I might
describe it as a member of a British infantry regiment once described to
me a slope on the Himalayas. It was about eight years ago, and a few
fellows were at a smoker given to some Tommies returning from India,
when a bottle-nosed individual, talking about a long march his battalion
had made up the Himalayas, in excellent descriptive exclaimed, "'Twasn't
a 'ill, 'twasn't a graydyent, 'twas a blooming precipice, guvnor." The
Himalayas and the country I am now describing have therefore something
in common.
Just before this the beautiful mountains, behind which was the Tali-fu
Lake, made a sight worth coming a long way to see.
Midway down the steep hill we happened on some lonely log cottages,
twenty-five li from T'ai-p'ing-p'u (it is reckoned as thirty-five li
traveling in the opposite direction). In the forest district I found the
houses all built of timber--wood piles placed horizontally and
dovetailed at the ends, the roofs being thatched. You have merely to
step aside from the road, and you are in dense mountain forest; it is
manifestly easier and less costly than the mud-built habitation,
although for their part the people are worse off because of the lack of
available ground for growing their crops.
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