EXPLORING INDOCHINA.*
THE spirit and love of adventure are probably not greater in the world now than they were in former periods, but we hear a great deal more of them. Many daring youths sallied forth and journeyed in "outlandish" places who have left behind no record. Perhaps they could not write, or, if masters of that now common accomplishment, did not care to display it, and contented themselves with telling what were called "travellers' tales." The chief reasons, however, why such narratives are now plentiful, compared with those of other days, are the publisher and the insatiable demand for new things which he supplies, and the book-reading public, which is now the whole world. Books of travel may be reckoned by the hundred. They are not always literature proper, like the works of the masters which abide ; and in earlier times would, most of them, have gone to swell the bundles of family letters; nevertheless, when published, they help to inform a public greedy for facts about strange lands and wild peoples. We are not more inquisitive and daring than our fathers; but printing, the swarming of our race, and abundant as well as rapid communications all over the earth, make it easy for the enterprising to prove in black and white how numerous they are, and to gratify universal curiosity.
The other day, a Lieutenant Younghusband, of the 7th Dragoon Guards, after journeying with Mr. James, a Bombay civilian, through Manchuria, rode from Pekin to Simla, and we trust that he is writing a book to tell us what there is at the back of the Himalayas. Another of the name, a Lieutenant in the Guide Corps, spent his leave last year in exploring a tract of Indo-China bordering on Burmah, and within fourteen months of its termination in Bangkok, his narrative is given to the world. He landed at Moulmein, ascended the Salween, turned eastward to Zimme on the Mei-ping, pushed on as far as Kiang-Tung, the chief town of a barbarous independent Shan State which marches with China; then faced about, and, crossing to the Me-nan, descended that interesting river to the capital of Siam. It was a bold, arduous, and dangerous journey, and we can only wish that the hardy traveller had written down his experiences with fewer spurts of flippant slang, and had contrived to be more humorous where the facts were really droll, and less " funny " always. We hasten to say that those who can put up with the " clowning " will find their profit in the useful and often amusing information which it so sadly mars. The bad habit appears early, and flings a final somersault in the last paragraph, where, apologia' ing for his narrative, the author says :—" I was egged on and intimidated into writing it by my old governor, whom I hereby • deliver over to the popular fury."
The pith of his exploits was his success in reaching and residing in Kiang-Tung. Every one at Zimme, European and native, except Dr. Cheek, an American, endeavoured to dissuade him from the attempt, for the Prince who had died a short time before killed all foreigners. The American missionaries were refused permission to visit his town by this brutal potentate. The Lieutenant could not hire elephants, or buy ponies or mules for his baggage. The whole of his saddlery was stolen, and the great loss only supplied by Dr. Cheek's generosity. Finally, he was obliged to obtain the services of some Yunnan merchants, in whose company he rode to Xiang- Tung. When there, he says The chief councillor informed me confidentially that I should not have lived a day, if I had been unlucky enough to arrive two months earlier, during the lifetime of the old Prince." Even then, the uncle of the boy who reigned, asked whether he belonged to the people who were fighting the Shans over towards Mandalay, and although when told that the intruder was "a gentleman who was travelling all over the world," he gave him a house to live in, yet he said,— " The English are a very bad people; what does this ruffian want here P No one travels in this country for pleasure." Yet the
• Eighteen Hundred Men on a BUT/M1111/ Tat through Burmah. Siam, and ths Eastern Shan States. By an crdinary British Subaltern, to wit. Lieutenant G. J. Yonnghusband, Queen's Own Corps of Guides. Loudon : W. H. Allen and 0
Chief Justice and Councillors treated him well, and he saw the Royal youth twice. That personage had a Winchester rifle and "two tawdry French revolvers," so far and wide have these weapons gone. The Prince wanted to know how gunpowder is made, in order that he might not have to depend for a supply on Bangkok. During his stay, the Lieutenant met a Hindoo who had been servant to Mr. Margary when. he was murdered. This man, and the crowd who haunted the house, created some apprehension lest they should try robbery or murder. The
Lieutenant had a Goorkha orderly, called Judh Bir, of whom he writes :—" He is a famous little fellow, always
merry and on the spot. I could not have had a better man of any nation." They "did sentry by turns, and never left the others alone a minute." They were aided by a
queer native watch-dog, "coal-black, and hairless as a scalded pig,"—yet of whom he says : "He was a good dog and true, and we felt as if we had lost an old friend when we lost him within three days of our journey's end." So they circum- vented their obtrusive and uncertain friends, until they left Kiang-Tung in the company of another Yunnan caravan. The interest in this independent principality consists in the fact that it lies between Burraah, Siam, Chhia, and Tonquin. Nominally, and as a tributary of Burmah, it belongs to the British Empire ; but all the other Powers are gnawing at it, and trouble may arise unless something decided is -done. It is a lenge territory, with indefinite boundaries, and not at all needed Jor the defences of Burmah ; on the contrary, it is outside the trae strategical lines, and if we do not favour its practical independence, and settle something about frontiers, there is a fair probability that it will be a source of mischief. Lieutenant Yananghusband surmises that the soundest policy would be to hand it over to the Chinese as a tributary State, making stipulations to guard our interests; but he himself has written- that "the Chinese are hated and feared," that their small settlement outside the town was "tolerated as a necessary evil," yet that, as the population of the vast territory is largely Chinese, so the "proclivities" of the state are China-wards. He found that "little merchan- dise of any description came from China." Indigo, tea, and shoes were the commodities, but not much of either ; and the traders went down to Moulmein with unloaded mules, return- ing with "cheap cotton goods, bright coloured flannels, and odds and ends of trumpery." The Shams are poor, and the only lucrative trade they drive is in their famous ponies, erroneously called Burmese, hardy little beasts which make admirable draught or pack animals, having "splendid legs, indomitable pluck, and great powers of endurance." Not a promising country, although the people are superior to the Laos and Siamese. It is worth notice that the standard coin of the province is the British rupee, and that the gold currency is gold-leaf.
Siam, through which he moved on his homeward way, is a country without made roads or bridges. The traffic goes by the rivers and on the backs of bullocks and elephants. Tobacco is extensively cultivated, and everybody, down to Children three years old, indulges in smoking. It is not a delightful country to travel in, for food is scarce, at least the food pleasant to Europeans. Speaking of the Siamese, the traveller says :—" A most astonishing race from a dietary point of view; they live on a collection of the most unwholesome things that the mind of man can imagine. In addition to the above- mentioned luxury [fish dried in the sun until they stink], they feed on red chillies, taken whole and by the dozen ; any other herbs that are fiery and pungent, garlic, and rice." Between meals they chew betel, and smoke hot, strong tobacco. He found no butter or vegetables, except onions and chillies, and when the tea gave out, had to drink coarse sugar ("goor") and water. "The men," he writes, "drink, gamble, and sleep; all the work, except ploughing [and he might have added boating], is done by women." On the whole, he does not think much of the Siamese, and is so thoroughly severe, that the picture looks overdrawn. It should be noted that the whole trade of Siam is in the hands of the Chinese, who, as usual, are ready to do everything ; and although Bangkok in appearance seems as much English as Aden, the Chinese, who farm the taxes, have great influence. Mr. Younghusband boldly declares that the " civilisation " in Siam is a hollow de- ception, designed as a bid for European notoriety, and that the only result is to attract the unwelcome attention of two powerful neighbours. The judgment on the King's policy looks a trifle too harsh, but there can be no doubt whatever that, while the English have no designs on Siam, the French covet the Kingdom, or a protectorate over what is, after all, a piece of territory full of potential wealth :—
" A country inhabited by a docile and easily governed race, drained by great and navigable rivers which flow through almost inexhaustible teak forests, and immense tracts of -rice and tobacco —a country having a climate salubrious when compared with that of other Eastern lands, and a soil capable of raising the richest crops, with its sapphire and ruby mines, iron and copper, silver and coal—it bids fair to become a very el Dorado to that enter- prising-and energetic nation whioh is bold enough to take it."
That is a description calculated to excite the greed of gain ;
but Siam is an independent Kingdom, and had better remain so, even should the progress of civilisation prove to be slow. At any rate, it is not our interest to incur larger obligations and rouse Chinese as well as French animosity, by disturbing the present state of affairs.
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