An Australian in China

M.D. Edin., F.R.G.S.
THIRD EDITION LONDON: HORACE COX WINDSOR HOUSE, BREAM'S BUILDINGS E.C. MDCCCCII
F.R.C.S.E., F.R.S.E., ETC., PROFESSOR OF SURGERY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, WHO GAVE ME BACK THE POWER OF LOCOMOTION. I GRATEFULLY INSCRIBE THIS VOLUME.



Mostly from Photographs by Mr. C. Jensen of the Imperial Chinese Telegraphs .

Introductory—Mainly about Missionaries and the City of Hankow.
In the first week of February, 1894, I returned to Shanghai from Japan. It was my intention to go up the Yangtse River as far as Chungking, and then, dressed as a Chinese, to cross quietly over Western China, the Chinese Shan States, and Kachin Hills to the frontier of Burma. The ensuing narrative will tell how easily and pleasantly this journey, which a few years ago would have been regarded as a formidable undertaking, can now be done.
The journey was, of course, in no sense one of exploration; it consisted simply of a voyage of 1500 miles up the Yangtse River, followed by a quiet, though extended, excursion of another 1500 miles along the great overland highway into Burma, taken by one who spoke no Chinese, who had no interpreter or companion, who was unarmed, but who trusted implicitly in the good faith of the Chinese. Anyone in the world can cross over to Burma in the way I did, provided he be willing to exercise for a certain number of weeks or months some endurance—for he will have to travel many miles on foot over a mountainous country—and much forbearance.