The brahminy ducks, although rather tough, are not bad eating.  We usually found them feeding in fields not far from the river or in flooded rice dykes, and very often sitting in pairs on the sand banks near the water.  They have a bisyllabic rather plaintive note which is peculiarly fascinating to me and, like the honk of the Canada goose, awakens memories of sodden, wind-blown marshes, bobbing decoys, and a leaden sky shot through with V-shaped lines of flying birds.

Mallards were frequently to be found with the sheldrakes, and we had good shooting along the river and in ponds and rice fields.  We also saw a few teal but they were by no means abundant.  Pheasants were scarce.  We shot a few along the road and near some of our camps, but we found no place in Yuen-nan where one could have even a fair day’s shooting without the aid of a good dog.  This is strikingly different from Korea where in a walk over the hillsides a dozen or more pheasants can be flushed within an hour.

After two and one-half days’ travel up the Yangtze we turned westward toward Wei-hsi and camped on a beautiful flat plain beside a tree-bordered stream.  It was a cold clear night and after dinner and a smoke about the fire we all turned in.

Both of us were asleep when suddenly a perfect bedlam of angry exclamations and Chinese curses roused the whole camp.  In a few moments Wu came to our tent, almost speechless with rage and stammered, “Damn fool soldiers come try to take our horses; say if mafu no give them horses they untie loads.  Shall I tell mafu break their heads?” We did not entirely understand the situation but it seemed quite proper to give the mafus permission to do the head-breaking, and they went at it with a will.  After a volley of blows, there was a scamper of feet on the frozen ground and the soldiers retired considerably the worse for wear.

When the battle was over, Wu explained matters more fully.  It appeared that a large detachment of soldiers had recently passed up this road to A-tun-tzu and four or five had remained behind to attend to the transport of certain supplies.  Seeing an opportunity for “graft” the soldiers were stopping every caravan which passed and threatening to commandeer it unless the mafus gave a sufficient bribe to buy their immunity.  Our mafus, with the protection which foreigners gave them, had paid off a few old scores with interest.  That they had neglected no part of the reckoning was quite evident when next morning two of the soldiers came to apologize for their “mistake.”  One of them had a black and swollen eye and the other was nursing a deep cut on his forehead; they were exceedingly humble and did not venture into camp until they had been assured that we would not again loose our terrible mafus upon them.