to a list of their divisions, and an account of their most striking peculiarities. Their language differs entirely from the Chinese, but too little is known of it to ascertain its analogies to other tongues; its affinities are most likely with the Laos, and those tribes between Burmah, Siam, and China. One clan, inhabiting Lípo hien in the extreme south, is called Yau-jin, and although they occasionally come down to Canton to trade, the citizens of that place firmly believe them to be furnished with short tails like monkeys. They carry arins, are inclined to live at peace with the lowlanders, but resist every attempt to penetrate into their fastnesses. The Yau-jin first settled in Kwangsí, and thence passed over into Lien chau about the twelfth century, where they have since maintained their footing. Both sexes wear their hair braided in a tuft on the top of the head— but never shaven and tressed as the Chinese-and dress in loose garments of cotton and linen; earrings are in universal use among them. They live at strife among themselves, which becomes a source of safety to the Chinese, who are willing enough to harass and oppress, but are ill able to resist, these hardy mountaineers. In 1832, they broke out in active hostilities, and destroyed numerous parties of troops sent to subdue them, but were finally induced to return to their retreats by offers of pardon and largesses granted to those who submitted.

A Chinese traveller among the Miaotsz' says that some of them live in huts constructed upon the branches of trees, others in mud hovels; and one tribe in cliff houses dug out of the hillsides, sometimes six hundred feet up. Their agriculture is rude, and their garments are obtained by barter from the lowlanders in exchange for metals and grain, or woven by themselves. The religious observances of these tribes are carefully noted, and whatever is connected with marriages and funerals. In one tribe, it is the custom for the father of a new-born child, as soon as its mother has become strong enough to leave her couch, to get into bed himself and there receive the congratulations of his acquaintances, as he exhibits his offspring-a custom which has been found among the Tibetan tribes and elsewhere. Another class has the counterpart of the may-pole and its jocund

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dance, which, like its corresponding game, is availed of by young men to select their mates.'

The province of YUNNAN (i.e., Cloudy South-south of the Yun ling, or 'Cloudy Mountains') is in the southwest of the empire, bounded by north Sz'chuen, east by Kweichau and Kwangsí, south by Annam, Laos, and Siam, and west by Burmah. Its distance from the central authority of the Empire since its partial conquest under the Han dynasty has always made it a weak point, and the uneducated, mixed character of the inhabitants has given an advantage to enterprising leaders to resist Chinese rule. It was recovered from the aborigines by the Tang Emperors, who called it Jung chau, or the region of the Jung tribes, from which the name Karajang, i.e., Black Jung, which Marco Polo calls it, is derived; Kublai Khan himself led an army in 1253 thither before he conquered China, and sent the Venetians on a mission there about the year 1278, after his establishment at Peking. A son of the Emperor was his Viceroy over this outlying province at that time. The recent travels of Margary, Baber, and Anderson, of the British service, with Monhot and Garnier of the French, have done much to render this secluded province better known. The central portion is occupied by an extensive plateau, ramifying in various directions and intersected with valley-plains at altitudes of 5,000 to 6,000 feet, in which lie several large lakes and the seven principal cities in the province. These plains are overtopped by the ridges separating them, which, seen from the lower levels, appear, as in Shansí, like horizontal, connected summit-lines. All are built up of red sandstone, like the basin in Sz'chuen, through which rivers, small and large, have furrowed their beds hundreds and thousands of feet, rendering communication almost impossible in certain directions as soon as one leaves the plateau. In the east and northwest, the defiles

Chinese Repository, Vol. I., p. 29; Vol. XIV., pp. 105-117; G. T. Lay, Chinese as They Are, p. 316; Journal of N. C. Branch of Royal Asiatic Society, No. III., 1859, and No. VI., 1869. Chinese Recorder, Vols. II., p. 265, and III., pp. 33, 74, 96, 134 and 147. Peking Gazette for 1872. China Review, Vol. V., p. 92.

Chinese Recorder, Vol. III., pp. 33,

Known as Widiharit in Pali records. 74, sqq.; see also pp. 62, 93, 126, for the record of a visit.

are less troublesome, and in this latter portion of the province are some peaks rising far above the snow line. These are called on Col. Yule's map the Goolan Sigon range. The climate is cooler than in Sz'chuen, owing to this elevation, and not very healthy; snow lies for weeks at Yunnan fu, and the summers are charming.

The Yangtsz' enters the province on the northwest for a short distance. The greatest river in it is the Lantsan, which rises in Tibet, and runs for a long distance parallel with and between the Yangtsz' and Nu Rivers till the three break through the mountains not far from each other, and take different courses, the largest turning to the eastward across China, the Lantsan southeast through Yunnan to the gulf of Siam, under the name of the Meikon or river of Cambodia, and the third, or Salween, westerly through Burmah. The Meikon receives many large tributaries in its course across the province, and its entire length is not less than 1,500 miles. The Lungchuen, a large affluent of the Irrawadi, runs a little west of the Salween. The Meinam rises in Yunnan, and flows south into Siam under the name of the Nanting, and after a course of nearly eight hundred miles, empties into the sea below Bangkok. East of the Lantsan are several important streams, of which three that unite in Annam to form the Sangkoi, are the largest. The general course of these rivers is southeasterly, and their upper waters are separated by mountain ridges, between which the valleys are often reduced to very narrow limits. There are two lakes in the eastern part of the province, south of the capital, called Sien and Tien; the latter is about seventy miles long by twenty wide, and the Sien hu (i.e., Fairy Lake') about two-thirds as large. Another sheet of water in the northwest, near Talí fu, communicating with the Yangtsz' kiang, is called Urh hai or Uhr sea, which is more than a hundred miles long, and about twenty in width.

The capital, Yunnan, lies upon the north shore of Lake Tien, and is a town of note, having, moreover, considerable political importance from its trade with other parts of the country through the Yangtsz', and with Burmah. The city was seriously injured in 1834, by an earthquake, which is said to have

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lasted three entire days, forcing the inhabitants into tents or the open fields, and overthrowing every important building.' The traffic between this province and Burmah centres at the fortified post of Tsantah, in the district of Tăngyueh, both of them situated on a branch of the Irrawadi. The principal part of the commodities is transported upon animals from these dépôts to Bhamo, upon the Irrawadi, the largest market-town in this part of Chin-India. The Chinese participate largely in this trade, which consists of raw and manufactured silk to the amount of $400,000 annually, tea, copper, carpets, orpiment, quicksilver, vermilion, drugs, fruits, and other things, carried from their country in exchange for raw cotton to the amount of $1,140,000 annually, ivory, wax, rhinoceros and deer's horns, precious stones, birds' nests, peacocks' feathers, and foreign articles. The entire traffic is probably $2,500,000 annually, and for a few years past has been regularly increasing.

There is considerable intercourse and trade on the southern frontiers with the Lolos, or Laos and Annamese,' partly by means of the head-waters of the Meinam and Meikon-which are supposed to communicate with each other by a natural canal and partly by caravans over the mountains. Yunnan fu was the capital of a Chinese prince about the time of the decadence of the Ming dynasty, who had rendered himself independent in this part of their empire by the overthrow of the rebel Lí, but having linked his fortunes with an imbecile scion of that house, he displeased his officers, and his territories gradually fell under the sway of the conquering Manchus. The southern and western districts of the province are inhabited by half-subdued tribes who are governed by their own rulers, under the nominal sway of the Chinese, and pass and repass across the frontiers in pursuit of trade or occupation.

The extension of British trade from Rangoon toward this part of China, has brought those hill tribes more into notice, and proved in their present low and barbarous condition the accuracy of the ancient description by Marco Polo and the Roman Catholic missionaries. Colonel Yule aptly terms this wide re

1 Annales de la Foi, Tome VIII., p. 87.

"Two thousand Chinese families live in Amerapura.

gion an "Ethnological Garden of tribes of various race and in every stage of uncivilization." The unifying influence of the Chinese written language and literary institutions has been neutralized among these races by their tribal dissensions and inaptitude for study of any kind. Anderson gives short vocabularies of the Kakhyen, Shan, Hotha Shan, Le-sau and Poloung languages, all indicating radical differences of origin, the existence of which would keep them from mingling with each other as well as from the Chinese.'

The mineral wealth of Yunnan is greater and more varied than that of any other province, certain of the mines having been worked since the Sung dynasty. Coal occurs in many places on the borders of the central plateau; some of it is anthracite of remarkable solidity and uniformity. Salt occurs in hills, not in wells as in Sz'chuen; the brine is sometimes obtained by diving tunnels into the hillsides. Metalliferous ores reach from this province into the three neighboring ones. Copper is the most abundant, and the mines in Ningyuen fu, in the southwestern part of Sz'chuen, have supplied both copper and zinc ores during the troubles in Yunnan. The copper at Hwuilí chau in that prefecture is worked by companies which pay a royalty of two taels a pecul to the government, and furnish the metal to the mine owners for $8 per pecul. The pehtung or argentan ores are mixed with copper, tin, or lead, by the manufacturers according to the uses the alloys are put to. Silver exists in several places in the north, and the exploitation of the mines was successful until within 30 years past; now they cannot be safely or profitably worked, in consequence of political disturbances. Gold is obtained in the sand of some rivers but not to a large extent; lead, iron, tin, and zinc occur in such plenty that they can be exported, but no data are accessible as to the entire product or export."

Yule's Marco Polo, Vol. II. Anderson, Mandalay to Momien.

Proced. Roy. Geog. Soc., Vols. XIII., p. 392, XIV., p. 335, XV., pp. 163 and 343. Col. Yule, Trade Routes to Western China-The Geographical Magazine, April, 1875. Richthofen, Recent Attempts to find a direct Trade- Road to Southwestern China-Shanghai Budget, March 26, 1874. Journey of A. R. Margary from Shanghae to Bhamo. London, 1875. Col. H. Browne in Blue Books, Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4 (1876–77).