ABSTRACT
My main object now was to reach the alpine region as speedily as possible to see the Rhododendrons in bloom. Rhododendrons flower early, while the snow is yet melting; many flower in the snow. By the end of June, the best of them are over. At Rongyul I met a Chinese carpenter who came from Yunnan. He was in very poor circumstances, and lived in a serf's hutch in the courtyard of the headman's house. His clothes were in rags and he lived on the coarsest fare. Nevertheless he had a wife and child, both sadly undernourished. In the evenings he would come up to my room and talk. Sometime he wanted to return to China, but what was the use! He had no money, and his carpentering did not bring him in much. However, a Chinese craftsman in the Rong Tö valley is certain of a little work, and he was often away on a job, travelling even as far as Rima. He told me that there were Kiutzu slaves in Rongyul, and brought one in to show me. ‘Kiutzu’ is the Chinese name for a pygmy tribe inhabiting the Irrawaddy jungle. We call them Daru; the Tibetan settlers in the Irrawaddy basin call them Tellu — which is the same word pronounced as a Tibetan would pronounce it. Of the Daru pygmies it may be said that the women, no beauties, tattoo their faces, making them still more hideous. They have long been the victims of Tibetan and Chinese oppression, so that, until quite recently, although working in their clearings, fishing and hunting by day, at night they retired to the tree-tops to sleep, fearing to be on the ground after dark, lest they be surprised and carried off into slavery. There is a regular traffic in slaves in south-eastern Tibet, especially children, and high prices are paid for a likely girl.
