When the country was blockaded during the second world war and the nation’s farmers were told to convert scrub and pasture to sown fields, arable land doubled. In peacetime, the patriotic drive for self-sufficiency continued

The marvel of “hive mind” is that no one is in control, and yet an invisible hand governs, a hand that emerges from very dumb members.

Starting from the Tangla mountains it runs as a razor backed ridge some 3 miles high between the Chin Sha and the Mekong of Lang Ts’iang river until northern Yunnan is reached.

For two years more he lingered, sinking slowly into unconsciousness and imbecility. Sometimes, propped up in his chair, he would be heard to murmur, with unexpected appositeness, the words of Samson …