April 14, 1898] 



NATURE 



557 



natural selection there has been a diminution also of 

 human faculty. Hence there is little or no evidence of 

 the hereditary transmission of increments of faculty due 

 to continued and persistent use. A discussion of heredity 

 in man thus confirms the inference drawn from the study 

 of habit and instinct in some of the lower animals." 



Those who disagree with any of these conclusions are 

 invited to study carefully the strong arguments by which 

 they are supported. 



Further discussion of many of the interesting questions 

 raised in this valuable work would have been desirable, 

 but the limits of space forbid. Enough has been said, 

 however, to show that this book compels the serious 

 attention of all who profess to feel an interest in the 

 instincts and habits of animals. 



The printing and general get-up of the volume leave 

 nothing to be desired. There is one excellent plate form- 

 ing the frontispiece, representing a group of the young 

 birds employed in the recorded observations, drawn by 

 G. E. Lodge. E. B. P. 



TRAVELS IN INDO-CHINA. 



From Tonkin to India by the Sources of the Irawadi. 

 By Prince Henri d'Orldans. Translated by Hamley 

 Bent, M.A. Illustrated by G. Vuillier. Pp. xii -t- 467, 

 (London : Methuen, 1898.) 



FROM the time of the great expedition under Doudart 

 de Lagree, which in 1866-68 threw such a flood 

 of light on the countries watered by the great Mekong 

 River, and of which the story was so admirably told by 

 the lamented Francis Gamier, the exploration of the 

 eastern half of Indo-China has fallen almost entirely to 

 Frenchmen, who with untiring energy have traversed 

 its jungles, and by their successful enterprise have added 

 an empire to the dominions of the French Republic. 

 But in spite of the labours of these devoted pioneers, 

 and of the equally zealous explorers who, from the 

 British side, have sought to disclose the mysteries of 

 that long-closed region, there still remained an inner 

 recess, as it were, to which no European had succeeded 

 in penetrating. The region in question had for many 

 reasons possessed a singular fascination for geographers. 

 Traversed, to use the words of the late Sir H. Yule, by 

 " that formidable fascis of great rivers, descending from the 

 highlands of Tibet, which give to the map of this region 

 an aspect so unique in geography," it engaged attention 

 not only from the various problems connected with the 

 courses of those rivers, but from the remarkable barrier 

 which it placed in the way of communication between 

 the neighbouring countries of India (Assam) and China, 

 a barrier so effectual that the same high authority, 

 writing in 1883, could adduce only three instances in 

 which it had been pierced during our own times, even 

 by a piece of intelligence. It was reserved for Prince 

 Henri d'Orleans, who had already made himself known 

 by several enterprising journeys, to be the first to cross 

 this barrier, in company with MM. Roux and Briflfaud, 

 and his lately-published narrative may be said without 

 hesitation to have fully deserved the honours of a trans- 

 lation, such as is now before us. 

 Prince Henri's journey naturally falls into three sections, 

 NO. 1485. VOL. 57] 



the interest of which may be said to stand in zxt 

 ascending ratio. In the first, a little-known region lying 

 on the borders of Southern Yunnan and Tonkin was 

 traversed from east to west, the route terminating at tfee 

 interesting Chinese town of Sumao, famous as the centre 

 of distribution of the so-called " Puerh " tea, grown in 

 the Shan country to the south. The second, of which 

 the direction was mainly from south to north, was con- 

 cerned with the exploration of a section of the Mekong, 

 for a knowledge of which we were previously dependent 

 solely on old Chinese maps, with the one exception 

 of the crossing-point of the road from Burma to Yunnan. 

 The river was struck at a point somewhat to the north 

 of Kiang (or Xieng) Hung,i reached from Maulmein 

 by McLeod in 1836, and likewise the last point at 

 which the river was seen by Lagree and his com- 

 panions. From here, with the exception of a detour to 

 Tali-fu and a minor deviation into the neighbouring 

 Salwen basin, the valley of the Mekong was followed as 

 far as the French mission stations in South-eastern. 

 Tibet, through the countries of the Lamasjens, Lissus, and 

 other wild and imperfectly known tribes. The third and 

 last section, in which the westerly direction was resumed,, 

 led across the . previously unpierced barrier between 

 China and Assam, the region of the Irawadi head 

 streams, the system of which had been previously the 

 subject of so much controversy among geographers. 

 The starting-point for this section was the mission 

 station of Tseku, the furthest point reached by Mr. 

 T. T. Cooper, when he, too, nearly thirty years ago, 

 made his first danng attempt to traverse the same, then, 

 impenetrable barrier. 



The country traversed by this route was of such a 

 character as to try the mettle of the hardiest of ex- 

 plorers. The great rivers, as is well known, flow in 

 parallel courses, separated by steep mountain ranges, 

 up which the traveller must climb by the most difficult of 

 paths, which often run sheer above the foaming torrent 

 rushing many hundred feet below him. The Prince's 

 party were provided with a caravan of mules, and ever* 

 these sure-footed beasts would occasionally lose their 

 footing and roll down the steep mountain-side. They 

 seem also to have had a propensity to stray, which 

 entailed many an arduous search.^ No less arduous were 

 the marches through the trackless, dripping forests of the 

 Upper Irawadi basin. The crossing of the rivers, too, often 

 involved serious difficulties. The Mekong is provided 

 in places with iron chain-bridges, the vibration of which 

 demanded a steady nerve in the crossing ; but this was 

 nothing to the actual danger involved by the passage of 

 rushing streams on frail rafts or by slippery bamboo 

 bridges, or those consisting, after the Tibetan fashion, of 

 a mere rope, down which the passenger shoots with 

 lightning rapidity. The trusty interpreter Joseph, a. 

 convert of the missionaries at Tali, who, with his non- 



1 Prince Henri is in error in saying that a railway is in course of con- 

 struction to Kiang Hung from Mandalay. Although schemes have been, 

 set on foot for the reaching of this place by railway from Siam and Lower 

 Burma, the railway frcm Mandalay is to make for the Kunlon ferry across* 

 the Salwen, and to reach the Chinese frontier through the state of 

 Kokang, lately ceded to Great Britain. 



2 A strange kind of fcdder, given to them by the drivers, on the recom- 

 mendation of the Tibetans, was a hash of raw fowls and salt, said to be a. 

 rare pick-me-up for beasts of burden. 



