CO129-235 - Public Offices - 1887 — Page 406

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Printed for the use of the Foreign Office. August 29, 1887.

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REG926 SEP 87

Sir J. Walsham to the Marquis of Salisbury.—(Received July 25.)

My Lord,

I HAVE the honour to forward herewith to your Lordship the second part of the

Peking, May 27, 1887. Report, accompanied by a Map, which Mr. Bourne, until recently Her Majesty's Consular Agent at Ch'ungking, has drawn up relating to his journey in South-west China.

As I anticipated in transmitting the first part of this Report to the Earl of Rosebery in my despatch of the 22nd July last, the progress of Mr. Bourne's work was much delayed by the events connected with the outbreak at Ch'ungking last summer, but I am glad to say that he is still in a position to complete the Report, the other sections of which I shall have the honour of forwarding to your Lordship as soon as they are finished.

I have, &c. (Signed)

JOHN WALSHAM,

Inclosure 1.

Second Part of Report by Mr. F. S. A. Bourne relating to his Journey in South-west

China.

Part II.-Pi-chieh Hsien to Yünnan Fu.

THE second part of this Report with a Map was finished and lying packed for transmission when on the 1st July last iny house at Ch'ungking was looted by the rioters and the packet lost, as well as the portion of my journal from Yunnan Fu to P'u-erh Fu and all my observations for longitude and latitude. It being thus impossible to construct original Maps I have copied the principal positions from the Map in Rocher's Yunnan. This and the next Map are merely intended to display, in convenient form, the contour observations.

In the interesting picture which the remembrance of the country between Pi-chieh Hsien and the plain of Yunnan Fu recalls to the traveller's mind, one of the most abiding features is the poverty-stricken look of the people. But this is really merely a matter of clothes, that is, of cotton. The district lies about halfway between the plain of the Lower Yang-tzu and Burmah, whence North Yünnan gets its cotton.

A scanty population off the trade route, with nothing to offer in exchange but a little opium, the inhabitants of this part of the plateau, well off in some respects, are half-naked or in rags. Food is extraordinarily cheap in this part; eggs, for instance, costing a penny for fourteen and a fowl 3d.

This district was the border land between the Mahommedan rebellion in Yünnan and that of the Miao-tzu or Aborigines in Kuei-chou, and many places were taken and retaken by both hordes of rebels and by the Imperialists, each engagement ending in an indiscriminate slaughter and burning, The district between Pi-chieh and Hsuan-nei once flourished on the profits of silver and brass mining. The metals are still there the natives say,

and I was invited over and over again to open works. The condition of the people will doubtless improve here, as in Chao-t'ung Fu on the north-west, when the mines are worked again.

After passing the picturesque valley of the Chi-hsing River through narrow limestone gorges, we reached half-way between Chi-chia-nan and Hui-shui-tang, a place named

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