UP THE IRAWADDI TO WESTERN CHINA.*
NOTWITHSTANDING the ascendancy of European arms and diplo- macy in the East, the intercourse of the Western nations with China is still practically confined to the provinces on the shores of the Pacific, and for some time to come Europeans are not likely to find easy access to the vast interior and remoter inland provinces of the Celestial Empire. From the land side the Chinese Empire may, no doubt, be reached through the dominions of the Czar ; but the severe climate of the regions traversed by this the only exist- ing overland route renders it, with the present means of locomotion, of comparatively trilling value for purposes of traffic. From? Kiakhta, the principal Russian town on the Chinese frontier, dis- tant about 1,000 miles from Pekin, goods are conveyed to St.. Petersburg not only by land, but also by water. Unfortunately, however, two or three of the short Siberian summers must elapse before merchandise carried by boat can reach its destination. The Russians are just now devoting themselves with energy to the construction of railways in their vast territories, and when it is remembered that the northern portion of the European and Asiatic continent forms one vast plain across which they might carry a rail- road to the borders of China without having to tunnel or surmount a- single bill 2,000 feet high, it is quite within the limits of possibility that at some not very remote period in the future we may have an Atlantic and Pacific railroad in the Old World as well as in the- New ; that "new season's teas" will be sold by London grocers. within three weeks of being gathered, and that European travellers will be able to make the journey from Ostend to Pekin or Shanghai in twelve or fourteen days. It is remarkable that there is much greater difficulty in entering China by laud in the present day than there was in the Middle Ages. Four or five centuries ago the merchants of Venice carried on a regular trade with that distant Empire by a caravan route, commencing at Trebisonde on the Black Sea, and passing through Armenia, Persia, Independent- Tartary, and the States fringing the great desert of Cobi. In his Cathay and the Way Thither that eminent geographer Colonel Yule has translated from the Italian a merchant's handbook or guide, in which the successive stages of this prodigious overland journey are described in a manner that would do credit to a modern Murray. Long after Europeans had been excluded from this route to China, a trade was still carried on between Delhi and Pekin by Mu.ssulman caravans that left Hindostan by a route crossing the Hindoo Koosh Mountains. It may possibly be reserved for Russia, by an advance of her Asiatic frontiers to the south, hereafter to dispel the ignorance that basso long prevailed respect- ing the peoples and states of the great central tableland of Asia.. But there is no immediate prospect of Europeans being able to retraverse with safety the old route used by Venetian merchants in the fifteenth century, and penetrate unharmed through the territories of the Calmuck Tartars to Suchen and Western China.
There exists, however, another possible line of approach, the opening of which could not fail to confer great benefit on Chinese commerce with the West, and particularly the growing trade with Hindostan. The province of Yunnan, forming the south-western extremity of China, projects like a wedge intoUpper or Independent. Burmah, in the northern portion of Further India. From the Bay of Bengal the Chinese frontier is here separated only by Burmah and the British dependency of Arracan, a strip of territory no. more than 400 miles across; and the distance of the same frontier- from Calcutta, in a straight line, is barely 700 miles. For com- mercial purposes, however, the two spots are actually ten times this distance from each other. Goods going from Calcutta to this part of China must first make the voyage via Singapore to Shang- hai, a distance of about 5,000 miles, and then be carried westward again up' the Yang-tse-Kiang, a journey of 2,000 miles, thus having to be conveyed over a distance of 7,000 miles in order to, reach a-point only 700 miles away from the port from which they started. Even when they have reached Canton, after a journey of 4,000 miles, goods are nearly twice as far from this part of China as they were before they left Calcutta ; at Shanghai, after going 5,000 miles by sea, they are three times more remote from their destination than before starting. Facts like these have naturally attracted attention among Europeans connected with the East, and already numerous explorers, official and private, have been engaged in Further India upon the problem of determining in what direc- tion the future short cut to Western China is to lie. The French in Cochin China, fully alive to the importance of the question, are anxious to establish a route with an outlet upon their own coast on the eastern side of the peninsula. Whatever may be the result. of • Through Burmah to Western China. By Clement Williams. Edinburgh: William. Blackwood and Sons. 1868.
their labours, there is no question that no route which terminates in their dependencies on the eastern coast of Further India could for a moment compete, so far, at least, as the commerce of India and Great Britain is concerned, with one whose outlet should be on the Bay of Bengal. For an outlet on the western coast would not only present the advantage of terminating in British territory, but would also spare the Indian trade the long sea voyage round the peninsula of Malacca. Several schemes have been laid before our Indian Government, but beyond sending out exploring and surveying parties and writing reports, it has yet done nothing. The exploration of the river Salween, which empties itself into the Gulf of Martaban, on the western coast, and whose upper course, like that of the Cambodia, is in Chinese territory, resulted in showing that this fine river was unnavigable. It is one among the numerous merits of Lord Cranborne that during his too brief tenure of the India Office, he not only discerned the importance of abridging the journey to China by several thousand miles, by opening a route through Further India, but infused new life into the prose- cution of the scheme. A railway had been suggested which should start from the British port of Rangoon and run through parts of Siam and Independent Burmah to Kiang Hung, on the borders of Yunnan, whence at some future period it might possibly be carried through Tongking, Kwangsi, and Kwangtung to the city of Canton i tself. In the summer of 1867, 245 miles of the proposed route were surveyed, all in British territory. Though by far the greater por- tion of the line thus far was declared quite easy of construction, the India Office, which had in the meantime passed into the hands of Lord Cranborne's successor, permitted the survey to stop here, and in deference to the objections advanced by the authorities in Cal- cutta, both this and other railway schemes have been abandoned. Even if those are wrong who make light of the physical obstacles and political embarrassments by appealing to which the Calcutta officials have prevailed upon Sir Stafford Northcote to acquiesce in the abandonment of the proposed railway schemes, still, as it has never been shown that a railroad is at all indispensable to the attainment of the object in view, it does not follow that the attempt to open a way for Chinese trade through Further India should be altogether resigned as hopeless. That other means of communica- tion might be established without any very great difficulty, it is, in fact, the purpose of the author of the volume before us to show. Having resided in Burmah since 1858, and acted for a portion of the time as the Resident British Political Agent in the Iudependent Kingdom, and having further enjoyed the friendship and con- fidence of the King of that country, Dr. Williams, who has per- sonally- explored the route he proposes up to within a few miles of the borders of China, has had unusual opportunities for preparing himself to speak with some authority on the subject, and the varied information which he presents in respect to the political con- dition of the several countries between the Bay of Bengal and Cen- tral China, the physical geography of the districts through which the proposed or possible routes would lie, and the commercial condi- tion both of the Chinese and Burman border provinces, cannot fail to prove of great value in the future prosecution of the scheme. While stationed at Burmah in 1860-61, Dr. Williams learnt that a trade had for generations been carried on between that country and China by a route starting from the Upper Burman town of Bhmo, a place on the left bank of the Irawaddi and not more than forty miles distant from the Chinese frontier. The problem at once suggested itself to our author to determine whether a trade route to China might not be opened for Western commerce in this direction. He accordingly resigned his office as Army surgeon, and proceeded to investigate whether the Irawaddi were navigable for steamers as far as Bhmo, and what probability there was of the caravan trade between that town and Yunnan—which had then for some time, principally owing to political disturbances in China, been interrupted—being resumed. On the 22nd of January, 1863, after repeated delays, he started, with therrmission of the King of Burmah, from Mandalay in a boat provided by His Majesty, and after a leisurely voyage, in which our explorer was engaged in sounding and noting the principal peculiarities of the Irawaddi, he at length, on the 16th of the following month, arrived at Barn°.
The result of this voyage was to enable Dr. 1Villiams to declare the Irawaddi navigable for steamers as far up as Bkmo. The two defiles of the river between Mandalay and Nun°, where alone it was feared that any difficulty might be met with, Dr. Williams, after careful investigation, found to present no impediment to steam navigation. The navigability of the Irawaddi, asserted by our traveller in 1863, has been completely verified by the arrival in February of the present year (1868) of the first steam-vessel in Bhmo from Rangoon. At Bhtno, where he occupied a house pro- vided by the King, Dr. Williams found himself but forty miles from China. The route which the caravans had been accustomed to use crossed a range of hills inhabited by a turbulent tribe of Singphoos called Kakhyeens. The latter, he found, had taken advantage of the recently unsettled state of Yunnan and Burmah to rob and plunder travellers, and the old caravan trade had thus been interrupted. This, however, could not fail to be resumed as soon as the Chinese or Burmese Government could be brought to reassert its authority. Indeed, Dr. Williams saw sufficient of the Kakhyeens in Bann) to learn that their chiefs would in return for the payment of a small toll be ready to guarantee the safety of all caravans passing through their districts. Of Yunnan, the border province of China, Dr. Williams, among other things, says
"The mouths of the rivers Irawaddi and Yang-tse-Kiang are about 4,000 miles apart ; but the highest navigable point of the Irawaddi and the most south-westerly bend of the Yang-tso approach each other to within '500 miles. Between these two points lies the Chinese pro- vince of Yunnan, rich in metals, silk, tea, and other products, and sup- porting about ten millions of inhabitants. Directly in the line between the two nearing points of the groat rivers lies a trade route that has been used from time immemorial. From Melo to Tali and Yunnan city, caravans of porters, ponies, mules, and donkeys have been accustomed to travel for ages, carrying Burman serpentine and cotton to China, and bringing back Chinese gold, silk, copper, arsenic, mercury, and tea to Burmah. Unfortunately, however, the province of Yunnan has been for eight years disturbed by a Mussulman rebellion, which has resulted in the establishment of a Mussulman kingdom, now eight years old. These disorders led to the cessation or the old com- mercial intercourse ; for this was always carried on by Chinese traders, not Burmans."
These Chinese Mohammedans, who are also known as the Pan- sees, are in the opinion of our author not likely to be disturbed by the Imperial Government for a long time to come. As the Pauses Government of Yunnan have already recommenced the caravan trade with Burrnah by a route to Theinnee, there is reason to sup- pose they would, if invited, assist in reopening the old and more important route to Bamo. Early in the present year, at the instance of Colonel Fytche, the Chief Commissioner in Burmah, who based his representations on the information collected by our author, a party was despatched to explore the route advocated by Dr. Williams; but, besides confiriniug his assertion that the Irawaddi was navigable up to Baum, the expedition for want of proper management, does not appear to have been very successful in its mission.
Whatever the difficulties hitherto met with, there is nothing which, when the problem is seriously taken up, ought to present more than a temporary obstacle to the opening of the trade route advocated by our author up the Irawaddi to 1Vestern China. In laying down Dr. William's volume, we may add that, quite apart from its bearings on the important question to which we have confined our remarks, it contains many new and interesting details which we have not space to notice, respecting not only the physical characteristics of the country, but also concerning the manners and customs, the occupations, religion, and amustnnents of the people of Upper Burnuth.
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