o are called Nou-su, a
people who, although occupying the Chao-t'ong Plain at the time the
Chinese arrived, are believed not to be the aboriginals of the district.
What I actually know about this people is not much. I have heard a good
deal, but it must not be understood that I publish this as absolutely
the final word. People who have lived in the district for many years do
not agree, so that for a mere traveler the task of getting infallible
data would be quite formidable.

No tribe is more widely known than the Nou-su, with their innumerable
tribal distinctions and hereditary peculiarities so perplexing to the
inquirer into Far Western China ethnology.

The Nou-su are a very fine, tall race, with comparatively fair
complexions, suggesting a mixture of Mongolian with some other
straight-featured people. Of their origin, however, little can be
vouched for, and with it we will have nothing to do here. But at the
present time the Nou-su provide a good deal of interest from the fact
that their power as tyrannic landlords and feudal chiefs is fast dying,
and it may be that in a couple of decades, or a still shorter time, a
people who, by obstinate self-reliance and great dislike to the Chinese,
have remained unaffected by the absorbing spirit of the arbitrary
Chinese, will have passed beyond the vale of personality. Even now,
however, they own and rule enormous tracts of country (notably that part
lying on the right bank of the River of Golden Sand) in north-east
Yuen-nan. Some are very wealthy. One man may own vast tracts bigger than
Yorkshire. In this tract there may be one hundred villages, all paying
tribute to him and subject to the vagaries of his vilest despotism. From
his tyranny his struggling tenantry have no redress. So long as the
I-pien (the local name of the Nou-su) greases the palm of the squeezing
Chinese mandarin in whose nominal control the district extends, he may
run riot as he pleases. Social law and order are unknown, justice is a
complete contradiction in terms, and whilst one is in the midst of it,
it is difficult to realize that in China to-day--the China which all the
world believes to be awakening--there exists a condition of things which
will allow a man to torture, to plunder, to murder, and to indulge to
the utmost degree the whims of a Neronic and devilish temperament.

Slave trading is common. If a tenant cannot pay his tribute, he sells
himself for a few taels and becomes the slave of his