he climb from 2,000 feet to over
8,000 feet_. _Scenery in the valley_. _Queer quintet of soldiers_.
_Semi-tropical temperature_. _My men fall to the ground exhausted_. _A
fatiguing day_. _Benighted in the forest_. _Spend the night in a hut_.
_Strong drink as it affects the Chinese_. _Embarrassing attentions of a
kindly couple_. _New Year festivities at Kan-lan-chai_. _The Shweli
River and watershed_. _Magnificent range of mountains_. _Arrival at
Tengyueh._

No Chinese, I knew, lived in the Valley; but I had yet to learn that so
soon as the country drops to say less than 4,000 feet the Chinese
consider it too unhealthy a spot for him to pass his days in. The reason
why Shans control the Valley is, therefore, not hard to find.

And owing to the probability that what European travelers have written
about the unhealthiness of this Salwen Valley has been based on
information obtained from Chinese, its bad name may be easily accounted
for. The next morning, as I descended, I saw much malarial mist rising;
but, after having on a subsequent visit spent two days and two nights at
the lowest point, I am in a position to say that conditions have been
very much exaggerated, and that places quite as unhealthy are to be
found between Lu-chiang-pa (the town at the foot, by the bridge) and the
low-lying Shan States leading on to Burma.

A good deal of the country to the north of the Yuen-nan province, towards
the Tibetan border, is so high-lying and so cold that the Yuen-nanese
Chinese is afraid to live there; and the fact that in the Shan States,
so low-lying and sultry, he is so readily liable to fever, prevents him
from living there. These places, through reports coming from the
Chinese, are, as a matter of course, dubbed as unhealthy. The average
inhabitant--that is, Chinese--strikes a medium between 4,000 feet and
10,000 feet to live in, and avoids going into lower country between
March and November if he can.

To pass the valley and go to Kan-lan-chi (4,800 feet), passing the
highest point at nearly 9,000 feet--140 li distant from
Fang-ma-ch'ang--was our ambition for the day.

Starting in the early morning, I had a pleasant walk over an even road
leading to a narrowing gorge, through which a heart-breaking road led to
the valley beyond. Two and a half hours it took me, in my foreign boots,
to cover the twenty li. I fell five times over the smooth stones. The
country was bare, desolate, lonely--four people only were met ove