ATED A ee : ih VOLUME LVI RY | THe NATIONAL - GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE FEBRUARY, 1930 @ CONTENTS TWENTY-FOUR PAGES OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN FULL COLOR Seeking the Mountains of Mystery With 55 Iustrations JOSEPH F. ROCK Among the Hill Tribes of Sumatra ‘With 32 Tilustrations W. ROBERT MOORE Sumatra, a Ribbon of Color on the Equator 25 Naturat-Colar Photographs The Stone Beehive Homes of the Italian Heel ‘With 37 [lustrations PAUL WILSTACH PUBLISHED BY THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY HUBBARD MEMORIAL HALL WASHINGTON, D.C,M ° H Aw « S @®0 Farther! THE MOHAWK RUBBER COMPANY... AKRON, OHIO Gi MOLL Mine Lc ci CR me LLVor. LVIL, No, 2 WASHINGTON Fenrvary, 1930 THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE SEEKING THE MOUNTAINS OF MYSTERY An Expedition on the China-Tibet Frontier to the Unexplored Amnyi Machen Range, One of Whose Peaks Rivals Everest By Josern F. Rock Lonter of the Mattia Geopraphic Sociéty Viiiman Hapedition, s9e7-190 ur Cans re kunxe tae Lan anh se cite Veuuaw L ones of Ana” tien With ifustrations from Photographs ty the Author, 6s) (O-DAY the map has no more secrets,” Idle niinds repeat that parrot phrase. Bur who knows all ‘Tibet, or its far-away frontiers. on west em China? Even its own prayer-mutter= ing trikes Know only th wir bleak, wind-swept valleys. After dangerous, diffieilt months, 1 feachedl the headwaters of the 2.000-mile— long Yellow River and the towering, wn explored range of the Amnyi Machen. ‘Twenty-cight thousand feet, or almost as high as Everest, its tallest peak lifts its the Matter- re, in remote, almost inaccessible J found countless wild animals still id of man, peaceful as im Eden. Throngh deep, tree-lined chasms roared the upper reaches of the mighty Yellow River, flowing here at an ¢le 10,000 feet aboow the seat Herein Jut was ice, and flowers bloomed in the snow. snow-white head, majestic a horn, E WORLD MAP SECHETS O8 THE CHINA-TIBET, FRONTIER And time turns back a thousand years when ont talks to the superstitions and vexatiously inquisitive, suspicious folk wha inhabit this lonely nook of the world. “Tn its, “The earth is flat,” they say. ‘The sum middle stands a big. mountain: by going hchind this. In far-away funds, men fly, we have lente. But in big eagles ; if not in eagles, then in something that must be cnvered with eagle feathers. And in other lands there are men with the heads of dogs, of yaks and other beasts.” 4. miserable land it is, of poverty and incredible fildh; a tand cut off fromall the modem world: a region which, for un- comnted! centuries, hias had its awn forms of government, of religion and social cts toms; vet a region which knows no rail- To moter ear, 19 radio, or aught of the world since Marca Polo's day, TH FIRST WHITE MAN TO APPROACH TIDE TN FROM ‘THE EAST m no Chinese dares ven- ture, Ninety thousand or more of the warlike Neoliks live here. and other tribes cof ‘Tibetans, with whom they quarrel and fight. Yet of these local wars. not even ant echo ever reaches the outsfdle world, Here T saw men with spears 30 fect long, and a room im a lamasety wherein more than