up my mind that I would stay here for
a night to see the effects of the climate, but postponed my sojourn
intead to a later period, when I stayed two days, and went up the
low-lying country towards the source of the river; I am, so far as I
know, the only European who has ever traveled here. Not that my
journeyings will convey any great benefit upon anyone but myself, as I
had no instruments for surveying or taking accurate levels, and might
not have been able to use them had I had them with me. However, I came
in contact with Li-su, and saw in my two marches a good deal of new
life, which only acts as an incentive to see more. My plan on the
present occasion was to travel onwards by the following stages:--

Length Height
of Stage Above Sea

1st day--Tali-shao 65 li. 7,200 ft.
2nd day--Yung-ch'ang-fu 75 li. 5,500 ft.
5th day--Fang-ma-ch'ang 90 li. 7,300 ft.
6th day--Ta-hao-ti 120 li. 8,200 ft.
7th day--Tengyueh (Momien) 85 li. 5,370 ft.

On Friday, February 26th, 1909, I steamed up the muddy mouth of the
Mekong to Saigon in Indo-China in a French mail steamer. To-day,
February 3rd, 1910, I cross the same river many hundreds of miles from
where it empties into the China Sea. I cross by a magnificent suspension
bridge.

A cruel road, almost vertical and negotiated by a twining zigzag path,
has brought me down, after infinite labor, from the mountains over 4,000
feet below my highest point reached yesterday, and I now stand in the
middle of the bridge gazing at the silent green stream flowing between
cliffs of wall-like steepness. I am resting, for I have to climb again
immediately to over 8,000 feet. This bridge has a wooden base swinging
on iron chains, and is connected with the cliffs by bulwarks of solid
masonry. It is hard to believe that I am 4,000 feet above the mouth of
the river. To my left, as I look down the torrent, there are tea-shops
and a temple alongside a most decorative buttress on which the carving
is elaborate. At the far end, just before entering the miniature tunnel
branching out to a paved roadway leading upwards, my coolies are sitting
in truly Asiatic style admiring huge Chinese characters hacked into the
side of the natural rock, descriptive of the whole business, and under a
sheltering roof are