The Dubious Delights of the Upper Salween

      Often a reader of earlier publications realises he has stepped into a world which no longer exists. The south western province of Yunnan is home to a greater variety of ethnic groups than any other Chinese province. As the eastern foothills of Tibet, its mountainous terrain is bisected by deep north-south ravines, being the headwaters of some of the great rivers of east and southeast Asia. Into this forbidding terrain, in late 1909 came botanist George Forrest, to explore the region of the Upper Salween, home of the Lisu. Chinese authority was weak in the area, often fading out completely, for this was almost two years before the first Chinese Revolution, and decades before the great transformation of Lisu society. Essentially, the botanist had stepped into a forgotten corner of the world, where poverty, filth, violence, vice, and superstition had held sway for hundreds of years.
     None of his photos could disguise the shabbiness of the inhabitants' clothing. Their weapons of war and hunt were the crossbow and poisoned arrow. Firearms were almost completely unknown. Perhaps that was just as well.

     The men of Ji-Ji were at war with the people of a neighboring village higher up the hill, and we had the pleasure of watching the progress of the fight during our tiffin. The cause of the trouble was the theft of some maize, and a whole army corps, consisting of some fifty warriors, had been mobilized. These fellows, with their grotescue ornaments of silver, deer's horns, pebbles and cowries, their blackened faces, their flowing hempen robes, their war-bows 5 feet broad, and their broad ox-hide shields 5 feet high, moving in a line beyond their village, presented an image of the "pomp and pride and circumstance" of war. The enemy occupied a position higher up the hill, a fierce bombardment of opprobrious epithets was maintained, but neither side got farther than swearing and stringing of bows until the time arrived for the afternoon meal, when the combatants dispersed to their respective homes. [pp 146, 148]

      What I find fascinating about this is that almost exactly the same thing was witnessed by my father-in-law in New Guinea 60 years later, as did some of his companions 20 years before that. I could cite even further references to the same thing in the same island. It is a reminder that, despite their possession of iron and cloth, these Asiatics were essentially savages. Come to think of it, isn't this pretty much the antics of teenage gangs in our own slums, or chimpanzees in the jungle? The human race hasn't advanced all that much.
     But it was when it came to describing the delights of their journey that the botanist was most inspired as a wordsmith.

     Animal and bird life along the Upper Salwin [Salween] is conspicuous by its absence - an important matter for the traveler, who cannot count on replenishing his larder with game. On the other hand, the river banks at a low altitude, and where wholly sheltered from the northwest winds, have an almost tropical climate, and as a result vegetable and insect life is both vigorous and troublesome. Creatures with inconveniently long legs plunge suddenly into one's soup, great caterpillars in splendid but poisonous uniforms of long and gaily-colored hairs arrive in one's blankets with the business-like air of a guest who intends to stay. Ladybirds and other specimens of coleoptera [beetles] drop off the jungle down one's neck, while other undesirables insert themselves under one's nether garments.
     The light in the tent attracts a perfect army of creatures, which creep, fly, crawl, buzz, and sting. Scissor insects make the day hideous with their strident call, and the proximity of Lissoo  [Lisu] introduces other strangers, of which Pulex irritans [the flea] is by far the least noxious [least?]. The mere act of walking in this country is a work of much physical exertion. The villages under the Chinese chiefs have a laudable custom of cutting out their roads every year after securing their harvest, but in the country north of Cheng-ka constant feuds between neighboring villages prevent this useful work; the paths are narrow tracks choked with the luxuriant growth of the previous rains, slippery and lop-sided, and as often as not leading along the very brink of a precipice. In some places we had to haul ourselves over boulders by pendant branches or scramble along the face of cliffs by notches in the rock, work suitable for monkeys, Lissoo, or other creatures gifted with more prehensile feet than a European. [They don't write papers like this any more.]
      Poisonous-looking scarlet fruits hang from the over-arching jungle, lianes and tree-roots trip up the unwary traveler; if he clutches the nearest plant to save himself the chances are it is a stinging nettle the size of a laurel and poisonous in proportion. In some places, especially around their maize fields, the natives provide a further diversion in the shape of "pan-ji". These are sharp-pointed, fire-hardened pieces of bamboo, which are driven into the ground among the grass, and will, if trodden upon, pierce even through a leather boot and deep into the foot. It is only when the traveler, scratched, bruised, and with torn clothing, emerges on a quiet sand bank by the river, or on to some open terrace high above it, and finds the campfire lighted, the tents pitched, and a pailful of hot water ready for a bath, that he begins to think exploring the Salwin a game worth the candle.
     The vegetation of that part of the country is almost as great a nuisance as the insects. Every sort of seed attaches itself to one's person; some are provided with hooks, others with natural gum, others pierce the skin or work down under one's socks. An hour's march leaves the traveler caked with the seeds of enough plants to form the material of a work on the methods of the natural dispersal of flora. [pp 137, 139]

     I wonder if the botanist author carefully extracted every hooked, gummed, or piercing seed and placed it in an appropriate container for future reference back home.

Reference: George Forrest, 'The Land of the Crossbow', The National Geographic Magazine, Feb. 1910, pp 132 - 156