10
destination, Shanyao, for scarcely was my camp pitched when a terrific thunderstorm burst over our heads, and its intermittent fury lasted till 10 A.M. the next morning,
We were now back again in the Têngch'ung district, and three more days, the first two of which descended the undulating paddy-plains flanking the Shweli, brought
our tour to a close on the 11th June.
The sixteen days' continuous travel from Tali via Yunlung to Tengyueh constituted by far the most strenuous section of the whole tour; it included the crossing of five mountain ranges, three of them well over 10,000 feet high, and the other two only a few hundred feet below that level, and the season of its accomplishment was that of the rains. By extraordinary good fortune, on all but two days these refrained from descending until after we had arrived at our halting places for the night, and couse- quently at all but the highest altitudes, when we were actually in the clouds, we enjoyed the most extensive and glorious views over the surrounding mountains and valleys. Whether owing to the lateness of the season or to the thoroughness of the opium-suppression campaigns, this section of our tour likewise disclosed io trace what- ever of poppy cultivation.
The total period occupied by my tour was seventy-six days, all but seven of which were travelling days; my estimate of the total distance covered is 888 miles, of which I accomplished fully niuety per cent, on foot. The route followed traversed some portion at least of eighteen separate districts, and while it cannot, of course, claim to be in any way exhaustive-the start was far too late to admit of such a possibility-it served, in my opinion, to establish the fact that along considerable stretches of country in both the western and southern circuits of Yunnan the Chinese have undoubtedly made genuine efforts to stamp out, for the time being at any rate, the cultivation of opium. This effort must have cost the province a very large sum of money, estimated by the Tengyuch Taoyin at not less than half a million dollars. As an instance of the heavy expenditure incurred, he assured me that between the months of November and March last his bill for official telegrams on the subject of opium alone, at 6 rents per word, came to over 2,000 dollars.
It is, of course, too much to hope that the past season's strenuous efforts in the matter of opium suppression, made as they are for a special purpose, will be maintained, and time alone will show whether the Yunnan authorities are relapsing into their normal venal laxity in this matter. If in the course of the next few years it should be thought necessary to despatch similar missions to investigate into the actual state of affairs, I would venture most strongly to recommend that the system of joint enquiry should be definitely abandoned, if possible. The principle of joint enquiry necessarily implies, to my mind, mutual distrust of the officers deputed by both sides to carry out the inspection, and while it is notorious that it would be almost impossible to find throughout the country a Chinese official who could be trusted implicitly to travel unaccompanied and give a true account of editions along his route, it seems to me unfortunate that British officers should be subjected to the indignity of the company of a Chinese detective to check the accuracy of their observations and report. If, however, it should be found impracticable to depart from the policy crystallised in the Opium Agreement, it should at least, in my opinion, be insisted that the Chinese delegate deputed to accompany the British official should be neither a native of, nor an office-holder in, the region to le traversed.
*
I have the honour to append herewith an itinerary of the journey, together with a rough sketch map showing the various places passed en route.
I cannot close this report without adding a few words to express my high appreciation of the very great assistance willingly and cheerfully rendered throughout the tour by the consulate writer, Mr. Chang-Po-tuan, in obtaining accurate information from day to day regarding both the route I desired to follow and the facts in relation to opium cultivation in the adjoining territory.
His Britannic Majesty's Consulate, Tengyueh June, 1917.
• No printed.
A. E. EASTES.
(No. 23.) Sir,
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Enclosure 3 in No. 1.
Consul Tours to Mr. Alston.
301
Ichang, July 20, 1917. IN accordance with the instructions contained in your despatch of the 10th March last, addressed to me at Chungking, I have inspected the eastern portion of the province of Yunnan, for opium-poppy cultivation; and I now have the honour to enclose herewith my report thereon.
I have, &c.
Enclosure 4 in No. 1.
B. G. TOURS,
Report of an Inspection of the Eastern Part of the Province of Yunnan, to learn the Amount of Cultivation of Opium Poppy. May, 1917
UNDER instructions from His Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires at Peking, I had left Ichang on the 10th March, 1917, in order to proceed to the province of Kueichow the to inspect that province for opium cultivation. I reached Chungking on 27th March, and there I found awaiting me further instructions from His Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires, ordering me to continue my journey when I had traversed the province of Kueichow, and to make a similar journey of inspection through the eastern part of Yunnan province. I completed my journey through Kueichow province on the 1st May, on which day I arrived at Chiang-ti, a small village on the Ching Ho or Ching-fei Ho, a river which forms the boundary-line between the two provinces of Kueichow and Yunnan at that point. The Chinese official delegates from the provincial capital of Yüunan were awaiting me in a village on the Yunnan side of the river; and having crossed the river in Yünnan at 7:30 on the morning of the 2nd May, I was received by them, and after a briet conference and farewells to the Kueichow delegates who had accompanied me across the river, we proceeded on our journey in Yünn..
The Yunnan delegates were two: the senior was Mr. Chan Ping-chung, the head of the Bureau des Renseignements, at Yuman-fu, a secret service department, and the assistant delegate was a Mr. Yang, a clerk from one of the Yünnau-fu yamêns. I was most unfavourably impressed with the Yünnan delegates. Mr. Chan's manner to me was off-hand and brusque to the point of rudeness; he addressed me as "ni," and in many similar little ways was at some pains to show his disapproval of the expedition. Mr. Yang was a nonentity of an inferior type; I gathered that he owed his appointment as delegate to his knowledge of English, but my efforts to plumb the depths of his knowledge of the English language succeeded in only extracting one English sentence from him, and that he used as answer to every question. It was "I do not know,"
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Mr. Sheu Chi, the senior Kueichow delegate, who had accompanied me across the Ching-fei Ho, was evidently of my opinion regarding the Yunnan delegates, for he took me aside and said that if I wished he would make arrangements for Mr. Chien Chih-wan, the assistant Kueichow delegate, to accompany me through Yünnan. I thanked him for the kind suggestion. but told him that I could not think of withdrawing Mr. Chien tron his own duties which were awaiting his return to Kueiyang. I resolved, however, to take steps to report Mr. Chan to his superiors if he continued his objectionable attitude. He very soon afforded me the opportunity, for on our departure from Chiang-ti he got into his chair and started off with the escort and the assistant delegate, leaving me to follow by myself. I took the first opportunity of reporting to His Majesty's consul-general at Yunnan-fu on Mr. Chan's behaviour, and the result was that the Taoyin. of Kengtzu, received instructions to which he did on the 17th May at Ch'iu-pei-and to accompany the expedition for the remainder of the journey as senior Chinese delegate, Mr. Chan being relegated to assistant delegate.
meet me--
Many changes were noticeable on passing from Kueichow to Yunnan, besides the alteration from courtesy to discourtesy of the Chinese official attitude. The aspect of the country took on a change for the worse, characterised by comparative barrenness and bleakness; and the Yunnan native was of a poorer class and of an inferior type than his Kueichow brother. The general deterioration was visible also in the crops,
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