province is supplied from three regions. The
water from the wells is boiled in great caldrons for several days, and the
resulting deposit is earth impregnated with salt. This is crushed, mixed
with water, and boiled again until only pure salt remains. After passing a
village of considerable size called Pei-ping, we began the ascent of an
exceedingly steep mountain range twelve thousand feet high. All the
afternoon we toiled upward in the rain and camped late in the evening at a
pine grove on a little plateau two-thirds of the way to the summit. During
the night it snowed heavily and we awoke to find ourselves in a transformed
world.

Every tree and bush was dressed in garments of purest white and between the
branches we could look westward across the valley toward the Mekong and the
purple mountain wall of the Burma border. There were still one thousand
feet of climbing between us and the summit of the pass. The trail was
almost blocked, but by slow work we forced our way through the drifts. Some
of the mules were already weak from exposure and underfeeding, and two of
them had to be relieved of their loads; they died the next day. Our _mafus_
did not appear to suffer greatly although their legs were bare from the
knees down and their feet had no covering except straw sandals. Indeed when
we discovered, on the summit of the pass, a tiny hut in which a fire was
burning, they waited only a few moments to warm themselves.

We met two other caravans fighting their way up the mountain from the other
side, and by following the trail which they had broken through the drifts
we made fairly good time on the descent. There had been no snow on the
broad, flat plain which we reached in the late afternoon and we found that
its ponds and fields were alive with ducks, geese, and cranes. The birds
were wild but we had good shooting when we broke camp in the morning and
killed enough to last us several days.

On December 31, our weary days of crossing range after range of tremendous
mountains were ended, and we stood on the last pass looking down upon the
great Chien-chuan plain. Outside the grim walls of the old city, which lies
on the main A-tun-tzu--Ta-li Fu road, are two large marshy ponds and, away
to the south, is an extensive lake. We camped just without the courtyard of
a fine temple, and at four o'clock Yvette and I went over to the water
which was swarming with ducks and geese.

Neither of us will ever forget that shoot in