As their latest accomplishment, they attacked a large caravan from Yunnan which was passing through border country on its way into upper Tibet, Heading this caravan was a young lama priest who had set forth with the idea of further "perfecting" himself in the mysteries of lamaism. He and three others were slain and two of his comrades were wounded. Fifty caravan mules and their loads fell into the hands of the robbers who will not feel it necessary to go a-trading down in the summer heat of Yunnan when such rich plunder is so easily obtainable in their own unruled territory.
Such lawlessness and crime is taken for granted by theír own lama priests and petty rulers who seemingly would not have it otherwise, knowing that they too can share in the plunder thus obtained.
Such deplorable conditions have long existed in Tibetan border country among a backward heathen people unfitted for self-rule. Small wonder then that the better folk among them often long for the return of Chinese rule, which with its own imperfection they claim to have been much better than what they now have.
First crops here in the Yen Chin plain were good this year, considerably better perhaps than a year ago, and the local folks accordingly are in a good frame of mind toward their fellow-creatures and the outside
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.