PLEASURES OF TRAVEL
But, on the whole, I found the difficulties of this almost unknown route by no means so serious as I had been led to expect. I never for a moment regretted that I had so obstinately declined to be guided by the timid officials at Tachienlu, and never found myself without a good reserve of strength and energy at the end of every day's march. I should be indeed sorry if my description of the route should deter others from undertaking the same journey. Granted health, strength, a first-rate digestion, and an average fund of cheerfulness, there is no reason whatever why any of my readers who longs to behold Nature in her supreme glory should not forthwith pack up his hand-bag—he should take little else—and follow in my steps with a light heart. Would that I could bear him company: for the spirits of the mountain and the forest never cease, in hours of solitude, to haunt the mind of him who has known them once and learned something of their spell.
The reader who does not propose to undertake any such expedition may be recommended to glance but lightly at many of the pages that follow. The details of my daily march through the mountains of Chinese Tibet to the borders of Yunnan will hardly be of interest to any but those who are themselves travellers or are contemplating a journey of a similar kind.
My route from Tachienlu to the frontier of Yunnan may be divided for descriptive purposes into three sections: the first, from Tachienlu to the village of Pa-U-Rong, on the banks of the Yalung or Nya Ch'u, occupying eleven days; the second, from the west bank of the Yalung to the lamasery of Muli, seven days; and the third, from Muli to Yung-ning in north-western Yunnan, three days.
OCTAGONAL TOWERS
Of the first section, the two first stages from Tachienlu have already been described. On the third day from Tachienlu (17th April), my road led in a most tortuous manner through three long valleys, fairly well populated and sprinkled with villages. The first village, about 3 miles from A Te, is Du Sz Drung, situated at the point where the road emerges from the first and turns into the second valley—the direction as far as Du Sz Drung being south-west, and thereafter almost due west. Opposite the next village of Dza Ri K'u is a conspicuous conical hill; a little further on the valley (lying N.N.E. and W.S.W.) becomes very much broader, and is dotted with several isolated houses and a village named Ring I Drung. Here we changed ula. Immediately afterwards, we struck off to the south into the third valley, keeping to the left bank of a stream named the Dja Ki Ch'u. In the villages of these valleys I observed several cases of goitre, a complaint which is common in the highlands of Ssuch'uan and the lofty tableland of Yunnan. Curious octagonal stone towers, now seen for the first time, are a conspicuous feature in the landscape of both these valleys. The towers which are described by Gill[188] as existing further north in the country explored by him are evidently of the same pattern. Baber, who knew of them only from Gill's account, has made the following observations on the subject. "What the use of these buildings may have been is unknown, but the presumption is that they were watch-towers; for the present purpose it is enough to know that they are universally said to have been erected by the Menia, and that there is nothing resembling them west of the Yalung on the main road."[189] My own observation corroborates the information given to Baber. I passed a large number of the towers, but none further west than Ri Wa, which was still five days' journey from the Yalung by my route. All were built on the same plan, and have eight corners, as shown in the ground plan on the following page. That they were used as watch-towers and beacon-stations is highly probable, for they are generally placed in positions from which the watchers would have an uninterrupted view up and down the valleys; but as I observed several of them close together, when one would have been sufficient according to the watch-tower theory, it is probable that they must have been used also as fortresses. At the advance of an enemy the tribesmen very likely drove their cattle and other animals into the large room on the ground floor,[190] and used the upper stories for their own protection.
Missiles could be discharged from the roof and from the narrow holes that served also as windows: just as was the case with the old peel-towers of the Scottish border. I explored several of the towers, but found no inscriptions. They are nearly all in a dilapidated condition, but some have been kept in good preservation and are used as granaries and store-houses. In one case at least the tower has been made to serve as the wing of a modern house of the ordinary Tibetan type, and the interior has been partially reconstructed.
