At the 330th mile, the river, then 1500 feet above sea-level, takes a sudden bend to the east, and passing betwixt an isolated hill and the last spur from Loi Mok, enters the Kiang Hai plain. At the end of the spur is the small village of Ban Tsen Tau, and in front of the isolated hill were three deserted houses in old patches of cultivation, which had been occupied by witches on their way to settle at Kiang Hsen. After leaving the river, we commenced crossing the small spurs which stretch into the Kiang Hai plain from Loi Kook Loi Chang, and halted for the night at a pretty mountain-stream, the Huay Wai, the brook of bamboos. Shortly after our arrival we met 200 Shans on their way back to Zimmé from Kiang Hsen, carrying their things on light bamboo shoulder-trestles, somewhat similar in shape to the frames of the pack-saddles used for caravan cattle and mules. The men rest the trestle first on one shoulder, and when tired on the other. The Shans were returning from doing frontier duty; some disturbance having arisen in the Burmese Shan States to the north.
Front view of trestle.
Side view.
These disturbances are alluded to by Mr Bourne of our Chinese Consular Service in his report (Blue-book, China, No. 1, 1888), where he notes that when at Ssumao in January 1886, he heard that “in 1884 the Chinese asserted their authority through Ma Chung, the General at Puerh, in a rather questionable manner, by the removal of the Hsuan-wei Ssu, and also of the officer (Patsung) of the Liu-kun district.” The Hsuan-wei Ssu is the chief of Kiang Hung, and the district named is the one nearest to Ssumao belonging to Kiang Hung.
On Mr Bourne sending his writer “to visit a Burmese temple (Mien Ssu) situated four miles south of Ssumao, and forming part of a castle belonging to the Liu-kun Tu-ssu, ... they (the priests) described themselves as Burmese subjects, but said they bore a heavy yoke, having to pay taxes both to Ssumao (the Chinese frontier-post) and to Che-Li (the Chinese name for Kiang Hung). My writer, who has been in Burmah, described the castle as quite Burmese in construction.”
View of Loi Poo-ay at 1.3 P.M. 14th March.
The fact that the Shans within four miles of Ssumao considered themselves to be subject to Burmah in January 1886, a year after we had annexed that country, is most important. It thus becomes evident that the “Upper Burmah Notification, No. 75, of 1888,” by which “all of the territories east of the Salween river which on the 27th November 1885 owed allegiance directly or indirectly to the King of Burmah” are included in our dominions, includes the portion of the Burmese Shan States that lies to the east as well as to the west of the Meh Kong river, and therefore the whole of the country through which the Burmah-Siam-China Railway will run from Kiang Hsen right up to the Chinese frontier-post at Ssumao. If we had not annexed the Shan States of Kiang Tung and Kiang Hung, they would inevitably have fallen sooner or later to the French, and our only practicable road for a British railway to China would have been foolishly relinquished, together with the trade of the people of Western China.