NEW ROUTES FOR COMMERCE. CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY. 'Clan Retrospect-Assam Tea for Thibet-Start for Calcutta-The IT was in the firm belief that the extension of British commerce in China could alone lead to the establishment of that industrial progress among her people which is required to save them from decay as a nation, that the writer started from Shanghai on a pioneering journey. The object of this was, if possible, to determine a practicable trade route between India and China, whereby the millions of these neighbouring giant empires might enter into commercial intercourse. The details of that journey have been already submitted to the public; but in order to make clear the motive of the travels described in these pages, I may recall the fact that, at the end of six months, after passing safely through the Empire of China, from east to west, traversing the almost impass B able snowy ranges of Eastern Thibet, and running the gauntlet among the nomad Mongol banditti infesting the valleys of this wild frontier region, I found myself at the town of Bathang, some two hundred miles from Sudiya, the frontier post of Northern Assam. Although the journey had demonstrated the impracticability of a traderoute over the rugged mountains, covered with perpetual snow, yet a natural wish to be the first Englishman who had penetrated overland from China to India prompted the attempt to complete the interval which lay between Bathang and Sudiya. This attempt was foiled by the combined action of Chinese jealousy and the intolerance of the Lamas of Thibet. For many centuries China has supplied Thibet with six or eight million pounds of brick tea annually. This article being a necessary of life to the Thibetans, the Chinese Government, who hold the wholesale monopoly of the export tea trade, have granted the retail monopoly to the Lama priests, who, by this means, hold the lay population of Thibet at their mercy. Thus the Chinese protect their tea trade, and the Lama priests their religious and political influence over the Thibetans. It is plain, therefore, that the opening up of commercial intercourse with the Europeans of Assam, that tea garden of India, would threaten at once the Chinese tea trade and the priestcraft of Lamanism; the English pioneer of commerce must therefore be prevented from reaching India at any hazard. Accordingly, I was arrested by two hundred Lama soldiers, obliged to change my route, and ultimately thrown into a Chinese prison in the city of Weisee foo, Assam Tea for Thibet. 3 from which, having been rescued by the interference of some friendly tribes, I retraced my steps to Shanghai. While travelling in Thibet, I had been struck with the vast importance of the tea trade between that country and China, and now the project of diverting at least a considerable portion of that trade to Assam from China forced itself upon me as at all events to be attempted. A few weeks spent at Shanghai, amidst the kind hospitality of many warm friends, entirely removed all traces of the hardships endured during the previous twelve months, and I found myself already impatient to begin to attack Thibet on the side of Assam, hoping that the espionage of the Chinese might be evaded, and the way prepared for such intercourse between our Indian tea garden and Thibet as might hereafter result in an extensive trade. As Calcutta was to be the starting-point, it was necessary to conduct thither my party, consisting of four individuals. First, faithful George Philip, a Chinese Christian, who, as interpreter, had shared all the difficulties and dangers of the previous journey, but who, nothing daunted by past perils, eagerly volunteered to accompany his master on the new undertaking. Next, a Thibetan boy, named Masu, about fourteen years of age, who could speak Chinese, and whom I had purchased of his mother for eight taels.* An assistant interpreter was added, named Owhalee, a Mahomedan, from Bombay, who, having served some years in the native army at Hankow, could speak Chinese fluently, * A tael equal to 6s. 8d. |