Directory_and_Chronicle_1908 — Page 1051

MENGTSZ

自蒙 Mung-ts:

This is a district city in south-east Yunnan, and together with Man-hao, a village on the left bank of the Red River, was opened to trade by the Additional Convention to the French Treaty of Tientsin of the 25th April, 1886, signed at Peking on the 26th June, 1887. The town is two days' journey from Man-hao and about six days' from the frontier of Tonkin at Laokay, and beautifully situated, being built on a cultivated plateau twenty miles long by about twelve miles in breadth, encircled by picturesque mountains, and is 4,280 feet above the level of the sea. It has a population of about 3,500 persons, but was a place of much more importance before the Mahommedan. rebellion, as the numerous well-built temples, many of them now in ruins, still testify. It is, however, a considerable commercial emporium even now, and is becoming an important centre for the distribution of foreign goods imported via Tonkin. The French Consul hoisted his flag at Mêngtsz on the 30th April, 1889, and the Customs station was opened in the following August. The value of the trade coming under the cognisance of the Foreign Customs for 1906 was Tls. 10,825,000 against Tls. 9,593,000 in 1905, and Tls. 10,747,000 in 1904. The Chinese merchants avail themselves largely of the advantages offered by the transit pass system. The value of goods sent into the interior under transit passes during the year 1906 amounted to Tls. 3,761,000. The climate of Mêngtsz is temperate and salubrious. Plague has been absent from Mêngtsz since 1899. During the winter good sport is obtained, snipe and wild fowl being abundant in the plains, and some pheasants- and partridges in the hilly districts, but the presence of a large number of sportsmen of all kinds is making all game scarce. A new French Consulate was finished in 1893, new dwelling-houses for members of the Customs service in 1894, and a new Custom-house in the spring of 1895. All these buildings are outside the East gate of the city. On the 22nd June, 1899, a riot occurred, in the course of which the Custom-house and French Consulate

were looted. The Compagnie Lyonnaise Indo-Chinoise opened in 1899 a branch to Mêngtsz. Others have followed in their footsteps and four large commercial houses in Indo-China are now represented. A railway from Laokay to Yunnanfu via Mêngtsz is under construction by a French Company, which had a capital of 4,000,000 francs for this purpose, but the ultimate cost of the line, which will have a length of 470 kilometres, will probably be at least a hundred millions. Surveys for the whole line have been made, and 60 kilometres are so far complete that construction trains leave Laokay about five times weekly. The railway has already reached Mengtsz and the line is expected to be completed to Yunnanfu by the end of 1909, or the Spring of 1910. The British Consul has pointed out that not least of the benefits which the line should confer would be the provision of sanatoria for Indo-China, even, may be, for Singapore, Bangkok and Hongkong. If for twenty years, he says, the Chinese peasant could be checked in his ravages there has been ruthless destruction of timber-the lake region of Yunnan would become a terrestrial paradise. Several houses for the accommodation of the Railway Mission have been built at Mêngtsz since 1900, and as a sequel to the immigration, rents, wages, and the cost of living for natives and foreigners alike have risen greatly. During the last four years the Chinese Post Office has pushed its way into the interior till now the south east of Yunnan is covered with a network of lines and nearly every town has its establishment. A mounted courier service is maintained between Hokow (Laokay, on the French side), and Yunnanfu via Mêngtsz. With the help of the construction trains the mails reach Mêngtsz in four days, and the provincial capital in six more from their entry into China.

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