482 The Question of British Trade with Western China. [No, 4, 



traffic at a point below Bamrod, say Sawuddy or even Kounqtounq and 

 to make a tram or railroad along the plain to near Masseen (vide. Map 

 Kb'. 2). The passage of the 30 miles of Kakhyen hills to he made by 

 a good road that may be, by and by replaced by a tram or railway. 

 The telegraph to follow the same line, and both road and telegraph 

 to enter China by the Shoaylee valley at Moungsun, and pass on by 

 Maingmo, Seefan and Minglon to Yunchan, Id stead of passing from 

 Bammo by way of Sanda and Momien to the same city. 



11. " Eeferring to both trade and telegraph route, if any line is 

 possible, it appears to me that this line is the most so. If any line 

 will pay, it must be this, and if any line can be safe it must be this. 

 Such a line will be, I firmly believe, that ultimately adopted, since it 

 will be the shortest, the easiest, the cheapest, and the safest, and it 

 follows the most frequented and oldest trade routes through the most 

 populous and civilized territories between the Indian and Chinese 

 seas." 



Whichever be the route followed, however, and it may be that 

 thorough surveys will entirely change the data on which present opini- 

 ons are founded,— the day is evidently not far distant when Burmah will 

 become the highway for a vast trade with China. Although Tunan 

 is, for the time, so disturbed, I see no reason to fear that the domestic 

 and foreign trade of that province will long remain in its present 

 unsatisfactory state of abeyance. The Pansee revolution may indeed 

 be found to have been useful in breaking up the power of exclusion of 

 the Chinese authorities, backed as this would have been by all the 

 influence of the Chinese merchants, whose jealousy blinds them to 

 their true interests, and especially of the old Burmah company ;— 

 the chief of whom is said by the Eight Bev. Bishop Chauveau to 

 have 30,000 men at his orders. And while the province is in course 

 of resuming such a settled condition as will make extensive commerce 

 possible, whether it be under the old Chinese or the new Pansee 

 authority, the surveys may be made, the routes and .plans of action 

 definitely arranged, and perhaps the communication opened just in 

 time to meet the reviving trade. 



The Taping rebellion by impeding as it must do, the commerce 

 between the western province of Tunan, Sechuen and Queicho, and 

 the eastern seaboard, encourages the attempt to pierce those provinces 

 from the west. They form a splendid field, most inviting to the 



