Last stages of long journey. Characteristics of the country. Sham and Kachins. Author's dream of civilization. British pride. End of paved roads. Mountains cease. A confession of foiled plans. Nantien as a questionable fort. About the Shans. Village squabble, and how it ended. Absence of disagreement in Shan language. Charming people, but lazy. Experience with Shan servant. At Chiu-Ch'eng. New Year festivities. After-dinner diversions. Author as a medico. Ingratitude of the Chinese: some instances.

The Shan, the Kachin and the abominable betel quid! That quid which makes the mouth look bloody, broadens the lips, lays bare and blackens the teeth, and makes the women hideous. Such are the unfailing characteristics of the country upon which we are now entering.

By the following stages I worked my way wearily to the end of my long walking journey:—

 Length of Stage Height Above Sea
1st day—Nantien 90 li. 5,300 ft.
2nd day—Chiu-Ch'eng(Kang-gnai) 80 li. —
4th day—Hsiao Singai 60 li. —
5th day—Manyüen 60 li. 2,750 ft.
6th day—Pa-chiao-chai Approx. 55
English
miles. 1,200 ft.
7th day—Mao-tsao-ti 650 ft.
8th day—Bhamo (Singai) 350 ft.

Shans here monopolize all things. Chinese, although of late years drawn to this low-lying area, do not abound in these parts, and the Shan is therefore left pretty much to himself. And the pleasant eight-day march from Tengyueh to Bhamo, the metropolis of Upper Burma, probably offers to the traveler objects and scenes of more varying interest than any other stage of the tramp from far-away Chung-king. To the Englishman, daily getting nearer to the end of his long, wearying walk, and going for the first time into Upper Burma, incidentally to realize again the dream of civilization and comfort and contact with his own kind, leaving Old China in the rear, there instinctively came that inexpressible patriotic pride every Britisher must feel when he emerges from the Middle Kingdom and sets his foot again on British territory. The benefits are too numerous to cite; you must have come through China, and have had for companionship only your own unsympathetic coolies, and accommodation only such as the Chinese wayside hostelry has offered, to be able fully to realize what the luxurious dâk-bungalows, with their excellent appointments, mean to the returning exile.

Paved roads, the bane of man and beast, end a little out of Tengyueh. Mountains are left behind. There is no need now for struggle and constant physical exertion in climbing to get over the country. With no hills to climb, no stones to cut my feet or slip upon, with wide sweeps of magnificent country leading three days later into dense, tropical jungle, entrancing to the merest tyro of a nature student, and with the knowledge that my walking was almost at an end, all would have gone well had I been able to tear from my mind the fact that at this juncture I should have to make to the reader a great confession of foiled plans. For two days I was accompanied by the Rev. W.J. Embery, of the China Inland Mission, who was making an itinerary among the tribes on the opposite side of the Taping, which we followed most of the time. He rode a mule; and am I not justified in believing that you, too, reader, with such an excellent companion, one who had such a perfect command of the language, and who could make the journey so much more interesting, you would have ridden your pony? I rode mine! I abandoned pedestrianism and rode to Chiu-Ch'eng—two full days, and when, after a pleasant rest under a sheltering banyan, we went our different ways, I was sorry indeed to have to fall back upon my men for companionship.

But it was not to be for long.

Nantien is, or was, to be a fort, but the little place bears no outward military evidences whatever which would lead one to believe it. It is populated chiefly by Shans. The bulk of these interesting people now live split up into a great number of semi-independent states, some tributary to Burma, some to China, and some to Siam; and yet the man-in-the-street knows little about them. One cannot mistake them, especially the women, with their peculiar Mongolian features and sallow complexions and characteristic head-dress. The men are less distinguishable, probably, generally speaking, but the rough cotton turban instead of the round cap with the knob on the top alone enables one more readily to pick them out from the Chinese. Short, well-built and strongly made, the women strike one particularly as being a hardy, healthy set of people.

Shans are recognized to be a peaceful people, but a village squabble outside Chin-ch'eng, in which I took part, is one of the exceptions to prove the rule.