CAMPING IN THE CLOUDS

We hired four Moso hunters in the Snow Mountain village.  They were picturesque fellows, supposedly dressed in skins, but their garments were so ragged and patched that it was difficult to determine the original material of which they were made.

One of them was armed with a most extraordinary gun which, it was said, came from Tibet.  Its barrel was more than six feet long, and the stock was curved like a golf stick.  A powder fuse projected from a hole in the side of the barrel, and just behind it on the butt was fastened a forked spring.  At his waist the man carried a long coil of rope, the slowly burning end of which was placed in the crotched spring.  When about to shoot the native placed the butt of the weapon against his cheek, pressed the spring so that the burning rope’s end touched the powder fuse, and off went the gun.

The three other hunters carried crossbows and poisoned arrows.  They were remarkably good shots and at a distance of one hundred feet could place an arrow in a six-inch circle four times out of five.  We found later that crossbows are in common use throughout the more remote parts of Yuen-nan and were only another evidence that we had suddenly dropped back into the Middle Ages and, with our high-power rifles and twentieth century equipment, were anachronisms.

The natives are able to obtain a good deal of game even with such primitive weapons for they depend largely upon dogs which bring gorals and serows to bay against a cliff and hold them until the men arrive.  The dogs are a mongrel breed which appears to be largely hound, and some are really excellent hunters.  White is the usual color but a few are mixed black and brown, or fox red.  Hotenfa, one of our Mosos, owned a good pack and we all came to love its big red leader.  This fine dog could be depended upon to dig out game if there was any in the mountains, but his life with us was short for he was killed by our first serow.  Hotenfa was inconsolable and the tears he shed were in sincere sorrow for the loss of a faithful friend.

Almost every family owns a dog.  Some of those we saw while passing through Chinese villages were nauseating in their unsightliness, for at least thirty per cent of them were more or less diseased.  Barely able to walk, they would stagger across the street or lie in the gutter in indescribable filth.  One longed to put them out of their misery with a bullet but, although they seemed to belong to nobody, if one was killed an owner appeared like magic to quarrel over the damages.

The dogs of the non-Chinese tribes were in fairly good condition and there seemed to be comparatively little disease among them.  Our hunters treated their hounds kindly and fed them well, but the animals themselves, although loyal to their masters, manifested but little affection.  In Korea dogs are eaten by the natives, but none of the tribes with which we came in contact in Yuen-nan used them for food.