ed horses followed by
twenty or thirty Tibetans, passed into the city while it was yet gray dawn.
They were bringing tea from P'u-erh and S'su-mao in the south of the
province and although they had already been nearly a month upon their
journey there was still many long weeks of travel before them ere they
reached the wind-blown steppes of their native land.

The trip to Yung-chang proved uninteresting and uneventful. We crossed a
succession of dry, thinly forested mountains from 7,000 to 8,000 feet high
which near their summits were often clothed with a thick growth of
rhododendron trees. The beautiful red flowers flashed like fire balls among
the green leaves, peach trees were in full blossom and in some spots the
dry hills seemed about to break forth in the full glory of their spring
verdure. We crossed the Mekong near a village called Shia-chai on a
picturesque chain suspension bridge of a type which is not unusual in the
southern and western part of the province. Several heavy iron chains are
firmly fastened to huge rock piers on opposite sides of the river and the
roadway formed by planks laid upon them. Although the bridge shakes and
swings in a rather alarming manner when a caravan is crossing, it is
perfectly safe if not too heavily loaded.

In the afternoon of January 21, we rode down the mountain to the great
Yung-chang plain, and for two hours trotted over a hard dirt road. The
plain is eighteen miles long by six miles wide and except for its scattered
villages, is almost entirely devoted to paddy fields. The city itself
includes about five thousand houses. It is exceedingly picturesque and is
remarkable for its long, straight, and fairly clean streets which contrast
strongly with those of the usual Chinese town. At the west, but still
within the city walls, is a picturesque wooded hill occupied almost
exclusively by temples.

We ourselves camped between two ponds in the courtyard of a large and
exceptionally clean temple just outside the south gate of the city. It was
the Chinese New Year and Wu told us that for several days at least it would
be impossible to obtain another caravan or expect the natives to do any
work whatever. It was a very pleasant place in which to stay although we
chafed at the enforced delay, but we made good use of our time in
photographing and developing motion picture film, collecting birds and
making various excursions.

Chinese New Year is always interesting to a foreigner and