When I finally lifted its head one of the horns which had been broken in the fall slipped through my fingers, and away went the goral on another rough and tumble descent, finally stopping on a rock ledge nearly eleven hundred feet from the place where it had been shot.  We returned to camp at noon bringing joy with us, for, as my wife had remarked the day before, “We will soon have to eat chickens or cans.”

Heller hunted the gorals unsuccessfully the following day and we left on December 23, camping at night on a flat terrace beside a stream at the end of a moist ravine.  We intended to spend Christmas here for it was a beautiful spot, surrounded by virgin forest, but our celebration was to be on Christmas Eve.  The following day dawned bright and clear.  There had not been a drop of rain for nearly a month and the weather was just warm enough for comfort in the sun with one’s coat off, but at night the temperature dropped to about 15 deg.+ or 20 deg.+ Fahr.  The camp proved to be a good one, giving us two new mammals and, just after tiffin, Hotenfa came running in to report that he had discovered seven gray monkeys (probably Pygathrix) in a cornfield a mile away.

The monkeys had disappeared ere we arrived, but while we were gone Yvette had been busy and, just before dinner, she ushered us into our tent with great ceremony.  It had been most wonderfully transformed.  At the far end stood a Christmas tree, blazing with tiny candles and surrounded by masses of white cotton, through which shone red holly berries.  Holly branches from the forest and spruce boughs lined the tent and hung in green waves from the ridge pole.  At the base of the tree gifts which she had purchased in Hongkong in the preceding August were laid out.

Heller mixed a fearful and wonderful cocktail from the Chinese wine and orange juice, and we drank to each other and to those at home while sitting on the ground and opening our packages.  We had purchased two Tibetan rugs in Li-chiang and Wei-hsi, as Christmas presents for Yvette.  These rugs usually are blue or red, with intricate designs in the center, and are well woven and attractive.

To the servants and mafus we gave money and cigarettes.  When the muleteers were brought to the tent to receive their gifts they evidently thought our blazing tree represented an altar, for they kneeled down and began to make the “chin, chin joss” which is always done before their heathen gods.

Our Christmas dinner was a masterpiece.  Four days previously I had shot a pair of mallard ducks and they formed the piece de resistance.  The dinner consisted of soup, ducks stuffed with chestnuts, currant jelly, baked squash, creamed carrots, chocolate cake, cheese and crackers, coffee and cigarettes.

Christmas day we traveled, and in the late afternoon passed through a very dirty Chinese town in a deep valley near some extensive salt wells.  Red clay dust lay thick over everything and the filth of the streets and houses was indescribable.  We camped in a cornfield a mile beyond the village, but were greatly annoyed by the Chinese who insisted on swarming into camp.  Finally, unable longer to endure their insolent stares, I drove them with stones to the top of the hill, where they sat in row upon row exactly as in the “bleachers” at an American baseball game.