Despite the wet season the majority of the Chengtu foreign community ploughed their way through mud and rain to_ their respective summer resorts. Oumei, Kuanhsien and Pehluting are the popular places and all available rooms have been occupied.
The latter is the youngest of the trio and has a baker's dozen of bungalows.
This year it was included in the robber infested district and a consular warning was sent to those planning to make their summer residence there.
Later, after consultation with the heads of the market towns, in the vicinity, who were in close touch with the leaders of the robbers, the foreigners decided to take the risk and most of the houses are occupied. Miount Oumei and the Kuanhsien hills are in protected districts and in consequence, all available house room is occupied. A new attraction for those who are aux xious to spend their vacation, travelling, is a trip through the tribes district. From Kuan hsien westward over the Niangtsiling pass is a road that skirts the tumultuous Min river, to the city of Sungpan twelve days journey from Chengtu. The scenery up this river is most picturesque. Stretching southward and westward are the ranges that rise one above another till they are lost in the plateau of Tibet.
A Lasp or Mystery.
Snowpeaks here and there give majesty and glory to the scenery. Primeval forests furnish timber for the cities and towns of the plains Zoologists, botanists and geologists have found this country a paradise for strange specimens and peculiar formations. More recently special interest has been aroused in anthropology through the ever alert observer, Mr. J. H. Edgar, of the I. M. who has found relics of the stone age that would indicate an early residence of man in these valleys.
The Union University of Chengtu is fortunate in getting many of these specimens in its growing museum. To the rank and file, however, the great attraction at the present time is the scenery and the people. Once over the pass and turn to the right or left and you are in a country that is attached to China only by compulsion.
The inhabitants have maintained their identity throughout—the centuries and kept fairly pure from the Sons of Han.
They resent being called Chinese, 1 though many speak the age, each tribe has its own ect which they use in couversa-Chinese settlements or trad-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.