ïn saved the city by transforming herself into a Herculean creature, and carrying upon her back a stone of several tons weight, presumably to block the path.
His head, preserved in honey, was sent to Peking. The imperial troops poured into Tali-fu. A general massacre occurred. Those Mohammedans that were not slaughtered fled to the mountains, where they still continued to keep up a guerilla warfare. But the rebellion was practically at an end, and by 1874 the authority of the central government was firmly established throughout the province.
The Himalayas and the country I am now describing have therefore something in common. Just before this the beautiful mountains, behind which was the Tali-fu Lake, made a sight worth coming a long way to see. In the forest district I found the houses all built of timber wood piles placed horizontally and dovetailed at the ends, the roofs being thatched.
Not for a moment throughout the day did he leave my side, the only good point about him being that when we drank tea, of course he vainly begged to be allowed to pay. In that he was the shadow of some of my friends of younger days. But of men enough. From Ch'u-hsiong-fu on to Tali-fu the whole country bears lamentable signs of gradual ruin and decay, a falling off from better times.
It has been humorously remarked that in case of disturbances the first thing the Chinese Tommy would do would be to shoot the officers for treating him so badly and for drilling him so hard and long. What is true of the capital in respect to military progress I found to be true also of Tali-fu.
This was in travel some ten or twelve years ago, and the fact that there are now many Minchia families living in Hungay is a testimony to their enterprise as a tribe in going farther afield in search of the means to live. There is little doubt that the Minchia originally came from country lying between the border of the province and round Li-chiang-fu and the Tali-fu plain and lake.
The forward racial condition of the Lolo people in this district is far greater than that of the people of the same tribe to the west of Tali-fu, and in latitudes where their language and customs of life and dress are more or less maintained.
The second part of my trip was from almost the extreme east to the extreme west of Yün-nan from Tong-ch'uan-fu to Bhamo, in British Burma. Yün-nan-fu to Tali-fu 905 li. I also made a rather extended tour among the Miao tribes, in country untrodden by Europeans, except by missionaries working among the people. Stages to the capital. Universality of reform in China.
There is, however, another kind of road a mud road, and with a vengeance muddy. In the rainy season the fields are drained into the roads, which at times are constantly under water, and beyond Yün-nan-fu, on my way to Tali-fu, I often found it easier and more speedy to tramp bang across a rice field, taking no notice of where the road ought to be.
With the exception of one small patch, some ten miles away from the main road between Yün-nan-fu and Tali-fu, I saw no poppy whatever in the province. This does not mean, however, that no opium is to be had. If there is no opium, where do the people so easily secure it in endeavors to take their lives upon the slightest provocation?
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