| FACING PAGE | |
| Our camp on the Snow Mountain at an altitude of 12,000 feet | |
| [Frontispiece] | |
| Yvette Borup Andrews with a pet Yün-nan squirrel | [4] |
| Edmund Heller | [4] |
| Roy Chapman Andrews and a goral | [4] |
| A Chinese hunter and a muntjac | [28] |
| Brigands killed in the Yen-ping Rebellion | [28] |
| The Ling-suik monastery | [62] |
| A priest of Ling-suik | [62] |
| A Chinese mother with her children | [70] |
| Chinese women of the coolie class with bound feet | [70] |
| Cormorant fishers on the lake at Yün-nan Fu | [84] |
| Our camp at Chou Chou on the way to Ta-li Fu | [84] |
| The Pagodas at Ta-li Fu | [96] |
| The dead of China | [96] |
| The residence of Rev. William J. Hanna at Ta-li Fu | [102] |
| The gate and main street of Ta-li Fu | [102] |
| One of the pagodas at Ta-li Fu | [108] |
| A Moso herder | [112] |
| A Moso woman | [112] |
| The Snow Mountain | [116] |
| A cheek gun used by one of our hunters | [118] |
| The first goral killed on the Snow Mountain | [118] |
| Hotenfa, one of oar Moso hunters, bringing in a goral | [120] |
| Another Moso hunter with a porcupine | [120] |
| A typical goral cliff on the Snow Mountain | [132] |
| A serow killed on the Snow Mountain | [140] |
| The head of a serow | [140] |
| The "white water" | [152] |
| A Liso hunter carrying a flying squirrel | [162] |
| The chief of our Lolo hunters | [162] |
| A Lolo village | [174] |
| Lolos seeing their photographs for the first time | [174] |
| Travelers in the Mekong valley | [180] |
| Two Tibetans | [180] |
| The gorge of the Yangtze River | [184] |
| A quiet curve of the Mekong River | [190] |
| The temple in which we camped at Ta-li Fu | [200] |
| A crested muntjac | [200] |
| The south gate at Yung-chang | [210] |
| A Chinese bride returning to her mother's home at New Year's | [210] |
| A Chinese patriarch | [224] |
| Young China | [224] |
| A Shan village | [234] |
| A Shan woman spinning | [234] |
| A Kachin woman in the market at Meng-ting | [240] |
| One of our Shan hunters with two yellow gibbons | [240] |
| Our camp on the Nam-ting River | [246] |
| The Shan village at Nam-ka | [246] |
| The head of a gibbon killed on the Nam-ting River | [254] |
| A civet | [254] |
| A Shan girl | [260] |
| A Shan boy | [260] |
| A suspension bridge | [288] |
| Mrs. Andrews feeding one of our bear cubs | [288] |
| A sambur killed at Wa-tien | [302] |
| The head of a muntjac | [302] |
| A mountain chair | [312] |
| The waterfall at Teng-yueh | [312] |
| Map I. The red line indicates the travels of the Expedition | [318] |
| Map II. Route of the Expedition in Yün-nan | [320] |
CAMPS AND TRAILS
IN CHINA
CHAPTER I
THE OBJECT OF THE EXPEDITION
The earliest remains of primitive man probably will be found somewhere in the vast plateau of Central Asia, north of the Himalaya Mountains. From this region came the successive invasions that poured into Europe from the east, to India from the north, and to China from the west; the migration route to North America led over the Bering Strait and spread fanwise south and southeast to the farthest extremity of South America. The Central Asian plateau at the beginning of the Pleistocene was probably less arid than it is today and there is reason to believe that this general region was not only the distributing center of man but also of many of the forms of mammalian life which are now living in other parts of the world. For instance, our American moose, the wapiti or elk. Rocky Mountain sheep, the so-called mountain goat, and other animals are probably of Central Asian origin.
Doubtless there were many contributing causes to the extensive wanderings of primitive tribes, but as they were primarily hunters, one of the most important must have been the movements of the game upon which they lived. Therefore the study of the early human races is, necessarily, closely connected with, and dependent upon, a knowledge of the Central Asian mammalian life and its distribution. No systematic palæontological, archæological, or zoölogical study of this region on a large scale has ever been attempted, and there is no similar area of the inhabited surface of the earth about which so little is known.
The American Museum of Natural History hopes in the near future to conduct extensive explorations in this part of the world along general scientific lines. The country itself and its inhabitants, however, present unusual obstacles to scientific research. Not only is the region one of vast intersecting mountain ranges, the greatest of the earth, but the climate is too cold in winter to permit of continuous work. The people have a natural dislike for foreigners, and the political events of the last half century have not tended to decrease their suspicions.
It is possible to overcome such difficulties, but the plans for extensive research must be carefully prepared. One of the most important steps is the sending out of preliminary expeditions to gain a general knowledge of the natives and fauna and of the conditions to be encountered. For the first reconnaissance, which was intended to be largely a mammalian survey, the Asiatic Zoölogical Expedition left New York in March, 1916.
Its destination was Yün-nan, a province in southwestern China. This is one of the least known parts of the Chinese Republic and, because of its southern latitude and high mountain systems, the climate and faunal range is very great. It is about equal in size to the state of California and topographically might be likened to the ocean in a furious gale, for the greater part of its surface has been thrown into vast mountain waves which divide and cross one another in hopeless confusion.
Yün-nan is bordered on the north by Tibet and S'suchuan, on the west by Burma, on the south by Tonking, and on the east by Kwei-chau Province. Faunistically the entire northwestern part of Yün-nan is essentially Tibetan, and the plateaus and mountain peaks range from altitudes of 8,000 feet to 20,000 feet above sea level. In the south and west along the borders of Burma and Tonking, in the low fever-stricken valleys, the climate is that of the mid-tropics, and the native life, as well as the fauna and flora, is of a totally different type from that found in the north.