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TOPOGRAPHY. 269
besides Lolo, Pai, Miaotze, and many other tribes. On the other hand, many
Mussulmans remained faithful to the Imperial cause, and it was one of these who,
after fighting successfully on the rebel side, brought about the ultimate triumph of
the Chinese. A number of the vanquished Panthays withdrew to the Shan and
Kakhycn hill tribes on the frontiers of Siam and Burma. But the gaps thus made
have been filled up by immigrants, chiefly from Sechuen. Besides civil war, Yunnan
has also recently suffered from the spread of leprosy and of pestilence, which has
made great ravages amongst men and animals. The epidemic seems here always to
begin with the rats.
TOPOGRAPHY.
Momein, or Tengyufh-tinrj, the only important Chinese town in the Irawadi
basin, lies in a vast rice-growing plain enclosed by steep mountains. It is regarded
by the English as the natural gate of South-west China, and its name constantly
recurs in all railway projects. Farther east there are no large places in the deep
Fig. 127. RofTg BETWEKJJ MOMEIN AND TAU-FU.
Scale 1 : 2,800,000.
The Heights are decuple of the Distances.
60 Milts.
valley of the Lutze-kiang (Lu-kiang, or Salwin). But Yungchang-fu, on one of
its affluents, is a busy mart largely inhabited by refugees from Nanking, whence its
title of " Little Nanking." It has been identified with Marco Polo's Voshan
(Vouchan, Voncian), where in 1272 or 1277 Kublai Khan's 12,000 Tatars routed
60,000 Burmese with their 2,000 elephants.
On a tributary of the Upper Lantzan-kiang, flowing between tremendous gorges,
Atcntzc guards the Yunnan frontier towards Tibet. In this district most of the
civilised inhabitants are Chinese, but nearly all speak Tibetan better than their
mother tongue. Atentzc lies in an upland plain over 11,000 feet above sea-level,
and is commanded by Buddhist monasteries, whose lamas obey the high priest of
I-iissii. The Atent/e traders sell tea, sugar, and tobacco to the Tibetans in exchange
for musk, skins, piiri'lmicnts, and a species of grub highly valued by the Chinese on
account of its supposed medicinal properties. South of Atentze rises the snow-
clad I)oker-la, and on the banks of the river farther north are the Yerkalo saline
hot springs.
n'i'ixi, on an eastern affluent of the Laiitzan-kiang, is a garrison town ruined by