May 13, 1880] 



NATURE 



27 



traveller (not a priest) had seen the Yachi of Marco Polo 

 since he himself was there in 1283. In 1S60 Mr. Cooper 

 traversed from Han-kow to Bat'ang over the high plateau, 

 the scene of Capt. Gill's expedition afterwards. Cooper 

 hoped to reach India by China, but on the Chinese 

 frontier his party had to stop their journey owing to the 

 disturbed state of the country'. There was not much 

 geographical information collected on this journey. In 

 1872, Baron Richthofen at Ch-eng-tu was on one of those 

 important journeys which forms the groundwork of Capt. 

 Gill's work. His project came to an untimely end. In 

 speaking incidentally of the labours of the Roman Catholic 

 missionaries, Abbe Desgodins must not be forgotten. 



In 1S73 Augustus Margary was appointed to explore 

 the country between the Irawadi and China. He success- 

 fully reached Bhamo from China, but on his return journey 

 he met his tragic end. Since that time there has been a 

 more recent journey made by Mr. Baber by a new route 

 to Ta-chien-lu. 



Capt. Gill's first journey was through the north of 

 Pe-chih-li to the sea terminus of the Great Wall. His 

 ascent of the Yang-tzii is full of interest. The greatest 

 importance attaches to his journeys when he commenced 

 his excursion from Ching-tu to the Northern Alps, to 

 where the Chinese Kiang flows southwards into Ssu-ch'- 

 uan. It was at this time that Capt. Gill came among 

 highland tribes called Man-tzu and Si-fau. The people 

 along the westward frontier are named by the Chinese 

 Lolo, Man-tzu, Si-fu, and Tibetan. The Chinese look 

 upon the Man-tzu as descendants of the old inhabitants 

 of Ssu-ch'uan. Man-tzu and Si-fau are airibiguously used. 

 Si-fau is used in Capt. Gill's book as applied to a 

 Tibetan-speaking race in the north-east of Tibet. 



Capt. Gill had meant to make a journey through Kan- 

 suh to Kasbgaria, and from that through the Russian 

 dominions to'Europe. This plan was rendered imprac- 

 ticable by the unsettled state of affairs between England 

 and Russia. His homeward route was the same that 

 Cooper had tried nine years before by Lit'ang, Bat'ang, 

 and Ta-U. He left Ch'eng for England by the Irrawadi 

 on July 10, 1877. The first important place reached was 

 Ya-chau. It is here that the trade of Tibet begins, 

 brick tea or cake tea being the staple of the trade- 

 Capt. Gill gives interesting details about this, and also 

 of a similar manufacture at Hankow for Mangolia. 

 English rupees have become the currency in Tibet. 

 They have superseded the tea bricks which were for- 

 merly used as money. The great drawback to the 

 tea trade in Western Tibet does not lie in the Chinese 

 being unwilling to open the landward frontier, but in the 

 jealousy of the Lamas. Their chief desire is to monopo- 

 lise power, enlightenment, and trade. 



Capt. Gill's second place of landing was Ch-eng-tu, the 

 Chinese gate of Tibet, on the Ssu-ch'uan frontier. Very 

 little is known of the ethnography of the tribes on the 

 mountain frontier of China, Burma, and Tibet. The two 

 most prominent are the Mossos and the Lisus. They 

 have some claims to civilisation. The men are quite 

 Chinese in appearance, and have adopted the dress and 

 the pigtail. The women retain a fashion analogous to 

 the fashions of the Swiss and Pyrenean valleys. Their 

 vocabularies have 70 per cent, words common to both, 

 and show a connection with some of the Burmese. 



Capt. Gill has given a remarkable manuscript to the 

 British Museum. Its hieroglyphical characters are un- 

 known. It consists of eighteen pages about 9V inches by 

 3I, each page having three lines, and the characters read- 

 ing from right to left. The groups of characters are 

 divided by vertical lines. Some of them resemble the 

 old Chinese characters called Chuen-tzu. M. Terrier has 

 in his possession another manuscript resembling this one, 

 but probably Capt. Gill's one is much older. Garnier, 

 while in Hu-nan, was told that in some caves near that 

 province were found chests containing books written in 

 European characters. Probably they may have been books 

 belonging to extinct aborigines in phonetic characters. 



The introductory essay, written by so high an authority 

 as CoL Yule, will greatly enhance the value of Capt. GiU' s 

 work. 



The work is in the form of a journal, and is so graphi- 

 cally written that throughout the interest never flags. 

 The account of the journey through the north of China 

 is full of information regarding the physical aspect of the 

 country and the many beautiful scenes Capt. Gill passed 

 through. Pekin, it appears, is much the same as in the 

 time of Marco Polo, but a great deal of its former 

 grandeur seems to have gone. That 300,000,000. of 

 people should have remained unchanged for centuries 

 seems a very extraordinary fact. Yet in whatever part 

 of the world the Chinese are found they still retain the 

 individuality of their race, and act in all things as their 

 forefathers did hundreds of years before. Their lack of 

 imagination and love of independence, Capt. Gill thinks, 

 account greatly for their stagnation. If the Chinese ever 

 had any originality, perhaps the worship of antiquity and 

 the system of examination have had something to do 

 with eradicating it. 



The voyage along the Chin-Sha-Chiang was full of 

 surprises ; the scenery was constantly changing. At 

 one time the river went winding through "great plains 

 where broad lagoons lay stretching out amongst fields 

 that were protected from the summer floods by extensive 

 dykes and embankments." Now the grand river, clear 

 and almost green, rolled below cliffs of red sandstone. 

 Beyond Ch'ang " the river narrows from 400 to 500 yards. 

 Steep spurs from the mountains 3,000 feet high run down 

 to the water's edge, their sides, wherever not absolutely 

 perpendicular, covered with long, orange, brown grass, 

 that seems to grow almost without soil. On the more 

 gentle slopes terrace cultivation is carried on. Little 

 patches of the most brilliant green, sometimes a thousand 

 feet above the river, show the presence of some indus- 

 trious farmer who will not leave a square yard unculti- 

 vated if he can help it." "The Chinese," Capt. Gill 

 says, after speaking of their great industiy, "plough 

 about as well as the natives' of India, doing little more 

 than scratch the ground. It is true they raise two crops 

 on the same field, as, for instance, when they plant opium 

 under rape, or yams under millet. They have no know- 

 ledge of the modes of improvement practised in the 

 various breeds of cattle ; no instruments for breaking up 

 and preparing waste land ; no system for draining and 

 reclaiming swamps and morasses." On the banks of 

 this river Capt. GiU saw flowers being picked from a 

 tree like an apricot-tree. The blossoms were like long 

 conical-shaped pods; on their surface were numerous 



