When you meet a burly, skin-clad gentleman on the Kokonor border abristle with deadly weapons, and, hailing him politely, ask: "What are you" t he will reply innocently it reler patois "Are! I am a savage."
Western Savages—"Hsi Fan—the Chinese call the Tibetans, and the Chinese-speaking border men have assumed this title with little thought as to its meaning and no resentment whatever. Out in the grass lands among his herds and his black tent clusters, the Tibetan is a person to be heard and conciliated, but this side the border, in the trading towns, he is the ancient butt of Chinese insult and ridicule and the natural prey of the Chinese trader, who pursues the ike herdsman with cruel bar-and bad silver and sends him back to his grass lands poorer in goods than he came and richer in wine-inspired hilarity only.
Armed but Amiable.
From the border of Mongolia to Burma, in all China's western onto posts, one mete the Hsi Fan, lama and layman, priest and herdsman, always armed and curly, but amiable and hospitable in his savagery to those who have the tact to conciliate him. The Tibetans were once dangerous invaders of China, but monasticism, " bard life in a hard country and poverty have drained their strength and they are a dying, retreating race. Someone, perhaps Chin Shih-huang, once built a wall linking up with the Great Wall near Hangchow, and skirting the present border west of Sining and west of Taochow to hold the nomads in check, but the wall is down now and the Chinese are well beyond it, planting good grass land in barley and forcing the Tibetans further and further back into their bleak hills and wind swept valleys. Still there are highlands in Kansu, and one or two good valleys, that the Tibetans have held by turning farmers and becoming Chinese in all but language and their blind eubservince to the all devouring lamas, "Ul,". the herdsman call these agriculturists and they are held in proper contempt by the ill-fed nomads who roost in comfortless tents on storm swept uplands and fight hopelessly against extinction.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.