ANCIENT LOLOLAND

Roman Catholic Village — Deforestation — Nine Thousand Feet Pass — Vertical Ravine between us and our Goal — Huang Mu Market Town — Roman Catholic Mission — Lolo Groves — Market Day — Lolo Beauties — Lolos to Tea — Lolos Going Home — Salt Carriers' Gains — Three Passes — Rudeness in Market Towns — Hothouse Vegetation — Cantilever Bridge.

第九章 古老的羅羅地(Lololand)

天主教村莊(Roman Catholic Village) — 森林砍伐(Deforestation) — 九千英尺的山口(Nine Thousand Feet Pass) — 我們與目的地之間的垂直峽谷(Vertical Ravine) — 黃木集鎮(Huang Mu Market Town) — 天主教傳教站(Roman Catholic Mission) — 羅羅人的樹林(Lolo Groves) — 趕集日(Market Day) — 羅羅美女(Lolo Beauties) — 羅羅人來喝茶(Lolos to Tea) — 羅羅人歸家(Lolos Going Home) — 鹽販的收益(Salt Carriers' Gains) — 三個山口(Three Passes) — 集鎮上的無禮(Rudeness in Market Towns) — 溫室植物(Hothouse Vegetation) — 懸臂橋(Cantilever Bridge)。

August 23, 24, 25. — We were delayed three days at Ta Tien Ch'ih waiting for a special courier whom we had ordered up from Kiating with our mails. We stayed in the " Chinting," a roomy native one-floor house built by the villagers, who are mostly old Roman Catholic families, to receive the priest, who lives at Huangmuchang, thirty miles to the west, upon the occasions of his visitations ; the centre room being fitted up with an altar. This had been put at our disposal with the courtesy towards travellers which distinguishes the Catholic Fathers throughout China. We found the Christian villages most friendly. They had actually three girls' schools, and their houses were as clean as those surrounding them — members of three religions, as they called themselves — were dirty. To us it was delightful to have a house to ourselves and enjoy the privacy which is absolutely wanting in Chinese inns or temples. But it came very near proving our Capua. We were disinclined to move from it ; it poured with rain nearly the whole time, and the valley we found to be close and damp, though cool, and we hardly felt up to much more

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continuous walking. So we endeavoured to hire one of the many ponies that were grazing in the swampy meadows round the lake, but, though promised each day that ponies should be brought to our door the following morning, when the time arrived there was always some excuse, although we had been asked and had agreed to pay an exorbitant sum for their hire. It turned out afterwards that they were all mares, the stallions being away engaged in the transport of brick tea, and that the owners had never had any serious intention of hiring to us. The temperature while here ranged from night minimum of 56° to a day maximum of 6"]° , thus maintaining the character of Szechuan for its exceptionally equable climate. The height above the sea level we made to be 6020 feet. The valley produced little beyond maize in the bottom and a jungle grass on the slopes which is burnt for potash. A hundred years ago all this country was covered with dense forest, but now, except in the most inaccessible spots, there is scarcely a tree to be seen. As the naturaUst Amand David, who resided long in these parts, remarks, the Chinese antipathy to forests is due, probably, as much to their dread of wild beasts as to their need of lumber and firing. They are agriculturists and not hunters, and they destroy everything that interferes with the former pursuit, as they, in like manner, steadily and stealthily have driven out the aboriginal Thibetan and Lolo tribes by whom up to Kien Lung's time, all this country was exclusively inhabited. Within a day's journey of Ta Tien Ch'ih, Baber, 15 years before the time of our journey, found wild cattle known as the Bos Buemini or Beyamini. We crossed by low passes into neighbouring similar valleys, swampy ground occupying the bottom, the pools full of fish, the steep mountain sides covered with long grass, the spiked seeds of which tore through one's clothes and are a terror to dogs. Here and there a tumbledown farmstead surrounded by patches of maize, a wild gloomy country, from our walks in which we were careful to get back before dark. On the 24th our courier arrived with London letters to the 2nd of June, and Chung-

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king dates to the 7th of August. We found here the best honey we had ever tasted in our lives, and bought four catties for 200 cash a catty (less than sixpence for a pound), which proved a valuable addition to the unleavened corn bread on our subsequent journey. Although we found our residence here, owing to the damp, the reverse of beneficial, nowhere had we seen such healthy-looking Chinese ; they had a fine colour, unlike the usual yellow complexions, and were dressed in warm knitted woollen jackets from Ta-chien-lu.

8月23、24、25日—我們在塔田池(Ta Tien Ch'ih)耽擱了三天,等待一位我們從嘉定(Kiating)特別召喚來送信的信使。我們住在"金頂"(Chinting)，這是一座寬敞的單層本地房屋,由當地村民建造,他們大多是老天主教家庭。這座房子是為了接待住在西邊三十英里外的黃木廠(Huangmuchang)的神父在訪問期間使用的；中央房間設有一座祭壇。這裡已經按照天主教神父們在中國各地對待旅行者的禮節交給我們使用。我們發現基督教村莊非常友好。他們甚至有三所女子學校,他們的房子也像周圍那些他們所說的三教信徒的房子一樣乾淨—而後者是髒亂的。對我們來說,能有一個屬於自己的房子,享受在中國客棧或寺廟中完全無法得到的私密空間,這真是令人愉快。但這差點成了我們的卡普亞（意指使人安逸而失去進取心的地方）。

我們不太想離開這裡；幾乎一直在下雨,我們發現山谷雖然涼爽但悶熱潮濕,幾乎感覺無法繼續長途跋涉。於是我們試圖租用在湖邊沼澤草地上放牧的眾多小馬中的一匹,但是,雖然每天都被承諾第二天早上會把馬牽到我們門前,但到時總是有各種藉口,儘管我們已經同意支付高額的租金。後來發現這些都是母馬,公馬都被用來運輸磚茶去了,馬主們從來就沒有認真考慮過要租給我們。

我們在這裡時,溫度從夜間最低56度到日間最高67度,再次印證了四川(Szechuan)氣候異常溫和的特點。我們測得這裡的海拔為6020英尺。山谷底部除了玉米外幾乎沒有其他作物,斜坡上有叢生的草,用來燒製鉀肥。一百年前這整片區域都被茂密的森林覆蓋,但現在除了最難到達的地方外,幾乎看不到一棵樹。正如長期居住在這一帶的博物學家阿芒·大衛(Amand David)所說,中國人對森林的厭惡可能既源於他們對野獸的恐懼,也源於他們對木材和燃料的需求。他們是農民而不是獵人,他們消滅一切妨礙農耕的東西,就像他們穩步而悄然地驅逐了原住民藏族和羅羅族(Thibetan and Lolo)一樣,直到乾隆(Kien Lung)時期,這片土地都是完全由這些部族居住的。

在塔田池一天路程之內,巴伯(Baber)在我們旅行的15年前發現了被稱為布埃米尼牛或貝亞米尼牛(Bos Buemini or Beyamini)的野牛。我們穿過低矮的山口進入鄰近的類似山谷,底部是沼澤地,水池裡滿是魚,陡峭的山坡上長滿了長草,尖銳的草籽會刺穿衣服,是狗的噩夢。這裡那裡有破舊的農舍,周圍種著玉米,這是一片荒涼陰鬱的土地,我們外出散步時都小心在天黑前返回。

24日,我們的信使帶來了6月2日的倫敦信件和8月7日的重慶(Chungking)信件。我們在這裡找到了我們這輩子嚐過的最好的蜂蜜,以每斤200文錢（不到六便士一磅）的價格買了四斤,這在後來的旅程中成為無酵玉米麵包的寶貴配料。儘管由於潮濕,我們在這裡的住宿並不舒適,但我們從未見過如此健康的中國人；他們面色紅潤,不像一般的黃色膚色,而且穿著從打箭爐(Ta-chien-lu)來的溫暖針織毛衣。

August 27. — Set out at daylight to walk to Hung Mu Chang, thirty miles across the mountains. We quitted the " Celestial Pool " by an easy pass which led us into another wild valley, where, walking along a muddy path by the side of a reedgrown pond, we stopped for breakfast at an isolated farmhouse and inn, called Siao Tien Tse (Small Inn). The place was so filthy that we hurried on up the valley. Needless to say the proprietors were heathen ; and we resolved at once to tiffin in a Christian house if possible. Shortly afterwards we entered a wild uninhabited glen, up which we ascended steadily, following the course of a stream which meandered down it. Near the head of the glen we turned off to the left and commenced to ascend the side by a steep zigzag path which brought us to a cottage called Shan Chiao (mountain foot), where we halted for a few moments to collect our train in the fog. The country and the weather reminded us not a little of the mountains west of Killarney. From here on we continued the ascent up an interminable and abominably steep zigzag path that seemed to go on and on for ever in the clouds, until at last we halted in a cottage 50 feet below the top of the pass, a resting-place for porters, who use this road to carry goods — mainly salt — from Kiating to Fulin. Here we boiled our thermometer and found ourselves to be 9400 feet above the sea : the pass is called Soyilin (" Rain-clothes Forest ") from the trees, of which not one now remains. The ridge on the top was extremely narrow, and the descent on the other side, another steep zigzag over a rock-strewn path which tried us

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empty-handed, and we could not help pitying the poor salt porters with 200 lbs. of what looked like lumps of reddishgrey stone on their backs. At last we got out of the clouds, and the magnificent escarped walls of the Lolo country, beyond the Tung River, came once more into view. We proceeded up and down intervening ridges until we again found a ravine with a small stream at its bottom, down the bed of which our path lay. At half-past one we reached Chien Peng Tse (" Potash Sheds "), where, in a pleasingly clean cottage, kept by a Roman Catholic, we ate our mid-day meal, reclining awhile afterwards on a heap of chaff in the corner for a short siesta. Then on down the stream which here had already cut itself a walled-in channel in the limestone, till we reached the hamlet of Leng Chu Ping (" Cool Bamboo Flat "), and, passing through a short covered-in street, with about half a dozen houses on either side of the narrow pathway, we came in view of Huang Mu Chang. There it stood, on a charming wide green slope backed by a range of mountains which bounded the view before us ; it appeared to be two or three miles off, and we congratulated ourselves, saying that for once the natives had not under-estimated the distance. The hamlet, viewed from this point, appeared beautifully situated on its broad green slope, with groves scattered here and there, looking towards the huge cliffs of Lololand, which fall sheer into the waters of the Tung river, here invisible ; while the blue smoke of the mid-day fires ascended into the calm sun-lit sky. We walked briskly on, when all at once we were brought up short by a ravine about looo feet deep, between whose vertical walls flowed a deep rapid torrent coming from the high range on our right. A 500-feet long suspension bridge would have spanned the chasm and saved many miles of precipitous road ; but there was no bridge, and we had to turn aside to the right up the left bank of the ravine. Here a dangerous mountain path led us up to the head of the ravine, then a sharp descent to a spot where the river came tumbling down the mountain in a series of magnificent cascades at the foot of

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which was a narrow bridge. Crossing this we ascended by a still worse path on the opposite bank,_ the path leading in places along the sides of the precipice, across small gaps bridged over by a couple of fir-trees with straw laid over them to give a securer footing ; then mounting the summit of a cliff 200 or 300 feet up a steep narrow path ; then down again the same distance ; and so up and down continually. At length we left the ravine and mounted on to a plateau which sloped gently up to the range of steep mountains which fence it in on the north and west. To the south and east it ends abruptly in a ravine, whose vertical cliffs, over looo feet deep, follow down the stream we had just crossed to its junction with the great Tung River, some six miles distant, on the further right bank of which rise the stupendous cHffs that guard the mountains of the unconquered Lolo. It was now sunset, and having toiled all day up and down the steepest of mountain paths, we were not sorry to finish over the mile or more of level ground, through narrow paths winding amongst tall maize, which at length landed us in the single, narrow, dirty street, which forms the " Chang " or market-town of Huang Mu. We put up at a dilapidated but tolerable inn, got our supper at nine o'clock, and turned in immediately afterwards, both dead-beat. August 28. — A perfect summer's day, a thick white mist in the early morning hiding the expanse of maize-fields upon which the back windows of our inn looked out. A deliciously fragrant air and the thermometer at 60°, the elevation of Huang Mu Chang being just 6050 feet above sea level. We enjoyed a breakfast of bread and our delicious honey and cold spring water, and thought this the most bracing air we had yet experienced, therefore, as the morrow was market-day, we made up our minds to rest and enjoy ourselves for a couple of days on this charming plateau. We called on the amiable young priest, who presides over the Catholic Mission here as at that at Ta Tien Ch'ih, where he had 'already lent us his house, and were much interested in the neat well-kept range of Chinese buildings, which form a striking contrast to the

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