490 PROCEEDINGS. 
as follows: Eight days to Kuei-yang Fu, capital of Kueichow 
province, thence eighteen days to Yiinnan Fu, total eighty-eight days, 
or including rests 100 days. The whole journey may be accom- 
plished in eighty days’ actual travelling, but halts and rests are 
necessary, so 100 days is the usual time oceupied in the actual 
performance of this feat. This is the best possible route for officials 
just now, in the way of accommodation afloat and ashore, never- 
theless it is an arduous and comfortless task for everybody. 
Merchandise cannot be profitably forwarded to Yunnan by this 
route as the duties levied in Hunan and Kueichow are so heavy 
that the merchandise is made too costly for sale in Yunnan. 
The Shui Fu or Chao Tung route is now the most important and 
least costly of all the trade routes to Yunnan from Central China. 
Travellers and merchandise may now come to Ichang by steamer, 
thence travel in junks on the Upper Yangtsze, through the Gorges, 
over the rapids, into Ssti-ch‘nan province; pass Chung-kh‘ing and 
stop at the prefectural city of #% }M Iff Hsii-chou Fa, also called 
Shui Fu, in Lat. 28° 38’ N., Long. 104° 46/ E, in about 40 days 
or six weeks. Here the land journey commences; pack animals 
and coolies are engaged; your baggage or merchandise is lashed 
on the pack-saddles and carried by the animals. You mount a 
sedan-chair and are borne by the coolies in the same manner as on 
the Imperial highway through Hu-nan and Kuei-chou already 
mentioned, You pass ont of Sst-ch‘uan into Yuunan province at 
the famous Customs barrier called Lao-ya-Tan, thence by the 
prefectural cities of ff] 3M If Chao-tung Fu, Lat. 27° 20’ N,, 
Long. 103° 50’ E., and 3 Ji} JAF Tung-ch‘uan Fu, Lat. 26° 
21'N., Long. 106° 26/ E., to the provincial capital and prefectural 
city of Yiinnan Fu, in twenty-four days; the whole journey from 
Ichang, by river and road, may be accomplished in about ten 
weeks, inclading stoppages. The bulk of Foreign goods vow sold 
in Yunnan passes by this route, as the duties, though heavy, 
are still lighter than on all the other routes, and there is less 
danger of being robbed or squeezed by marauders. The alternate 
route to this from the Upper Yangtsze is the third route, which is 
called the Yung-ning Hsiian Wei route. Instead of going up as 
