"How oppressive to be buried alive in these vast canyon systems!"

yangwekong, originally uploaded by mutikonka1.

When I was reviewing Joseph Rock's 1920s hand drawn maps I found that the route he took on the eastern side of the Yalong canyon tallied with a road marked on a modern Chinese traffic atlas. The names of some of the villages he recorded also tallied with modern day Chinese villages: Rock's Sedjuron was
surely Sanyanlong, Deon must be Diwan. These villages lay in a valley
called Yangwe Kong that Rock passed through after climbing out of the Yalong gorge. After the scenic wonders of
Mutikonka, it seem to have depressed him:

"No outlook in any direction! Here people live and die without the slightest knowledge of the outside world. How oppressive to be buried alive in these vast canyon systems!
Or are they happier for it?"