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Show CRADLE OF THE WORLD All of us like to gratify our sense of curiosity, and now comes Dr. Joseph Jo-seph Beech, who offers us a peek into the backlands of China. He comes with strange tales and experiences covering a period of twenty years, and were it not for his reputation as a missionary perhaps one might be tempted to liken some of these mysterious mys-terious stories to those of Jules Verne, or Sheherazade. Having visited sections of western China where the foot of white man had never before trod, he told In New York, according to the Sun, how he had encountered in the foothills of the Himalayas forty or fifty different tribes; actually saw a race of white men who resembled Bohemians; found a race of four-foot dwarfs, and was amazed at the variety of peoples in this crade of the world. j The lighting white men of Sung Pan, which is ten days' pourney northwest north-west of Chengtu, a distance of only 300 miles, are the people of greatest interest, and Dr. Beech goes on to say to them: I This tribe, resembling Anglo-Sax-I ons, was described to me as consist-I consist-I ing of largo, furious men, whose brav-I brav-I ery is considered somewhat of a mar-j mar-j Vol to the Chinese. "They never run 8 away, any more than you (meaning I Americans and Europeans) do," my I Chinese friend told me. "They love I to fight." S Survival of Chivalry. i I was told the men often fight duels 1 on horseback, which in some respects 1 recall the duels of the Middle Ages. I The duelists start the fight with a 1 discharge of short blunderbusses. I These are so heavy they have to rest them on a wooden cross attached to the saddle bow. I judged they were made by native workmen and rather inefficient weapons .hurling a handful hand-ful of slugs. The second stage of the duel is fought with stones of which each ha3 a bag. If the bags are exhausted without doing serious injury to either man, the duellists draw nearer and throw spears tied to the ends of ropes so they can be pulled back and thrown again. Meanwhile the two horsemen are circling around and cdn-stantly cdn-stantly getting closer. In the final stage the antagonists ride up to each other and fight hip to hip with great swords, after the fashion of Richard the Lion-Hcarted. 1 The duel always goes to a decision, I my Chinese friend told me. I On the border between China and the country of this tribe Dr. Beech saw an enormous castle, built many centuries ago along medieval lines, and capable of holding thousands of soldiers, stretching over the hills for some distance. The old flags on the four little turrets of each tower have now been supplanted by the BuddhiBt emblems of the Llamas. And in tho hills nearby he passed numerous with thousands of tombstones the graves of heroes long dead in the defense of the tribe domains against the Chinese. One tribe looks like Tibetans, but speaks a different language and disclaims dis-claims relationship. Another resembles resem-bles the Chinese, but differs widely both in language and customs. In speaking with the tribesmen through interpreters, Dr. Beech learned that all of these tribes have traditions of greatness, and that they had once controlled con-trolled a vast territory; were driven back to smaller domains; and finally final-ly beaten back again to the mountains. moun-tains. A Conqueror's Breed. It is Interesting to speculate how much truth there is In these traditions. tradi-tions. We know most of the races of Europe came in successive waves of migration out of the depths of Central Asia. It is natural to suppose that each migration would leave some of the same people behind and this remnant rem-nant would flee into one of these mountain valleys if atacked by superior super-ior forces. A little to tho north of this country the greatest conqueror the world has known, Genghis Khan, arose, and other historic conquerors are believed to have originated hereabouts. here-abouts. High on a mountain-top, surrounded by peaks ranging from C.000 to 18,-000 18,-000 feet high, and overlooking these valleys of the Kwanlung mountains, Dr. Beech once spent the night in a king's palace, which is in the heart of a country rich in undeveloped resources. re-sources. Five men joining hands can not span some of the trees in the immense im-mense forests. Who knows but that, in tho great palace on the mountain top, even the Queen of Sheba may have reigned? Certainly there are evidences of a bygone splendor that would rival if not equal hers. Review Re-view of Reviews. |