'Over against this town, across the small plain, ig. the lava' flow, with the cone of Shito Shan sticking up Out of It. 'From the alluvium of the plain you step, literally at one stride onto the edge of the lava. Tt is really. impossible to believe that this Tava' bed is of any geological antiquiry. Bearing in mind the _un-Weathered condition of the lava on the one hand, and the comparative ly recent arrival of the Chinese population on the other (they have tradition of volcanic activities), it does not seem reasonable to think that the lava is five thousand years old. T'should say it is less. Tt seems almost to move towards one in waves and billows from the cone from which it originated. Its almost Impossible roughness is traversed by definite pathe in' many directions, for the bed has to be crossed for tone thing, and for another the lava {ig extensively quarried. The width of the flow where we negotiated it at least half a mile, and the lava was wreathed with orchids everywhere, Tt must be a sight in the Fains: but except for grass and flowers, nothing else grows.
From this chaos of stone rises the well defined cone of Shito Shan to height of three or four hundred feet The slopes are grassy, with Partially) into a rich black' soil There are a good many pines growing on. the sides and summit of the peak. The crater is very well pre-Served, but is not more than a hundred and fifty feet deep: and the side on the north has been blown out and now forms a gully leading: Out of the cup. To the west of the mountain. there are three more mor craters so close together that they may be regarded as one. Here the Tava is quarried and carried away on bullocks.
The Volcanic Line The significance of this group of volcanoes at Tengyueh is that they Fepresent, as far as is known, one extremity of that great shaped band of weakness in Earth's crust which continues through the volcanoes of Myitkyina, "Papa and Minbu in Burma to the "Andamans and so, with' raters, mud volcanoes and springs at trent Sumatra, Java, the Philippines, Japan, Alaska and down the Andes. With few exceptions, all the world's greatest volcanoes Iie upon this long, 'Sut narrow band. Though the Teng-yueh volcanoes have not erupted in human memory, the place is still subject "to frequent and violent! earthquakes. 'This year there have' been fewer than usual, but last year were very numerous, and some the worst shocks have been recorded through the centuries in the Toeal histories. I had no time to) visit the other comes.
The foreign community in Teng-yueh is very small, and. consists few Burmans, q few Swedish sionaries, and two or three English-'AS far as T know there is not ingle Indian, which is curious Since, of course, Burma is crawling with them. But at the frontier, the Indians definitely end. The social atmosphere is very friendly, and the Chinese dinners I attended were really good fun, especially the one given by Mr. Wong in the pavilion Cverlooking the waterfall. " There were twenty-five of us altogether including three Englishmen, and the meal was an elaborate affair of in-Rumerable courses of which on! the sambhur sinew, the cuttlefish, and the pig's guts defeated me. I ould even have managed the last had I not been told what it was. Every other doth was delicious to my taste, and there stand out a certain minced chicken with walnut, and a pudding of dates and chest: Ruts." The sea slugs were not bad, and the shark's fin was good. "My Fed slip at table again described me_ as the Peaceful Major, which seems te have been settled as my Chinese name. The sécograph for Peaceful T'was interested to note is the pic ture of a house with a girl in ft, though my experience is that houses with a girl are not always so tra quil. 'The dinner lasted {wo hours ith spontaneous and unaffected fun: and when we got up we put fon our overcoats at once. and left getting home, without any tedious-fess, at' 10 o'clock. As T have already remarked, there are points ina Chinese dinner which we Europeans might copy with advantage.
The Sulphur Spring Duty demanded that I should not leave Tengyueh without seeing the sulphur spring which lies about ten miles to the south. 'The path runs for some way across the rolling, tomb-covered down-land below Lai Fang Shan, and then descends a curious valley of high mountains whose sleep walls fall to a sloping floor of paddy fields. At the end' of the cultivated area there is a village and a temple and a river whose accumulated waters fave us some trouble. As a matter of fact we had loot our way rather badly two three times already. The path seemed bewitched, and finally "it disappeared altogether, leaving us to flounder in some fields and to ford the somewhat turbulent river. However, we reached our destination after three and a half hours' going. There are some high, bare, steep hills crowding in to form a gorge: and at the base of the highest spur fs the hot spring where an unusual volume of scalding water comes rushing out into a. circular basin. The ground in the vicinity is all encrusted with sulphur. One or two stone bath houses have been built at lite distance. Our two Chinese nides bathed, "and I soaked my Dlistered foot in the hot water some time. These springs are re-uted to have medicinal value, They certainly seemed to do my foot almost immediate good. The mud sores so treated were the only
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.
