26 



NATURE 



{May 13, 1880 



some of them may not be cleared up by a series of such 

 reports, and the chief vahie of the present successful 

 attempt is, in our humble opinion, to show that the plan 

 put into operation by Messrs. Cordeaux and Brown is 

 workable, and we sincerely trust that they will continue 

 their enterprising efforts. The amount of correspond- 

 ence and trouble it must give them cannot fail to be very 

 great, but they, as well as the lighthouse and lightship 

 keepers, will have one kind of reward, and that, perhaps, 

 one not altogether unsatisfactory. They will obtain the 

 true gratitjde of all ornithologists who believe in ornitho- 

 logy as a study of life, and we believe will receive from 

 ornithologists without exception the credit and encourage- 

 ment they so richly deserve. If the scheme can be kept 

 going for half-a-dozen years we can scarcely fail to be in 

 a position to know something worth knowing of the 



. . " wild birds that change 

 Their season in the ni^ht, and wail their way 

 From cbud to cloud," .... 



whose movements at present give rise to so much specu- 

 lation, and thereby, perhaps, penetrate another, and 

 certainly one of the most interesting of nature's secrets. 



THE RIVER OF GOLDEN SAND 

 The River of Golden Sand. By Capt. William Gill, R.E 



With an Introductory Essay by Col. Henry Yule, C.B. 



R.E. (London : John Murray, Albemarle Street, iSSo.) 

 " ' I "HE River of Golden Sand," the narrative of a 



-^ journey through China and Eastern Tibet to 

 Burmah, is likely to prove one of the most valuable books 

 of travel that have been published for a considerable time. 

 It is prefaced by a long and able introductory essay by 

 Cob Yule. In it are indicated many points of geogra- 

 phical interest in the country in which the River of 

 Golden Sand is taken as the axis — the part of Eastern 

 Tibet which intervenes between India and China — and 

 the history sketched of explorations in this extent of 

 country previous to Capt. Gill's. This essay is so full of 

 interest and information that we shall try to give a 

 summary of the facts detailed in it. 



The first thing that strikes an observant eye in looking 

 at a map of Asia is the number of great rivers that rush 

 southward in parallel courses within a very narrow space 

 of longitude. This forms the most striking characteristic 

 of the country between India and China. The first of 

 these rivers, beginning at the west, is the Subanshiri, coming 

 from the Himalaya and entering the valley of Assam. 

 The next is the Dihong, which joins the Lohit — Brahma- 

 putra proper — at Sadiya. The third river is the Dibong, 

 which joins the Dihong .before its union with the Brahma- 

 putra. It is now believed that this does not come from 

 Tibet. The people of Upper Tibet say they have only 

 two rivers coming from Tibet — the Dihong and the 

 Brahmaputra. The Brahmaputra enters Assam at the 

 Pool of Brahma. This, from a curious piece of evidence 

 given by Col, Yule, is evidently identical with Kenpu of 

 Chinese geographers. The Ku-ts-Kiang is almost cer- 

 tainly a source of the Irawadi. The remotest sources of this 

 river do not lie further north than 30° at the utmost. Its 

 length is considerably shorter than the River of Golden 

 Sand. The Mekong has its source in the far north of Tibet. 

 Its lower course has only been known accurately since 



the French expedition. But the town of Tsiamdo, stand- 

 ing between its two main branches about latitude 30" 45', 

 was visited by missionaries in 1S66, so that its course is 

 known as far north as this. 



The Chin-Sha, from which Capt. Gill's book takes its 

 name, is, if not the greatest river in Asia, the longest. 

 Capt. Gill followed the windings of this river, with a few 

 digressions, during twentj'-four marches on his way from 

 Bat'ang to Ta-li-fu. This great river has its source in 

 about 90° longitude — almost as far west as Calcutta. At 

 this part of its course its channel is 750 feet wide, and 

 the whole river from bank to bank nearly a mile wide. 

 Flowing into China, it receives the name of Kin-Sha- 

 Kiang, which it retains until joined by the Min, coming 

 from Ssu-ch'uan. There it becomes navigable to the 

 sea. The navigation has often many hindrances in the 

 way of rapids and gorges. Capt. GiU was the first to give 

 us any accurate knowledge of the Yun-nan and Tibetan 

 part of this great river. 



The remaining two parallel rivers are the Ya-lung-Kiang 

 and the Min-Kiang. Capt. Gill is the only traveller that 

 has traced the latter river to the alpine highlands. 



How to obtain direct communication between India 

 and China has always been a difficult problem. India 

 first became known to China not across the mountains 

 and through the river valleys, but by the enormous circuit 

 of Bactria and Kabul. In the year 127 B.C., Chang-Rien, 

 a military leader, in exploring the country round the 

 Oxus, brought back a report of a land called Shin-tu, i.e. 

 Hindu, India. Attempts were made several times to 

 penetrate by the Ssii-ch'uan frontier to India, but with 

 little success. Two hundred years later, when communica- 

 tion opened with India, it was by way of Bactria, and went 

 on so for centuries. In the "Periplus," a work of the 

 first century A.D., mention is made of trade in silk stuflTs 

 through Bactria to Bhroch. Marco Polo, when making 

 his way to the frontier of Burma, went by the same route 

 as Capt. Gill on his ninth march from Ch-eng-tu. Ta- 

 li-fu, which is so often spoken of in Capt. Gill's book, is a 

 central point on the Chinese frontier. For centuries it 

 has been the centre of all military and commercial 

 communication between China and Burmah. 



By the treaty of Tien-tsing British subjects received 

 the right to travel in the interior of China. Modern 

 exploration dates from this, and our knowledge of the 

 physical geography, natural resources of the country, and 

 characteristics of the people of China have been slowly 

 growing. It must not be forgotten that the missionaries 

 of the Roman Church travelled much over China and 

 Tibet. Publicity would have been against their purpose, 

 and geographical research was not their object, so that 

 their journals came before a hmited few. Abbd Hue, in 

 his famous story of his journey with Gabet, gave the first 

 picture of Eastern Tibet in modern times in 1S50. Carl 

 Ritter's great work, which appeared many years before 

 Hue's, gives a great deal of information of the great road 

 by Ch'eng-tu to Lhassa. Anart from the little known 

 efforts of the Roman Catholic missionaries, no attempt 

 was made to penetrate those regions until 1S61. Blakiston's 

 exploration of the Upper Yang-tzu, after the treaty of 

 Tien-tsing, was the first in this direction. In 1S67 the 

 great French expedition to Ta-li under Garnier was 

 made. This was the first time that any European 



