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Sudden and violent freshets come down from Yunnan between May and October, but the open country is rarely flooded, and the river not only rises but also falls very fast. No town of even third-rate importance is passed en route, and though Ping Ma and other places the cultivation of paddy, indigo, rhea, &c., is dense aud extensive, there are still large uncultivated areas even close to the river and in the valley bottoms.
The West River Valley would certainly bear a much larger population if the public peace could be guaranteed. It is to such a gradual increase of the population, to the development of mines, and to the encouragement of such special products as silk, indigo, rhea, &c., that we must look for an increase in the now not very great volume of Kwansi trade.
The banks of the West River right away into Yünnan are infested still with bands of pirates, or "yin yung." The "army" of "Maréchal Su," on the southern frontier, furnishes an inexhaustible supply of Bardolphs, Nyms, and Pistols. Just before I passed along (September 1899), three opium robberies, accompanied with violence and homicide, had occurred, and the river traffic was reduced to a minimum. The road north from Po-sê into Kueichou, which was impassable when the Blackburn Commis sion passed through Kucichow, is now open, the merchants having put up a large sum to secure an efficient policing; but the river itself, especially above Po-sê, is as bad as ever, and until this brigandage is suppressed, it is hopeless to expect a large trade.
The river between Nanning and Po-sé will not be navigable for steamers, except occasionally at high water. As a light 3-foot draught boat could do the journey in three days in good water, it may prove profitable to take advantage of a favourable river to run up to Po-sê with sycee and yarn and bring down opium and aniseed oil. The extra security and speed would probably admit of high freights, but there is always the risk of the river suddenly going down and leaving the steamer high and dry.
Shallows rather than rapids are the trouble all along the West River. Po-se is a busy little town of some 12,000 inhabitants. When I was there quantities of Kueichou opium were coming down, but the Yunnan trade is trifling. Mules very rarely come to Po-sê, and the journey across the frontier to Pê Ngai has to be performed in small sampans worked by Shans. The rapids are violent and the scenery magnificent, but the robbers are stated to be numerous.
From
Pê Ngai is a wretched little town, the usual terminus of the mule route from Yunnan, but it is by no means easy to get beasts at a moment's notice. Pê Ngai, 700 feet, to Kwang-uan, 4,000 feet (the first town on the plateau of Yunnan), is eight stages over a serbonian bog which the Chinese are pleased to call a road. The country is all ups and downs, the rains are long and heavy, and no one ever spends a cent on repairs. The consequent delay, damage to goods, and wear and tear of beasts is a most serious item of expense. The country itself up to Kwangnan is very thinly populated by Shans and Chinese from Ssuchuan and Canton. The poverty and dirt in their dwellings is deplorable, and it is not surprising that fever and plague hold permanent session here.
On arriving at Kwanhan the exhausted and mud-caked traveller has a choice of routes; to Mengtze direct is seven days; the roads on the plateau are better, but the country up to the Valley of Mengtze is as poor as the Pê Ngai district. I took a short cut, avoiding the city of Kai Hua, and travelled for four days through lonely valleys filled with marshes, the home of wild-fowl and malaria; here and there were some mud and wattle huts, where the few inhabitants shiver away their ague- stricken existence. From the commercial point of view the country is the abomina tion of desolation. I found the natives new quinine, and I was bombarded with requests for the "white frost," which in many cases it would have been sheer cruelty to refuse.
From Kuangnan to Yunnan is about fifteen days. Kwangnan itself is a sleepy hollow of no commercial importance.
Thus goods coming up from Nanning to Po-sê will still have a hard journey of at least twenty days before reaching the real markets of Yunnan. Unless something is done to clear the road of mud and robbers the prospect cannot be considered good.
In eight days' travel between Pê Ngai and Kwangnan I met two large opium caravans (about 200 beasts in each); besides that nothing but a few loads of hides, bones, and medicines. There are two li-kins en route.
Mengtze from every point of view, and especially the military, is a place of the utmost importance to the Chinese Government. It is therefore not surprising to find that the garrison consists of four officers, two men, and a boy, all of whom have con-
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scientious objections to having anything to do with "villanous salpetre." Mengtze is the key of the chief natural trade route from the low country on to the plateau. It is also the screen of the rich districts round. Lin An and of the capital itself; any one in possession of Mengtze could overawe Yünnan-fu so effectually as to control all the officials in the province, and 100 French soldiers might walk in and take the place any day; indeed, I am convinced that this is the fate which is ultimately in store, for Mengtze. If such a move was made combined with a demonstration near Lung-chou, I feel sure "Maréchal" Su and his officers would bolt. The fact probably is that the French Government at home is aware of the weak and uncertain position which they occupy in Tonquin itself. Their "jumping-off ground" is so unsteady that they are not prepared to make a leap. They are so feeble that the hands of guerillas into which Su's "army" would break up on the occurrence of hostilities would do them a great deal of harm. Otherwise it is inexplicable why Mengtze was not taken instead of Kuangehou Wan.
1899 is likely to be a bumper year for Mengtze, and the trade is steadily developing; chiefly on account of transit passes being respected. Now, I have several times seen the statement that this circumstance was due to "the energetic action of the French authorities which contrasts so favourably with the weakness diplayed, &c." In fact the French authorities have had nothing whatever to do with transits; the goods are mostly ours, and the passes are taken out in the names of Chinese firms; it. is not, therefore, clear how the French Consul would have any locus standi even if irregularities did occur. The prescut excellent system is due to the action of the Customs and the Taotai who opened the port, an official who objected to the li-kin, and who insisted on passes being respected; thus, from the commencement of the trade it became a matter of custom.
The Taotai at Nanning declared, but I know not on what authority, that there was no immediate prospect of the Lungchou Railway being really pushed forward; but at Mengtze the French evidently mean business and have gone about it in a very One French way. The country has been overrun with "Missions de Chemin de Fer." mission sent out from home by the Public Works (Guillemoto); a second by the Tonquin military authorities (Pennequin); a third by the banks who are financing the railway. All these expeditions have been separate and more or less hostile to each other, and have trouble with the people.
At the time of the Mengtze riot there were over thirty Frenchmen in the city, besides a number at various mines and in Yünnan-fu; some of these gentlemen owe their position to being friends of M. Doumer's political supporters, who have accordingly "dumped" them down in Tonquing The Governor-General's hurried visit to the Yunnan Viceroy has had no good result, and did much to bring to a head the popular and official suspicion and dislike of Frenchmen.
M. Doumer appears to have thought that a Chinese Viceroy is a kind of King Coffee, to whom it is only necessary to offer a sufficient quantity of gin in order to procure any Treaty you may want. He was soon undeceived; some of his presents were rejected and no definite Concession for a railway station at the capital could be obtained; the Viceroy also objected to commencing the railway at Yünnan. position was:
His
"We have no money to embark in unprofitable enterprises; the province is poor and this is a losing affair; the people, too, are strongly opposed to it; you have got your permit from Peking; begin your honourable railway at your end with your own money and come along gradually. The people will then get accustomed to it and in a few years later there will be plenty of time to talk of Concessions at Yunnan-fo, which now I have no authority to make."
As regards the railway, I gather that the position is this: all surveys have been practically completed, and a route (not the present mule route) has been found up to the plateau from Manhao, where a road for railway services is being made, but there is likely to be a long delay in getting plant out, and possibly special boats will have to be constructed to bring it up to Laokay. The French Foreign Office is luke-warm, and the various parties interested in the line are not likely to work well together.
The Mengtze riot last summer was a much more serious affair than appeared, and it was extremely lucky that none of the foreigners on the Customs staff were killed. The riot was undoubtedly directed against the French Consulate, but the mob could There is no reason to suppose not distinguish between that building and the Customs.
that the officials were directly concerned in the riot which was so well organized as to be a sort of local rebellion. Two of the Mengtze Yamên runners had been killed a day or two beforehand by one of the ringleaders whom they had tried to arrest. The
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