TRANS-FRONTIER TRADE. 33 



There is a large and growing market for kerosene oil in Yunnan. 

 In 1913 nearly 40.000 gallons entered the country through Teng- 

 yiieh alone. 



The only mineral import is jade-stone and the quantity varies 

 greatly from year to year, depending on the output of a particularly 

 erratic type of native mining and also on the internal demand, 

 which like most markets for precious and semi-precious stones 

 varies with the general prosperity of the people. The jadcite is 

 mined in the Mogaung subdivision of the Myitkyina district in 

 Burma, exported in the rough and worked up, as far as Yunnan 

 is concerned, in Teng-yueh, where every street has a lapidary's shop 

 and lathe. In 1913, 120,000 pounds were imported, worth £4,480. 

 This value is purely a nominal one, because it is impossible to 

 estimate the value of a lump of jadestone until it lias been cut 

 several times. Dealing in this mineral is very speculative and as 

 such appeals to the Chinese sporting instinct. I have seen a 

 boulder sold one day for a few rupees, appreciate on cutting to as 

 many hundreds with a repetition of the same process on further 

 examination. 



Other imports include matches, umbrellas, various substances 

 used in Chinese pharmacy and in cooking, enamelled ware, tin 

 ware and miscellaneous small ware. A walk through the Teng- 

 yiieh bazaar reveals a multitude of small articles coming under the 

 last heading, cheap clocks and watches, mirrors, ribbons and laces, 

 pocket knives, padlocks, leather belts, glass beads, cigarettes, 

 candles, lamps and lamp-glasses, fans, musical instruments, tinned 

 milk, biscuits and provisions, cheap confectionery, buttons, braid, 

 cups and saucers, milk jugs, iron bowls, kettles, small metal boxes, 

 scissors, ready-made clothes, hats and caps, soaps, perfumes and 

 powders, medicines like quinine, santonin and boric acid, bandages 

 and sticking plaster, threads and materials for embroidery, paints 

 and pigments, cheap cutlery, galvanised iron and materials made 

 from it, carpenters tools and toys. I have not attempted to make 

 a complete list, but merely to indicate a few of the thousand and 

 one wares which find a ready maiket in Yunnan. They may not 

 appear much in themselves, but when one considers the vast 

 quantities of similar articles which are sold in the bazaars of Burma 

 and the Shan States every year, no doubt is left that a very large turn- 

 over could be done in Yunnan. Most of these articles came from 

 Germany and Austria before the war and it is interesting to note 



