Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/336

260 repose at the village of Shui Chai, built on the edge of a small cultivated basin high up on the range west of the river. The shelter was of the usual kind, and my repose was rudely interrupted by the village mummers, who continued to salute the New Year with jarring noises on drums and gongs. On the following day we dropped into a large, level, well-cultivated, and apparently prosperous plain, in which is situated the town of Yung Chang, the largest town between Tali Fu and T'eng Yüeh. It has an evil reputation for rowdyism, though I did not experience any discourtesy at the hands of its people myself. In the principal inns I found merchants importing cotton yarn from Burma, and by no means adverse to seeing a railway built from Bhamo.

From Yung Chang one travels in four days to T'eng Yüeh. The journey is a trying one by reason of the high ranges dividing the Salwin and Shweli, which have to be crossed. At the village of Pupiao, where I halted for the first night out from Yung Chang, I encountered a white man, engaged