52
to be carried out by Mr. B. G. Tours, C.M.G., His Majesty's consul at Ichang. On the 24th March Mr. Yu Jên-lung sent me an official despatch notifying the receipt of a telegram from the provincial capital announcing that the Puerb Taoyin was to be Chinese delegate for the joint inspection of the places which I had announced my intention of traversing in that circuit.
On the 27th March, the eve of the date finally fixed for the start, the Taoyin called to learn the route suggested for the first day's trip. Although Lungling, south-east of Tengyueh, had been mentioned first on the rough outline of my projected tour, I had particular reasons for not wishing to travel thither by the normal direct route. Firstly, not two months had elapsed since I had passed over the road, in the reverse direction, on my return from the January Frontier Meeting, without seeing any trace of opium poppy. Moreover, I was anxious to see the present condition of the fields alongside the mountainous track between Nantien and Lungling, which had been described by a reliable source as an almost unbroken succession of opium cultivations. I therefore announced to the Taoyin that I proposed to stop the first night at Nantien. In spite of the frankest betrayal of colossal ignorance of the geography in the immediate vicinity of his own post- he enquired blandly if the main road to Langling (three days' journey south-east of Tengyueh) did not pass through Kuyung, two days to the north-west, and only a day's journey from the frontier of the Myitkyina district-Mr. Yu nevertheless seemed to have some idea that the neighbourhood of Nantien was an undesirable one -from his point of view-for a search of opium crops; and I had to insist that my knowledge of the localities in the Têngch'ung district, where troops were being employed in connection with poppy eradication, was by no means inferior to his own. I was also able to counter his second line of argument, that we could not reach Nantien in one day's journey, and he yielded finally a reluctant acquiescence in my arrangements. His last bolt was not, however, shot, and late at night he sent a lengthy missive advancing the contention that the route between Nantien and Lungling would take us through the zone of military operations against the unredeemed Kachin opium cultivators. To show weakness now would have been impolitic, but it was past midnight before I signed and despatched the letter demolishing all bis arguments and holding him to his word given to me some hours previously.
No reply was vouchsafed, and I therefore despatched my caravans betimes the next morning. the 28th March, and proceeded to the rendezvous with the Taoyin. He had apparently accepted the inevitable: a verbal message was brought to me that, as he was late in starting, he did not propose to descend from his chair; would I, therefore, kindly proceed?
Nantien witnessed the last despairing effort of the Tengyueh Taoyin to combat my daily-tour programme. I had already retired to bed when a letter of ominous length arrived; Mr. Yu professed information that the route suggested by me for the morrow had been wantonly obstructed by a formidable barrier of timber. I roused myself and the uncomplaining writer to reply that my information did not tally, and that I frankly disbelieved the report; I promised, however, that if on the morrow or at any other time during our travels we encountered obstructions, I would turn aside and avoid them. Some time after 2 A.M. I was roused once more to blink at the swan-song of the Taoyin's objections. In view of my undertaking, solemnly repeated in extenso, he resigned himself to following my rash lead.
Needless to say, we encountered no trace of the alleged timber-barrier obstructing the path; but after some two hours' journey the consulate writer and I found a field of opium poppy, measuring roughly some 70 feet by 35 feet, round a bend a few hundred yards off the road. When we arrived, the owner,, a woman of A-Ch'ang race, in a paroxysm of weeping, was plucking up the full-blown plants- presumably in obedience to orders from advance emissaries of the Taoyin's party. The Taoyin contented himself with despatching one of his numerous attendant underlings to inspect the field, and on the strength of his report sent me the same evening a letter minimising the incident.
On the 31st March our route joined the main Lungling road at Manlo, just above the wire rope suspension bridge over the Shweli; for the past three or four weeks this bridge had been closed for the retimbering of the roadway, and the honour of reopening it to traffic was reserved for our cavalcade. At the head of the stiff ascent on the left bank of the Shweli we were met by the Lungling magistrate, formerly senior frontier deputy at Tengyueh, and an old acquaintance; he assured me with cheerful confidence that no matter what part of his district I might visit,
53
I should fail to find a single opium poppy. On arrival at Lungling, the consulate writer and I were entertained to a Chinese dinner-party in his yamên.
The discovery of only one solitary field of opium along the route between Nantien and Lungling must, I think, be taken as evidence of the strenuous efforts which have been made during the past few months to eradicate all traces of the proscribed plant; from one or two more talkative residents encountered en route I obtained admissions of a considerable recrudescence of cultivation during last year, but all agreed as to the thorough measures of suppression carried out since November last. In the Têngch'ung district, for instance, no less than three separate expeditions of eradi cation had been sent out, under territorial, military, and police officials respectively, and it is only just to place on record that their duties were performed in a very thorough manner,
The normal order of procedure was for my caravan, headed by the writer and myself, to take the lead, and for the Taoyin's more imposing party to bring up the rear. The 1st April was, however, appropriately celebrated by the failure of the Taoyin's party to keep touch with us at a parting of the ways; this added some 2 miles for them to the long and undulating road to Siangta. Thence to Pingka is normally reckoned as a single-though lengthy stage for caravans; at the Taoyin's request we split into two, halting at the small hamlet of Huchiachai, 7.000 feet high, picturesquely situated in the midst of dense groves of bamboos. At Huchiachai we encountered our first rain, and thereafter we had not a single rainless day until the 19th April. From Pingka to Hankuai, high above the right bank of the Salween, with a magnificent view of the lofty mountains on the other side, was another long day's march.
The crossing of the Salween was a tedious business for so large a cavalcade; two bamboo rafts were provided, taking only some five mule-loads or ten men on each trip; the method of propulsion across the swift current was by a species of flat umbrella fashioned of stout bamboo; at each end of the craft an oarsman plied one of these cambrous weapons by plunging it into the water and pulling it towards himself with powerful strokes.
"
+ *
The town of Chênk'ang was reached next day. Formerly there was a Chinese Shan Sawbwa of Chênk'ang, but his downfall was brought about as the result of the Manchu Viceroy, Hsi Liang's, policy for the gradual absorption of the Chinese Shan States into direct Chinese administration; and save for a few picturesque ruins of the Sawbwa's palace, the place is now shorn of any pomp and circumstance it may have once possessed.
Twelve days' travel, although for the most part along comparatively unfrequented routes, had now disclosed but one solitary field of opium poppy, and I therefore decided on a somewhat rash experiment. None of the four maps of Yunnan which I took with me gave any indication of a road from Chênk'ang to Mienning, the next district town on my list, and the recognised routes between these two places are circuitous in the extreme, and pass through either Shunning or Yunchow. I ascertained, however, that a road practicable for chairs existed, and elected to attempt it. Fortunately, by this time the Tengyueh Taoyin had resigned himself to accepting my lead, or he would almost certainly have protested. For five days we followed the roughest of mountain paths, which had in many places to be prepared overnight for our transit by the felling of trees and clearing of jungle. Below Manlai our route crossed the Namting River by a ford which would obviously be impracticable during the heavier rains of midsummer. At the Namting we quitted the Chênk ang district and entered the jurisdiction of the Chinese Shan Sawbwa of Kêngma. During our six days of travel through Chênk ang territory we had found no opium crops whatever, though I learnt that there had been a small harvest of the earliest sown poppy. The magistrate was said, however, to have been indefatigable in the work of eradication, and I was assured not by himself— that since November of last year he had never been in residence at his post for five consecutive days.
Our next halt, the Shan village of Chepi, was on a route traversed more than twenty years ago by H. R. Davies, the standard authority on the province of Yunnan, and doubtless by other foreigners since; here, for the first time, I abandoned my tent, in favour of a comparatively clean temple.
At this point we were met by a guard of honour sent out to meet us by the P'uêrh Taoyin, who had arrived at Mienning, cur pre-arranged meeting-place, on the 11th April. I owe the efficient commandant a debt of gratitude for his
[6032]
E s
516