Handwritten China journal of Edmund Heller (2 of 5)
Page 162
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Transcription
yellow sweetish pulp like a custard apple. The fruit is supposed to produce goats by the Chinese. Our carmen smiles are a very gentle but never sprightly. The sampras call them at night often in loud voice many notes like those for calling chickens. Their smiles come from all directions and ranging for the food which is scant for them. I was surprised to find so many farms in such an apparently impossible native country. On the steep vertical hillsides were cornfields & millet. The houses were built on little leveled bits of land just large enough to accommodate them. I should say that in 3 or 4 years all the soil of these vertical farms wound be washed into the creek bottoms. However I saw few deserted fields, the cultivation being all of recent date. Burning trees when new land was being cleared were seen in places. Old deserted piles were seen in several spots with a village near much further south. (14) I am on duty last night and do mean that my traps will be set.