Directory_and_Chronicle_1923 — Page 1013

LUNGCHOW-MENGTSZ AND YUNNANFU

955

Tonkin. The Chinese Post Office sends daily couriers to Langson in Tonkin and couriers every second day to Nanning overland, with connections to Canton and Pakhoi. An establishment of the Chinese Maritime Customs is maintained at the port, where foreign interests are in the charge of Consuls resident on the West River and in Hongkong. France alone maintains a Consul in Lungchow, and he is also Consul for Nanning. The net value of the trade coming under the cognisance of the Maritime Customs for 1921 was Tls. 85,552, as against Tls. 88,722 in 1920. The trip up from Nanning usually takes from two to three days and that down to Nanning about 30 hours, according to the water in the river, the level of which is liable to very sudden fluctuations during the prevalence of rainy weather. Motor boats carry most of the incoming cargo from and via the West River ports, whilst imports from over the frontier come by junk or raft or by carrier. The river scenery between Nanning and Lungehow with its succession of gorges is well worth seeing, but at present accommodation for Europeans on board the distinctly Chinese-style motor-boats is non-existent. The climate of the port is damp and very hot for some eight months or more in the year, the hottest period being usually from April to July.

The chief characteristic of Lungchow is its inaccessibility, both by the existing very poor roads from the frontier and by the Tsokiang during the low-water season. Unless good stone roads are laid out and the channels of the Tsokiang improved, it is hopeless to look forward to any trade and, even. to expect any to visit a place which is really well worthy of consideration from a commercial, ethnological and topographical point of view.

DIRECTORY

COMMISSIONER OF THE POLICE FRONTIER,

KWANG-SI

Tupan-Colonel Li Pai-yün

Chief Secretary-Ou-Ko

關州龍

Lung-chow-kuan

CUSTOMS, CHINESE MARITIME

Acting Commissioner-M. Cupelli

Tidewaiter-C. S. J. Conroy

Clerk-Fung Chun Chiu

署事領國法大

FRENCH CONSULATE

Consul-V. Cadet (for Lungchow and

Nanning)

局支政郵州龍

POST OFFICE, CHINESE

Postal Commissioner-N. B. l'oolha

(at Nanning)

Postmaster-Seu-tou Seun

ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSION

Rev. Father A. Barrière, Lungchow

Rev. Crocq, Taipingfu

Rev. Coysac, Tsai Miou

MENGTSZ AND YUNNANFU

自蒙 Méng-isz

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 20 miles long by about 12 miles in breadth, encircled by picturesque mountains, and is 4,280 feet above the level of the sea. It has a population of about 11,000 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.