The reason
why Shans control the Valley is, therefore, not hard to find.
And owing to the probability that what European travelers have written
about the unhealthiness of this Salwen Valley has been based on
information obtained from Chinese, its bad name may be easily accounted
for. The next morning, as I descended, I saw much malarial mist rising;
but, after having on a subsequent visit spent two days and two nights at
the lowest point, I am in a position to say that conditions have been
very much exaggerated, and that places quite as unhealthy are to be
found between Lu-chiang-pa (the town at the foot, by the bridge) and the
low-lying Shan States leading on to Burma.
A good deal of the country to the north of the Yuen-nan province, towards
the Tibetan border, is so high-lying and so cold that the Yuen-nanese
Chinese is afraid to live there; and the fact that in the Shan States,
so low-lying and sultry, he is so readily liable to fever, prevents him
from living there. These places, through reports coming from the
Chinese, are, as a matter of course, dubbed as unhealthy. The average
inhabitant--that is, Chinese--strikes a medium between 4,000 feet and
10,000 feet to live in, and avoids going into lower country between
March and November if he can.
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