Peking to Lhasa : vol.1 / Page 328 (Color Image)

0328	Peking to Lhasa : vol.1

244 PEKING TO LHASA

and then descended to the pleasant green fertile

Ba Chu valley, which is formed by the Kan Chu

coming from the north-north-east from Dam, and

the Ba Chu coming from Batang. The road then

ascends the Ba Chu valley to Batang.

Batang, 8271 feet, is a regular little Tibetan

town with two-storied Tibetan houses. It was

formerly a great centre of industry, but, under the

present chaotic rule in China, trade is at a stand-

still.

There were resident here Dr. Hardy, Mr.

Macleod (a Canadian), Messrs. Duncan and Morse

of the American Mission, and Père Nussbaum.

Missionaries could not venture in safety more than

2 or 3 miles each way up the valley, and no

outsider had been here since Major Magruder,

Military Attaché, and Mr. Bucknell, American fl

Vice-Consul, had visited it in 1921.

Pereira was told that the Tibetans here pre-

ferred Chinese to Tibetan rule. The people are

very superstitious and it is almost impossible to

convert them.

Respecting the geography of these parts Pereira

was able to collect some information. Among the

great mountains there are (1) two mountains, one

15 miles S.S.E. and another three or four stages 1,1

S.S.W. of Ta-chien-lu ; (2) the Ngemda, slightly

south-east of Batang ; (3) a great range visible to

south from Kanze and forming the Yangtze-

Yalung divide.

The frontier between Tibet and China was said

to extend from north of Chamub'ang on the

Salween up the Salween-Mekong divide to north-

west of Yakalo, then turning E.N.E. across the

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