ng a magnificent view over the Salween valley. Although we
reached there at half past two in the afternoon the _mafus_ insisted on
camping because they swore that there was no water within fifty _li_ up the
mountain. Very unwillingly I consented to camp and the next morning found,
as usual, that the _mafus_ had lied for there was a splendid camping place
with good water not two hours from Ho-mu-shu. It was useless to rage for
the Chinese have no scruples about honesty in such small matters, and the
head _mafu_ blandly admitted that he knew there was a camping place farther
on but that he was tired and wanted to stop early.

As we gained the summit of the ridge we were greeted with a ringing
"hu-wa," "hu-wa," "hu-wa," from the forest five hundred feet below us; they
were the calls of gibbons, without a doubt, but strikingly unlike those of
the Nam-ting River. We decided to camp at once and, after considerable
prospecting, chose a flat place beside the road. It was by no means ideal
but had the advantage of giving us an opportunity to hunt from either side
of the ridge which for its entire length was scarcely two hundred feet in
width. The sides fell away for thousands of feet in steep forest-clad
slopes and, as far as our eyes could reach, wave after wave of mountains
rolled outward in a great sea of green.

Our camp would have been delightful except for the wind which swept across
the pass night and day in an unceasing gale. My wife and I set a line of
traps along a trail which led down the north side of the ridge, while
Heller chose the opposite slope. We were entranced with the forest. The
trees were immense spreading giants with interlaced branches that formed a
solid roof of green 150 feet above the soft moss carpet underneath. Every
trunk was clothed in a smothering mass of vines and ferns and parasitic
plants and, from the lower branches, thousands of ropelike creepers swayed
back and forth with every breath of wind. Below, the forest was fairly open
save for occasional patches of dwarf bamboo, but the upper canopy was so
close and dense that even at noon there was hardly more than a somber
twilight beneath the trees.

Our first night on the pass was spent in a terrific gale which howled up
the valley from the south and swept across the ridge in a torrent of wind.
The huge trees around us bent and tossed, and our tents seemed about to be
torn to shreds. Amid the crashing of branches and the roar of the wind it
wa