Expedition To Kueichow: Land of the Forked-tail Monkey and Many Strange Tribes Washington, Oct. 17.—Kueichow, where the mysterious non-Chinese tribes' of China live and where the famed forked-tail monkey is said to: dwell, is to be explored by the National Geographic Society.
Frederick R. Wulsin has been designated to proceed to Peking to organize a staff for a trip into the remotest part of China. The province fo be explored is about the size of Missouri and* has a population of 8,000,000. It is as inaccessible as Thibet..
One of the few visitors who has penetrated only the fringe of Kweichow has said he saw there types resembling the Ghurka, the South Sea Islander, the American Indian, the East Indian and the negro. About 3,500,- 000 in the province have survived Chinese absorption. Many of the strongholds have never been visited by white men, and whole tribes do not know' that the World War was fought.
Travellers have reported that some of the tribes thrash grain on the roof-tops, as in the Holy Land; that others have great "prayer flags" flying on fortified castles and that quarrels are set-tied on horseback with blunder-buses, broadswords and bags of stones as weapons.
The monkey the expedition will seek is the rhinopithecus brelichi, of which the only specimen known is a skin. There has been speculation, the Geographic Society says, regarding the possibility of this species being an animal] described in a famous passage of Chinese literature as follows:
"Tts nose is turned upward, and the tail very long and forked at the end; whenever it rains the animal thrusts the forks into its nose. It goes in herds and lives in friendship; when one dies the rest accompany it to burial. Its activity is so great that it runs its head against the trees; its fur is'soft and grey and the face black."
Kueichow lies on the watershed between the Yangtze and, Si! kiang Rivers.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.