Peking to Lhasa : vol.1 / Page 137 (Color Image)

0137	Peking to Lhasa : vol.1

LAN-CHOW TO TANGAR 103

40 yards wide and 5 feet deep. Slight snow had

fallen in the early morning, but it soon melted

in the valley making the road very heavy going.

The road lay all the day up the fertile valley of

the Sining Ho. It was about 1 mile wide with

hills on either side 200 to 400 feet in height.

Several villages were passed.

Giant pandar, according to Père Costanoble,

are to be found in the hills north of Sining-fu, but

as there are no bamboos in that part Pereira was

surprised to hear this : he had thought that they

were not found north of Sungpan. Père Costa-

noble also said that tigers were to be found there.

Some aborigines, whom the Chinese call " Tu-

jen ", that is " men of the soil ", live in the hills to

the south-west of Nien-pai-hsien and in the hills

north-east of Sining-fu. Père Schram says they

are of Mongol origin. Driven out of Liau-t'ung

in Manchuria during the Chin dynasty they moved

slowly westward across the Ordus, taking seventy-

one years to reach Kansu. Here they flourished

for several hundred years though they had to

fight with the Tibetans. But under the T'ang

dynasty they were finally subdued by the Chinese

and have now diminished to a mere remnant.

Sining - fu, 2004 miles from Lan-chow, was

reached on April 10. It is 241 miles from P'ing-

chung-yi, and the road lay all day up the Sining

Ho valley, which is from 1 mile to 12 mile wide,

lying between sandy hills from 500 to 600 feet

in height. The valley is mostly fertile, but

belts of land are impregnated with alkaline and

uncultivated. The villages are small. A few

Mongols and Tibetans were met with. Passing

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