Overland trade of Burma and China—Early notices—English travellers—Burmese treaty of 1862—Dr. Williams—Objects of the expedition—Its constitution—Arrival at Mandalay—Second coronation of the king—The suburbs—The bazaars—Mengoon—Burmese navigation—Shienpagah—Coal mines—The third defile—Sacred fish—Tagoung and Old Pagan—Ngapé—Katha—Magnetic battery—The first Kakhyens—The Shuaybaw pagodas—The second defile—View of Bhamô.
For some years previous to the date of the expedition of which the progress is narrated in these pages, the attention of British merchants at home and in India had been directed to the prospect of an overland trade with Western China. Most especially did this interest the commercial community of Rangoon, the capital of British Burma, and the port of the great water highway of the Irawady, boasting a trade the annual value of which had increased in fifteen years to £2,500,000. The avoidance of the long and dangerous voyage by the Straits and Indian Archipelago and a direct interchange of our manufactures for the products of the rich provinces of Yunnan and Sz-chuen might well seem to be advantages which would richly repay almost any efforts to accomplish this purpose.
One plan, then as now, zealously insisted upon by its promoter, Captain Sprye, was the construction of a railway connecting British Burma and China via Kiang-Hung, on the Cambodia river, and the frontier position or reputed town of Esmok.
But as it was, and still is, necessary to send a surveying expedition over an unknown and alien country, as a preliminary, this project, whether chimerical or not, could not compete with the immediate possibility of opening a trade by way of the river Irawady and the royal city of Mandalay.
Although before 1867 but four English steamers with freight had ascended the river to the capital, harbingers of the numerous flotilla now plying on the Irawady, it was known that a regular traffic existed between Mandalay and China, especially in the supply of cotton to the interior, which was reserved as a royal monopoly.
This trade was reported to be mainly carried on by caravans traversing the overland route via Theinnee to Yunnan. According to the itineraries of the Burmese embassy in 1787, the distance is six hundred and twenty miles, and forty-six hills and mountains, five large rivers and twenty-four smaller ones, had to be traversed in the tedious journey of two months. But an unbroken chain of tradition and history indicated the natural entrepot of the commerce between Burma and China to be at or near Bhamô,[1] on the left bank of the upper Irawady, and close to the frontier of Yunnan.
The Burmese annals testified that during several centuries this had been the passage from China to Burma either for invading armies or for peaceful caravans. The most recent Burmo-Chinese war had arisen out of the grievances of Bhamô Chinese merchants, and the treaty of peace that was signed at Bhamô in 1769 stipulated that the “gold and silver road” between the two countries should be reopened. Mutual embassies had consequently journeyed between Pekin and Ava, and almost all had proceeded by way of the Irawady and Bhamô.
European travellers and traders had early discerned the importance of this channel of intercourse, which seems to have been alluded to by the great Venetian, Marco Polo, under the name of Zardandan.
The old documents of Fort St. George record that the English and Dutch had factories in the beginning of the seventeenth century at Syriam, Prome, and Ava, and at a place on the borders of China, which Dalrymple supposes to have been Bhamô. According to this authority, some dispute arose between the Dutch and Burmese, and on the former threatening to call in the aid of the Chinese, both the English and Dutch were expelled from Burma. In 1680 the reputation of this field for mercantile enterprise seems to have again attracted the attention of the authorities at Fort St. George, and four years afterwards one Dod, trading to Ava, was instructed to inquire into the commerce of the country, and to request that a settlement might be sanctioned at Prammoo, on the borders of China. This mission was unsuccessful, and Prammoo cannot with certainty be identified, but the strong similarity of the name seems to point to Pan-mho or Bhamô.
Coming down to more recent and certain data, we find that Colonel Symes, H.E.I.C.’s envoy to Ava in 1795 (and who was accompanied by that able geographer, Dr. Buchanan), states that an extensive trade, chiefly in cotton, existed between Ava and Yunnan. “This commodity was transported up the Irawady to Bhamô, where it was sold to the Chinese merchants, and conveyed partly by land and partly by water into the Chinese dominions. Amber, ivory, precious stones, betel-nut, and the edible birds’ nests from the Eastern Archipelago, were also articles of commerce. In return, the Burmans procured raw and wrought silks, velvets, gold-leaf, preserves, paper, and utensils of hardware.” Both the researches of Wilcox and the journal of Crawford’s embassy to Ava in 1826 referred to the trade and routes by Bhamô, and the Bengal government in 1827 published a map containing the best procurable information about the Burmo-Chinese frontier.