Abstract
AT the opening meeting of the Geographical Society on Monday Mr. A. R. Colquhoun gave an account of his recent adventurous journey, in company with the late Mr. Wahab, from Canton through Yunnan to Bhamo. Mr. Coiquhoun's object was mainly to discover trade-routes between Burmah and China, but he collected some interesting information on Further Yünnan, parts of which have not before been visited by European travellers. Mr. Colquhoun describes Yünnan, which is the most westerly of the eighteen provinces of China, as a great uneven plateau, of which the main ranges trend north and south; those in the north reaching an elevation of from twelve to seventeen thousand feet, while in the south they sink to seven or eight thousand feet. In the south, and especially in the south-west, there are many wide fertile plains and valleys, some with large lakes in them. These plains are very rich and thickly populated, the number of towns and villages and the comfortable appearance of the peasantry being very remarkable. Fruits of all kinds—pears, peaches, chestnuts, and even grapes—are found in abundance, while roses, rhododenirons, and camelias of several varieties grow untended on the hill-sides. Minerals are found in great quantities. The travellers constantly passed caravans laden with silver, lead, copper, and tin in ingots; and gold is beaten out into leaf in Tali, and sent in large quantities to Burma. Coal, iron, silver, tin, and copper mines were frequently passed. Mr. Colquhoun also found that the celebrated Puerh tea, the most fancied in China, is not really a Chinese tea at all, but is grown in the Shan district of I-bang, some five days south of Fuerh, the nearest prefectural town. In the south the temperature is moderate, and the rains by no means excessive; but the farther north the travellers went, the more sparse became the population, and the more sterile the country, until in the extreme north the hills were enveloped in almost perpetual fogs, rains, and mists, and were practically uninhabitable. The people themselves are mostly the old aboriginal tribes—Lolo, Pai, and Maio—the Chinese being mostly of the official class, and found only in the towns. These aborigines have a much more distinct physiognomy than the bullet-headed Celestial, and are remarkable for their frank and genial hospitality. The women do not crush their feet, and they adopt a picturesque dress not unlike that worn of old by Tyrolese and Swiss maidens. They have a novel way of making marriage engagements. On New Year's Day the unmarried people range themselves, according to sex, on either side of a narrow gully. The ladies in turn toss a coloured ball to the other side, and whoever catches it is the happy man. It is said they are so skilful in throwing the ball that the favoured man is always sure to catch it; which is reassuring. As in Marco Polo's days, the couvade still prevails in some parts. When a child is born, the husband goes to bed for thirty days, and the wife looks after the work. At the conclusion of the paper, Lord Northbrook and Col. Yule paid a well deserved tribnte to the late Capt. Gill, Prof. Palmer, and Lient. Charrington. Capt. Gill, our readers may remember, had himself done some first-rate work on the South-East Chinese frontier, and described it in his “River of Golden Sand;” while Prof. Palmer's loss as an Arabic scholar is almost irretrievable.
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GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES . Nature 27, 63–64 (1882). https://doi.org/10.1038/027063a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/027063a0
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