488 PROCEEDINGS, 
food by all who can afford such, Mahomedans of course abstaining 
from the abominable flesh of the hog and the dog. Milk, butter, 
cheese, tea, sugar, and salt are also produced in various parts of the 
province, and at reasonable prices. Clothing stuff is, however, 
very dear, althongh coarse flannels and strong silks are woven from 
native produce, and an abundance of fine wool is available for 
manufacturing the best of cloth on the introduction of suitatle 
machinery for that purpose.. The mineral wealth of Yunnan is 
something enormous, and almost inexhaustible, It is greater by 
far than that of any other province in China. Rubies and sapphires, 
garnets and topazes, amethysts and jade abound in the western 
prefectures; gold, silver, platinum, nickel, copper, tin, lead, zinc, 
iron, coal and salt also abound in many places. Copper is especially 
abundant. Its ores are of excellent quality and have been worked. 
for ages in over one thousand different places. This rich province 
has been more or less open to Chinese commercial intercourse for 
the long period of twenty-two centuries, and it has been administered 
entirely as a Chinese province for six centuries or more, yet nothing 
appears to have been done by the Chinese Government for the benefit 
of the native tribes whose country has been so forcibly annexed to 
the Chinese Empire. 
The principal object of the Chinese in retaining their hold of this 
province appears to have been to secure the contract of its rich 
deposits of copper and other metals. Millions of taels of silver are 
expended annually in various ways throughout the province, but 
despite this fact, the people are exceedingly poor, wretched and 
miserable, The wealthiest of the natives are neither fed, dressed, or 
housed with anything like comfort, not tosay luxury. Their best food 
is frugal indeed, and their best clothing is far inferior to that worn by 
our servants in Shanghai, whilst most of their houses would hardly be 
considered good enough for the cattle on a respectable English farm. 
This great misery is no doubt principally due to the lack of water 
communications, and the badness of all roads, but a great deal of 
it is also due to the general incompetency of Chinese officials to 
govern alien races, and to the i incapacity of the wretched people to 
govern themselves, 
