Ssu Kou the Ta Tu changes its
name to Chin Ch'uan, or "Golden Stream," and the whole region is known
as the Chin Ch'uan country, and is famous in Chinese history as the
scene of one of the most hardly fought campaigns against the tribes.

On my return to Wa Ssu Kou a week later a free half-day gave me a chance
for a little run over the border. Guided by a respectable villager I
crossed the rickety bridge over the Tarchendo and after a breathless
climb came out on the top of the cliff, where I overlooked a wide
rolling plateau sloping steeply to the Ta Tu on the east, and enclosed
north and west by high mountains. The country seemed barren and almost
uninhabited, as though removed by hundreds of miles from the hard-won
prosperity and swarming life of the line of Chinese advance to
Tachienlu. Only occasionally did we meet any one, Chinese or Mantzu, and
there was no stir about the few dwellings that we passed, all high,
fortress-like buildings of stone. This whole region is almost unknown to
Europeans, and the few Chinese who go there are generally passing
traders. According to Hosie, they are allowed to take temporary wives
from the women of the country on payment of a sum of money to the tribal
head, but they must leave them behind when they depart.

The next day we ascended the valley of the Tarchendo to Tachienlu, a
distance of about twenty miles. There is a rise of thirty-five hundred
feet on this stage, but so gradual is the ascent that one realizes it
only in watching the stream, which is almost continuous rapid and
cataract. For miles there was scarcely a square yard of smooth water.
The only means of crossing from one bank to the other is by the rope
bridges, of which I saw three. Several times I had a chance to watch
some one making the trip. From a bamboo rope securely anchored on either
bank with heavy rocks, a sling-seat is suspended by means of a section
of bamboo which travels along the rope. Seated in the sling the weight
of the voyager carries him more than halfway across, but after that he
must haul himself up by sheer force. A slip would mean certain death,
and it is said that often on reaching the middle of the stream the
impulse to let go is uncontrollable. Hardy Western explorers have
frequently confessed their dread of these bridges, which are found
throughout the mountains of eastern Asia, but I saw men and women
crossing as though it were all in the day's work. But then the Chinese
have no nerve