Note 380 — Chapter VII · —Geographical Boundaries

In easternmost Tibet, in the elevated province of Minjak (2,600 meters or 8,500 feet), M. Hue found in 1846 a great number of Chinese from the neighboring Sze-Chuan and Yun-nan districts keeping shops and following the primary trades and agriculture. The language of the Tibetan natives showed the effect of foreign intercourse; it was not the pure speech of Lhassa, but was closely assimilated to the idiom of the neighboring Si Fan speech of Sze-Chuan and contained many Chinese expressions. He found also a modification of manners, customs, and costumes in this peripheral Tibet; the natives showed more of the polish, cunning, and covetousness of the Chinese, less of the rudeness, frankness, and strong religious feeling characteristic of the western plateau man.380 Just across the political boundary in Chinese territory, the border zone of assimilation shows predominance of the Chinese element with a strong Tibetan admixture both in race and civilization.381 Here Tibetan traders with their yak caravans are met on the roads or encamped in their tents by the hundred about the frontier towns, whither they have brought the wool, sheep, horses, hides and medicinal roots of the rough highland across that "wild borderland which is neither Chinese nor Tibetan." The Chinese population consists of hardy mountaineers, who eat millet and maize instead of rice. The prevailing architecture is Tibetan and the priests on the highways are the red and yellow lamas from the Buddhist monasteries of the plateau. "The Country is a cross between China and Tibet."382