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 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE 
 
 CHARLES WILLIAM WASON 
 
 COLLECTION ON CHINA 
 
 AND THE CHINESE 
 
Cornell University Library 
 DS 485.B81L38b 
 
 Burma, the foremost country :atlmelvdi 
 
 3 1924 023 234 952 
 
Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023234952 
 
B UEM A, 
 
 THE FOKEMOST CODNTEY. 
 
i^. 
 
 
 
THK GREAT BUKME8E BELL AT RANGOON, 1852. 
 
 From a Model, in Burmese bell-metal (weight 20 lbs. 14 oz.), 
 in the possession of the Author. 
 
 See pp. 38-40. 
 
BURMA, 
 
 THE FOKEMOST COUNTEY. 
 
 % f imeig Jistonrse. 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED 
 
 JOHN BULL'S NEIGHBOUR SQUAEING UP; 
 
 OR, 
 
 HOW THE FRENCHMAN SOUGHT TO WIN 
 AN EMPIRE IN THE EAST. 
 
 WITH 
 
 Notes on the Probable Effects of French Success in 
 Tonquin on British Interests in Burma. 
 
 BT THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 "OUR BURMESE WARS AND RELATIONS WITH BURMA," 
 "ASHE' PYEE," &c. 
 
 LONDON:- 
 W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13 WATERLOO PLAGE. S.W. 
 
 PUBLISHERS TO THE INDIA OFFICE. 
 
 1884. 
 
 {All rights reserved.) 
 
LONDON : 
 jPBINTBD by W. H. AILEN & CO., 13 WATEBLOO PLACE. S.W. 
 
REMARKS 
 
 (Including Opinion of The Eight Hon. John 
 Bright, M.P., on the Second Bubmese Wab), 
 
 In this attempt to give a popular account of Burma 
 to the world, the author has been actuated by the 
 desire to supply a want long felt by intelligent 
 Englishmen, that there is no handy little work or 
 discourse on the most rising province of our British 
 Empire in the East — if ever a province deserved the 
 title, " a Princess among the provinces " — to which 
 the political and warlike doings of the French in 
 Cochin- China and Tonquin are now lending addi- 
 tional interest. 
 
 Since the publication of his last volume, Ashe Pyee, 
 the Eastern or superior^ or " front '' or foremost 
 country,* from which some apparently useful and 
 interesting materials have been selected for the present 
 sketch, two remarkable events concerning Burma 
 have occurred — one the publication of Sir Arthur 
 
 * See AsU Pyee, p. 239. 
 
VI EEMAEKS. 
 
 Phayre's erudite and deeply interesting " History " of 
 the country, and the other the receipt of a note by 
 the present writer from Mr. Bright, giving an opinion 
 — probably to a new generation, for the first time — on 
 the second Burmese war. It is denounced as "a 
 sore crime; " but, perhaps, the vast amount of 
 satisfactory progress, in the interests of commerce, 
 humanity, and civilisation, made in British Burma 
 during the last quarter of a century, and set forth 
 in Ashe Pyee, will atone for all the shortcomings of 
 the past, and gain the favour of our great English 
 orator and practical statesman, on whose opinion 
 — " various " * opinion, it may be said — his country- 
 men set so much value. 
 
 It will, doubtless, be satisfactory to the reader to 
 give the entire note on this occasion, which, for its 
 "■few words,^' Saint Paul himself might have envied, 
 and could hardly have excelled : — 
 
 " Dear Sir, " Rochdale, Oct. 20, 1883. 
 
 " I thank you for the gift of your book. I 
 hope soon to be able to read it. The Burmese war 
 was a sore crime. Mr. Cobden wrote an admirable 
 pamphlet upon it. I hope not to find in your book 
 any support of the policy which led to the annexa- 
 tion of Burmah. 
 
 " I am, yours truly, 
 
 " John Bright." 
 
 * " A man so various that he seems to be 
 Not one, hut all mankind's epitome.'' 
 
EEMARKS. Vll 
 
 With reference to the occasional little piece on the 
 French endeavour to found or win an empire in 
 Eastern Asia, and introduction of the reader to the 
 year in esse, 1903, the writer, some time after com- 
 pleting it, read a lively and amusing "skit^' on 
 " India in 1983." In the " confusion worse con- 
 founded," set forth after the lapse of a century, the 
 author of the " skit " has the Golden Foot (King of 
 Burma) marching on Kangoon, our Chin-Indian 
 Liverpool or Glasgow ; but in twenty years the more 
 humble prophet has ventured to assert that there will 
 be no King of Burma whatever to march against us ; 
 for Northern or Upper Burma will then also be ours ; 
 and Tonquin, long ago entirely pacified by the French 
 forces — consequently no great Franco-Chinese war 
 having taken place — John Bull, John Chinaman, and 
 the at length colonially energetic Frenchman, will be 
 good and prosperous friends in neighbouring provinces, 
 with justice fairly at work, and civilisation, in its most 
 useful sense, really born ! Is not such " a consumma- 
 tion devoutly to be wished" ? 
 
 Turning with natural anxiety, however, to " the living 
 present," we would seem to be some distance from 
 such a pleasing prospect. Peace certainly has not 
 yet found rest with men; and, indisputably, in a 
 lasting (the only valuable) form, not between France 
 and China. The Celestials still claim their 200- 
 years-old right of suzerainty over Annam or Cochin- 
 China, and seem determined that France shall not 
 
VIU REMARKS. 
 
 possess Tonquin.* In the last few yearsj and espe- 
 cially after the death of the gallant Riviere — ^in the 
 unfortunate sortie from Hanoi at the end of May 
 last — Prance's ambition to become a great colqnial 
 power has risen to an amazing height, which it will 
 be difficult for the wisdom and prudence of French 
 statesmen to regulate or keep down. But now the 
 question arises : Why should such a flame not be 
 allowed to shine forth in its full brightness ? Had 
 England's torch of colonial ambition in the East not 
 been well trimmed and lit upwards of a century 
 and a half ago, would she now be in possession of 
 lands occupied by one-fifth of the human race ? Cer- 
 tainly not ; and so nations that would be great must 
 seek for colonies, or an empire or a kingdom in addi- 
 tion to their own. But gradual progress, as in the 
 case of our Indian Empire, would seem to be highly, 
 or even absolutely, necessary to military and com- 
 mercial success in the far East; and this view hardly 
 chimes in with the remark of M. Charmes, when 
 attacking the Government in the French Chamber 
 (December 7) , — " The Government should never have 
 embarked in a colonial policy without first preparing 
 a colonial army." A colonial army cannot be obtained 
 at once. It must be built up with the new colonies 
 or empire. When England and France fairly began 
 
 * This valnable country — nearest to Yunnan, in south-west China 
 — ^is between 400 and 500 miles long, by 380 broad. It was ceded 
 to Cochin-China upwards of eighty years ago. 
 
EEMABKS. IX 
 
 work in India (towards the end of the seventeenth 
 century) neither had any "colonial," or say local 
 army. The humble origin of the East India Com- 
 pany's grand old army is alluded to in the dialogue, 
 hereafter to be submitted to the reader. It was not 
 till the year 1756 that each nation had a line sepoy 
 army, when the English and French forces on the 
 Coromandel coast were nearly equal, each consisting of 
 about 3,000 Europeans and 10,000 natives. Had 
 France in late years sufficiently explored the region 
 of possibilities in Chinese affairs, and been prudent 
 enough to have had in Cochin-China a force as she 
 had in India, when anxious to wrest an empire from 
 uSj nearly equal to the probable opposing forces, she 
 could have now been making rapid strides towards 
 gaining a desired empire. Or, had an energetic and 
 able commander, in 1863-64, when the French in 
 Cochin-China first seriously thought of conquest in 
 Tonquin — or a general " Protectorate," which too 
 often means conquest — been employed down to 1881, 
 in addition to fortifying the various posts, in raising 
 and drilling a local force under a governor as skilful 
 and far-seeing as Dupleix of the olden time, there 
 might have been, in 1883, some choice legions avail- 
 able for service, composed of Annamese and various 
 border tribes, with even a regiment of Mahomedans 
 (Green Flags !) from Yunnan, under European officers 
 — far better troops than either "Black Flags" or 
 " Yellow Flags " — all aspiring to the Legion of Honour^ 
 
X REMAEKS. 
 
 and forming a tight little native army ; to which had 
 there been added a few thousand good French troops, 
 with a strong proportion of their best artillery, 
 there might have been little difficulty, even with 
 that astute diplomatist, the Marquis Tseng — the 
 Talleyrand or Lord Palmerston of the Flowery Land — 
 and not so much fear of bringing down upon France 
 the wrath of the most populous, the most peculiar, 
 and, as some think, the "most absorbing" nation in 
 the world. It is interesting to note the difference 
 in the way of communication between the old time and 
 the new. We won the Indian Empire when a letter 
 took six months to reach the Court of Directors, and 
 by the time it was answered action had been every- 
 where, and frequently money coming into the treasury. 
 Now, the powerful fast steamer (as Canning said, 
 " like a giant rejoicing in his strength ") and the " wings 
 of the wire " facilitate paper wars ; and so local, 
 valuable actualities and enterprises are too often at a 
 discount. There can be little doubt that this rapid 
 communication, be it ever so convenient, hampers 
 or makes difficult a spirited colonial policy at the 
 present time. 
 
 Previous to the remark of M. Charmes in the Cham- 
 ber, M. Riviere, who opened the debate on the Tonquin 
 Credits, said some very pithy things. He thought 
 the Chamber should look " for the root of the evil " 
 in the Treaty of 1874, " Its authors did not dare 
 insert the word protectorate in it, and it was, as too 
 
EBMAEKS. XI 
 
 many documents in the Yellow Book showed^ only a 
 tortuous device to arrive at the thing they dared not 
 insist openly upon obtaining ! Its object was to annex 
 three provinces and create in the hill country sana- 
 toriumSj but force was necessary to its execution. 
 Tu Due [Emperor of Annam] paid the Black Flags, 
 so that France had to act as police against the 
 soldiers of her protege." The following remarks are 
 worthy of serious consideration : — " There was no 
 good to be obtained in the East out of a protectorate. 
 The regime of Europeans had either to conform to 
 Oriental usages or become unquestioned masters.^' 
 Admiral Jauregard had said " that there was no 
 alternate course between the open annexation of 
 Tonquin or complete withdrawal.^' The latter course 
 "would not compromise French authority at Saigon, 
 but to hold Tonquin France must hold all Annam." 
 M. Riviere denied that " any important French com- 
 mercial interests could be served by seizing on these 
 territories, and was sure that all the conquered would 
 remain enemies of France.''' He also alluded to a 
 previous credit " demanded to repress pirates and 
 rebels who impeded trade and cut the routes leading to 
 China." Again, " Admiral Cloue and the Governor of 
 Cochin-China gave Commander Riviere pacific instruc- 
 tions; nevertheless it was agreed to augment the 
 military force and display it. Hanoi was bombarded. 
 Who ordered its bombardment? .... Hanoi 
 opened the Chinese question." And China, "the 
 
XU EEMAEKS. 
 
 Yellow Book established, had never abandoned her 
 suzerainty over Tonquin." M. Garnier, said M. 
 Riviere, towards the conclusion of his speech, did not 
 consider China a " negligable quantity," but advised 
 negotiation with Pekin.* M. Bourse, who too 
 long underrated China, finished by taking M. Garnier's 
 advice, and M. Duclerc thought his treaty acceptable, 
 " but there was a less pacific current than he followed 
 in his Government.'' Eventually it was ordered "that 
 all Chinese taken with arms were ordered to be treated 
 as bandits. This was resented at Pekin, and pro- 
 claimed a violation of international law." M. Bouree 
 was recalled, "which aggravated the quarrel." He 
 was succeeded by M. Tricou. The orator concluded 
 by asking, " Did the policy of the Government merit 
 the Chamber's confidence ? " 
 
 It should be kept in mind, while discussing the 
 Tonquin question, that in the Treaty of 1874 the 
 President of the French Republic, as will be seen by 
 ^iA'f^ the last Bfae Book, acknowledges " the sovereignty 
 of the King of Annam and his entire independence 
 with regard to every foreign Power." This alone was 
 enough to irritate China. To the sweeping accusa- 
 tions against the Government, M. Jules Ferry, the 
 Premier of France, replied on the 10th of December; 
 and, under the circumstances, perhaps no French 
 
 * " From 1875," also remarked M. Eivifere, " Chinese troops had 
 been actiTely engaged in police work in Tonquin." — Correspondent 
 of " Daily News," Paris, 7th December 1883. 
 
EEMAEKS. XIU 
 
 statesman could have made a better defence. It not 
 only carried the Credits carte blanche, but acted as a 
 magical vote of confidence in the Government. And 
 this, notwithstanding the depression in Paris produced 
 '■'^P^Lm by the JBhte Book. His was, indeed, the leading 
 feature of the day's proceedings : " He had been held 
 up to scorn as a man labouring under hallucination, 
 who was involving the country in a kind of wild 
 policy of colonial expansion. He contended that his 
 policy had been not an aggressive but a strictly defen- 
 sive one, the object of which was to protect and hold 
 the colonies they possessed. They had to go to Tunis 
 to secure their position in Algeria, and their operations 
 in Tonquin were meant to secure their position in 
 Cochin-China. The conquest of Cochin-China, he 
 contended, was in no way imputable to the present 
 Government, and he reminded the House that it was 
 in 1875 that Admiral Montaignac had laid down 
 the necessity of establishing a serious Protectorate 
 over Anam. Therefore, the policy of distant expedi- 
 tions could not be brought forward as an accusation 
 against the existing Ministry. That policy had been 
 initiated by their predecessors ; and when they took 
 office they found they had to deal with a state of 
 things which was no invention of their own."* On the 
 same authority, M. Ferry said he intended to reply to 
 the Marquis Tseng : — " I propose,^^ he said^ " to reply 
 that the movement of troops can be stopped, and an 
 * " standard " Correspondent, Paris, 10th December. 
 
XIV EEMARKS. 
 
 armistice concluded, when one is in presence of bases 
 for negotiation; but as I do not perceive those bases 
 for negotiation, I do not consider that we can make 
 Admiral Courbet return if he is in the indicated places, 
 or stop the movement of the troops'"^ (applause on 
 centre benches, and numerous cries of "Then it is 
 war ! "). Immediately after this it was announced in 
 Berlin, with reference toi the protection of English 
 interests in China, that the German Government 
 merely acceded to the desire expressed by the British 
 Cabinet that the two countries should co-operate with 
 a view to the protection of their respective subjects, 
 and that no manifestation either for or against France 
 or China could have been contemplated. Then it was 
 said that the Chinese Ministers at Pekin had declared 
 " that it would be imprudent to engage in a conflict 
 with France in view of the condition of the Chinese 
 navy." From this it would seem that the Chinese are 
 well aware that the French navy is, next to our own, 
 the finest navy in the world, and that there would 
 be some consternation if it were directed against the 
 treaty ports, which, of course, neither England nor 
 Germany would tolerate. Turning once more . to the 
 Vote of Credit, it was remarked by the " Times ^* 
 Correspondent that " the moral of the vote is, that 
 France is disposed to effect an understanding with 
 China,''^ and he thinks " this will be easier after the 
 capture of Bac-Ninh and Sontay." We now arrive 
 at the inevitable (if it can be so called), that " China 
 
REMARKS. XV 
 
 must now abandon all hope of France drawing back, 
 and the time seems to have come for the neutral 
 Powers to dispel the illusions of Chinese statesmen 
 [^Quere .- Do Chinese statesmen think them " illu- 
 sions ? "] on this point, and to urge them to conci- 
 liatory measures." Whatever may be said by the most 
 fastidious Frenchman or Englishman, there can be 
 no doubt as to the admirable or fair manner in which 
 the Correspondents of the London journals have 
 chronicled events and operations in Tonquin and 
 Cochin-China from the beginning. From such valuable 
 materials alone, it will not be difficult for the future 
 historian to write a good history of the war that is 
 progressing ; and such able Correspondents will pro- 
 bably apply their talents to Napierizing (if alFairs con- 
 tinue as at present) the far greater war in esse. It is 
 curious to look back — even to early in October — and 
 wade through the immense mass of correspondence 
 furnished by the journals. On Oct. 10th we are in- 
 formed from Paris that the Ministerial Deputies 
 expect the Government "to get well through the 
 Tonquin affair." Then, from a hoped-for Convention 
 with the Black Flags — recruited from the Chinese, 
 Annamese, and border tribes — it was said " there will 
 be a definitive situation as in Tunis, from which it 
 would be almost impossible to withdraw " ; and M. 
 Harmand, the able French Commissioner, had been 
 instructed to be brisk and diligent in organising the 
 French Protectorate, Germany encouraging his efforts ; 
 
XVI RBMAEKS. 
 
 and " all the other Powers except England will look 
 on with indifference/^ John Bull, with his vast 
 interests in China, was to look on and grumble as 
 usual. " John Bull/' writes a leading Correspondent 
 at this time, "may grumble a little, and then find 
 satisfaction in openly encouraging the Australians to 
 annex Papua." Then the "Eepublique Franpaise" 
 speaks of China as une quantite negligeable, which, as 
 the French Chamber discovered, it certainly is not. 
 Another French journal mentions the " ofBcial media- 
 tion'^ of England between France and China, and adds 
 that China would be willing to cede to France the 
 entire delta of the Song Koi, together with various 
 towns, including Bac-Ninh. Then, again, the news 
 of negotiations with the Black Flags is not confirmed ; 
 and " no treaty will be signed until Sontay and Bac- 
 Ninh (held by thousands of Chinese) have been occu- 
 pied by the French." Next comes a despatch from 
 the Frencb Governor of Cochin-China, M. Thomson, 
 stating, " that an understanding has been come to with 
 the King of Cambodia respecting the various treaty 
 obligations, and especially the expenses of the French 
 Protectorate." Then appeared the treaty of Hue, the 
 full text of which, or the " Draft Treaty between France 
 and Anam," dated the 25th August, was published in 
 Paris about the middle of October. The conclusion 
 of this famous treaty is significant : " France and 
 Anam" are, in addition to other useful things, "to 
 study aU. the questions concerning the monopolies 'of 
 
REMARKS. XVU 
 
 Tonquin, and concessions of mines and forests." By 
 the end of October the actual occupation of Tonquin 
 by Admiral Courbet had commenced. Canton was at 
 length quiet, and Credits to the amount of 10,000,000 fr. 
 were about to be demanded for the Tonquin expedition. 
 Then came, at the beginning of November, that 
 excellent French officer General Bouet's remarks on 
 the state of Tonquin, which he describes as " a fine 
 country," and implores the Minister of Marine to send 
 him back again to accomplish the work he had com- 
 menced there. Then the Minister of War was pre- 
 paring a reserve of 10,000 troops, ready for Tonquin 
 if necessary; and next the famed Marquis Tseng, 
 M. Tricou, and M. Ferry appear conspicuously in 
 print, the Chinese representatives in Paris having 
 made public an official contradiction to a telegram 
 read by the French Premier, stating that the Marquis 
 had been disavowed by his Government. At this time 
 also — about a month after the arrival of Bouet in 
 Paris — it was announced that the Bill of General 
 Campenon (the new War Minister) would shortly be 
 introduced in the Chamber of Deputies, — a Bill for 
 the creation of "a. colonial army!" This announce- 
 ment was liable to produce the natural remark : — Of 
 course, Germany's colonial army will come next; and, 
 perhaps, Italy's; and then John Bull will be sorely 
 puzzled to understand what, in the name of " a 
 spirited colonial policy," such a march of progress 
 among the nations all means ! These and the few 
 < b 
 
XVIU EB MARKS. 
 
 subsequent important remarks in the French Chamber 
 already giveUj afford a fair specimen of the food pro- 
 vided for comment by the intelligent, ubiquitous, nun- 
 quam dormio Correspondent of a high-class London 
 journal . 
 
 And now we near the conclusion of the second act 
 of this strange, eventful, serio-comic drama. The 
 first may be said to have concluded with the bombard- 
 ment of Hue and the forced treaty of August 25th, 
 signed by Tiep Hoa, nephew to Tu Due, Emperor or 
 King of Annam, who died on the 30th of July last, 
 and left no direct male heir. The French had placed 
 " a puppet " on the throne, disliked by the local 
 mandarin authorities at Hue, and of course at Pekin, 
 since the new " feudal " king was not the choice of 
 the King of Heaven and his advisers. It was even 
 said that the Hue treaty was wrested from the unfor- 
 tunate Tiep Hoa, " after a bombardment and a 
 massacre." The object of the treaty was " to organize 
 the protectorate of France over Annam," when, as 
 desired by M. Ferry, the French would really possess 
 Tonquin, the object at heart — and a very good one — 
 " with a view to open up new outlets for French 
 commerce." By December 5th news had reached 
 Hanoi {via Saigon) that all the proposed good to be 
 effected by the French through the treaty had culmi- 
 nated in revolution. Tiep Hoa, the new King, had 
 been poisoned. It was also asserted that " the in- 
 fluence of the Anti-French mandarins was paramount 
 
EEMAEKS. XIX 
 
 at Hue, and war with Prance had been proclaimed." 
 Any way, it was asserted, the intriguing mandarins at 
 the Court of Hue had " undone the greater part of the 
 work accomplished by the French on the Hue river^ and 
 had added largely to the difficulties of the problem at 
 the most critical moment ; " they had, in fact, declared 
 a good authority, " destroyed the value of the Treaty of 
 Hwe." Of course it may be partly regained by the elec- 
 tion of a new King.* French energy^ however^ by no 
 means abated, and the next important intelligence (from 
 Hong Kong) received was to the effect that a French 
 expedition of 6^000 men, with a powerful flotilla, had 
 started for Sontay, under Admiral Courbet. The 
 assault was expected on the 12th December ; and the 
 enemy's force was estimated at 20^000 men. Then came 
 the laconic telegram (10th December) of the gallant 
 Admiral himself — " We are marching on Sontay." 
 
 In the middle of December, President Grevy signed 
 the appointment of General Millot as Commander- 
 in-Chief of the Tonquin expeditionary force (over 
 15,000 men), with Brigadier- Generals Negrier and 
 Briere Delisle under his orders, t The Black Flags 
 were now reported to be in Chinese pay — supposed to 
 be the case all along — and everything seemed very 
 warlike indeed. Above all, in the French Chamber, 
 
 * Kien Phuoc succeeded to the throne. He was crowned on the 
 2nd December, and is only fifteen years of age. 
 
 t General Bouet, who had already done such good service 
 in Tonquin, was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Troops in 
 Cochin-China. 
 
 b 2 
 
XX RBMAEKS. 
 
 on December 15tli, M. Perry submitted a vote of 
 credit of 20,000,000 fr., in addition to the sums 
 already accorded — a very small sum for such a large 
 and important enterprise, and which will have to be 
 quadrupled ere long unless the French, in the face of 
 local and Chinese obstacles, meet with wonderful 
 success in their noble mission to win a French Empire 
 in the East. Any way, France must now go on ; she 
 cannot possibly withdraw from Tonquin, much less 
 from her possessions to the southward. What next ? 
 In the event of failure would Germany seek a colony 
 in Tonquin ? Throughout the long diplomatic contest 
 between France and China, Burma has been hardly 
 mentioned, which might induce the suspicious to 
 think that King Theebau has been waiting his time. 
 What was done in Paris with the Burmese Embassy, 
 to Franco-Burmese commercial relations, is alluded to 
 at the end of the " Notes '' on Tonquin. But the 
 last important event announced concerning the Golden 
 Foot was that His Majesty had sold a White Elephant 
 to the miraculous Barnum for a fabulous sum ! If 
 this be true, such a piece of " sacrilege " — considering 
 the Gautamaic sanctity of the animal among all the 
 Burmese — would alone seem to augur a change of 
 hands as regards the now independent portion of the 
 old Burmese Empire ; for, next to the King, the 
 White Elephant used to be considered the most sacred 
 personage in the kingdom. But money, like time, with 
 Oriental kings as among European magnates, really 
 
EEMAEKS. XXI 
 
 works wonders. Later ou it was announced from 
 Calcutta, ttat the King of Burma had despatched a 
 force of 5,000 men against the Shan States.* The 
 present writer has always endeavoured to keep the vast 
 importance of the Shans before the British public. 
 Doubtless, there is a great future in store for them. 
 During the present crisis in Tonquin, they become of 
 more importance than ever. In October last, certain 
 tribes, named Hos by the French, were threatening 
 the north-east of Siam, which directed attention to 
 the country between the west of Tonquin and Upper 
 Burma. " It must, be borne in mind/' writes a good 
 authority on the subject, "that all the territory west 
 of Tonquin, including the ' neutral zone,' is inhabited 
 by Laos or Shans. Tonquin, in this direction, in the 
 neighbourhood of Hung-hoa, is conterminous with 
 Luang-Prabang, the north-east province of Siam, and, 
 in connection with this, the anticipations of M. Louis 
 de Came, as well as the fact that recent French map- 
 makers all bring the territory of Burma across a 
 stretch of some 400 miles, up to the Tonquin frontier, 
 should be kept well in mind." The same writer asserts 
 that it is an open question among the French in 
 Tonquin, that, if once established there, they will have 
 to extend their dominion, for there is something 
 " beyond Tonquin," whatever French diplomatists and 
 statesmen may say. " It is in this direction that 
 
 * It is presumed, in the vicinity of the Burmese capital, Man- 
 dalay- 
 
XXll EEMAEKS. 
 
 France^ unless restrained by a neutral zone whicli slie 
 will be compelled to respect [this would seem to 
 depend upon circumstances], will find herself com- 
 pelled to move, and complications with the Laos tribes 
 to the west of Tonquin proper will lead to differences 
 with Luang-Prabang, and thus with Siam, and by a 
 similar process bring trouble to our borders." * Diffi- 
 culties with Northern Siam and Upper Burma are 
 likewise prophesied ; but, " sufiicient unto the day is 
 the evil thereof." Of course, in British Burma, we 
 must be prepared for every eventuality ; and, with the 
 highest respect for the wisdom and caution of the 
 Indian Government, the state of affairs in Eastern 
 Asia (Chin-India say) at the present time, does point 
 to the absolute necessity of making another strong 
 effort to open relations with the King at Mandalay, 
 with the view of having a British Political Resident 
 established there. Plenty of men — seasoned Anglo- 
 Burmans or Anglo-Indians — are to be found, who 
 would do the work faithfully and well. We want 
 reliable information of how affairs are going on north, 
 east, and west of King Theebau's capital, within a 
 radius of not less than 300 or 400 miles ! 
 
 And now, while thinking of how great are British 
 interests in Burma, and how a protracted struggle 
 between the French and Chinese might affect them ; 
 while thinking, also, of the stir among the " Educa- 
 
 * See "Times," Tonqnin Oorrespondent's letter of 18th October 
 1883. 
 
REMAKES. XXm 
 
 tionalists " at Rangoon — the rising and truly pros- 
 perous capital of British Burma — who have set their 
 hearts on the greater promotion of high-class educa- 
 tion through the establishment of a university, to 
 which the town is fairly entitled, the latter good news 
 is speedily followed by the announcement of the 
 capture of the approaches to Sontay by the French 
 (14th December) after a rather severe conflict, or rather 
 series of conflicts ; reminding one, in not a few par- 
 ticulars, of the capture of Rangoon in the middle of 
 April 1852. In the first place, the scene of opera- 
 tions was also in Chin-India; in both cases army and 
 navy were employed; the French forces were not 
 much less than those engaged at Rangoon (4,000 or 
 5,000) ; the French operations, about the middle of the 
 month, like ours, were by land and river ; the naval 
 force assisted the military in the bombardment ; there 
 was a terrible halt after the first encounter in both 
 cases before being able to fight the way up to the 
 fortress ; but the French casualties were greater in 
 number. The new expeditionary corps, true enough, left 
 their own post of Hanoi for the fray; while, at Rangoon, 
 the General's force — composed of British and Indian 
 (chiefly Madras) troops, the famous old Indian Navy, 
 and a few Royal ships — had to effect a landing in the 
 face of stockades on the Rangoon river. In our 
 approach to the Great Pagoda, or citadel of Rangoon, 
 we had to destroy or capture numerous works; and 
 now the French had captured a fort, and all the 
 
XXIV RBMAEKS. 
 
 works raised on the bank of the Song-Koi (or Red 
 River) in front of Sontay. 
 
 The comparison must end here ; for, although both 
 opponents belong to the Mongoloid type, yet the 
 Chinese and Black Flags are — especially with the 
 former's improved military condition since 1860, and 
 European arms — better soldiers than the Burmese. 
 Again, it may be said, that the immutable Celestial 
 opposition is more Conservative than that of the Pore- 
 most Country, which, perhaps, excepting King Theebau, 
 shows decidedly Liberal tendencies ! 
 
 So now, as there can be little doubt of brave 
 Admiral Courbet's final success at Sontay,* Bac-Ninh, 
 or wherever the Republic may order him, at the 
 approaching festival of " good-will towards men," the 
 author ventures to hope that the "spirited colonial 
 policy " may be fully carried out, as essential to the 
 " maintenance of French •prestige," and that they may 
 go on as prudent victors — ever recollecting how great 
 
 * The capture of Sontay was achieved on the 16th and 17th 
 December, great determination and gallantry having been dis- 
 played throughout the operations. The losses were, at the attack 
 on the outer works, 250 killed and wounded ; and at the capture 
 of the Citadel, 75 ; total 325. That excellent officer, Colonel 
 Bichot, served as Admiral Courbet's chief of the staff. Sontay is 
 rather more than twenty miles distant from Hanoi, the French 
 head-quarters (about north-east of it), and was the stronghold 
 of the Blaok Flags ; it was considered well fortified. Bac-Ninh, 
 also strongly fortified, is twenty miles in a north-easterly 
 direction from Hanoi. Hanoi itself is situated on the Red 
 River, at a point about eighty miles from the sea ; and Son- 
 tay, twenty-six miles beyond Hanoi, is on the road to the interior 
 of Tonquin. Haiphong is about sixty miles nearly eastward of 
 Hanoi. 
 
EBMAEKS. XXV 
 
 British interests in China and Chin-India are — with a 
 sufficient force, and leaving no army hanging in their 
 rear, conquering and to conquer, when they will be 
 fairly sure this time to win their devoutly wished for 
 <;onsummation — an empire in the East. Such success 
 may, possibly, as foretold in the dialogue, be the 
 harbinger of lasting and useful peace throughout 
 Indo-China, which will never be accomplished, how- 
 ever, unless the French avoid an old error in their 
 colonial policy, of remaining too much on the coasts, 
 instead of going boldly forward into the interior, and 
 conciliating and improving the natives of the countries 
 which they have conquered. The French must also, 
 in the present struggle, get rid of all Chinese (or 
 mandarin) influence at Hue and in Tonquin. 
 
 The author now sends forth his "little book," in 
 the month of peace, in which the " Christmas chimes 
 are a merry sound to hear;" and the ubiquitous 
 Englishman listens with deep interest to the music of 
 the bells— be they even as large as that sketched by the 
 accomplished artist for the frontispiece — while, for the 
 twin genii, grief and joy, he hears their song ringing 
 throughout the world. 
 
 London, 
 ' December, 1883. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Remarks ........ v 
 
 1. buema and the buemese .... 1 
 
 2. — John Bull's Nbighbouk Squaeing Up ; oe, 
 How THE Feenchman sought to win an 
 Empiee in the Bast ..... 47 
 
 3. — On the Peobable Effects of Feench Suc- 
 cess IN TONQUIN ON BeITISH InTEEESTS IN 
 
 Buema ........ 73 
 
 ADDENDA. 
 
 I. — CouET Etiquette in Buema ... 87 
 II.— Bells 91 
 
XXVlll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IIL — Mongol Conqttbst of China, and teibitte 
 
 DEMANDED FROM BtJEMA .... 96 
 
 IV. — The Peench in India, Thiett-six Teaes 
 
 AGO 100 
 
 V. — " England and Peance in Indo-China" . 119 
 
 VI. — GrEOGEAPHICAL AND OTHEE NoTES . .124 
 
 VII. — Notes on the Situation in Indo-China . 128 
 VIII. — English Pioneees in Indo-China . . 144 
 
BURMA AND THE BURMESE. 
 
 " As long as the sun slimes in the heavens, the British flag shall 
 "wave over those possessions." 
 
 Maequis op Dalhotjsie (1854).* 
 
 To many close observers at the present daj, especially 
 in matters social, political, and commercial, nothing^ 
 seems more lamentably palpable than the unhappy 
 tendency which exists to give comparatively insigni- 
 ficant affairs undue importancCj to the detriment or 
 exclusion o£ questions which, if carefully pondered 
 over, discussed and worked out, would. Archimedes- 
 like, move, if not the whole, at least a large portion 
 of the world. Of course, a certain amount of respect 
 is due to a man^s hobby — and, as we know, every 
 active-minded man has his hobby — whether he have 
 a Jesuit, or local option, or opium, or Russia and the 
 
 * Motto to " Our Burmese Wars," &c. The author takes this 
 opportunity of correcting an error in the title-page of his large 
 volume. For "Lord Mayo at Kangoon, 1870," read " 1872." 
 
 1 
 
^l BUEMA AND THE BUEMBSB. 
 
 probable loss of India, or the decline o£ England, on 
 the brain ; or simply the faculty, born with him (as too 
 often appears in the advocate of a peace crotchet) of 
 giving on all occasions to one or more "airy nothings'' 
 a " local habitation and a name." 
 
 This hobby-nature, however, should not be allowed 
 to militate against matters of the utmost importance. 
 Time alone can prove what are of such a character; 
 and I feel 'quite justified in ranking among them 
 "Burma and the Burmese," the subject I have chosen 
 for consideration in the present discourse. 
 
 Burma is a wonderful country, and the British con- 
 quest of Pegu, its brightest jewel, was brought about 
 by the capture of Rangoon, a brilliant feat of arms.* 
 During a long and rather chequered Indian career, 
 I have carefully watched the progress of British Burma, 
 and the retrospect, as compared with the present, 
 almost seems as if emerging from darkness into " a 
 marvellous and lasting light." 
 
 Some five or six years after serving in Orissa, the 
 Garden of Superstition and Idolatry, where, while 
 commanding a detachment of Artillery, I had an 
 opportunity of Studying the mysteries of the worship 
 of Jagannath, — " the seven-headed idol-shrine," as 
 Southey styles the great temple (although, by the way, 
 the grim idol has only one head, and his brother and 
 sister the same number), — I was experiencing the 
 novelties of furlough life at home, and, on return 
 * 14th April 1852. 
 
BURMA AND THE BURMESE. d 
 
 to India (early in 1852); I was suddenly ordered off 
 with the expeditionary force to Rangoon, which 
 included the best steamships of the fine old Indian 
 navy, and a crack squadron of Her Majesty's ships 
 of war, the subtle names of the "Serpent" and the 
 "Fox" figuring among them. The object of the expedi- 
 tion was to bring the King of Burma, or Golden Foot, 
 who had defied and insulted us, to his senses, which 
 was done by the early part of 1853, when the young 
 hero whose name we all know so well. Ensign 
 Garnet Wolseley, highly distinguished himself by 
 leading a storming party against the robber chief- 
 tain, Myattoon, at Donnabew, where, although severely 
 wounded, he had the desire gratified, which every 
 proper young soldier is bound to feel, of seeing service, 
 and hearing a shot fired in earnest for the first time. 
 The last shot — no very bad one — the result of the 
 famous night-march to Tel-el-Kebir, as we all know, 
 has made him Lord Wolseley of Cairo; and I shall 
 ever be proud to think that I was the first public 
 chronicler of his earliest martial exploit in a narrative 
 of the Second Burmese War. 
 
 While my " hobby " then, or the Eastern, the Supe- 
 rior or Foremost country, for upwards of thirty years, 
 has been running on in its own peculiar fashion, not- 
 withstanding the lamentable indifl'erence which so often 
 awaits Oriental subjects, rapid progress and unexampled 
 prosperity have crowned our administration in British 
 Burma ; of which dependency it has been said by two 
 
4 BURMA AND THE BTJBMESB. 
 
 of the highest living authorities on the subject, " It 
 is evident that the country and the people have before 
 them a great future/' and, again, " This province, in all 
 reasonable probability has a greater future before it 
 than any country in Asia/^ expressing the strong hope 
 that it may meet from the Government of India the 
 care its importance deserves, and that " every attention 
 be paid towards facilitating its further development/^ 
 
 I now purpose to set this famous country and its 
 people before my readers in as brief a space as possible, 
 hoping to afford some instruction and amusement, and 
 save them the trouble of reading many books, which in 
 this rapid age of talk and motion is a task of no ordinary 
 difficulty. Burma is really a remarkable country, 
 which should be studied by all true friends of progress 
 and civilisation. I shall merely add to these introduc- 
 tory remarks that my humble endeavours to make the 
 subject of Burma popular among the British public 
 have had to struggle against rather severe opposing 
 forces. First came the war in Afghanistan ; next the 
 troubles in South Africa; then the critical state of 
 Ireland ; and, lastly, the absorbing Egyptian question 
 regarding a country with a delta inferior to that of 
 Burma — all forming a very stormy sea of troubles 
 indeed, through which we are still being so ably 
 piloted by a Liberal Government. 
 
 England's mission in the East, in India as in Chin- 
 India, has never before been so weighty or important 
 as at present. The decisive action of the French in 
 
BURMA AND THE BUEMBSE. 6 
 
 Annam (Cochin- China) * should create more interest 
 in it than ever. 
 
 In some way or other. Humanity, and Civilisation, 
 and Commerce, all cry aloud for our assistance in 
 the work of bringing about a united Burma ; and 
 shall we deny it to one of the fairest and most 
 productive countries of God^s earth ? 
 
 For the sake of those who have not been able to 
 give much time or attention to Burma (the best 
 part of which we possess, just as the French now 
 in Tonquin do possess the best part of Annam), I 
 shall beg leave to state very briefly, as has been 
 done elsewhere, that Pegu, Arakan, and the long 
 line of sea-coast named Tenasserim — the three mari- 
 time provinces of Chin-India or India beyond the 
 Ganges — were united under one administration in 
 January 1862, and called British Burma. Arakan 
 and Tenasserim were acquired by treaty after the 
 first Burmese war of 1824-25-26 ; and Pegu was 
 occupied and retained consequent on the second war 
 of 1852-53. The entire length of the country is 
 upwards of 900 miles, and the area about 90,000 square 
 miles,t or half the size of Spain. The country lies 
 between 20° 50' on the north, and on the south in 
 
 * We should now be up and doing something more in Indo-China. 
 As the crow flies, in an easterly direction, the distance of 
 Mandalay (the capital of Upper Burma) from Tonquin is not more 
 than 700 or 800 miles. Of course, to reach it by sea, there must 
 be the circuitous route by the Straits. 
 
 t Arakan contaiua 18,000 ; Pegu, 34,000 ; and Tenasserim, 
 38,000 square miles. 
 
6 BUEMA AND THE BURMESE. 
 
 about 10° 50' north latitude. British Burma is bounded 
 on the -west by the Bay of Bengal; Arakan on the 
 north by Chittagong^ and some independent states, and 
 on the east by the Yoma mountains ; Pegu is separated 
 from Upper Burma on the north by a line corre- 
 sponding to the 19° 30' parallel of north latitude, and 
 is bounded on the east by the Salween river j Tenas- 
 serim is bounded on the east by a long line of moun- 
 tains separating it from Siam, and varying from 3,000 
 to 5,000 feet above the sea. The physical aspect of the 
 country is thus described : — " Arakan is separated from 
 Pegu and Upper Burma on the east by a range of 
 mountains, which attains at its greatest elevation 
 a height of 7,000 feet. The range runs nearly parallel 
 with the line of sea-coast and gradually lowers towards 
 the south. The northern portion of the country has 
 a large extent of alluvial soil. In the lower course of 
 the river Kuladan (which rises in the mountains to the 
 east of Arakan) and its numerous affluents, the breadth 
 of the land from the shore to the water-shed mountains 
 is from 80 to 90 miles. The water-shed range separa- 
 ting Arakan from Pegu extends southerly, and between 
 that range and the sea-shore for a length of nearly 
 200 miles, as far as a point near Cape Negrais, the 
 country is a mere narrow strip of land. Pegu and 
 Martaban lie in the valleys of the Irawadi and Sittang 
 rivers. These valleys, bounded east and west by 
 mountain ranges, are narrow in their upper portions, 
 but expand at the delta of the Irawadi into a magni- 
 
BUEMA AND THE BURMESE. 7 
 
 ficent alluvial region, penetrated by a vast number o£ 
 tidal creeks, and extending over 10,000 square miles."* 
 TJnlike India, drought is unknown in Burma, and, 
 consequently, famine, that occasional scourge o£ our 
 Imperial dependency, is there quite unknown. 
 
 To give a more general idea o£ the country, I shall, 
 as in my latest work, cite a few extracts from a valu- 
 able bookt which, a few years back, appeared at 
 Rangoon, the capital of British Burma. Rangoon is 
 described as a " district in the Pegu division, occupying 
 the sea-board from the mouth of the Tsit-Toung, west- 
 ward to that mouth of the great Irawadi river which 
 is generally known as the China Bakir, but is more 
 correctly called the To, and extending inland up the 
 valleys of the Irawadi and the Tsit-Toung rivers to 
 the Henzada and Tharawadi districts on the west 
 of the Pegu Roma, and to the Shwe-gyeen district of 
 Tenasserim on the east. 
 
 " The general aspect of the district is that of a vast 
 plain extending along the sea-coast; and, slowly rising, 
 stretching north for some twenty-five miles, when, in 
 about the centre, it is met and, as it were, checked by 
 the lower slopes of the Pegu Roma, and, struggling 
 up amongst these mountains, in the valleys of the 
 Poo-zwon-doung (Puzendoun) and the Pegu, it folds 
 round them east and west, and rolls on, forming 
 
 * See George Duncan's " Geography of India," pp. 59-60. 
 
 t " The British Burma Gazetteer," in two volumes. Vol. ii. com- 
 piled by authority. Rangoon : Printed at the Government Press, 
 1879. 
 
8 BURMA AND THE BDEMBSE. 
 
 portions of the valleys of the Tsit-toung and of the 
 Hlaing. 
 
 " South of the Pegu, and in the greater part of the 
 valley of the Hlaing or Rangoon, for some distance 
 above the latitude of the town of the same name, the 
 country is everywhere highly intersected by tidal 
 creeks; the water, a few feet below the surface, is 
 brackish and undrinkable, and wells are useless, but 
 further north are streams, tidal for some distance, and 
 fresh higher up." 
 
 The only Mountains in the district " are the Pegu 
 Roma, which enter in the extreme north, where they 
 attain an estimated height of 2,000 feet, the highest 
 elevation of the range, and a few miles lower down 
 fork out into two main branches, with several subsi- 
 diary spurs. 
 
 " The western branch (which has a general S.S.W. 
 direction) and its ofif-shoots divide the valleys of the 
 Hlaing and Puzendoun rivers, and, after rising once 
 more in the irregularly shaped lime-stone hill called 
 Toung-gnyo, a little to the south of the seventeenth 
 parallel, terminate as a hilly range some thirty miles 
 north of Rangoon. The range is continued as an 
 elevated ridge past that town, where it appears in the 
 laterite hills round the great pagoda and, beyond the 
 Pegu river, in the Syriam Koondan, finally disappear- 
 ing beneath the alluvial plains of the delta, being last 
 seen in the rocks which crop up in the Hmaw-won 
 stream. The southern portion of this ridge, lying 
 
BURMA AND THE BUBMESB. 9 
 
 Tjetween the Pegu river and the Hmaw-won runs in a 
 ■direction nearly parallel to and about three miles east 
 of the Rangoon river, and nowhere more than five 
 miles broad, is locally known as the Thaulyeng 
 (Syriam) Koondan or ' rising ground/ The eastern 
 branch continues from the point of bifurcation towards 
 the S.S.E. and, intersected by the Pegu valley, sinks 
 near the town of Pegu, and finally disappears south of 
 the Pegu river, where it is represented by an un- 
 dulating wooded tract of no great extent. The sides 
 of the main range are, as a rule, steep, and the valleys 
 sharply excavated, but the upper portion of the Pegu 
 valley has more the character of a table-land with a 
 hilly surface, intersected by deep ravines." 
 
 The principal river is the Hlaing, " which rises near 
 Prome as the Zay, and entering this district in about 
 17° 30', flows S.S.B., at first through high sandy banks, 
 past Rangoon, falling into the sea in about 16° 30' as 
 the Rangoon river. It is navigable by the largest sea- 
 going vessels as far as Rangoon at all seasons, and 
 during spring-tides ships of considerable burden can 
 ascend for thirty miles further; but just below Rangoon 
 the Hastings shoal stretches across the river, and bars 
 the approach of ships of heavy draught except at 
 springs." 
 
 The Forests include tracts of all classes ; and I shall 
 beg attention hereafter to the beautiful and valuable 
 forests of Burma. 
 
 Up to this time it seems hardly fair to have entered 
 
10 BURMA AND THE BTJEMESE. 
 
 the province of Pegu without a word about its 
 inhabitants. From some valuable " observations/' we 
 learn that the physiognomy and language of the 
 Burmese people, as well as those of the adjoining 
 tribes, proclaim them all to belong to the same family 
 of nations as the tribes of Thibet and the Eastern 
 Himalaya. As to whence they came, and how they 
 arrived in Burma, Sir Arthur Phayre wrote some 
 years ago : — " The theory of Prichard, in his ' Natural 
 History of Man,' on this subject is probable, is supported 
 by existing facts, and accords with the physical 
 geography of the regions north of the countries now 
 occupied by the Indo-Chinese races." It is thought 
 reasonable to conclude that tribes leaving the south- 
 eastern margin of the great plateau of Central Asia, 
 early in the existence of the human race, " would 
 naturally follow the downward course of streams and 
 rivers." And, among the earlier emigrants from that 
 part of Asia towards the south, " as far as we can now 
 discover, were the ancestors of the present Mon or 
 Talaing people, the aborigines, so to speak, of Pegu." 
 The Karens also, it is thought, left their ancient 
 dwelling-places at an early period. Uninfluenced by 
 Buddhism, and their language unwritten till the year 
 1830, A.D., their traditions of their own origin, or at 
 least of the route by which they arrived at their 
 present seats — the Karennee country — are therefore 
 more trustworthy than those of the Burmese or of the 
 Talaings — the three forming the chief races of Burma 
 
BURMA AND THE BURMESE. 11 
 
 — are, regarding themselves. Above all, in mention- 
 ing Upper and Lower (or British) Burma, it is 
 necessary to keep in mind that the Taking (Pegu) 
 people, wlio chiefly inhabit the delta of the Irawadi^ 
 may no doubt be traced to the same original seat as 
 the Burmese ; but their ancestors appear to have left 
 it at a much earlier period than the forefathers of the 
 latter. 
 
 " Their language," says Sir Arthur Phayre, " which 
 now diflers materially from that of the Burmese, has 
 become nearly extinct, and there is, perhaps, a larger 
 Talaing-speaking people in Siam than in Pegu." * 
 
 The following brief summary regarding the people 
 of Burma may also be remembered with advantage : — 
 
 The Burmese people, who, including the Talaings, 
 or Peguans, form about five- sixths of the population 
 of British Burma, are classed by ethnologists as 
 Mongoloids. The numerous hill tribes, Karens, 
 Khyengs, Kamis, and others, belong to the same 
 family. The Burmese, by their physiognomy as well 
 as by their language, show that they belong to the 
 same family as " the Bhote, or people of Thibet." 
 
 In a " Critical Sketch " of the Burmese race, while 
 noticing Sir Arthur Phayre's learned and elaborate 
 paper on its history,t it was remarked : — " In every 
 Indo-Chinese tribe occasional exceptions to the general 
 
 * It may here be noticed that it seems probable the Mon-Talaing 
 race received Buddhism before the Burmese did. 
 
 t See the author's " Sketches of some Distinguished Anglo- 
 Indians," p. 146. 
 
12 BURMA AND THE BQEMESB. 
 
 flat physiognomy are met with; these are almost 
 always among the men. The women have more 
 frequently the true type of Mongolian or Bhotiya 
 face.'' It is, then, presumed that such tribes as " the 
 Burmese, the Karens, and the Mon, would readily 
 find their way from Central Asia by the courses of the 
 rivers Salween and Menam towards the south. Some 
 would be led westerly, and so gain the valley of the 
 Irawadi in the upper course of that river." 
 
 To strengthen, then, from local accounts, and 
 Telugu and Tamil traditions, the ancient connection 
 between Pegu and India, it is interesting to learn 
 that, probably some thousand years B.C., the inha- 
 bitants of Tulingana visited and colonised the coast 
 of Burma, finding there a Mon population ; and the 
 country of the colonists appears in the word Talaing, 
 known to surrounding nations and to Europeans. 
 
 The student of Hindu mythology will derive some 
 pleasure from analogy in his study of Sir Arthur 
 Phayre's paper on the Burmese race. After an inex- 
 plicable chaos, the present earth emerged from a deluge. 
 The subsiding water left a delicious substance, which 
 became spread over the earth. Gautama's throne — 
 Gautama, the Burmese deity, an incarnation of Buddha 
 — first appeared above the water. At the same time 
 the occupants of the " heavenly regions," called 
 Brahma, had accomplished their destinies. Changing 
 their state, they " became beings with corporeal 
 frames, but without sex." They (men) arrive at 
 
BURMA. AND THE BURMESE. 13 
 
 "Paradise Lost/' in. Chin-India. "Prom eating of 
 the ambrosia, the light of the bodies of these beings 
 gradually declined, and because of the darkness they 
 became sore afraid." 
 
 I may here remark that in my first work on Pegu, 
 allusion is made to similar curious information relat- 
 ing to the Karens (Deists), who have a complete story 
 of the fall of man and the deluge.* 
 
 From the "beings with corporeal frames" just 
 alluded to — a strange primeval essence of humanity — 
 we are informed that the people called, by Europeans, 
 Burmas, Burmans, or Burmese take their name. In 
 the Burmese language " the name is written Mran-md 
 or Mram-ma, and is generally pronounced by them- 
 selves Ba-md." Alluding to Ava, we find a learned 
 geographical writer of twenty-six years ago remark- 
 ing : — " By Europeans the country is generally called 
 Ava, from the common name of the (old) capital ; but 
 by the natives themselves it is named Burma (in which 
 there is no h), which is a corruption oi Mrumma, its 
 original appellation." So much for the etymology of 
 the word Myan-ma or Mran-md. The name, then, 
 by which the Burmese are known to Europeans, or as 
 they call themselves, is written Mran-fnd, and some- 
 times Mram-ma, which is a variation of the same word. 
 Turning from the roots mi and ma in the Burmese 
 language, we at length arrive at a most interesting 
 conclusion by Sir Arthur Phayre: — "I cannot," he 
 * See " Pegu," a Narrative, &c., p. 500. 
 
14 BUEMA AND THE BURMESE . 
 
 remarks, " say how the Chinese got the word, but it 
 is possible that Mien -was the original name of the race, 
 and contains the root meaning man." This is very 
 remarkable, especially when connected with the title 
 I ventured to give my last volume — Ashe Pyee, the 
 Eastern, or superior, or foremost country. So, then, 
 for anything we know, the cradle of the human race 
 may have been in Burma and the surrounding 
 countries ! In other senses, therefore, besides the 
 moral one, the line of the| famous English poet holds 
 good, that 
 
 The propel" study of mankind is man. 
 
 Before leaving the region of etymology, I shall now 
 say a word or two about Rangoon, which British 
 commercial capital of Chin-India, I was glad to 
 observe, formed a principal topic in the lecture before 
 the Royal Geographical Society * by the daring and 
 energetic traveller, Mr. Colquhoun — one, of whom it 
 may be said, in terms used by Humboldt on Alexander 
 Burnes in Bokhara, who has cast a line of light {une 
 ligne lumineuse) over the hitherto dark regions of 
 south-west China. Rangoon, then, as before stated, the 
 capital of the Pegu province, and consequently of 
 British Burma, some twenty or twenty-five miles from 
 the sea — the present Liverpool or Glasgow of Chin- 
 India — may be considered worthy of brief mention as 
 to the origin of the name. In the early Talaing 
 histories it has the name of Dagon, so called from the 
 
 * Monday, November 13th, 1882. 
 
BURMA AND THE BTJBMESE. 15 
 
 great Shwe (golden) Dagon Pagoda, in ancient as in 
 modern times the chief landmark of the town. In 
 the wars which took place between the Kings of Pegu 
 and Upper Burma, Dagon often changed hands; and 
 when at last, in 1763, Alompra, the hunter, drove out 
 the Taking (Pegu) garrison of Ava — then the Burman 
 capital — and eventually conquered the Taking king- 
 dom, "he came down to Dagon, repaired the great 
 Shwe Dagon Pagoda, almost refounded the town, and 
 re-named it Rankoon {' the end of the war/ from Ran 
 war, and Koon or Goon, ' finished, exhausted ') or 
 Rangoon, the name it has ever since borne, and made 
 it the seat of the vice-royalty which he established." * 
 In the last decade of the eighteenth century, the 
 English obtained leave to establish a factory in 
 Rangoon, surrounding it by a brick wall, and hoisting 
 the British colours. Had they not been hauled down 
 then, as at the end of our first war in 1826, but as 
 in 1852—53, the result of the second war, established 
 for ever, at the rate of progression which has gone 
 on in our time, it is not improbable that Burma and 
 India would have worked so well together that the 
 Government of the latter great country would never 
 have got into debt, nor have required a loan ! 
 
 To impress the importance of Rangoon more on the 
 
 memory, I may here remark that it is the commercial 
 
 capital of a country with a little more than 3,700,000 
 
 inhabitants, but with exports and imports, in propor- 
 
 * See " Ashe Pyee," pp. 77-78. 
 
16 BURMA AND THE BURMESE. 
 
 tion to the population, ten times greater than those of 
 " stupendouSj darkly mystical, and pagan " India ! 
 
 Supposing that the entire commerce of south-west 
 China and independent Burma were added to that of 
 British Burma, we may conceive what a vast opening 
 there would be for the merchants of Great Britain ! 
 
 Relating his now famous journey from Yunnan, in 
 south-west China, to Bhamo in Northern Burma, Mr. 
 Colquhoun said it was a country without roads, and 
 with scarcely any trade. " The mineral wealth is con- 
 siderable. The expedition passed on its way gold, 
 copper, salt, iron, silver, and lead mines ; but inquiry 
 about mineral treasures was dangerous, and therefore 
 no trustworthy information could be got respecting 
 them. The travellers found, however, that the best 
 tea in China comes from the Shan territory, about five 
 days south of the Yunnan frontier. The immense cost 
 of carriage prevents this tea from being exported to 
 Europe, but Mr. Colquhoun had no hesitation in 
 saying that before many years are over it will be 
 shipped to China itself as well as to the rest of the 
 world from our port of Rangoon."* 
 
 But not only with tea; for many other valuable 
 mercantile commodities from south-west China will 
 probably, ere long, be shipped from Rangoon. I have 
 frequently remarked f on the vast importance of such 
 
 * Report of lecture in " Daily News," November 14tli, 1882. 
 t See " Our Burmese Wars and Relations with Burma," " Ashe 
 Pyee," &c. 
 
BURMA AND THE BURMESE. 17 
 
 a trade being firmly established, through our energy 
 and enterprise ; and, as we talk of money being the 
 sinews of war, so Burma may eventually become — 
 a united Burma, that is — the sinews of our exchequer 
 in India. 
 
 Let us now pass on to the Irawadi river, the grand 
 artery of Burma, and the constant feeder of Rangoon 
 with the commerce and wealth of the upper country, 
 and in some measure of south-west China and the 
 various states around, and to the northward of 
 Mandalay, the Burman capital^ now so well known to 
 the British merchants of Rangoon, and world-famous 
 by deeds of dreadful note. 
 
 Irawadi (Airavati) is compounded of aira, "moisture," 
 and vati, "\ike" in Sanskrit. It is the name given 
 to Indra^s (female) elephant, and signifies ''great 
 moisture,^^ or water. Indra, in fact, answers to Zeus 
 (Jupiter), the heaven or sky, including the atmo- 
 spherCj the immediate source of rainj hence appropriate 
 for a river.* 
 
 As Egypt has now become a "household word^' with 
 Englishmen, I may here remark that Burma is in- 
 habitedj in the words of Sir Arthur Phayre, " mainly 
 by people of the Burmese race, and which is as dis- 
 tinctly the country of the Irawadi and its tributaries 
 as Egypt is the gift of the Nile.^' 
 
 The river Irawadi, which is wholly within the old 
 Empire, is supposed to be nearly eleven hundred miles 
 * See " Ashe Pyee," pp. 81, 155. 
 
 2 
 
18 BURMA AND THE BUBMBSB. 
 
 in length. This noble stream discharges itself by 
 fourteen different mouths into the Bay of Bengal, 
 lat. 18°, just south of Cape Negrais. The Delta, as 
 before remarked, covers an area of upwards of 10,000 
 square miles, or considerably more than that of the 
 Nile, and its three sides are about 135, 145, and 
 113 miles in length respectively. The Irawadi is 
 navigable for river-steamers as far as Bhamo, 600 
 miles beyond the British frontier. The velocity of its 
 waters, when the river is full, is said to be five miles 
 an hour. General Fytche informs us that " Colonel 
 Yule, from facts collected by him, assumes that the 
 Irawadi takes its rise in the lofty Langtam range of 
 the Himalayas, whose peaks, covered with perpetual 
 snow, separate the valleys inhabited by the Shan race 
 of Khantis from the head-waters of the sacred Brah- 
 maputra."* 
 
 It would be impossible to enter here into any dis- 
 quisition regarding the sources of this noble river ; but 
 from what has been said,t we may form some idea of 
 its sublimity and grandeur. However, I may mention 
 that, at page 203 of the little volume " Ashe Pyee," 
 will be found some matter regarding the head-waters 
 of the Irawadi, in which are, especially worthy of 
 notice, the original remarks furnished to the author 
 by that well-known, zealous, and pains-taking geo- 
 grapher of the India Ofiice, Mr. Trelawney Saunders. 
 
 * " Burma, Past and Present," vol. i. p. 268. 
 t See also " Ashe Pyee," p. 79. 
 
BURMA AND THE BURMESE. 19 
 
 I ■will now say a few words on the Forests or 
 Btjrma; tut, true enough, it is impossible to enumerate 
 -the various kinds of trees which, in the golden country, 
 or Ashe Pyee, rear their heads in proud magnificence. 
 Of course the chief is the teak, which, although rare 
 in Hindustan, and hardly mentioned in any of our 
 accounts of Siam, " constitutes the principal glory of 
 the Burman forests/'* In " Ashe Pyee " I have given 
 various remarks on the importance attached, for a long 
 period, to the growth of teak in Burma, and the 
 interest taken by the Indian Government in the 
 subject. It is also stated that (not very long ago) 
 some of the finest merchant ships ever seen in the 
 Thames were built at Calcutta of teak -wood from the 
 forests of Pegu. Again, I was led to remark : — 
 
 " Forest conservancy, as well as prudent irriga- 
 tion and extensive railway communication, must ever 
 occupy a conspicuous place in the world's agents for 
 the prevention of famine ; and, considering the relative 
 positions of India and Burma (the dry and the moist 
 countries), how, at any time, as in the recent distress- 
 ing Indian famines, want may be sorely felt in the 
 land of the Veda and the Koran, every cry for assist- 
 ance will surely be met, as heretofore, from the fertile 
 region of Gautama. In such a case, one might fancy 
 the waving of the trees signifying their acquiescence 
 in the good work — waving ' in sign of worship ' (as 
 
 * See also " Aehe Pyee," p. 119, and Sir Arthur Phayre's Notes 
 on Teak Timber, p. 162. 
 
 O * 
 
20 BtTEMA AND THE BtJEMESE. 
 
 sung by Milton) — at being the means of a Power ever 
 ready and willing to save. Burma can not only furnish 
 you with timber to build your ship, but also with an 
 endless supply of food to freight it with. It may be 
 observed, in a general way, that the trees of this 
 country are superb; and so are the flowers, ever 
 blooming, and flourishing, and beautiful. The English 
 traveller in Burma may become sated with hills and 
 dales, and trees and flowers ; and the ubiquitous 
 American here sometimes discovers scenery reminding 
 him of his own sublime and ever-matchless prairie 
 lands. Doubtless, he is rarely sated with the ' sylvan 
 scenery" of various parts of Burma, which, according 
 to the romantic and contemplative Earl of Beacons- 
 field, ' never palls.' The great statesman, with his 
 fondness for trees (in this respect like Burke and other 
 famous men, not forgetting our present great and 
 energetic Premier, Mr. Gladstone) , would certainly have 
 admired those of Burma, from the noble teak down to 
 the wayward bamboo, with its dense columns, in 
 the jungle or forest, arranged like the aisles of a 
 cathedral. The forests of Burma are, of course, filled 
 with nats, or spirits, like the forests of Scandinavia 
 and India, or all over the world. Such arboreous 
 sprites were probably at first inclined, in Pegu and 
 Tenasserim, from the prospect of not being discovered^ 
 to view the British Conservators with favour; but 
 they must now take a difFereut view of the subject. 
 " Not very long ago, when I was in Burma for the 
 
BURMA AND THE BURMESE. 21 
 
 second time — 1863-64 — forest work in a great measure 
 consisted in clearing away jungle from around young 
 plants to protect them from fire, cutting away creepers 
 and parasitical plants, and removing obstructions to 
 tlie due development of teak. During the above year, 
 this work was carried on with extreme diligence in 
 the Prome, Tharawadi, and Sittang sections : — 15,286 
 teak, and 56,333 other kinds of trees were girdled; 
 304,756 young teak trees were cleared; and 72,841 
 trees of other kinds were cut down ; 108,689 creepers 
 were cut. And here it may be interesting to state 
 that as the botanical productions of Ashe Pyee are 
 unrivalled, it is almost worth a visit to Burma to 
 see the ' great variety of creepers and wonderful 
 luxuriance of the undergrowth in the forests.' Ferns 
 and orchids, the rapid-growing bamboo, with its 
 fantastic forms, and Mora's own gem, the finest indi- 
 genous tree in Chin-India, Amherstia Nobilis* — aU 
 will give the diligent and inquiring traveller food for 
 meditation and delight.'^ To him might appear a 
 " quiet spirit " in the Burman woods and forests, as 
 the Burmese in their nats have a peculiar spirit 
 of their own; though not, of course, the "Spirit of 
 Poetry," of which it is written by Longfellow, the 
 American poet whom the British nation has so delighted 
 
 to honour : — 
 
 Here amid 
 The silent majesty of these deep woods, 
 Its presence shall uplift thy thoughts from earth, 
 
 * See "Our Burmese Wars," &c., p. 309. 
 
22 BUEMA AND THE BUEMESE. 
 
 As to the sunshine and the pure bright air 
 
 Their tops the green trees lift. Hence gifted bards 
 
 Have ever loved the calm and quiet shades. 
 
 Teak, it may be remarked, is one of the numerous 
 monopolies of the monopolising King of Upper 
 Burma J of which neglected, misgoverned, and un- 
 developed country, where nature has done so much, 
 and man so little, it is thought by the most eminent 
 living authority, one of our most distinguished rulers 
 in the East, that its occupation — with an area of not 
 less than 130,000 square miles, including the tributary 
 Shan states, and numerous wild and troublesome tribes — 
 " woidd involve difficulties which it is not desirable, 
 except from dire necessity, to encounter. If we can 
 have a free right of way through for trade with China, 
 with the good- will both of Burma and China ^' — not 
 yet, 1 am sorry to say, quite apparent — " that will be 
 far better for British material interests and British 
 honour than the violent act of annexation.'' * 
 
 Judging from the wonderful progress made in 
 British Burma during thirty years, the population 
 more than doubled, the revenue (the sea-board trade 
 alone upwards of 18,000,000 sterling) quadrupled^ and, 
 not the least pleasing aspect, the nation " happy and 
 contented" — and no wonder, with an external trade the 
 value of which has risen 117 per cent, in the last ten 
 years — ^if the same prosperity had been allowed to attend 
 Upper Burma, what would now have been the result of 
 a conspicuous counterpart to a successful administra- 
 
 * "Ashe Pyee," p. 99. 
 
BTJKMA AND THE BOEMBSE. 23 
 
 tion? — probably nothing short of large contributions 
 to the Indian exchequer ! The mineral resources of 
 Upper Burma would have been a splendid set-off to 
 the rice of Lower, for it is "the rice produce that 
 has chiefly created and maintained the prosperity of 
 British Burma." 
 
 The " declared value of the rice exported in the 
 year 1880-81 was £5,655,000, while that of teak 
 was a little over a million." Thus has British 
 Burma struggled on in an unnatural position, single- 
 handed, and still there is nothing to equal her pros- 
 perous career in the entire history of British Empire 
 in the East ! 
 
 As Egypt was in ancient times the granary of the 
 world, so is British Burma at present the granary of 
 the Bay of Bengal, or of India; or it may be one 
 day of the British Isles. The trade in Ngapee — fish- 
 paste — is also very large.* This condiment of ill- 
 odour is highly relished by the Burmese. The 
 imports of cotton, yarn, and goods, silk, wool, and 
 apparel have increased ; while the imports of iron 
 and machinery for mills are also larger, these being 
 of two kinds : rice mills which free the grain from 
 the husk and prepare it for the European, American, 
 and Chinese markets, and steam saw-mills. 
 
 From a late most admirable report we also learn 
 
 that education had greatly flourished in British 
 
 * It will hardly be credited that the export value of Ngapee from 
 the Kangoon district to Upper Burma amounted, in 1879-80, to 
 £200,000. 
 
24 BUEMA AND THE BUEMESE. 
 
 Burma, of which I never had any doubt from the 
 first, and having afterwards some opportunities of 
 judging, from having been appointed, in 1865-66, 
 inspector of seaport schools in Pegu, Arakan, and 
 Tenasserim. The total number of children in Govern- 
 ment and inspected schools has risen, in the last 
 ten years, from 2,456, to nearly 86,000. Through 
 the power of education, especially the study of 
 English, the Burmese are now becoming admirably 
 adapted for that inestimable boon to cities or towns. 
 East or West, Local Self-government ; and it was 
 pleasing to read in the Gazette of India, of August 
 1883, about the municipal elections in Rangoon, where, 
 among the members elected to represent the different 
 communities and bodies, the Burmese had five (5) 
 representatives, the same number as the Europeans, 
 Americans, Eurasians, Armenians, Jews, and Parsis 
 collectively. Burmese enthusiasm in this matter really 
 came to the front. 
 
 Opium-smoking and opium-eating in British Burma 
 (as before in India and China) have of late occupied 
 much public attention ; but the Government have 
 done all in their power tp lessen the consumption of 
 this favourite drug in Chin-India, the proper and 
 moderate use of which is valuable in such watery 
 Eastern climes, as tending, when used and not abused, 
 to promote health, or keep away disease, which is often 
 found to be the case among the moderate consumers 
 of ale, tobacco, wine, and spirits, in our own country. 
 
BURMA AND THE BURMESE. 25 
 
 The Burmese are, on the whole, a very sober people. 
 But ifj in timej all chance of procuring cheap opium 
 shall be taken away from him, the Burman, like the 
 British soldier or sailor, will never exist without his loved 
 tobacco. Man, woman, and child, must draw conso- 
 lation from the seductive weed ; and the Burmese lady, 
 after gracefully placing a flower in her hair, takes up 
 her cheroot as a matter of course, thereby aiding her 
 powers of execution on the hearts of the listless sons 
 of Gautama. It may here be also noted that the 
 Burmese are generally clean smokers, in this respect 
 forming a striking contrast to the occupants of our 
 "^ smoking" railway carriages at home. 
 
 The Social Condition of the people of British 
 Burma is generally similar throughout the three 
 divisions. Everywhere in the plains the land is held 
 independent of any superior, the estates averaging 
 from eight to ten acres in extent. They seldom 
 exceed ten acres. With reference to the climate, the 
 people have plenty of food and clothing. The houses 
 of the peasantry, whether on the hills or on the plains, 
 are built of bamboo, and have the floors raised on 
 platforms, so as to be above the reach of the annual 
 flood, say from May till October. They are never 
 built on the ground. Describing the national character 
 of the Burmese, it has been well and truly remarked 
 that " the general disposition of the inhabitants is 
 strikingly contrasted with that of the natives of 
 Bengal, from which they are only separated by a narrow 
 
26 BTTEMA AND THE BUEMBSE. 
 
 range of mountains." The Burmese are described a» 
 a " lively, inquisitive race, active, irascible, and im- 
 patient " ; and this is a fair picture of the people. It 
 has frequently been remarked that the Burman is a lazy 
 creature, only caring for the passing day ; and a recent 
 sojourner in the land informed the Society of Arts,, 
 doubtless to the extreme dismay of my scientific and 
 enterprising friend, Mr. Routledge, who has a grand 
 scheme in prospect for the manufacture of paper from 
 the bamboo in Burma — " whether Mr. Routledge 
 would get over the labour difficulty he did not know, 
 but he never s aw a Burmese man work at al l." The 
 women di d everything ; and this versatile and pleasa nt 
 traveller seemed to have a tinge of the old " age of 
 chivalry"'" about turn, when~Ee~iremarked that "the 
 women we re exceedingly pretty, and dressed in the 
 m ost graceful and becomin g_Hajz." Now, in what is 
 thus brought forward we have the extremes of 
 description. The Burmese are not, as a general rule,, 
 very lazy; nor are the ladies, to the European eye 
 at least, very pretty. It strikes me as almost im- 
 possible to couple beauty with the flat Mongolian 
 ty-pe nf mank md, orToi TT Eiii" case, of WOman^a d. 
 That there is something captivating and pleasing about 
 the Burmese woman's appearance is undeniable; but 
 in no respect, as I have said elsewhere, can beauty in 
 Burma, if it exist at all, be " matchless deemed.'"' 
 My gallant and learned friend, General Pytche, highly 
 commends women among the Burmese, whose position 
 
BUEMA AND THE BURMESE. 2T 
 
 is a mucli higher and independent one than amongst 
 Mahomedans and Hindus. " She is with them ," he 
 says, " not the m ere slave of passion, but has equ al 
 rights, and is the recognised and dul y honoured help- 
 mate of man, and, in fact, hears a. mnre p rominent 
 share in the^tra nsaction of th e more ordinary affairs of 
 life _than is the case, perhaps, with any other people . 
 either_^Eastern or .Western— 
 
 CosTCTME. — The long flowing robes, which give the 
 females of India such a graceful and classical appear- 
 ance, -we look for in vain in Burma. The female 
 petticoat is styled hta-mein. The potso of the men — 
 also of bright silk or cotton — reaches from the waist 
 to the ankles. The men generally wear a smart jacket, 
 which, with the under toga, in part tucked in like the 
 dress of the women, shoes, and a handsome dha — the 
 universal weapon of Burma, with which the Burman 
 can make a stockade or a tooth-pick — the whole sur- 
 mounted by a muslin ring of turband — complete the 
 male costume, which is sometimes striking enough. 
 The jetty tresses of the Burmese beauties, when 
 adorned with flowers, have a peculiar fascination about 
 them ; while, with the other sex, the nob of hair, 
 and ears bored, also the pendent lobes, common to 
 both sexes, like the sacred ears of Gautama — make 
 you feel that you are gazing on an entirely new picture 
 in the history of costume. 
 
 Makmage. — Among the Burmese marriage is 
 purely " a simple civil right." " On the parents giving^ 
 
28 BTTEMA AND THE BURMESE. 
 
 their consent to the marriage," writes the author of 
 "Burma, Past and Present,'^ "the Corbeille de noce 
 is furnished by the bridegroom according to his 
 meanSj and the marriage takes place immediately/' 
 Then there is a grand feast, with a pooay or play. 
 *' The happy couple eat out of the same dish before 
 the assembled guests ; after which the bridegroom 
 presents the bride with hla-pet (pickled tea from 
 Thein-nee)j the compliment is returned^ and the 
 ceremony is practically brought to a close." * The 
 simplicity of the marriage ceremony in Burma is 
 thus apparent. 
 
 Games. — The principal games among the Burmese 
 are wrestling, cock and buffalo fighting, elephant 
 racing, football, and boat-racing. They have also a 
 sort of dice to aid their gambling propensities. At 
 the buffalo-fights men sit on the beasts, which rush 
 at each other with tremendous fury. Frequently 
 the horns become locked together^ when a trial of 
 strength ensues, each pushing his adversary as far 
 back as possible. The buffalo is seldom killed, but 
 the rider is often thrown. To the Burmese ladies the 
 fight is quite as exciting as the bull-fight to the ladies 
 of Spain. Football is played with a small ball of 
 wicker-work, very light, of course ; the players form 
 a circle, and keep up the ball with remarkable skiU; 
 with knee or foot they send it flying in every direc- 
 tion, as if they were perfect masters in the law of 
 
 * " Burma, Past and Present," vol. ii. pp. 69-70. 
 
BUEMA AND THE BUEMESB. 29 
 
 projectiles. Only three or four years ago I learned 
 that the English foothall had become common among 
 the Burmese. They now affect Rugby to a consider- 
 able extent, and should a Burmese team appear in 
 this country, that famous institution for learning and 
 football may have to look to its laurels. It was even 
 reported that the Burmese had beat one of our 
 European regiments at football ! In boat-racing, the 
 Burmese shine to great advantage. Their boats are 
 very long and very narrow, with some twenty rowers 
 on a side, and are paddled along at an incredible speed. 
 The Burmese posture of defiance is common in the 
 pleasure as well as in the war-boat. A national game^ 
 of minor importance, is a sort of draughts. The 
 players commence by drawing squares on the ground, 
 and seated occasionally in a state of profound abstrac- 
 tion before a move, they play away with a gravity 
 worthy of the great Gautama himself. The Burmese 
 enjoy a game of cards quite as much as the old ladies 
 of England. They are fond of music ; and the Bur- 
 mese beauty with her harmonicon can discourse most 
 eloquently to love-sick swains. They are also fond of 
 dancing ; when, among the women as fairies, the men 
 frequently display their skill in the dress of devils. 
 "What the sensation-drama is to the British public, the 
 striking pooay or play is to the Burman. As General 
 Fytche has shown, the Burmese have certainly some 
 dramatic talent among them. 
 
 A BuEMJiSE Funeral. — There is something strange 
 
so BURMA AND THE BURMESE. 
 
 about a Burmese funeral. The ceremony is sure to 
 arrest the attention of the traveller on his entering the 
 golden land. The humble Burmese funeral has fre- 
 quently a decided air of true sorrow about it, amounting 
 on some occasions to what the Arabs style sorrow 
 devouring sorrow, proving that the Burmese are by no 
 means destitute of good feeling. Shortly after the 
 capture of Rangoon, some of our officers saw a pro- 
 cession following the remains of an old woman. 
 Women and children attended as well as men ; and 
 three priests brought up the rear. The corpse is placed 
 in a coffin made of matting, and is carried by four men. 
 Old women were there, howling in a most disconsolate 
 manner. On reaching the burial-ground, the Phon- 
 gyees (or priests) came forward, and took up their 
 position on a raised platform at the head o£ the grave. 
 Before the priests were placed three large dishes of 
 plantains, and dried fish. Pieces of wood were placed 
 across the grave, and the coffin rested on them. The 
 men then kneeled round the priests, and the women 
 and children formed an outer semicircle. A Phongyee 
 then repeated a few prayers, to which the men re- 
 sponded. Then a long prayer was said, and, while the 
 priest was speaking, a man was pouring water slowly 
 on the ground from a small earthenware vessel. This 
 finished the ceremony, and the Phongyees, having had 
 their provisions carefully collected, departed. The 
 corpse was then taken from the coffin and buried. 
 Buddhists, it must be remembered, bury as well as 
 
BURMA AND THE BURMESE. 31 
 
 burn; the latter mode being generally confined to 
 funerals of a more expensive character. Pouring the 
 water from the earthen vessel is to signify the spirit 
 departing from the body, or taking its " flight on high." 
 Sometimes the last rites are performed with extrava- 
 gant splendour. The bier of the deceased, raised on 
 high, and enclosed in the model of a Buddhist temple, 
 borne along on the shoulders of some dozens of bearers ; 
 the glaring red and gilt, and silvery ornaments of the 
 grotesque machine, to which a grace is given by the 
 white flags and umbrellas attached to it ; the long 
 train of followers, chiefly women in rear, and Phongyees 
 in front : such is a faint outline of the richer Burmese 
 funeral. 
 
 At the risk of being considered to have got into a 
 melancholy mood at this stage of my discourse, I hope 
 to entertain my readers with a brief description of 
 Phongyee obsequies, which I wrote while marching 
 with the Martaban column, towards the end of the 
 second Burmese war.* A noble Phongyee who had 
 come from Ava had died at Beling, where he was now 
 lying in state in all the gorgeous display of " barbaric " 
 pomp. His bier, raised on high, and richly gilt, stood 
 on an elaborately-wrought pedestal, the whole sur- 
 mounted by large white umbrellas, and by muslin, 
 draped with considerable taste. On all sides there 
 were lines of Chinese-like pictures, with all the 
 fantastic mummeries of superstition depicted thereon. 
 
 * See " Pegu, a Narrative of the Second Burmese War," p. 191. 
 
32 BURMA AND THE BUEMESB. 
 
 The dead Phongyee, who lay quietly taking his 
 supreme rest in the best of honey, was surrounded by 
 some really good paintings, the subjects of which 
 seemed to defy description. Thus had he lain for four 
 months, and would lie, they said, for eight more, he 
 being a very great man. After this stately repose, he 
 would be taken out with great show, amidst the firing 
 of guns and every kind of display pertaining to the 
 Burmese pyrotechnic art ; combustible matter would 
 then be placed beside the corpse, and from some 
 distance people from many villages would fire their 
 rude rockets and endeavour to set the " muni " (saint) 
 on fire. The successful rocket is regarded as a " winged 
 messenger," to tell the multitude that the soul of the 
 deceased has gone to heaven ! 
 
 Gautama. — Among what have been styled the 
 "stratus of pseudo-religious fiction, in which are 
 preserved the debris and the fossilised skeletons of 
 the faith,'''* it is by no means easy to get a satisfactory 
 origin of Gautama, even although the priority of 
 Buddhism, the original patriarchal system, is now 
 generally admitted. In regard to their religion, the 
 Burmese are followers of Buddha, whose image is, in 
 a manner, worshipped throughout the country under 
 the name of Gautama. The whole system of Buddha 
 is a vast improvement on miserable and degrading 
 atheism, and leaves a wide margin for the improve- 
 ment of a large portion of the human race. 
 
 * "Ashe Pyee,'' chap. ir. p. 137. 
 
BURMA AND THE BURMESE. 33 
 
 One of the Burmese theories or traditions on the 
 origin of Gautama runs thus : — At the creation of the 
 world by the Supreme Being, some angels, or inhabi- 
 tants of the other world, came down below and tasted 
 of 'the earth. One of them found the new material so 
 excellent that he ate so much he could not again 
 ascend. He therefore remained on earth — sphynx-like, 
 with "earnest eyes" and a "■ sad, tranquil mien" — - 
 watching over mankind to the present day, through 
 all their innumerable vicissitudes. As I have remarked 
 elsewhere, " Buddha awakes from a state of felicitous 
 nonentity, and assumes his operative and creative 
 qualities," when at Rangoon we behold him " incarnate 
 as Gautama." In short, the Phongyee, or yellow-robed 
 priest of Burma, may be said to represent, on a 
 humble scale, the great teacher of mankind, Gautama, 
 who is believed to have founded Buddhism two or 
 three thousand years ago. 
 
 The dependence of the Burmese priesthood of 
 Gautama on charity reminds one of the usages of the 
 primitive Christian professors, on which I have 
 remarked in my last work.* The subject of Gautama 
 alone would furnish material for several discourses; so 
 I shall not dwell long on this subject, which pertains 
 to a creed embracing (in China and Chin-India) some 
 four hundred millions of mankind. To show what 
 a vast subject it is, even with reference to Burma, 
 as observed by an able critic, " the whole of Burmese 
 * "AshePyee," p. 146, 
 
Si BUEMA AND THE BURMESE. 
 
 literature treats of the Buddha and his 550 previous 
 •existences/^ 
 
 An English critic, alluding to my chapters on 
 national character and religion — which he is pleased to 
 style interesting — cannot believe that Nirvana means 
 "the Eternal City." But such it is really termed by 
 the last Buddha, Gautama himself. In many respects 
 it appears to resemble what, in our Christian belief, we 
 hope for as a city of the immortals, prepared in a 
 " better/' or " heavenly" country. The " longing after 
 immortality" we know to be not uncommon in the 
 creeds of the East. The old Burmese capital, Amara- 
 pura, which succeeded Ava, was distinguished as the 
 "city of the immortals"; and the Hindus have their 
 far-famed amreeta, or cup of immortality. 
 
 The poet, Southey, in his famous mythological 
 
 poem, the " Curse of Kehama," some may remember, 
 
 makes Kehama say to the pure and fascinating heroine, 
 
 Xailyal : — 
 
 Mine thou must be, being doom'd with me to share 
 The Amreeta-cup of immortality. 
 
 A city, then, where an eternity is to be passed, could 
 not have been more aptly styled by the old teacher, 
 Gautama, than as " the Eternal City." Gautama, like 
 ■Cato, as drawn by our own Addison, doubtless, incul- 
 cated strong ideas regarding the " varieties of untried 
 being " that may have to be undergone in the eternal 
 world. Gautama, wandering about doing good, 
 alludes to his grand work of teaching all sentient 
 
BURMA AND THE BURMESE. 35 
 
 beings the way to salvation by providing them with a 
 ferry-boat over this vain sea of passions^ and guiding 
 them into the path leading to the eternal city (Neib- 
 bhan, or Nirvana). With complete annihilation of 
 matter (Neibbhan) commences the eternity of spiritual 
 life. I shall conclude these few cursory remarks by 
 ■citing a most interesting passage from the work of an 
 able exponent of the doctrines of Gautama, which 
 may draw a few English students to the wonderful 
 study of Buddhism: — "The preachings of Gautama 
 were not confined to the narrow limits of man's abode. 
 All beings inhabiting the mansions of the gods or nats 
 benefited by the publication of his doctrines, and he 
 occasionally visited the celestial regions where they 
 reside. On one occasion he proceeded there for the 
 purpose of specially announcing the perfect law to his 
 mother."* I may here also state that, by Burmese 
 sages, Gautama is identified with the Saviour of man- 
 kind, and Maha Maria, " the great Mary," with the 
 supposed mother of the far-famed Eastern teacher, — to 
 say nothing of Gautama's being " entered as a saint in 
 the Roman calendar, under the title of St. Josaphat." 
 From Gautama I now proceed to the concluding section 
 of my discourse, which I humbly trust will be found 
 not the least interesting portion of it. 
 
 Burmese Bells. — Early in June, 1882, " Great 
 Paul," in the shape of a bell, achieved an elevated 
 
 * "Burma, Past and Present," by General Albert Fytohe, C.S.I., 
 vol. ii. (note) p. 162; also "Ashe Pyee," p. 149. 
 
 3 * 
 
36 BUEMA AND THE BURMESE. 
 
 position in the chief Protestant Temple of the world, 
 when Britons of an imaginative turn of mind, who had 
 lived in Burma, might have been excused fancying that 
 among the nats (good spirits) joy was rung forth from 
 all the little bells within the tees (umbrellas) of 
 the golden temples in the golden land, in honour 
 of their mighty brother. Great Paul. And from no 
 other country in the world could the welcome have 
 been so appropriate, as, from their devotion to them, 
 from time immemorial, the Burmese race would seem 
 to have considered that there is something more than 
 mere sound about their bells. They may look upon 
 the tinkling of the smaller bells on the summits of 
 their temples, as QEolus wafts them to and fro, and 
 the volume of sound from striking the larger in the 
 manner of gongs at their festivals, as prophetic of 
 good and happy times — it may be in the service of a 
 Maistree (chief) Buddha yet to come. The present 
 Gautama is the fourth Buddha, and, as I have said 
 elsewhere, a fifth or greater than any hitherto — perhaps 
 emblematic of Great Britain ruling over a United 
 Burma— is yet to come. 
 
 The Burmese, on hearing that our Great Paul was " in 
 place " — and the more enlightened of them, of course, 
 were inclined to ponder and pause over the subject — 
 may have fancied that the British people had entered 
 a new phase of hero-worship in the monster-bell, and, 
 ior anything we know, such an idea may have given 
 them a new view of things celestial which might tend 
 
BTJEMA AND THE BUEMBSB. 37 
 
 to aid the work of the schoolmaster and the mis- 
 sionary. 
 
 Gautama has, for numerous ages, been accustomed 
 to the sound of the bell. The great Apostle of the 
 Gentiles having now been honoured by the Great Paul 
 being placed in his magnificent temple ; " perhaps/' 
 thought the Burmese, " a greater than our teacher, 
 Gautama, is here ! " Perhaps there was also a stir 
 among the local nats or elves, or fairies (true lovers of 
 bells), while anticipation pointed them out a succession 
 of ministering or "child" angels. Yes, doubtless, all 
 the Burmese bells sounded forth and tinkled in honour 
 of Great Paul. 
 
 From this imaginative sketch, I now turn to reality. 
 It is more than thirty-one years since, after the 
 capture of Rangoon, I had my attention first drawn 
 to the chaste and artistic Burmese bells. Moving 
 along with the guns, ample time was afforded to 
 behold with admiration the solemn temples which 
 lined the road on each side. These temples appeared 
 similar to those we had already seen — the distinguish- 
 ing temple of this region — an irregular, solid cone, 
 surmounted by an elegant top, over which is the tee 
 gracefully fringed with bells, which emit sweet music 
 at the bidding of Qilolus. 
 
 I also mentioned in the early Narrative how it was 
 interesting to learn that Solomon, King of Israel, had 
 beUs suspended about his far-famed temple, which 
 were probably intended, " by the sound they produced 
 
38 BTJEMA AND THE BUEMESB. 
 
 on being agitated by tbe wind, to keep off the birds 
 from the consecrated edifice/^ Like means are said to 
 have been adopted on the Grecian temples. And, 
 again, come the bells which must this time accom- 
 pany a brief telescopic view of the great Pagoda 
 Shwe Dagon. The grand temple, on its gorgeous 
 summit being viewed through a telescope, suggests to 
 the fancy some enchanted hill, on the top of which a 
 band of fairies have found their abode, far away from 
 the haunts of men ; waving golden leaves, causing the 
 tinkling of the bells, rich gold work, all so simply 
 protected by the golden tee, draw forth admiration. 
 Just under such a graceful protector Charles Lamb 
 might have placed his " child angel." * From the base 
 to the summit, the Pagoda measures 330 feet; and 
 yet, from its graceful proportions, it is diflBcult to 
 believe the height to be so great. The old, brick, 
 gigantic pile is, therefore — not, of course, reckoning 
 the height of the hiU or terrace on which it stands^ 
 but from its base — about 150 feet less in height than 
 St. Paul^s.f In the north-east of the upper terrace 
 ve found a magnificent bell, which is thus described : — 
 It is 24 feet in circumference; the metal is 3 feet 
 thick ; and its height is 10 or 12 feet. The weight 
 was thought to be " prodigious," but it did not exceed 
 90,000 lbs ; and it was suspended a little more than a 
 
 * See " Essays of Blia." 
 
 t Including its elevated position, the temple stands about the 
 same height as our magnificent cathedral. 
 
BURMA AND THE BURMESE. 39 
 
 foot above the ground. The Governor-General might 
 have had it hung before Government House, in Calcutta ; 
 and it certainly would have been one of the greatest 
 curiosities in the city of palaces. Burmese characters 
 are engraved on the entire outside of the bell. It 
 was reported at Rangoon that this monster-bell was 
 destined for Windsor Castle ; but the local authorities 
 not having the various means and appliances to put 
 the sonorous " creature " safely on board ship, I 
 believe it never was sent home. It is certainly not 
 now on the Upper Terrace of the Great Pagoda.* A 
 bell of more modest pretensions is still on the west 
 face. It was the "monarch of the peal," during the 
 first Burmese war (1824-36). The weight, according 
 to Havelock (afterwards the great Sir Henry), is 18,000 
 pounds avoirdupois; this is considerably less than 
 half the size of Great Paul, which weighs, without 
 the hanging gear,t seventeen tons, or about 38,000 lbs. 
 It is broken in several places, and, like its younger but 
 far bigger brother, is covered with writing — I believe 
 mythological passages relative to the religion and 
 maxims of Gautama. The large Burmese bells are 
 struck on the occasion of a Burmese beauty, or person 
 of distinction, coming to present offerings ; also to^ 
 summon the Phongyees on feast-days. 
 
 General Albert Fytche, in his ''Burma, Past and 
 Present," has some most interesting information on 
 Burmese bells :—" The Burmese," he says, "have a 
 * See also Addenda. + About three tons more. 
 
40 BURMA AND THE BURMESE. 
 
 great love for bells and gongs, and are very clever in 
 casting them. The largest bell in the world, vrith the 
 exception of the one presented by the Empress Anne 
 to the Moscow Cathedral, was cast at Mengoon in 
 1796, for the pagoda then building there by the King. 
 It is 12 feet high, with an external diameter at the 
 lip of 16 feet 3 inches, and weighs 90 tons, or some 
 fourteen times heavier than the great bell of St. 
 PauFs " (not the new Great Paul). " Burmese gongs, 
 varying in size from 3 feet to 3 inches, have a 
 much finer and deeper tone than Chinese ones ; and 
 a triangular one, peculiar to Burma, and used on 
 * worship days^ by the people on their way to the 
 pagodas, which spins round when struck, has a very 
 remarkable sound, maintained in prolonged surging 
 musical vibrations." But keeping to the beUs, I shall 
 now remark, from what I was informed in Burma, — 
 a,nd which I have lately had corroborated by the great 
 Burmese authority. Sir Arthur Phayre, — that, as to the 
 casting of bells in Burma, it would be a long business 
 to describe; but the women throw in their gold and 
 silver ornaments from religious enthusiasm. " I have 
 often witnessed it," writes Sir Arthur, " and very 
 interesting it is." The bell, a sketch of which is pre- 
 sented as a frontispiece, is a fairly correct model of 
 the original monster of sound I have already described. 
 It was cast for me shortly after the capture of Ran- 
 goon, and was shipped thirty-one years ago, with 
 all a soldier's pride in his first important action, to 
 
BURMA AND THE BUEMESB. 41 
 
 my respected father's castle in Scotland. It is made 
 •of genuine Burmese bell-metal, and, I believe, was 
 the work, of mechanics associated with the casting of 
 large Burmese bells, especially of the larger one 
 which adorned the upper terrace of the great Shwe 
 Dagon Pagoda. Judging by the vast interest created 
 in London by the transit of Great Paul to the city, 
 it seems hard that, unlike Burmese bells, our grand 
 monsters of sound are generally hid away from the 
 sight of men. The excitement of arrival over, little 
 has since been heard of the welcome gift to our noble 
 Cathedral. With a Dickens-like graphic power, it 
 was clearly proved that, on the goal being reached, 
 though weighty in itself, it was far from the cause of 
 heaviness in others, from whom came occasional sallies 
 of humour regarding the great bell. Had it remained 
 exposed to public view a little longer, there is no 
 telling what a number of good humorous things might 
 have been said about it. 
 
 One of our great dailies, also, in a leading article, 
 discusses Great Paul in place, and takes care to 
 allude to its note (in E flat) as being "clear and 
 piercing."* In fact, there was as much enthusiasm — 
 I will not say " religious " — created by the advent of 
 Great Paul in London, as during the casting of a 
 great bell in Burma. And there can be little or no 
 doubt that, as in the golden land, English ideas of 
 beUs are much tinctured with religion. The church or 
 * " Daily News," June 3rd, 1882. 
 
42 BURMA AND THE BUEMBSB. 
 
 Sunday bells of England^ or the Sabbath bells of 
 Scotland^ the marriage bells^ " joy-bells " in general, 
 and, of course, the solemn funeral bell^ are all more or 
 less connected with religion, gratitude, sorrow, and joy. 
 I now proceed to offer a very few remarks on the 
 literature of bells ; for there has been nearly as much 
 attention paid to them in Euroijean, as in Burmese or 
 other Oriental literature. To commence with Shak- 
 speare. In Macbeth, the striking on the bell before 
 King Duncan's death, and the ringing of the " alarum 
 bell ■" after the " deed " is done, form important 
 action in the immortal tragedy. Gray, with his well- 
 known curfew, tolling " the knell of parting day " ; 
 Moore, singing so sweetly of "those evening bells," 
 which lead us to think of the " green spots in 
 memory's waste " ; Lord Byron's description of the 
 night of the ball before Waterloo, when " all went 
 merry as a marriage bell " ; Longfellow, in his " Belfry 
 of Bruges," who " heard a heart of iron beating in 
 the ancient tower," 
 
 Then most musical and solemn, bringing back tte olden times 
 With their strange unearthly changes, rang the melancholy chimes . 
 
 And that strange, erratic genius, Edgar Allan Poe, as 
 well as our favourite Poet Laureate, have frequently 
 evinced in their works, the love of bells. Such writers, 
 and many more that could be cited, force on us the 
 idea that religion, victory, joy, and sorrow, in fact, 
 many phases of human kinds of existence, owe much 
 of their intensity to the sound of the bell in every 
 
BDEMA AND THE BUEMESE. 43 
 
 clime. In prose, one great writer may be mentioned— 
 the pious Jeremy Taylor — ^who, quoting an Italian 
 proverb (which has an Oriental tinge about it)^ says, 
 " We have sat down to meat at the sound of a bell." 
 
 I have already alluded to the interest created among 
 the Burmese by the casting of their bells ; and this 
 brings to mind that I have not yet mentioned the 
 great German poet, Schiller, one of whose immortal 
 poems, as students well know, is " The Song of the 
 Bell." It would be well if it were translated into 
 Burmese for the edification o£ King Theebau and the 
 Court parasites of Upper Burma. Schiller draws many 
 wise morals from the casting of the bell. His bell is 
 not a mere instrument of sound, although " Vivos voco, 
 Mortuos plango, Fulgura frango" head the poem: — 
 
 The Bell that in the dam's deep hole 
 
 Our hands with help of fire prepare, 
 From the high belfry tower wUl toll, 
 
 And witness of us loudly bear. 
 'T will there endure till distant days, 
 
 On many an ear its sounds will dweD, 
 Sad wailings with the mourner raise, 
 
 The chorus of devotion swell. 
 Whatever changeful fate may bring 
 
 To be man's portion here below, 
 Against its metal crown wiU ring, 
 
 And through the nations echoing go. 
 
 Then, alluding to the heap of materials dissolving,, 
 he says : — 
 
 Foam and bubble free 
 
 Must the luixture be, 
 
 That from metal void of stain 
 
 Pure and full may rise the strain. 
 
44 BURMA AND THE BCTRMBSE. 
 
 Eventually, tlie poet sings : — 
 
 Let the casting be begun ! 
 
 Traced already is the breach ; 
 Yet before we let it mn, 
 
 Heaven's protecting aid beseech ! 
 
 And, considerably further on, a most important 
 ■operation in the casting of a bell is arrived at : — 
 
 Let us now the mould destroy, 
 
 Well it has fulfiU'd its part, 
 That the beauteous shape with joy 
 May inspire both eye and heart. 
 Wield the hammer, wield. 
 Till the mantle yield ! 
 Would we raise the Bell on high. 
 Must the mould to atoms fly. 
 
 We now come to a few remarkable verses, with sen- 
 timents applicable to Eastern, as well as Western 
 •countries — both equally subject to revolutions — well 
 worthy of study by restless spirits in all great cities. 
 The capitals of Upper Burma have long been famous for 
 jrebellion, as those read in Burmese history can easily 
 attest ; but there can be no doubt that, considering 
 the dire and cruel oppression they have long suffered, 
 there is a very much stronger excuse for revolution at 
 Mandalay* than in Paris : — 
 
 The founder may destroy the mould 
 With cunning hand, if time it be ; 
 
 But woe, if, raging uncontroll'd, 
 
 The glowing bronze itself should free ! 
 
 * Hue, in Cochin China, for revolution, seems now desirous of 
 imitating Ava and Mandalay. 
 
BURMA AND THE BURMESE. 45 
 
 Woe when within a city's walls, 
 
 Where fire-brands secretly are pil'd, 
 
 The people bursting from their thralls, 
 Tread their own path with fury wild ! 
 
 Scliiller now boldly and wisely asserts : — 
 
 Sedition then the Bell surrounds. 
 
 And bids it yield a howling tone j 
 
 And, meant for none but peaceful sounds, 
 The signal to the fray spurs on. 
 
 The grand consummation is reached in the succeed- 
 ing stanza^ when the poet^ with a master's hand^ 
 sketches the awful results of the great French Revo- 
 lution. And all this adorns " The Song of the Bell." 
 But the peaceful moral comes at last : — 
 
 Now let us gather round the frame ! 
 
 The ring let ev'ry workman swell. 
 
 That we may consecrate the Bell ! 
 Concordia be henceforth its name. 
 
 Assembling all the loving throng 
 
 In harmony and union strong !* 
 
 Pity it is that such a " harmony and union strong " 
 do not at present exist — in fact^ have never existed — 
 between Upper and British Burma ! The King, or 
 Golden Foot, has long been on his trial ; and he 
 lately sent us the draft of a treaty which the British 
 Government could not possibly entertain, and con- 
 sequently declined. The Government are as anxious 
 to avoid war in Burma as in South Africa ; so we must 
 just hope for the best. I repeat that Upper Burma is 
 the high road — and the only really practicable one^ — 
 * " SchiUer's Poems," translated by B. A. Bowring, C.B., M.P. 
 
46 BUEMA AND THE BURMESE. 
 
 to trade with the wealthy undeveloped regions of 
 South- West China. Let the newly-projected route, by 
 Assam, be encouraged, by all means, also, so as to 
 have two strings to the commercial bow ; but, for the 
 «ake of a lasting peace, which means lasting security 
 and increased commercial prosperity, in British Burma, 
 we must look well to our relations with China and 
 Upper Burma, without which there can be no prospect 
 of our further commercial success in Eastern Asia. 
 With these few remarks I respectfully conclude my 
 discourse on " Burma and the Burmese.''^ 
 
47 
 
 JOHN BULL'S NEIGHBOUE SQUAEING 
 
 UP; OE, HOW THE FEENCHMAN 
 SOUGHT TO WIN AN EMPIEE IN THE 
 
 EAST. 
 
 Part I. 
 
 It was on a bright afternoon^ towards the end of July 
 1883j that a Frenchman and an Englishman met in 
 Leicester-square. They had frequently met before; 
 in Pondicherry^ the chief French possession in the 
 Englishman's " much-loved India," and in the French- 
 man's " navel of the earth/'' Paris. Rarely had two 
 human beings, of different nationalities^ been so closely 
 drawn to each other by what might almost be called a 
 bond of friendship. They were both men of the 
 worldj in the prime of lifCj and well educated; the 
 Frenchman being rather inclined to the study of 
 history and the past, and the Englishman to that of 
 politics and the future. The Frenchman partly con- 
 curred with the great Napoleon, that history is a fable 
 
48 JOHN bull's neighbour squaring up. 
 
 agreed upon ; and the Englishman contented himself 
 with Dr. Arnold''s more modest signification, that it is 
 simply the " biography of nations/^ 
 
 Was France, la belle France, to rise again in a new 
 fashion^ through some extraordinary stroke of colonial 
 success and power ? And was England, mighty 
 England^ ere long to resign her position as the glory 
 of the worldj and the star of Albion to inevitably 
 decline? Such, and various other topics, would form 
 the subjects of conversation when the two friends met; 
 and, on the present occasion, we behold them, as 
 already mentioned, on the famous ground of Leicester- 
 square. They took a seat in the (to them) new public 
 garden, which had been so liberally and, in some 
 respects, so tastefully ornamented ; and, surrounded by 
 the busts of Hunter, Hogarth, Newton, and Reynolds, 
 all of whom had resided in this square, they could 
 not help alluding to the improvements made since 
 their last visit. The recent destruction of the ever- 
 glowing and entertaining Alhambra was a sad drawback 
 to the beauty of the place ; but, with the old British 
 energy at work, spectacle, comic opera and ballet, with 
 troupes of houris and peris, picturesque beauties to suit 
 the taste of the age, would, ere many months had fled, 
 again have a home. 
 
 From a word or two on the stage in France and in 
 England, the conversation turned to painting and 
 politics, or to Reynolds and Burke, whose spirits, since 
 the famous dinners of Sir Joshua, nigh one hundred 
 
JOHN bull's neighbque squaeing up. 49 
 
 and twenty years ago, have, doubtless, been walking 
 the Square, in remembrance of the great men who so 
 frequently graced the President's festive board. 
 
 Towards the end of the last century, when Burke 
 had gathered all his fame, the brilliant orator and far- 
 seeing statesman, while musiug over the destinies of 
 nations, little thought that Prance would one day seek 
 Eastern colonies for her commerce, after her sad 
 failure regarding an Empire in India, and once more 
 endeavour to rival British power in the East; that 
 French " economists and calculators " would, probably, 
 one day be entire masters of the Annamese or Cochin- 
 China Empire, and successful traders like the English 
 in rich south-west China, as well as in China proper 
 and Japan. 
 
 " So France is squaring up again, my good friend,'"' 
 said the Englishman; "I trust she may be able to 
 vindicate her rights in Tonquin. You certainly seem 
 determined, which, as you know, is the stepping-stone 
 to success.^' 
 
 " Am I to believe you sincere if you mean that 
 England would be glad to see France — in spite of 
 Chinese threats and all that nonsense about old vassal- 
 age — victorious in Tonquin, or throughout Annam or 
 Cochin-China ? No, no, my dear friend, I cannot 
 believe it ! " was the rejoinder. Then, after a pause — 
 " We should be brothers in action everywhere, but we 
 are not,'" added the Frenchman. 
 
 "Yes — we are getting too near each other to be 
 
 4 
 
50 JOHN bull's neighbour squaring up, 
 
 ■enemies any longer. But," quietly continued the 
 Englishman, who, as a proper John Bull, had ever an 
 eye to the national interests, " one thing is certain in 
 this new Gallic race for conquest : England sees a ray 
 of light — une ligne lumineuse, as you say — in French 
 presence at Tonquin, as it will force us to annex 
 Upper Burma, which we ought to have done long 
 ago." 
 
 " Ah — there you are ! " ejaculated the Frenchman. 
 ^' You English are ever wanting to square up, fight, 
 then seize, regulate, and appropriate, in the most 
 approved manner possible, whatever you can lay hands 
 on ; but if poor France, or any other country, desires 
 a distant island home, or an inland colony, you are 
 down upon us * as if we were pirates, or ' water-rats,' 
 as your grand Shakspeare says. Depend upon it, the 
 occupation of Tonquin by the French will do the 
 commercial interests of Europe and Asia as much good 
 as has been done by the British occupation of Lower 
 Burma." 
 
 " Well said, my good friend,^^ replied the English- 
 man ; " then, as to Upper Burma, you may not know 
 that our present Government are quite against what 
 they believe to be the rash and violent theory of 
 annexation. In their political wisdom they are, 
 perhaps, over-cautious, preferring, as Burke said is a 
 good maxim in life, to be laughed at for too much 
 
 * This remark, the author afterwards found, had been antici- 
 pated hy a eimilar one in John Bull et Son He. 
 
JOHN bull's neighbour SQUARING UP. 51 
 
 caution, than to be ruined by an over-security ; or 
 words to tbat effect. They are cautious, because they 
 value independence and the rights of nations more 
 than has ever been done before/'' 
 
 "But too much caution nearly made you lose New 
 Zealand, and too much caution may make France lose 
 the wealth untold of Tonquin and Yunnan," said the 
 Frenchman. "Depend upon it, my dear friend, in 
 these unsettled times you must occasionally take the 
 defiant bull by the horns, leaving the order to do 
 so to be considered hereafter.'' 
 
 " This reminds me of our ' great Lord Clive,' as your 
 Voltaire styles him," rejoined the Englishman ; 
 " when, playing at cards, he wrote to his second in 
 command concerning the Dutch at Chinsurah, on the 
 Hoogly — ' Dear Forde, fight them immediately ! I 
 wiU send you the Order in Council to-morrow.' " 
 
 " Men like your Oliver Cromwell and Lord Clive 
 would be of vast use to any country at the present 
 time," quietly interposed the Frenchman. 
 
 "Yes, in the general rage for self-government and 
 thirst for empire, such men would be invaluable ; we 
 require men at the helm of the strongest decision of 
 character, and of such we have many in France 
 and England,''^ said the Englishman. "France may 
 yet divide the sovereignty in Eastern Asia," he con- 
 tinued, "if all goes well in this grand but truly 
 hazardous expedition, which seems to me almost like a 
 leap into the impassable.''' 
 
 4 * 
 
52 JOHN bull's neighboub squabing up. 
 
 " But why so hazardous ? " enquired the French- 
 man, puzzled at an Englishman's supposing anything 
 to be dangerous if entered into with force and energy. 
 
 " It will be hazardous in every respect," replied his 
 friend. " A determined enemy, partly, and soon to be 
 entirely, under Chinese control, Black Flags, stubborn 
 entrenchments, inundations, and so forth. Take my 
 word for it, even supposing success at the commence- 
 ment, from the moment you become masters of 
 Tonquin, or of all Cochin-China, French troubles will 
 commence with a vengeance. The Chinese, especially 
 in the south-west, and, it may be, the Siamese, the 
 Annamese, the immediate losers of their independence, 
 or even your apparent staunch friends, the Burmese, to 
 say nothing of unheard-of tribes of brave Shans, may 
 be down upon you at any moment ; while Germany 
 and Russia will be constantly and jealously watching 
 your movements and position in your new conquest 
 which is to give France an Empire in the East.'' 
 
 " But, my dear friend, we do not want to take all the 
 country," said the Frenchman. " In the first place 
 the gallant and accomplished Riviere must be avenged, 
 and the Orientals must behold France victorious, as 
 she has so often been in her history. The wealth and 
 minerals of Tonquin will suffice for the present. The 
 plain fact is, we want money for any crisis that may 
 arise in Europe or Africa, and, true enough, France is, 
 at present, very restless." 
 
 " No doubt the admirable Riviere was as brave as 
 
JOHN bull's NEIOxHBOUE SQUARING UP. 53 
 
 your Ney or Druot ; but you hardly know what you 
 want, my good friend/' interrupted the Englishman. 
 " When you once begin there will be no stopping you. 
 Look at old England ! We began our Indian Empire 
 in the humblest, and sometimes most cringing, manner 
 possible ; we began our Indian army, now as immortal 
 as that which the first Napoleon led to victory, with a 
 few gunners' crews and factory-guards, which, in the 
 course of not quite two centuries, had swollen to that 
 gigantic and well-disciplined host known as the 
 Company^s army. There was no stopping us either, 
 tUl we got a sixth of the human race under our feet. 
 But why could not Dupleix, Labourdonnais, Lally, and 
 Bussy have done better work for you when Empire 
 seemed to dawn upon France in India ? " 
 
 " I ^11 tell you why, my dear friend," said the 
 Frenchman. "What France wants, to establish a sure 
 colonial progress^ especially in the East, is the art of 
 genuine conciliation, which you English possess in a 
 remarkable degree. It does not always answer in 
 these sunny climes to be too brave or daring a military 
 commander of the forces, or to leave too much to the 
 glory-seeking or fire-eating admiral, '' 
 
 " Who, like a famous one I knew in days gone by, 
 may be all thunder and lightning, with the Yankee 
 addition of a dash of the earthquake in him ! " added 
 the Englishman. " But what do you think of a portion 
 of the French Press on this new colonial enterprise, as 
 regards England, or of the way in which they have 
 
54 JOHN bull's neighboue squaring up. 
 
 been writing about us in the matter of a second Suez 
 Canal ? •" he asked with some earnestness. 
 
 " I have no sympathy with such remarks as those 
 which have j ust appeared in the Patrie ; they are quite 
 distasteful to reflective Frenchmen^ and calculated to 
 do injury among the ignorant with regard to the two 
 countries," said the Frenchman indignantly. 
 
 "Yes," rejoined the Englishman, "the Patrie was 
 rather hard when it said, ' that for twelve centuries 
 England has not ceased to opprimer, ran^onner, ef 
 embeter la France.' And then about the insults offered 
 to France ; these are all a complete delusion. Because 
 one nation has been successful in many ways, and 
 another has not, it does not follow that the successful 
 Power means insult to her rival. The Patrie is 
 decidedly in error when it thinks that enlightened 
 England hates France. On the contrary, she often 
 loves and admires her; more especially when she does 
 all things decently and in order." 
 
 '^That is very good, my dear friend," said the 
 Frenchman. "^'But, have you seen," he continued, 
 "the liberal remarks on your Government in the 
 Republique Franqaise, congratulating the Premier — cet 
 noble et grand veillard — on his prudence and wisdom 
 in regard to the Suez Canal question ? This is another 
 proof that you have no high-handed bullying states- 
 men at the present time to govern you, who are 
 capable of insulting a great nation.'^ 
 
 " Yes, I saw that," replied the Englishman. " And 
 
JOHN bull's neighboue squabing up. 55 
 
 ■what a contrast does such language present with the 
 bitter ravings of the Jewish writer in the Evenement, 
 who, after a most unjust attack on our Preraierj con- 
 cludes with what is called one of his old prophecies, 
 ' that Prance will be at war with England before she 
 is at war with Germany ! ' * Can anything be more 
 ridiculous than this ? " 
 
 " About Germany, I will say nothing," replied the 
 Frenchman; "that, my dear friend, is an endless — 
 a sore subject with us ; but, long may England and 
 France remain good friends, and assist each other in 
 our great mission of progress in various parts of the 
 globe ! After all, in the world's history, squaring up, 
 or even fighting, has done something for civilisation ! 
 France is becoming warlike ! " 
 
 " Bravo ! " cried the Englishman ; and when his 
 friend had lit another cigar, they both moved off, arm 
 in arm, for refreshment to an adjacent restaurant, 
 determined to celebrate their meeting in Leicester- 
 square by a good dinner in the evening. 
 
 On leaving the garden, the two friends cast a look 
 on the statue of Shakspeare, which brought forth a 
 word of conversation on statues, sculpture, and the 
 drama. The Frenchman duly appreciated our greatest 
 dramatic poet. 
 
 * Some time after the above remart, the Opinione at Home,, 
 — " a staunch adrooate of the Italo-German alliance " — expressed 
 itself " disgusted with the recent attacks of the ' North German 
 Gazette ' on England in consequence of Mr. Gladstone's visit to 
 Copenhagen." Thus does a rabid political socialismi suppress- 
 personal rights, as well as " the proprietory rights of nations." 
 
56 JOHN bull's neighboub squaring up. 
 
 "You are a strange nation," he said, in his own 
 quaint way. "You have gone into a ' melting mood' 
 about your famous Iron Duke ; and you are now pre- 
 paring, I hear, to parody or burlesque Shakspeare, 
 your greatest genius, to suit a wretched taste of the 
 age." 
 
 " It is wretched," said the Englishman, shaking his 
 head, " when we come to such a degradation of the 
 human intellect as this ! I only trust that a parody on 
 a far more sacred book may not follow. Would you 
 Prenchmen treat Racine or Corneille thus ?" * 
 
 "Assuredly aot/' said the Frenchman. 
 
 " We have too much burlesque at the present day," 
 declared the Englishman. "A little of it is all very 
 well ; but the excess is a national abomination." 
 
 On passing the wreck of the Alhambra, they looked 
 up at it with a sigh, the Frenchman again remarking 
 in his quaint way, " You had a famous London wit — 
 Douglas Jerrold, I think — who said, that if your great 
 city were laid in ruins to-morrow by an earthquake, 
 or some other cause, you would celebrate the event by 
 a dinner. It is not so with us, however, after our 
 pleasant meeting this afternoon. There is this differ- 
 ence : that here, only part of your huge metropolis 
 is burned down. It is merely a case of ' Ho ! for a 
 Phoenix ; ' London still remains harmoniously intact ; 
 and long may she do so in every sense — as all true 
 
 * It was afterwards pleasing to read that no " dishonour " was 
 done to Shakspeare. 
 
JOHN bull's neighbour SQUARING UP. 57 
 
 Frenchmen wish Paris ; and may amicable relations — 
 no matter which of us may square up first against an 
 outsider — ever exist between England and France ! " 
 
 " Vive la France! " shouted the Englishman. 
 
 " Vive V Angleterre ! " cried the Frenchman. 
 
 Part II. 
 
 It is late on a rather dull autumn afternoon, in the 
 year of grace 1903, that an Englishman and a French- 
 man meet in Leicester-square. They are the same two 
 friends who met here twenty years before ; but now 
 their locks are silvery, and they stoop a little ; yet they 
 have both evidently set in for what Dryden styles 
 " a green old age," being still hale and hearty men. 
 They have been admiring certain improvements in 
 the garden of Leicester-square, where they had so 
 earnestly conversed twenty years ago ; and the elegant 
 Alhambra theatre, about that time rebuilt, had also 
 attracted their attention. They are on their way to 
 an English and French Institute — not long established 
 — in the Square, for the purpose of hearing instructive 
 lectures on the colonial progress of England and France 
 throughout the world ; and here we may leave them 
 for a short while. 
 
58 JOHN bull's neighbour squaeing up. 
 
 Mighty changes have taken place within the last 
 twenty years. Some monarchical institutions in 
 Europe have become rather shaky, and one has 
 vanished altogether ; but England still remains — as we 
 trust she ever may — the same ; and France still boasts, 
 in spite of Imperialist and Monarchist agitators (for it 
 has been discovered that the " salvation of France " 
 lies not with a Monarchy), of her only possible 
 Government — as shrewd, wise old Thiers said — a 
 Republic ! 
 
 Monarchical combinations directed against French 
 policy, on account of an imaginary unfriendliness, had 
 proved utterly fruitless. A re-arrangement of the map 
 of Europe has been considered highly necessary ; and 
 so has one of Asia — particularly the far Eastern portion ; 
 and, strange enough, British statesmen and the English 
 people are now beginning to pay more and more atten- 
 tion to the study of geography. Africa has been further 
 explored, thus benefiting England as well as Prance; 
 and the two great nations wave their flags of good go- 
 vernment and order over gigantic Madagascar. French 
 factories on the Congo also are flourishing. Australia — 
 particularly Queensland — after a desperate attempt to 
 become independent in the matter of annexation, has 
 long settled down quietly without New Guinea added 
 to her burdens, having been ruminating for many years 
 on the question expounded in Lord Derby^s colonial 
 policy, " whether annexation by any Power would not 
 be a violation of international law ? " Germany still 
 
JOHN bull's NEIGHBOUE SQUARING UP. SO" 
 
 holds up her lofty head in Europe ; Trance and Spain 
 — the insult to the chivalrous young King Alfonso long 
 forgotten* — are tolerably good friends; France is no 
 longer jealous of classic and regenerated and naval 
 Italyj and has left off accusing ■ her of " restless 
 ambition/^ having so much to answer for (as we have 
 also) in that way herself ! Turning again to the far 
 Eastj our own Burma (not Burmah)^ the most flourish- 
 ing portion of Chin-India, or Indo-Chinaj has become 
 a " household word." It is not now (in 1903) a& 
 formerly, when, to repeat a fairly well-known anecdote, 
 a great statesman like Lord Palmerston would say to 
 his Private Secretary, after hearing a long discussion 
 on certain places of the globe from that terrible plague 
 of a popular minister's life, a long-winded deputation,. 
 " Now, hand me down the atlas, and let us see where 
 the deuce all these places are ! " Burke wisely thought 
 geography, though "an earthly subject, a heavenly 
 study." 
 
 A million or two of the enlightened public, and 
 not a few of the working classes, now know the 
 exact position of Burma in the world ; and the whole 
 of that splendid region for the merchant and the mission- 
 ary is, since Lord Dalhousie's "force of circumstances" 
 has impelled us on at last, under British rule. King 
 Theebau, fortunately, does not reign ; so misrule in 
 the land of golden feet, golden noses, and golden 
 
 * In some measure owing to the great Bismarck's advice to the 
 King, to be " forgiving." 
 
60 JOHN bull's neighboue squaeing up. 
 
 ears, has fled for ever* The face of Pya (Gautama) 
 wears a more contented smile than formerly ; and 
 joyous nats (good spirits, or glendoveers) are more 
 free and easy in their movements throughout the 
 stately forests than before. It is worth while to look 
 out such a country on the map ; and now, in its 
 splendid capital, where British commerce and enter- 
 prise reside, in one of the noble squares which adorn 
 the Liverpool or Glasgow of India beyond the 
 Ganges, or of Chin-India, rises towards the blue sky, 
 to strike the charmed and arrested traveller, a statue 
 of Sir Arthur Phayre, without any other inscription 
 than " Circumspice ! " in reference to the prospect 
 around, tacitly saying, " He was the origin of 
 it all!" 
 
 Through trade being now fairly opened, by the aid of 
 a railway, with Annam, Tonquin, and Yunnan, to both 
 French and English in particular, and to other nations 
 in general, with the wealth and increased trade of 
 Upper Burma, the revenue under the Chief Commis- 
 sioner has risen to eight or ten millions sterling 
 (2,000,000 in 1881-83) ; in proportion to the popula- 
 tion, even at two millions, more than that of any other 
 province under the Government of India. Our position 
 as a paramount Power in India is not at all affected 
 by the course of events; the principle of life, in the 
 
 * Theebau's last act being — not content with his royal monopoly 
 of precious stones, timber, the precious metals, and eventually of 
 -salt — to attempt a monopoly of the water of the noble Irawadi, 
 to the utter dismay of trade, free, fair, or foul. 
 
JOHN bull's neighbour SQUARING UP. 61 
 
 chief glory of the British Empire,* is still strong 
 within her; she stands, as she will ever stand — and 
 with Egypt to accompany her — secure amidst the 
 attacks of tongue or sword ! The Criminal Procedure 
 of the country has long been arranged to the satisfac- 
 tion of Europeans and Natives, and all is going on as 
 evenly as possible. t Another Campbell, Cockburn, or 
 Coleridge might arise from the Hindu and Mussulman 
 judges, but there is no chance of a JefFeries or Seroggs. 
 Abdul Rahman's successor is doing well ; and the old 
 subsidy, to protect Afghanistan, has been generously 
 increased. Herat has gone back to the Persians ; and 
 the Russians, for some years, have had the suzerainty 
 over Merv. They are beginning, it is believed, to be 
 liked by the people. It almost seems as if Campbell's 
 prophetic lines are near of accomplishment, when he 
 writes on the Power of Russia : — 
 
 Wiom Persia bows to, China iU confines. 
 
 And India's homage waits when Albion's star declines ! 
 
 But another Empire has already commenced, not 
 in Central, but in Eastern Asia. Siam is our staunch 
 friend, as the King with many names has been for 
 
 * The revenue is now £70,000,000 and the expenditure £65,000,000 
 only, against £67,800,000 and £66,800,000 in 1883-84. 
 
 f To the writer's mind, about the best opinion — European or 
 Native — on the famous Ilbert Bill, is that given by a native magis- 
 trate, the Honourable Mr. Justice T. Muttasami Aiyar, of Madras. . 
 His minute concludes thus, affording conciliation enough to please 
 our friend the Frenchman. After insisting that the law of pro- 
 gress demands the measure, he says of us, " Their descent from 
 the same stock in the far antiquity may become the watoh-word 
 for mutual esteem, cordiality, love, and brotherhood." 
 
62 JOHN bull's neighboue squaeing up. 
 
 u number of years. Corea, through cultivating rela- 
 tions with England and America, is a flourishing 
 kingdom, and China, the colossal Empire of the Eastern 
 world, although rapidly improving and striving to 
 compete with more rapid Japan, still, in some notable 
 particulars, "unchangeable in the midst of change," 
 calmly surveys, as a political necessity accomplished, 
 the rise and progress of a French Empire in the 
 East. 
 
 There is a sort of Cobden Club in Canton ; and Free 
 Trade flourishes at all the Chinese ports. The so-called 
 King of Heaven finds France more useful, in her 
 protectorate to the commercial interests of China, than 
 Tu Due of Annam, or any previous Cochin-Chinese 
 sovereign. And, instead of the Song-Koi, or Red 
 River, and the Gulf of Tonquin, to the northward, 
 being infested by pirates, peaceful craft, " laden with 
 golden grain," ply noiselessly through the glad and 
 untroubled waters. So much for what had been well 
 «tyled, twenty years before, " the policy of adventure.^^ 
 So far well has the political game of Gambettism, or 
 a race for new colonies and empire, been played with- 
 out the fearless, the energetic, the far-seeing Gam- 
 betta. 
 
 Saigon, Hue, Hanoi (now adorned by a statue of 
 the gallant Riviere) are all beautiful towns ; especially 
 the former, on which the French have lavished much 
 of the same sort of admirable taste (especially in the 
 matter of laying out and putting ornamental trees 
 
JOHN bull's neighbour SQUARING UP. 63 
 
 in tlie right place) as bestowed on their famed Pon- 
 dicherry — the Paris of the East in Southern India. 
 Many of the great guns of French and English editor- 
 ship, whose journals did so much to enlighten the 
 public as to the foundation of a new French Empire 
 in the East, from the days of Gamier and Dupuis, 
 down to the skilful and energetic actors of later times, 
 have passed away, like the " leaves of woody Morven ; " 
 but, as will ever be the case in the great realms of 
 journalism, other green leaves lift their proud heads 
 on high. 
 
 The record had long gone forth that France owed 
 the foundation of her new Empire in the extreme East 
 to a steady determination, to a surprising and unusual 
 decision of character in the face of much opposition; 
 butj above all, as with us in India, to a proper mode 
 of conciliating the conquered. Everything is going 
 on so well, that 1903 is a sort of annus mirabilis in the 
 chronicles of France and England. This good fortune 
 had been alluded to by the lecturer, and the two 
 friends comment on it as they leave the Institute. 
 At supper^ in the Englishman's hospitable mansion 
 in Piccadilly, to which by earnest invitation the French- 
 man had come over from his retired and picturesque 
 chateau, near Paris, to spend a week or two in London, 
 the conversation turns on the rise and fall of the 
 French power in India, to which the aforesaid lecturer 
 had also alluded the same evening, laying particular 
 stress on " Sieur " Dupleix's threat to dethrone the 
 
64 JOHN bull's neighbour squaring up. 
 
 Great Mogul, and reduce Calcutta and Madras to their 
 original state of fisting towns.* 
 
 " I never could understand, my good friend/' said 
 the Englishman, " why, early in and towards the 
 middle of the last century (1815 to 1845), when you 
 found the French possessions in India of little or no 
 commercial benefit to France, you did not seek to 
 dispose of them to us at a fair valuation ; the muni- 
 ficent old East India Company would, doubtless, have 
 given you a good price for them.'" 
 
 The Frenchman here fell into one of his historical 
 reveries, thinking over some lines by a would-be 
 Anglo-Indian poet on the subject, in which occurs the 
 following couplet — 
 
 Famed Pondiclierry still with pride surveys 
 The dark blue sea, but thinks o'er better days, — 
 
 which, to the extreme gratification of its author, he 
 had said reminded him of Dante's well-known beautiful 
 but sad retrospect — Nessun maggior dolore, &c. 
 
 "Listen, my dear friend," at length he replied, 
 " I have studied the subject, and know it well. When 
 I was in my younger days at Pondicherry [Pont dechirS) , 
 
 * A bust of Dupleix, the most wonderful French statesman who 
 ever came to the Bast, used to adorn (and probably does still) the 
 end of the grand salon in Government House, Pondicherry. " Look 
 there. Sir," said the sailor governor to the present writer in 1845 ; 
 " there is the man who first gave Olive the idea of conquering and 
 keeping India by its own inhabitants — the real author of your 
 native army, which has now swollen to such an enormous and, 
 perhaps, dangerous extent. I am well aware," he added, " that 
 this fact is not well known by you EngUsh." 
 
JOHN bull's neighbour SQUARING UP. 65 
 
 my father, who was a judge there, used to answer 
 such a question as you have asked in this way, which 
 even now will be new to most Englishmen and French- 
 men. ' The very small apparent importance of the 
 French establishments in India has frequently given 
 rise to the opinion that the metropolitan government 
 would wUlingly give them up, as the Danes did their 
 settlement of Tranquebar on the Malabar coast, and 
 Serampore on the banks of the Hoogly. I believe 
 the impression to be an erroneous one^ as without 
 Pondicherry we should not have the means of carrying 
 on the very important exchange of India blue-cloth 
 with the gum produced by the forests of the interior 
 of Africa — the only really prosperous trade France 
 can boast of at present, the monopoly of which we 
 now possess, but which would undoubtedly fall into 
 the hands of the English, if we could no longer offer 
 the only article of exchange the Arabs will accept.''* 
 This held good many years ago ; I 'm not so sure 
 about it at the present time; but the rise of our 
 colonial power during the last twenty years or more — 
 in a great measure by following the British example 
 of conciliation — I fancy, will make us hold the French 
 possessions in India faster than ever. When success 
 comes, nations, like individuals, are loth to give any- 
 thing away ; and we do not now require to sell." 
 
 " Thank you^ my good friend, for such a satisfactory 
 reply," said the Englishman. " You allude to the rise 
 * See also Addenda — Notes on the French in India. 
 
 5 
 
66 JOHN bull's neighboub squaring up. 
 
 of your coloaial power; it has been truly wonderful. 
 Who would have thought that you would have mastered 
 the art of conciliation abroad, beginning so well in 
 Cochin-China and Tonquin, silencing the immutable 
 and too often impracticable Chinese, making your 
 own treaties, driving the King of Cambodia into a 
 state of admiration and subservience, and bringing all 
 Annamese grumblers, the Black Flags, and wild tribes 
 to the northward, under your rule. Who would have 
 thought that such a difficult nation as the Chinese 
 would at length have seen your value, and aided you 
 while overcoming immense obstacles in your work at 
 last; of course self-interest (there being no disin- 
 terested zeal in any nation now-a-days) having had 
 much to do with the celestial actions? Who would 
 have thought that, instead of a French protectorate 
 over Upper Burma — to which affairs seemed to be 
 drifting at one time — England and France would now 
 be paramount in Chin-India, and friendly traders in 
 Yunnan and Sze-chuen ? I am sure you felt, at the 
 lecture this evening, how Englishmen thought well of 
 French action in Eastern Asia twenty years ago, and 
 since, and applauded her splendid talents in taking a 
 leaf out of England's book, and founding an empire, 
 by learning a lesson from your neighbour, John Bull, 
 in the noble art of Conciliation, tempered by un- 
 ceasing work, tact, energy, and patience abroad ! " 
 
 " Yes, nothing can be done in the way of gaining 
 colonies, or forming an empire, without these attributes. 
 
JOHN bull's neighbour SQUARING UP. 67 
 
 I only wish that once master-spirit of our country, 
 Gambetta, were now alive to see how France has 
 benefited by adopting them," said the Frenchman. 
 
 " Or, after all," added the Englishman, " a spirited 
 colonial policy (to which your very able Jules Ferry, 
 twenty years since, first introduced France), tempered 
 by conciliation, is the only one which can ever, as the 
 Tunisian and Tonquin expeditions did, bring money 
 to the French exchequer, or succeed in the end ! " 
 
 " It is pleasing to compare the confused and, in 
 some cases, rancorous political relations between 
 France and the other countries of Europe twenty 
 years ago with the excellent and friendly ones, 
 especially with England, of the present time," said 
 the Frenchman. 
 
 " I trust they may long continue so," said his 
 friend; "for what, after all, is the use of nations 
 quarrelling with each other ? I have long considered 
 that the famous American poet, Longfellow, puts this 
 very neatly when he discourses on the implements of 
 war in the Arsenal at Springfield, — war, apparently 
 the inevitable necessity of this mundane existence, 
 the horrors of which are only to be palliated by 
 always being prepared for it : — 
 
 la it, man, with such discordant noises 
 
 With such accursed instruments as these, 
 
 Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly voices, 
 And j arrest the celestial harmonies ? 
 
 After a few days, the two friends are (for the last 
 
 5 * 
 
68 JOHN bull's neighbour squaring up. 
 
 time) in famous old Leicester-square. The busts of 
 Hogarth and Sir Joshua Reynolds still adorn the 
 garden; and while, seated near the same spot where 
 they had conversed twenty years before, the two old 
 men bring to memory and talk over some striking 
 events of France's colonial progress and policy, then 
 styled so terribly aggressive^ apparitions of the 
 
 admirable but implacable M. John L , and the 
 
 aggrieved Mr. S appear before them. The 
 
 English missionary is following the great French 
 journalist with the pertinacity of another Hamlet 
 following his father's spirit on earth ! Shakspeare 
 (whose statue is still in the old place) seems to have 
 his universal eye upon them ; and Hogarth looks out 
 also, as if to say, that had the scene of controversy taken 
 place in his time, what a capital sketch it would have 
 made, with the addition of the head of the brave but 
 
 angry French Admiral P , with eyes peering at the 
 
 two restless spirits; while Reynolds also, in his "bland 
 and gracious " way, seems to wish them all to come 
 to his studio and sit for their portraits ! 
 
 " Yes, the ' neutral zone ' proposition was^ indeed, 
 as remarked by a wit at the time,* ' collaring wholly,' 
 and you collared Tonquin even more systematically than 
 you had done Tunis, or attempted to do Madagascar,' 
 said the Englishman. 
 
 " I did not think all would have turned out so well, 
 my dear friend, when we met here twenty years ago/' 
 
 * "Punch," September 1883. 
 
JOHN bull's neighbour squaking up. (59 
 
 said the Frenchman^ as they prepared to leave the 
 garden and the Square. " The Republican Cabinet, 
 you may recollect, then hung on Tonquin and Mada- 
 gascar. It required skilful steering on the part of 
 the fine old pilot, M. Grevy ! His successors, on the 
 whole, have acted well up to the mark." 
 
 " It is truly astonishing," remarked the Englishman. 
 " It is a just surprise after all your blundering of years 
 long gone by, and hopes and fears of later times, that 
 John Bull's now comparatively quiet neighbour — the 
 Channel tunnel bogie having, with other bogies, dis- 
 appeared — through well-timed energy in squaring up 
 abroad — a much safer plan for every nation than at 
 home — has at length been able to found, if not yet 
 to win, an Empire in Eastern Asia ! ■'•' 
 
 " Thank you, thank you," concluded the patriotic 
 Frenchman ; and he mused happily over this pleasant 
 meeting on his way back to Paris. 
 
 Thus anticipating France in possession of her 
 colonial empire, it may be interesting to turn for a 
 moment to the utility of colonisation, and its good 
 effects among the coloured tribes. With most Euro- 
 pean countries who seek to add to their power by 
 colonies, the good effects must ever be nearly the 
 same. With us the new colonial era dates from 
 
70 JOHN bull's neighboue squaring up. 
 
 1815 to 1837. That of France begins at a much 
 later period. 
 
 After the general peace, the enterprising spirit of 
 the British people " necessarily took a new direction." 
 Old and new colonies became the rage, and a state of 
 things was produced which had various effects upon 
 the coloured tribes. It tended to the increase of mis- 
 sionary efforts in their favour. It also contributed 
 greatly to prepare the way for " a general colonial 
 reform.-" " But," says an interesting writer on British 
 Colonisation, "it is, perhaps, of still more immediate 
 importance, that the peaceful commercial character of 
 this era has a direct influence upon the interests 
 of coloured people, and that such influence is more 
 capable of useful extension than any other." Again, 
 " Trading with the less civilised tribes takes every day 
 a wider range ; and its natural influence being still 
 greatly perverted by many errors, it will be a useful 
 task to show what improvements can be made in all 
 the different kinds of trading carried on with these 
 tribes" [at present the frontier tribes of China, 
 Siam, and Upper Burma, for instance] , " so as to 
 correct these errors." Of course, all such hopes of 
 improvement can only be founded on annexation 
 without aggression. An irritating aggressive policy, 
 as intelligent Europeans know well, is liable to defeat 
 its own ends ; and, if begun, is generally abandoned 
 in good time. 
 
 France, in 1883, has been thought by not a few 
 
JOHN bull's neighbour SQUARING UP. 71 
 
 judges to be proceeding on such a dangerous line of 
 policy; and a military correspondent of an English 
 journal,* talking of France inflicting a wound on the 
 sensitiveness of her nearest neighbours, says : " Italy 
 was passionately ofPended at the annexation of Tunis ; 
 and now, as before the Seven Years' War, France is 
 pushing colonial aggression to its utmost permissible 
 limits." France is probably not nearly so much to 
 blame as is generally supposed. In the race for Empire 
 among nations, things are often done, and have been 
 done by us, the master colonists of the world, " to 
 make the angels weep." But good eventually has 
 come out of it all. Colonisation, on sound, or even 
 fairly sound principles, is a grand thing. 
 
 With the aid of discreet missionaries, popular edu- 
 cation, and kindness to the tribes or people brought 
 under control, the most noble of human work may be 
 accomplished ; and, without the aid of noisy Salvation- 
 ists, and the un-Scripturalf doctrine of teetotalism, its^ 
 authors will be of that devoted army who will surely 
 " have their reward." 
 
 In the little work just referred to,t is a remarkable 
 extract, which appears highly applicable to the present, 
 age of colonisation and emigration and enterprise. 
 
 * " standard," 15th October 1883. 
 
 t So designated by a worthy Bishop of the English church. If, 
 as Lord Byron says, " Our life is a false nature," it seems truly- 
 natural to possess what has been quaintly styled " a Timothy 
 stomach ! " 
 
 % " British Colonisation of the Coloured Tribes." London, 
 1838. 
 
72 JOHN bull's nbighboub squaeing up. 
 
 It is from "The Four Elements" (a.d. 1517), by 
 Sergeant Estell, or Sir Thomas More : — 
 
 But yet Bot long ago some men of this country went, 
 
 By the king's noble consent, that new land for to search. 
 
 O ! what a great meritorious deed it were to haTO its people 
 there 
 
 Instructed to Hve more virtuously, and know of men the man- 
 ners. 
 
 And also to know God their maker, which as yet live all beastly. 
 
73 
 
 ON THE PROBABLE EFFECTS OF 
 FEENCH SUCCESS IN TONQUIN ON 
 BRITISH INTERESTS IN BURMA. 
 
 At page 270 of my little work on Burma^ " Ashe 
 Pyee/' the eastern, superior, or foremost country, is 
 cited a French view, from an article in the Paris 
 " Nouvelle Revue/^ by M. Voisson, on Burma and 
 Tonquin. The note concludes with the remark 
 (January 1880) — M. Voisson is of opinion that, " as 
 in the interest of commerce and humanity England is 
 endeavouring to establish her supremacy in Burma, 
 France should also definitively consolidate hers in 
 To:^uin." It does not seem to be generally believed, 
 or even known, that France, for twenty years past, has 
 been carefully watching our doings in Burma, 
 politically as well as in the matter of commercial 
 enterprise. Again, the fact is known to few that the 
 French treaties with the Empire of Annam (Cochin- 
 China) of 1862 and 1874, appear as if simultaneous 
 
74 PEENCH SUCCESS IN TONQUIN. 
 
 with two important events in Anglo-Burmese history. 
 In the former year the Government of India, in 
 prospect of a treaty with the King of Burma, directed 
 the first Chief Commissioner, Sir Arthur Phayre, to 
 include therein, if possible, the re-opening of the 
 caravan route from Western China via Bhamo, " and 
 the concession of facilities to British merchants to 
 reside at that place, or to travel to Yunnan, and for 
 Chinese from Yunnan to have free access to British 
 territory, including Assam/^ 
 
 A treaty was concluded in 1862 ; the British and 
 Burmese Governments were declared friends, and trade 
 in and through Upper Burma was thrown open to 
 British enterprise. It was further stipulated, under 
 certain conditions, that a direct trade with China 
 might be carried on through Upper Burma; but, on 
 account of a proposal, that the King's sanction to a 
 joint Burmese and British mission to China should be 
 obtained, not proving successful, the prospects of our 
 trade with South-west China remained in abeyance. 
 Still, with this important treaty commenced the grand 
 idea in British mercantile circles of a route through 
 Burma to Western China; and, some five years later, 
 it was under the treaty of 1862 that Sir Arthur 
 Phayre's successor. General Fytche, determined to lay 
 before the Government of India the importance of 
 practically testing "the possibility and probable results 
 of re-opening the Bhamo trade route/'' And in this 
 manner the first mission was carried out. The pro- 
 
FRENCH SUCCESS IN TONQUIN. 75- 
 
 posed expedition was sanctioned by the Government of 
 India in September 1867. The result was great as an 
 active enterprise, but it did nothing for British trade 
 with South-western China. Of course France was not 
 sorry at our failure. 
 
 In 1874 Lord Salisbury (Secretary of State for 
 India) decided on sending a second expedition " to 
 penetrate China from Burma, and pass through, if 
 practicable, to Shanghai." But, in 1875^ this second 
 enterprise ended not only in failure, but in disaster, 
 Mr. Margary (an ornament of our Chinese consular 
 service) , who had left Shanghai to join the mission, 
 having been treacherously and brutally murdered at 
 Manwyne. 
 
 That French success in Cochin-China, andj doubtless, 
 in tempting and much-coveted Yunnan, south-west 
 China, bordering on the north of Tonquin, has been 
 strongly kept in view and ardently hoped for during the 
 last twenty years at least, there cannot be the shadow of 
 a doubt. And, strange enough, so far back as September 
 1864, I was writing in Rangoon some notes on this 
 very subject, which, in 1883, promised to become of 
 vast interest — chiefly from the many points or bearings 
 which it affords regarding our power and trade in 
 Eastern Asia — to far-seeing statesmen as well as to the 
 merchants of Great Britain. In 1864 I wrote :— The 
 French Adventurer, Girodon (or Orgoni), alluded to in 
 my "Narrative of the Second Burmese War,^' and who 
 after the capture of Rangoon, was known as the man 
 
76 PEENOH SUCCESS IN TONQUIN. 
 
 who organised the Burmese in their hostilities against 
 us, and who is now the accredited representative of " a 
 friendly power " at the Court of Ava, led the world to 
 believe that much was anticipated from his influence 
 as a friendly emissary with the King of Burma ; and 
 the " Moniteur/' presuming upon grandiose results, 
 has already announced that " I'Inde elle-meme touche ^ 
 rheure d'une transformation, at la Cochin-Chine voit 
 luire nos baionettes. Autour d'Orgoni, autour de ce 
 hardi campagnon, I'Humanite va faire un grand pas/^ 
 I recollect, in 1853, a conversation with the gallant 
 General (he was a captain then), when he struck 
 myself and brother officers as an agreeable, weU- 
 informed man, who had seen much of the world. 
 Since then, he has visited Paris, resided at Ava, and 
 is now (18641-5) in Rangoon. Recently he appeared 
 at a ball given by the first Chief Commissioner (Sir 
 Arthur Phayre) to celebrate Her Majesty's birthday. 
 Time has dealt lightly with him. I was not aware of 
 the nature of D'Orgoni's influence at Ava ; but, as the 
 " Moniteur '' would seem to hint, he may yet be the 
 French Governor of Cochin-China ! * A good many 
 years ago (1860-61), Mr. Marshall, late editor of the 
 " Rangoon Chronicle," and author of " Pour Years in 
 Burma," wrote : — ■" The French are evidently desirous 
 of obtaining a footing in India; they have waged an 
 unsuccessful war with Cochin-China; their emissary 
 (Orgoni) occupies an important position at Ava ; their 
 
 * This enterprising Frenchman died some years ago. 
 
FRENCH SirCOBSS IN TONQTJIN. 77 
 
 troops have been operating in the Chinese waters, and 
 there is every reason to believe that they will again be 
 found asserting the dignity of the tri-colour before the 
 walls of Pekin. . . . Who can tellj that after forcing 
 submission from the Celestials, the arms of France 
 may not be turned against Cochin-China, as a step 
 towards that acquisition of territory in the south of 
 Burma [Lower Siam ? ] , which is evidently the object 
 of Imperial ambition ? " Mr. Marshall is evidently 
 inclined to be an alarmist ; and the last decided 
 remark gives us quite a new insight into French 
 ambition regarding Eastern Asia. Neither Dupleix, 
 nor Labourdonnais, nor LaUy, nor Bussy, could do 
 very much towards founding French] empire in the 
 East. In the middle of the 19th century, from the 
 " Moniteur" and our convivial friend^ D'Orgoni, there 
 is little to fear. 
 
 In June 1864, we read of the subjugation of Cochin- 
 China by the French — an event which has caused little 
 excitement in England. This shows apathy on our 
 part; for, although the subjugation does not injure us, 
 the magnitude of the enterprise, the difficulties over- 
 come by our clever and agile allies, "the results 
 arrived at, and the promises held out to the future," 
 entitle it to serious consideration, as connected with 
 Coming Events. 
 
 The " coming events " here alluded to may be said 
 to have now (1883) come^ or to be near at hand ; 
 and it would almost seem useless to argue how far 
 
78 FKENCH SUCCESS IN TONQUIN. 
 
 any French success in Tonquin -vrould go to injure 
 Britisli interests in Burma, and the hope of them in 
 South-west China. To the foregoing remarks, in 1864, 1 
 added, in the same year, a note which also strikes me 
 as being of some interest in 1883 : — England does not 
 wish all the world. She will ever be content with a 
 part of it. In 1864 another Napoleon and Alexander 
 have met in conference, perhaps with an object similar 
 io that o£ the Emperors of days gone by, when Great 
 Britain stood secure amid the wreck of the world. 
 Some division of yet unconqaered parts of Asia may 
 now be in contemplation. But what allusion has now 
 been made to the French iu Cochin-China, we trust 
 will not cause that gallant and now enterprising 
 nation to think that we feel otherwise than quite 
 satisfied that there is nothing at present doing in that 
 quarter of the world which can possibly cause us any 
 uneasiness ; and our august Imperial ally, the brave 
 and far-seeing Emperor Napoleon, is probably as well 
 read in Indian as he is in European political and 
 military history. From what we read and hear, Cochin- 
 China, in a commercial point of view, is a remarkable 
 country. It occupies the south-eastern corner of Asia, 
 has abundance of water from many rivers ; and it is 
 said to be one of the most fertile countries in this quarter 
 of the world. The country, like Burma, only waits 
 the development of its resources, as it abounds with 
 valuable productions, such as rice, sugar, cotton, 
 tobacco, indigo, and ivory, to say nothing of the far- 
 
FEENOH SUCCESS IN TONQUIN. 79 
 
 famed minerals of Tonquin^ sufBcient to cause the 
 " quick pulse of gain •'•' to beat faster than ever among 
 the frequenters of the Paris Change. The forests are 
 well supplied with teak, ebony, cedar, and many other 
 woods. They also yield stick-lac and gamboge, the 
 latter article deriving its English name from a corrup- 
 tion of that of its native district, Cambodia, one of 
 the divisions or provinces of Cochin-China. The 
 inhabitants amount to three or four millions (some say 
 five or six millions), and consist of Anname^esc and 
 Quantos, the latter being the original natives ; while 
 the former are of Chinese origin. The religion of the 
 country, what we might expect in such a region, is a 
 branch of the Buddhist system, though some of the 
 mountain tribes are said still to follow the ancient 
 idolatry, and to '^' worship the tiger and the dog." 
 The Romish religion, we read, was introduced by the 
 Portuguese early in the 17th century and subsequently 
 ■carried on by French missionaries. Matters have 
 very seriously changed in France, as in Burma, since 
 1864 ; and now we may safely consider any great 
 success of the French in Tonquin, or other portions 
 of Annam (or Cochin-China), as highly detrimental to 
 British interests in China and Burma, and almost fatal 
 to the long wished for, and hitherto probable, success 
 of the British merchant in Yunnan or Sze-Chuen, 
 in South-west China. It is all very well for clever 
 French editors to write about France and England, 
 and the colonial policy of France, that even if they 
 
80 PBENOH SUOOESS TN TONQTJIN. 
 
 meet us at all points of the globe it will not be ta 
 make war but to "compete" with us " pacifically in 
 the interests of progress and civilisation." Now, let 
 us just imagine for a moment the present Golden 
 Footj or King of Burma, the monarch "linked" with 
 few virtues and " a thousand crimes," who, to say 
 the best of him, like Swift's definition of opinion, is^ 
 " light of foot and headstrong, yet giddy and per- 
 petually turning," elated by what he considered to 
 be the success of his mission to Paris (after his 
 decided failure at Simla), and any French advances 
 towards him consequent on French success in Tonquin, 
 or elsewhere in Chin-India ; imagine King Theebau, 
 whom we have rightly or wrongly deprived of Pegu 
 and all his ports, aiding the French — which he would 
 doubtless offer to do, if only to keep the surround- 
 ing rebellious Shans in order, and pay us off the 
 grudge he owes for the results of our two Burmese 
 wars — and competing with us " pacifically " in the 
 all-powerful question of trade in Upper or Indepen- 
 dent Burma, in the productive Shan States, on the 
 borders of Assam, in South-west China, and in Siam — 
 to say nothing of what China would think of her vassal 
 going so ahead with France ! Let us just think for a 
 moment what a paralytic stroke our great flourishing 
 possession in Chin- India (British Burma) would receive 
 so far as trade is concerned ! Such an alliance 
 would be death to trade as it would be death to 
 peace in Ashe Pyee, which would no longer be the 
 
FRENCH SUCCESS IN TONQUIN. 81 
 
 foremost country. With China naturally irritated 
 against France^ British interests in Burma would 
 be sure to suffer^ especially as it is so well known 
 that foreigners, like the French and Italians, have 
 long been the favoured ones at the court of Man- 
 dalay. That the French strongly anticipate success 
 with the Tonquin expedition, and are resolved to carry 
 out the treaty of 1874 — a treaty at first with merely com- 
 mercial validity, but which now seems to be of a very 
 general character — appears from such remarks as these 
 put forward by a London correspondent at Marseilles 
 on the 11th June : — " Business people here, feeling sure 
 of the success of the expedition, are preparing to 
 extend their relations with Tonquin." In the event of 
 great success, such an extension of relations would, 
 doubtless, be aimed at the whole of Indo-China. The 
 want of an able and firm Resident at Mandalay is most 
 assuredly to be deplored at the present time. To 
 " Watchman, what of the night ? " we can get no 
 satisfactory reply, while clouds are gathering in Chin- 
 India ; and even putting the French aside, in Upper 
 Burma, the present crisis, it is to be feared, will 
 sadly disjoint our schemes for railways and roads, 
 from Burma to South-west China, from Assam to the 
 country of the Singphos, with the great traveller 
 Mr. Colquhoun's proposal for a railway between Burma 
 and Siam. But, of course, in every way, we must be 
 prepared to look more than ever to preserving if not 
 to increasing our British interests in Burma. 
 
 6 
 
82 FRENCH SUCCESS IN TONQUIN. 
 
 As I have said elsewhere, the nations of Europe are 
 now paying no ordinary attention to the value of 
 colonial power. It is a great pity that we have notj 
 long ere this, bought up (or at least made a strong 
 endeavour to do so) the few remaining European settle- 
 ments in India belonging to other Powers. I have 
 long considered this to be a great omission on our 
 part. In a letter to His Grace the Duke of Argyll, 
 which I published twelve years ago, there is something 
 about the French possessions in India, and "reasons for 
 an endeavour to purchase them.^' The letter con- 
 cludes : " We must avoid even the shadow of the 
 possibility of revolution and disorder through the 
 agency of any European Power in Hindustan. And 
 no European Power should have any influence there 
 save our own." Of course, Tonquin and other parts 
 of Annam, unlike Pondicherry and Portugaese Goa, 
 can never make us uneasy as regards our India proper ; 
 but now, possessing the flourishing provinces of British 
 Burma in Chin-India, or India beyond the Ganges, 
 bringing us so much nearer to the brave, enterprising, 
 and now greatly-improved Celestials, even French suc- 
 cess in Tonquin might have a very serious effect on 
 British interests in Ashe Pyee and in China. 
 
 That France should acknowledge the right of China's 
 suzerainty over Annam (which has been held for two 
 hundred years) , would appear to be fair enough, espe- 
 cially if France does not intend to annex the new 
 empire, or even the northern (Tonquin) and southern 
 
FEENOH SUCCESS IN TONQUIN. 83 
 
 portions of it. We annexed Lower or British Burma, 
 as a matter of course, without considering the Celestial 
 vassalage (rather an unruly one) of the Golden Foot 
 at Ava, who had insulted us ; so we left him only a 
 portion of Burma (Northern), over which China could 
 then claim any suzerainty. 
 
 Summing up, one by one, the probable effects of 
 French success in Annam (Anam), or Cochin-China, 
 ■on British and Upper Burma, the principal would 
 appear to be : — 
 
 1. To make King Theebau more arrogant, and more 
 
 reluctant than ever to forego all his monopolies ; 
 the King supposing he might gain advantages 
 by renewing or adding to them, from granting 
 exclusive privileges to the French for trade, 
 especially on his frontier, and that of Yunnan, 
 which borders on Tonquin, the northern province 
 of Annam. French energy and love of explora- 
 tion, with skill in many arts, are not unknown 
 at Mandalay. 
 
 2. To cause the Golden Foot (King of Burma) 
 
 entirely to ignore the Treaty of Yandaboo 
 (1826), particularly Article VII., regarding the 
 mutual " safe-guard " or " escort," and the 
 "commercial treaty." A death-blow would 
 also probably be given to the liberty of Free 
 Trade ; or at least to our ardent hopes for it in 
 Eastern Asia. 
 
 3. Unless we could bring some strong pressure to 
 
 6 * 
 
84 FRENCH STJCOESS IN TONQtJIN. 
 
 bear for the better on misrule in Upper Burma, 
 France might take the matter in hand, and 
 assume the duties of Protector, as she intended 
 to do before the outbreak of the second war ; 
 and it probably would be far more easy with 
 Upper Burma than with Siam. 
 
 4. This would produce endless difficulties with China, 
 
 ourselves, and Siam, and the millions of brave 
 Shans — all to the detriment of our power and 
 prestige, and trade, in British or Lower Burma. 
 
 5. Under such circumstances, with such a ruler as 
 
 King Theebau, we could never have peace in 
 Chin-India. 
 
 6. And the whole state of affairs would surely bring 
 
 about, instead of unexampled prosperity in 
 British Burma as heretofore, great financial loss 
 and embarrassment to the Government of India. 
 Even if there should be no rupture between 
 France and China — yet it is difficult to see how 
 China can avoid, in the event of an extreme 
 crisis, helping her vassal (Annam) — the subju- 
 gation by the French of the whole of Cochin- 
 China, or its annexation, might produce the 
 above deplorable results. 
 Since concluding the foregoing " Notes " there has 
 been a strong conflict of opinion as to the chances of 
 peace or war between France and China. It is believed 
 that no agreement has yet been come to on the points 
 at issue ; and the Chinese Envoy (the astute Marquis 
 
FEENCH SUCOBSS IN TONQCflN. 85 
 
 Tseng) in London, decisively stated that " Chinese 
 troops are being massed at various points in the 
 three provinces conterminous with Tonquin ; namely, 
 Yunnan, Quangsi, and Qwang-tung." 
 
 Again, the Annamite troops are now ready for war ; 
 and the French will probably commence their attack 
 on Annam, and bombardment of Hue (the capital), 
 soon after the arrival of the last reinforcements from 
 France. 
 
 The following prophetic remarks will be interesting 
 to those who, like the present writer, have ventured to 
 expatiate on the strong French desire of founding an 
 Empire in the East : — " The general feeling in Cochin- 
 China is said to be that France will found a large 
 Eastern Empire, like British India, consisting of 
 Tonquin, Annam, Cochin- China, and Camboja \"* Is 
 there not reason, therefore, to look more and more to 
 British interests in Burma, Chin-India, and China ?t 
 
 Towards the end of June 1883, an organ of the 
 French Government stated that the King of Burma, 
 dissatisfied with the work accomplished by his Envoys 
 at Simla last year, had resolved " to assert his right of 
 sovereignty by sending an Embassy to France, which 
 is likely to become his neighbour in Tonquin, and can 
 alone offer him an outlet beyond English contact. 
 The Embassy will seek to conclude a treaty recognising 
 
 * Marseilles correspondent of " Daily News," 25th June 1883. 
 t The foregoing " Notes " were written in June 1883, and 
 appeared in the " Broad Arrow," on the 14th of July. 
 
86 FEENOH SUCCESS IN TONQUIN. 
 
 the independence of Burma (Upper), as Italy has 
 already done, and giving it free communication with 
 the outer world/' 
 
 On the 13th of August, the Burmese Mission was 
 received in Paris by M. Challemel-Lacour, the Minister 
 of Foreign Affairs. The Embassy, which had already 
 visited Italy, was composed of eight members. The 
 object of the Mission was said to be the conclusion of 
 commercial treaties, " not only with France, but also 
 with England, and other European nations." Ap- 
 pointing Consuls for the protection of their subjects, 
 would, in the opinion of the Embassy, afford a wide 
 field for " their commercial and industrial enterprise." 
 A letter from the King of Burma was placed in the 
 hands of the Foreign Minister, on the subject of 
 introducing French enterprise into the Burman Empire, 
 and of the King's desire to conclude a treaty of com- 
 merce with France. M. Challemel-Lacour, it was said, 
 very wisely hinted to the Burmese Ambassadors, "that 
 the situation of Burma with regard to England, who 
 is mistress of the ports and the mouth of the Ira- 
 wadi, left Burmese commerce scarcely free." But, 
 strange enough ! the Ambassadors thought it " perfectly 
 free ! " * 
 
 * See Paris correspondent of " Standard," August 14th and ISth, 
 1883. 
 
87 
 
 ADDENDA. 
 
 Court Etiquette in Burma. 
 
 The despotism of Court etiquette in China, followed 
 by Burma and other parts of Chin-India, has long 
 been remarkable, and has tended, in no small degree,, 
 to keep back the tide of Western civilisation in lands 
 so highly-favoured by nature. In Burma, this may 
 proceed from the fact that there is really no landed 
 nobility in the country : all rank is official, emanating 
 long before and since the days of the First Burmese 
 War — 1824-25-26 — from, and continued and sus- 
 pended at the will or caprice of, the Sovereign. Such 
 remarks are quite in accordance with what has been 
 written elsewhere on the subject ; and the reproduction 
 
88 ADDENDA. 
 
 of the following brief sketcli* may be of public 
 interest at the present time. 
 
 In a capital little essay on "Oriental Etiquette/' it 
 is observed, that the custom of removing boots in 
 Burma is "an ingenious device to exalt the Monarch 
 of the Golden Foot, and degrade his subjects, and 
 strangers too, before him. It is carried further at 
 Mandalay than at any other Asiatic Court." Again : 
 " Our diplomatic difiiculties with the Burmese Court 
 have been considerably intensified, at different times, 
 owing to the insistance of the Lord Chamberlain at 
 Ava or Mandalay that our envoy should take his boots 
 off, and the reluctance of our proud and dif&dent 
 representatives to appear in public in their stockings. 
 The British, however, are not by any means the only 
 people whose feelings have been hurt by this unpleasant 
 discourtesy ; and Asiatic, as well as European, am- 
 bassadors have been, in the most ancient times, sub- 
 jected to the inconvenience. The first Chinese invasion 
 of Burma (1284 a.d.) was brought about entirely by 
 the ' shoe difficulty.'' The Chinese envoys to the 
 Monarch Nara-thee-ha-hade had insisted, in spite of 
 remonstrances, on appearing in the Royal presence 
 with their boots on. They ought to have known 
 better; for at Pekin such conduct would have been 
 
 * From " Ashe Pyee," chap. viii. p. 134. At the beginning of this 
 ■chapter will also be found strictly authentic remarks on the " Shoe 
 Question," to make which easy for future British Eesidents at 
 Mandalay the present Earl of Northbrook, whilst Viceroy of India, 
 ■did all in his power. 
 
COURT ETIQUETTE IN BUEMA. 89 
 
 considered the height o£ bad manners; and, as far as 
 they were concerned, their infraction of Burmese 
 etiquette had a very unpleasant ending. They were 
 not allowed twice to insult the ' Lord of all the 
 White Elephants,' but were waylaid, in a quiet part 
 of Amarapura, and had their throats cut ; a summary 
 mode of proceeding which brought an army upon 
 Burma from the Flowery Land." It was recently 
 announced that King Theebau and his council had 
 settled the shoe difficulty in "an amusing way." By 
 means of long ranges of planking, like boxes, the 
 King will not see anybody's feet. The Golden Foot 
 himself will appear on a grand dais. Ambassadors or 
 foreigners will be seated on chairs ; but they must not 
 stir till His Majesty is gone. Whether true or not, the 
 idea is certainly no very bad one. As to shikhoing, it 
 is also written : "The Burmese officials all ' shikhoe ' 
 to Royalty, that is, make an obeisance by raising the 
 two hands to the forehead and bowing the head to 
 the ground. On Colonel Phayre, our envoy to Man- 
 dalay, objecting to do this, the Woondouk said : ' When 
 at Calcutta at the Government House you told me to 
 bow to the Governor- General, which you said was 
 your custom. I am only telling you what ours is ! ' 
 Formerly, our envoys to Burma were ' obliged to 
 double their legs behind them, it being contrary to the 
 existing etiquette to turn the foot, covered or un- 
 covered^ towards the King.^" 
 
 Thus is the world, notably East and West, in some 
 
90 ADDENDA. 
 
 measure subjected to the tyranny of etiquette. Of 
 course the science is necessary to keep good society 
 together; hut excess therein is simply making fools of 
 ourselves by rule. Perhaps Shakspeare had some 
 such view in his mind vrhen he wrote of "new 
 customs," which may also be applied to old : — 
 
 Though they be never so ridiculous, 
 Nay, let them be unmanly, 
 Still are followed. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 With reference to the " Shoe Question," or rather, as 
 concerning Europeans, the Boot Question, the extreme 
 inconvenience felt by removal is at once apparent. 
 Captain Lumsden, Bengal H.A., could not manage to get 
 off his jack-boots in time to meet the Golden Foot, for 
 the presentation of the British Embassy at Ava, in 1826 ; 
 and so, for the hour, was in what may really be styled 
 " a regular fix ! " The present writer also, when attending 
 the installation of H.H. the Nizam, in Hyderabad, during 
 that awful year, 1857, nearly lost his wits (if he ever had 
 any) by nearly losing his boots in a crowded Court ; and 
 numerous other instances of such alarming perplexity 
 might be cited. 
 
91 
 
 II. 
 
 Bells. 
 
 There is something truly remarkaMe about the uni- 
 versality of bells. In modern times, from Schiller to 
 the one learned English authority on the subject (Rev. 
 H. E. Haweis), throughout Europe and America, it is 
 strange to think how many millions have been affected 
 by their solemn or discordant peals, and by their 
 merry or soothing chimes. In Eastern lands, it is 
 often easy to imagine the devotees of Buddha, while 
 standing around their bell, with offerings of fruit and 
 flowers in their hands, exclaiming — with a sort of 
 ritualistic ardour : — 
 
 Tua'd be its metal mouth alone 
 To things eternal and sublime ! 
 
 And, although the "tongue" is far less common in 
 the East than with us, the following lines may seem 
 not inapplicable at present to the people of Annam or 
 Cochin-China, where the French are endeavouring to 
 found an Empire : — 
 
 Its tongue to Fate it well may lend 
 
 Heartless itself, and feeling nought, 
 
 May with its warning notes attend 
 
 On human life, with change so fraught.* 
 
 * Schiller's " Song of the BeU." 
 
92 ADDENDA. 
 
 To what has been already given on the subject may 
 now be added a valuable 
 
 Note by Bishop Bigandet on Burmese Bells* 
 
 " Bells are common in Burma, and the people of 
 that country are well acquainted with the art of casting 
 them. Most of the bells to be seen in the pagodas are 
 of small dimensionsj and in shape diJTer from those 
 used in Europe. The inferior part is less widened, and 
 there is a large hole in the centre of the upper part. 
 No tongue is hung in the interior, but the sound is 
 produced by striking with a horn of deer or elk the 
 outward surface of the lower part. No belfry is 
 erected for the bells ; they are fixed on a piece of 
 timber laid horizontally, and supported by two posts, 
 at such a height that the inferior part of the bell is 
 raised about five feet from the ground. 
 
 "The largest specimens of Burmese art are the two 
 bells to be seen, the one at the large pagoda of 
 Rangoon, called Shuay Dagon, and the other at 
 Mengoon. 
 
 " The first was cast in 1842, as recorded by the 
 inscription on it. The weight of metal is 94,682 lbs. ; 
 its height, 9^ cubits ; its diameter, 5 cubits ; its thick- 
 ness, 15 inches. But, during the process of melting, 
 
 * From " The Legend of the Burmese Buddha," by Biahop 
 Bigandet, Rangoon. While Inspector of Schools the author had 
 the honour of a hrief acquaintance with this learned bishop. 
 
BELLS. 93 
 
 the well-disposed threw in copper, silver, and gold in 
 great quantities. It is supposed that in this way the 
 weight was increased one-fourth. The bell of Mengoon 
 was cast at the beginning of this century. In shape 
 and form it resembles our bells of Europe. It is 
 probable that some foreigner residing at Ava suggested 
 the idea of giving such an unusual form to that monu- 
 mental bell. Its height is 18 feet, besides 7 feet for 
 hanging apparatus. It is 17 feet in diameter, and 
 from 10 to 12 inches in thickness. Its weight is 
 supposed to exceed 200,000 lbs.* In the interior, 
 large yellowish and greyish streaks indicate that con- 
 siderable quantities of gold and silver were thrown 
 in during the process of melting. No idea can at 
 present be had of the power of the sound, as its 
 enormous weight has caused the pillars that support it 
 partially to give way. To prevent a final disaster, the 
 orifice of the bell has been made to rest on large teak 
 posts sunk in the ground and rising about three feet 
 above it." 
 
 Sir Arthur Phayre on Burmese Bells. 
 
 In his new and erudite work, " The History of 
 Burma,''^ on the title-page of which it is announced 
 that its distinguished author is " Membre correspondant 
 de la Societe Academigue Indo-Chinoise de France," 
 
 * Dr. Anderson observes " that these figures are in excess of 
 those given by Colonel Yule, -which I have quoted in the text." — 
 " Mandalay to Momien," pp. 455-56. 
 
94 ADDENDA. 
 
 and beneath which, honour are the peacock and the 
 goose — emblematic, it might be said, of the pride and 
 the folly o£ Upper Burma — there is also some in- 
 teresting matter regarding Burmese bells. 
 
 Very early in the seventeenth century, as in late 
 years, some of the Shan States at intervals gave the 
 " Supreme King^" in Ava trouble, "and an expedition 
 against Kyaing Hung or Yun was made, the chief of 
 which State had withheld payment of tribute. The 
 King sincerely desired to do justice to all. A handsome 
 bell was cast, and hung at the Palace gate, on which 
 was an inscription in the Burmese and Talaing 
 (Peguese) languages, exhorting complainants to strike 
 the bell, and the King would hear their cry" (p. 133). 
 The " curious subsequent history of this bell " is thus 
 related : — " This bell, it appears, was carried to Arakan, 
 when a raid was made by the King of that country 
 into Pegu, some years after the death of Maha 
 Dhamma Eaja. In the war of 1825-26, between 
 Burma and British India, it was found in the precincts 
 of a temple near the old capital, and was carried to 
 India as a trophy by a Hindu officer of Irregular 
 Cavalry. It now hangs in a Hindu temple in Zillah 
 Allegarh" (p. 142). After an interesting chapter on 
 '' Alaunghpra,* and the Triumph of Burma ^' over the 
 Talaings, there is one on " Arakan," where it is stated 
 that the inscription on this bell, in Burmese and 
 Talaing, "is of considerable historical value." 
 
 * Alompra, fonnder of the present dynasty. 
 
BELLS. 95 
 
 Bells and the Mois in Cochin-China. 
 
 A most intelligent writer in one of our popular jour- 
 nals recently observed, while writing on Cochin-China : — 
 The Mois " desire to have their country to themselves, 
 and so hinder travellers as much as possible." Their 
 "inveterate exclusiveness " is proverbial. "But little 
 trade is carried on ; and such transactions as do occur 
 are all in the form of barter. Money is unknown ; 
 and if a European endeavours to make use of it as a 
 medium of exchange, he finds it accepted at only 
 a low valuation. A Moi will refuse to work for a dollar 
 a day ; but offer him a bell, costing a few cents^ and 
 he will willingly do a day's work to obtain it.''' True 
 enough, as the same writer remarks, " there is very 
 much yet to be learned about the Annamese kingdom, 
 of which Tonquin forms the northern part, notwith- 
 standing that the French have had a footing in the 
 country for close upon a century.'^ 
 
96 ADDENDA. 
 
 III. 
 
 Mongol Conquest of China, and Tkibtjte 
 demanded from burma. 
 
 In case Chinese history should be going to repeat 
 itself, it may be worth while to go back some six 
 hundred and thirty years, and see what the Mongol 
 conquerors were doing in the then, as at present, much 
 coveted south-west province of Yunnan. A French 
 Timour, or Jenghiz, or a commander like Kublai 
 Khan, formed of material akin to such determined 
 leaders as Riviere, Bo/et, and Courbet, would seem 
 to be quite on the cards. Prom Sir Arthur Phayre^s 
 new " History of Burma''' (pages 53-53), the following 
 most interesting passage is extracted : — 
 
 '^'Pollowing out the plan of Jenghiz Khan, the 
 Mongol armies had for thirty years been fighting to 
 subdue the Chinese empire, then held by the Sung 
 dynasty. Kublai, the lieutenant of his brother Mangu, 
 who reigned at Karakoram as great khan, had com- 
 mand of the Mongol armies in China. He determined, 
 for reasons the advantages of which are not now 
 
MONGOL CONQUEST OP CHINA. 97 
 
 apparent^ first to conquer Yunnan, and in pursuance 
 of that plan had to make a march from the province 
 of Shensi, of more than a thousand miles across 
 unsubdued country. He took most of the fortified 
 towns in Yunnan, and then returned to Shensi, leaving 
 Uriang Kadai in command. That general, according 
 to Chinese history, turned his arms against Burma, 
 and compelled recognition by the king of that country 
 of the Mongol power. There is no mention in Burmese 
 history of any collision on the Yunnan frontier at 
 that time (1255-56), and the character of the king, 
 Tarukpyemeng, was not such as to render it probable 
 that he would be the aggressor against a country more 
 powerful than his own. It was not until more than 
 twenty years later that the conquest of China was 
 completed by Kublai Khan, who had then been pro- 
 claimed Emperor ; and it was three years after, 
 according to Burmese history, that a demand was 
 made, in the name of the Mongol Emperor of China, 
 for gold and silver vessels to be sent as tribute, on the 
 ground that King Anoarahta had presented such 
 tokens of homage. The ambassadors who made this 
 demand were, according to Burmese history, insolent 
 in their conduct, and the King, against the remon- 
 strance of his ministers, had them put to death. 
 The Emperor of China assembled an army to 
 punish this outrage." . . . . " On the whole," con- 
 cludes Sir Arthur, "1 am of opinion that only one 
 great battle [that (near Male) in which the Burmese 
 
 7 
 
98 ADDENDA. 
 
 army was defeated] was fought between the armies 
 of the two peoples throughout the whole period of 
 the operations hy the Mongols on the Yunnan frontier 
 against Burma^ extending from a.d. 1255 until about 
 1284j and that the battle took place on a plain adjoin- 
 ing the Irawadi." (Page 56) . 
 
 Origin of War between Burma and China. 
 
 At pages 190-91 of the same " History " will be 
 found matter relating to a comparatively modern date^- 
 which causes us to think more and more that the 
 world^s wars have originated in very trivial things 
 after all : — 
 
 " A series of petty misunderstandings on the frontier 
 of China had led to an invasion of Burma from that 
 country. In the spring of 1765 a Chinese merchant 
 named Loali arrived on the frontier^ coming by the 
 Momien route, with a large drove of oxen laden with 
 merchandize. In order to cross the river Tapeng, he 
 wished to construct a bridge at the village Ninba, and 
 applied to the governor of Bamoa for permission to 
 do so. The merchant, annoyed at the delay which 
 occurred in attending to his application, uttered some 
 words in his own language, which were interpreted tO' 
 the governor as being disrespectful. The governor 
 sent him to Ava as a prisoner. The authorities there 
 released him, and gave orders that he might build the 
 bridge and, pursue his vocation. On returning to 
 
WAR BETWEEN BURMA AND CHINA. 99 
 
 Bamoa, where his merchandize had been left, he com- 
 plained that some of the packages had been opened 
 and a portion of the goods extracted, and he demanded 
 compensation. The ofi&cials replied that his own men 
 had remained in charge of the bales, and they refused 
 to enquire into the complaint. Loali then departed, 
 and, on arrival at Momien, complained of the treat- 
 ment he had received. He went on to the city of 
 Yunnan, where the governor received his statement 
 and noted the facts. Soon after another dispute took 
 place at a distant point of the frontier. A Chinese 
 merchant, named Loatiri, arrived with several followers 
 at a mart in the territory of the Shan state of Ky- 
 aingtun, and there sold goods on credit. Payment 
 was refused by the purchaser, a quarrel arose, and 
 in the affray which ensued a Chinaman was killed." 
 Killing a civil Chinaman would now (1883) appear, 
 especially in Pekin or Canton, almost as dangerous as 
 to kill a king ; and, as in 1767, doubtless, the King 
 of Burma now views with some alarm the state of 
 his relations with the Shans and with China. 
 
100 ADDENDA. 
 
 IV. 
 
 NOTE. 
 The French in India^ Thirty-Six Years ago. 
 
 (By a French Judge at Pondicherry.)* 
 
 Historical. 
 
 After different unsuccessful attempts at settlement in 
 India, Frangois Martin, in 1683, purchased Pondicherry, 
 then a small village, and a certain extent of the ad- 
 jacent territory. Here he assembled the remains of 
 other settlements which had previously been formed at 
 Trincomalee and St. Thome by the French, and out of 
 which they had been driven by the Dutch ; he fortified 
 the place to the best of his ability, but not sufficiently 
 to resist a serious attack from the Dutch, who took 
 possession of the infant colony the 5th September 
 1693. At the peace of Riswick, in 1697, Pondicherry 
 
 * Written for the author by M. Orianne, one of the judges of the 
 Cour Eoyale, and author of a learned work, pnbHshed in Paris, on 
 the " Hindu Law of Inheritance." This " Note," as the judge 
 modestly styled it, will, in addition to its value as an historical 
 record, give a good idea of the French possessions in India and 
 their government when Louis Philippe was King, or juat before 
 the Eevolution of 1848. 
 
THE PEENOH IN INDIA. 101 
 
 was restored to the French, and shortly after, in 1699, 
 became the capital of the French settlements in 
 India. 
 
 In 1688 the French East India Company obtained 
 from Aurungzebe the right of founding a commercial 
 settlement at Chandernagore, and in 1696 they took 
 advantage of the disturbed state of the country, 
 during the rebellion of Sotha-Sing, Zemindar of the 
 Burdwan, to fortify themselves, as did also the 
 English at Calcutta to build the Fort William, and 
 the Dutch at Chinsurah the Fort Gustavus. In 1737 
 the Prince of Cartenant granted to the same Company 
 the privilege of forming a similar establishment on the 
 Malabar coast, which was afterwards called Fort 
 Mahe. In 1739 the Company purchased Karikal and 
 its territory from the Rajah of Tanjore. In 1750 the 
 French took possession of Yanaon and Masulipatam, 
 which were regularly ceded to them in 1752. 
 
 From 1735 to 1742, under the government of 
 M. Dumas, the French possessions in India took rapid 
 extension ; the Mogul granted them the right of 
 coining money at Pondicherry which at that early 
 period gave the Company a benefit of two lakhs of 
 rupees per annum. Monsieur Dupleix was governor 
 of Chandernagore from 1730 to 1742, and under his 
 administration that settlement became the seat of a 
 very considerable traffic. In 1742 he was promoted 
 to the governorship of Pondicherry, and proclaimed 
 Governor- General of all the French settlements in 
 
102 ADDENDA. 
 
 India. At this period the French prosperity in India 
 was carried to its highest ; then it was (in 1746) they 
 took possession of Madras, and then (in 1748) that 
 M. Dupleix repulsed a formidable attack directed 
 against Pondicherry by land and sea, the latter under 
 the command of Admiral Boscawen at the head of 
 thirteen ships of war. In 1758 we possessed on the 
 Coromandel coast : — 
 
 1st. Pondicherry, with a territory bordering the 
 sea in a length of thirty miles, and extending inland 
 about the same distance, a population of 500,000 
 souls, and a revenue of twenty lakhs of rupees. 
 
 2nd. Karikal, of an equal extent and value. 
 
 3rd. Masulipatam, the island of Dioy, and the four 
 provinces of Mountfanagar, EUore, Rajmundri, and 
 Chicacole, forming a territory of nearly four hundred 
 miles in length, varying in breadth from forty-five to 
 seventy-five, with a revenue of forty-two lakhs of 
 rupees. 
 
 4th. The island of Seringham, formed by two 
 branches of the Cauvery. 
 
 In 1758 war commenced between France and 
 England, and in less than two years the whole of 
 these possessions fell into the hands of the English. 
 
 The 6th of January 1761, they took possession of 
 Pondicherry, ruined its fortifications and sent to 
 Europe, not only the troops which had garrisoned the 
 place, but all the European inhabitants attached to the 
 
THE FEBNOH IN INDIA. 103 
 
 Company's service. We have never since possessed 
 any real power in India. 
 
 In 1763, Pondicherryj Karikal, Mahe, and Chander- 
 nagore were restored to us, but with a very limited 
 territory, as was also Yanaon. Pondicherry partially 
 regained its former splendour, but was retaken by the 
 English in 1778; and again restored with our other 
 possessions, by the treaty of peace of 20th January 
 1783. They all fell again in the hands of the English 
 a few years later, Pondicherry itself having been once 
 more taken the 20th August 1793. At the peace of 
 Amiens, in 1802, they were again restored, but for so 
 short a time, that on the 11th September 1803, Pon- 
 dicherry, with a garrison of only 152 European 
 soldiers, capitulated, and passed for the fourth time 
 to the English. The treaties of 1814 and 1815 
 replaced us in possession of our East Indian establish- 
 ments, such as they had been reduced by former stipu- 
 lations; they consist of mere points widely separated 
 from each other, disseminated on the coasts of Coro- 
 mandel, Orissa, Malabar, and in the interior of Bengal. 
 Their population is about 195,000, of which less than 
 1,000 are Europeans; they are situated as follows and 
 consist : — 
 
 On the Coromandel coast, of — 
 
 1st. Pondicherry and its territory, including the 
 districts of Pondicherry, Villenour, and Bahom'. 
 
 2nd. Karikal and its districts. 
 
104 ADDENDA. 
 
 On the coast of Orissa, of — 
 
 1st. Yanaon, its small territory and villages. 
 2nd. Prance Pettah, and Masulipatam Lodge. 
 
 On the Malabar coast, of — 
 1st. Mahe and its territory. 
 2nd. Calicut Lodge. 
 
 In Bengal, of — 
 
 1st. Chandernagore and its very small territory. 
 2nd. The lodges of Cassimbazar, Joungdin, Dacca, 
 BalasorCj and Patna. 
 
 In Guzerat, of — 
 
 The factory of Surat. 
 
 The whole measure about 120,000 acres. Prance 
 has also the right of establishing a factory at Muscat, 
 and one at Moka. 
 
 Statistics, Topography , and Produce. 
 
 The town of Pondicherry is regularly built and 
 divided into White Town and Black Town, separated by 
 a canal. White Town has 430 houses, and about 700 
 European inhabitants. Black Town has about 25,000 
 native inhabitants and about 4,000 houses or huts, 
 3,000 of which are brick. Nine hundred GaiUo-Indians, 
 Portuguese, or Topas, are disseminated in both these 
 towns. The only remarkable buildings are the 
 Catholic mission church, Government House, two 
 pagodas, the new bazaar, and the light-house ; there 
 
THE FEBNCH IN INDIA. 105 
 
 are also two thread manufactories, worked by steam, 
 one of which casts off 2,500 pounds of thread daily. 
 The district of Pondicherry contains, besides the town, 
 several large Indian villages (native) . The population 
 of this densely-inhabited district may reach, exclu- 
 sively of the town, 35,000. 
 
 The district of Villenour has forty-five villages, and 
 that of Bahour thirty-six ; these three districts measure 
 in the aggregate 69,110 acres, only 11,000 of which 
 are adapted to the produce of rice ; they contain sixty- 
 one tanks, ponds, or lakes, the two most considerable 
 of which are situated in the districts of Villenour and 
 Bahour; the one measuring 1,853 acres, 600 of which 
 are in the English limits, the other 1,732 acres. The 
 population of the district of Villenour is 23,000, that 
 of the district of Bahour 18,000. The town of 
 Karikal, situated on the Coromandel coast, in Tanjore, 
 near Tranquebar, has a population of 12,000 souls,, 
 with a territory of 39,891 acres, divided into five 
 districts, and 19,900 acres are adapted to the cultivation 
 of rice. The population of these districts, exclusive of 
 that of the town, is 37,140. 
 
 Yanaon is situated in Golcunda, near Coringa, and 
 its population is, or was a few years back, 7,343 souls ;, 
 its territory measures 8,149 acres, 4,900 of which 
 produce rice of a fine quality. 
 
 Masulipatam Lodge ! — Of all the vast French 
 possessions of which the town of Masulipatam was the 
 capital, we have now but this lodge, with the useless- 
 
106 ADDENDA. 
 
 privilege of hoisting thereon the French colours, and a 
 small village called France Pettah, situated about two 
 miles north-west of Masulipatam ; population about 
 300 natives. 
 
 Mahe, on the Malabar coasts fifteen miles south-east 
 of Cannanore, near the mouth of a small river. We, 
 at present, are in possession of little more than the 
 town, which contains 3,360 inhabitants, and does not 
 cover more than 1,400 acres. When this possession 
 was restored to us in 1817, we claimed as dependencies 
 of it the districts of Palour, Pandaquet, Chambara, 
 and Chambinara, the petty principalities of Coringot 
 and Payaporto ; and three small hills, called Fort St. 
 George, Great and Little Calaye. In 1828 (the 10th 
 July) Messrs. Frazer and Sheffield (English Commis- 
 sioners) presented a long report, the conclusion of 
 which rejected our claim to the principalities of Co- 
 ringot and Payaporto, and to the three hills situated 
 in the immediate vicinity of Mahe, but admitted our 
 right to the four districts of Palour, Pandaquet, Cham- 
 bara, and Chambinara. However, the Governor of 
 Madras in Council refused to admit this conclusion ; 
 and ever since, our claims had been under discussion, 
 till about the middle of 1846, when they were brought 
 to a final conclusion, our right to the four districts 
 as also to the hills acknowledged, and our further 
 claim to the principalities of Coringot and Payaporto 
 rejected. I conceive this decision to be perfectly 
 correct, if, as I suppose will be the case, the revenues 
 
THE FEBNCH IN INDIA. 107 
 
 ■which the English Company has received since 1817 are 
 accounted for at the same time as we are replaced in 
 possession of these districts. 
 
 Chandernagore is situated on the right bank of the 
 river Hoogly, about twenty miles from Calcutta. 
 ThiSj as already mentionedj was once the seat of con- 
 siderable traffic; yet we possess little more than what 
 is occupied by the town^ being about 2^200 acreSj 
 formerly enclosed by a deep moat or ditch^ now almost 
 filled up, and protected by a fort, finally destroyed by 
 the English in the last war. At the distance of two 
 miles from Chandernagore^ we possess the small village 
 of Giretty, where formerly was situated a very hand- 
 some building and park, the seat of our Governor of 
 ■Chandernagore, now entirely a ruin. [Here some of 
 the greatest lights of Anglo-Indian society were 
 magnificently entertained by the hospitable French 
 Governor.] 
 
 At Balasore, Dacca, Cassimbazar, Patna^ Jougdia, 
 we have little more than the ruins of a house formerly 
 occupied by the French East India Company^s agent, 
 and a small territory or rather space of ground, with 
 the right of civil and criminal jurisdiction, which, of 
 course, we have no occasion or opportunity of exer- 
 <;ising. 
 
 Government and Administration. 
 
 The whole of these widely disseminated settlements 
 are under the rule of one Governor, selected from the 
 
108 
 
 ADDENDA. 
 
 captains of the Royal Navy, who resides at Pondicherry. 
 He has a privy council, composed of the chief agent 
 of the administration {chef du service administratif) 
 and the Attorney-General {Procureur general chef du 
 service judiciaire) ; the revenue collector [receveur des 
 domaines) assists the privy council in all matters con- 
 cerning the revenue. 
 
 In each of the settlements of Chandemagore^ 
 Karikalj Yanaon, and Mahe, there is a Government 
 agent, who receives directly the Governor's orders, and 
 corresponds with him. 
 
 The Governor receives (per mensem) 
 
 The Attorney-General {chef du service 
 judiciaire) .... 
 
 The Chief Government Agent at 
 Pondicherry (c^e/ du service ad- 
 ministratif) .... 
 
 The Government Agent at Chander 
 nagore) .... 
 
 The Government Agent at Karikal 
 „ „ „ Yanaon 
 
 Mahe 
 
 Rupees. 
 1,333 
 
 400 
 
 400 
 
 400 
 333 
 200 
 200 
 
 Each of these agents is allowed, independently of 
 his salary, a residence and a certain number of servants 
 or peons, according to his rank. A medical officer 
 resides at Pondicherry, one at Chandernagore, one at 
 Karikal ; and it is proposed to have a second one 
 
THE FRENCH IN INDIA. 109 
 
 ■at Pondicherry^ and one at each of the small settle- 
 ments of Yanaon, and Mahe. At Pondicherry, there 
 is an apothecary belonging to the navy [pharmacien 
 -de premiere classe). 
 
 Courts of Judicature. 
 
 These are composed of magistrates, termed justices 
 of the peace ; tribunals superior to these, termed 
 Tribunaux de premiere instance or Juges Royaux ; and 
 of a Court of Appeal or Supreme Court, termed Cour 
 Royale. Pondicherry, Chandernagore, and Karikal 
 have each a magistrate or justice of the peace, each a 
 Tribunal de premiere instance, or Juge Royale, and the 
 Supreme Court has its seat at Pondicherry. 
 
 The justices of the peace dispose finally of all petty 
 oases, the value of which does not exceed thirty rupees, 
 and of all matters of police ; in all other cases, their 
 decisions are subject to an appeal to the superior 
 judge, who gives on such cases a final decision. The 
 tribunals of first instance dispose finally of alf civil 
 causes not exceeding the value of two hundred rupees 
 (at Chandernagore this jurisdiction has been extended 
 ^o four hundred) ; their decisions are subject to an 
 appeal to the Royal Court when the matter is of greater 
 importance. They also decide on criminal cases not 
 amounting to felony; but in these cases also their 
 judgments may be revised by the Court Eoyal. 
 A King^s Counsel {Procureur du Roi) [now (1883) 
 ■de la Republique] is present at all their public 
 
110 ADDENDA. 
 
 audiences. His business isj in criminal matters, t& 
 prosecute in the King's name, and, in civil ones, 
 to give his opinion on all matters interesting the 
 Crown, orphans, or absentees. The Royal, or Supreme 
 Court, is composed of seven judges — one of which is 
 styled president ; four counsellors, and two auditors. 
 The Attorney-General is present at all public audiences 
 of the court ; his business being the same as that of 
 the King's Counsels in the inferior jurisdictions. This 
 court disposes finally of all matters, civil or criminal, 
 of whatever amount. In civil cases, the presence of 
 three is sufiBcient to give judgment. In criminal ones, 
 the trial by jury was attempted, but was not found to 
 answer, the number of European inhabitants being toa 
 small. At present, two citizens, styled juges notables,. 
 are adjoined to five members of the court, to try 
 criminal matters amounting to felony, so that the 
 Criminal Court is composed of seven, and no con- 
 demnation is pronounced without a majority of five. 
 
 Ini civil matters, the Code Napoleon is applied to 
 Europeans, the Hindu law to the Hindus, and 
 Mahometan to the Moslems. The French penal law^ 
 to which have been made some slight alterations 
 deemed necessary here, is applied to all. 
 
 Rupees. 
 The Attorney- General (it has already 
 been mentioned) receives per 
 mensem ..... 400 
 „ President of the Royal Court . 300 
 
THE PBENOH IN INDIA. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Rupees. 
 The Four Senior Judges {conseillers), 
 
 each 200 
 
 „ Two AuditorSj each . . . 100 
 „ Koyal Judge at Pondicherry . . 200 
 „ King's Counsel [Procureur du Roi) 200 
 „ Royal Judge at Chaudernagore . 166 
 ,, King's Counsel at „ . 166 
 „ Royal Judge at Karikal . . 133 
 „ King's Counsel at Karikal . . 133 
 „ Justice of the Peace at Pondicherry 133 
 „ Justice of the Peace at Chauder- 
 nagore ..... 120 
 ,, Justice of the Peace at Karikal . 100 
 
 Treaties — Conventions — Salt and Opium Monopoly — 
 Import Duties on Rice. 
 
 The thirteenth article of the Treaty of Peace of 
 3rd September 1783 runs thus : — • 
 
 " Le roi de la Grande Bretagne restitue a SaMajeste 
 tres chretienne tons les etablissements qui lui appar- 
 tenaient au commencement de la guerre presente suj: 
 la cote d'Orixa et dans le Bengale, avec la liberte 
 d'entourer Chandernagor d'un fosse pour I'ecoulement 
 des eaux, et Sa Majeste britanique s'engage a prendre 
 les mesures qui seront en son pouvoir pour assurer aux 
 sujets dela France, dans cette partie de 1' Inde, comme 
 sur les cotes d'Orixa, de Coromandel et de Malabar, 
 
112 ADDENDA. 
 
 un commerce sur, libre, et independant, tel que lefaisait 
 la Compagnie franjaise des Indes Orientales, soit qu'ils 
 le fassent individuellement ou en corps de compagnie/^ 
 Prior to this treaty the English East India Company- 
 had never attempted to levy any customs, export or 
 import duties, on us ; and the commerce of opium, salt- 
 petre, &c., were as free for us as for the English in all 
 parts of India ; but the Company's possessions, the 
 town of Calcutta particularly, had much increased 
 during the war, and a tariff of customs had been pro- 
 mulgated, it was said, in most part applicable to the 
 municipal necessities of the Bengal metropolis, which 
 it was then attempted to apply to French vessels 
 trading with Bengal, several of which were forcibly 
 visited oh their way to Chandernagore, and a French 
 ship-of-war was fired into and swamped by the fort of 
 Bouge Bougie. Negotiations were entered into on the 
 subject between the Govern or- General of Bengal, 
 represented by Lieutenant-Colonel Cathcart, and 
 Viscount Souliac, Governor-General of the French 
 possessions in India. They terminated by a pro- 
 visional treaty dated the 30th April 1786, which 
 stipulated, amongst other points — 1st. That French 
 vessels trading in the English Settlements in India 
 should pay no customs, but merely the same municipal 
 duties as English ones; 2nd. That no French ship or 
 boat of war, going up or down the Hoogly, should on 
 any account be visited or in any way detained {hele 
 hailed or called to). 3rd. That no French vessel of 
 
THE EEENOH IN INDIA. 113 
 
 commerce belonging to the French East India 
 Company, or to any French private adventurer, should 
 be visited or detained, except when a declaration 
 upon oath, signed by persons known to the English 
 Company's officers, had been previously made that such 
 vessel had on board salt in quantity superior to the 
 quantity stipulated in the same treaty, arms, or ammu- 
 nition. 4th. That French ships would have the right 
 to import to Bengal 200,000 maunds of salt, which the 
 English Company should pay for at a certain rate per 
 maund (80 lbs.). 5th. That the English Bast India 
 Company should deliver to the French 300 boxes of 
 opium at the price of fabrication, and 18,000 maunds 
 of saltpetre. At the same time similar negotiations 
 were carried on in Europe between the respective 
 Governments, which were concluded the 31st August 
 1787, by a treaty signed "W. Eden and Count Mon- 
 morin, which contained the same stipulations con- 
 cerning the liberty, security, and independence of 
 French commerce, and concerning the importation of 
 200,000 maunds of salt to Bengal, and the exportation 
 of opium and saltpetre, but which intentionally 
 remained silent respecting the customs, or export 
 and import duties. This point, however, was clearly 
 explained by a letter of Count Monmorin annexed to 
 the treaty when sent to the Governor of Pondicherry. 
 
 " Ici s'arrete (says this letter, dated 24th September 
 1787) " la convention faite entre les deux cours, 
 parceque celle de Londres n'a pas cru qu'il fut neces- 
 
 8 
 
114 ADDENDA. 
 
 saire d'y inserer d'autres points ; mais ils sont claire- 
 ment expliques dans la lettre qui a ete ecrite a Milord 
 Comwallis en lui envoyant la convention, et dont Mr. 
 Eden, ministre plenipotentiaire Anglais, m'a remis la 
 copie que vous trouverez ci-jointe, ainsi que celle de la 
 lettre qu'il m'a Ecrite : — En pretendant que le privilege 
 de percevoir les droits de douane du gouvernement ne 
 pent leur etre dispute, les Anglais ont neanmoins resolu 
 de se desister de cette perception, et il est ordonne au 
 Lord Cornwallis de n'en pas exiger. II ne faut 
 actuellement considerer que cette franchise et nous 
 devons esperer qu'il ne sera jamais question d'enrevenir 
 a la discussion du point ''de droit. Cette franchise du 
 surplus setend aux douanes de Madras comme a celles 
 du Bengale, sauf des droits de peage que les proprie- 
 taires de diverses possessions sous la dependance de 
 lAngleterre peuvent etre en possession de percevoir, et 
 qui au moins exclut pour I'avenir toute imposition 
 nouvelle de cette espece." This convention of 
 31st August 1787, as explained by the letter of 
 24th November, continued to be executed till 1792, 
 and even at the peace of Amiens, though that treaty 
 of peace did not recall the terms of the convention of 
 1783. 
 
 The treaty of 30th May 1814, merely stipulates 
 that the French establishments in India shall be 
 restored as they were on the 1st January 1792, and 
 that in the English possessions in India French 
 subjects will have the same protection as the most 
 
THE FRENCH IN INDIA. 115 
 
 favoured nations. The French Government understood 
 that these settlements were to be restored with the 
 liberty, security, and independence of commerce 
 stipulated by former treaties, and particularly by that 
 of 1783, explained by the convention and letters of 
 1787. This, however, the English Government would 
 not admit, and new negotiations were commenced, 
 which terminated by a convention of 7th March 1815. 
 The EngHsh Government did not positively contest that 
 the intention of the high contracting powers had been 
 to return the French establishments with the liberties 
 granted by former treaties, but declared it could not 
 consent to give to France, as formerly, 300 boxes of 
 opium at the price of fabrication, because this con- 
 cession would necessarily be common to the Dutch and 
 Danish Governments, and because so large a quantity 
 of opium out of the Company's hands would give rise 
 to an extensive contraband traffic, seriously detrimental 
 to its revenue. On the other hand, far from contest- 
 ing our right to introduce 300,000 maunds of salt into 
 Bengal at a stipulated price, they offered to purchase 
 all the salt that could be fabricated in our establish- 
 ments, over that which would be necessary for our own 
 consumption, as the most effectual means of preventing,, 
 in that article also, an injurious contraband trade. It 
 was finally decided by a convention of the 7th March 
 1815 :— 
 
 1st. That we might claim yearly 300 boxes of opium 
 at the average price of the Calcutta sales. 
 
 8 * 
 
116 ADDENDA. 
 
 2nd. That in compensation of the privilege granted to 
 the English Company's Government of purchasing, at 
 a fixed price, all the salt prepared in our settlements 
 over the quantity necessary for our own consumption, 
 the Company should pay us yearly, at Calcutta or 
 Madras, from the 1st October 1814, the sum of four 
 lakhs of sicca rupees.* 
 
 3rd. That our right of exporting from Bengal, 
 yearly, 18,000 maunds of saltpetre should be main- 
 tained. 
 
 This convention, it seems, was not found sufficient 
 to prevent all attempts at the contraband introduction 
 of salt from the French to the English territory, and it 
 was proposed to stop our fabrication of salt altogether ; 
 but as this was detrimental to the interests of the salt- 
 works proprietors, who had no part in the compensa- 
 tion of four lakhs, an additional convention became 
 necessary, which was passed between the Governors 
 of Madras and Pondicherry, the 13th May 1818. It 
 stipulates — That all the salt-works in the French 
 establishments shall be stopped during the whole term 
 of the Honourable Company's charter ; that the Madras 
 Government engages to pay to that of Pondicherry, 
 as an indemnity to the salt-works proprietors, a sum of 
 four thousand star pagodas, yearly, also during the 
 whole term of the Company's charter ; that the Madras 
 Government engages to furnish to the Government of 
 Pondicherry the quantity of salt necessary for the con- 
 * Upwards of £40,000. 
 
THE FEBNOH IN INDIA. 117 
 
 sumption of all the French establishments. As the 
 French settlements do not produce a sufficient quantity 
 of rice for their inhabitants, it has ever been acknow- 
 ledged that we have a right to draw this necessary 
 article, duty free, from the English territory, at least 
 so far as regards our own wants. This also has given 
 rise to many complaints and diflBculties, but] scarcely 
 worthy of mention here. At present, rice of English 
 produce is freely imported ; but, on the other hand, 
 none, even of French growth, is exported by sea 
 without paying, for the benefit of the Madras Govern- 
 ment, the duty fixed for exportation by foreign 
 bottoms, even when exported by English vessels for the 
 Mauritius. This is considered as a grievance, parti- 
 cularly at Karikal, where a tolerably brisk trafiSc in 
 rice and other grains is carried on with Ceylon and 
 the Mauritius, in vessels bearing the English flag. 
 
 Revenue and Expenditure. 
 
 The Revenues of the French establishments, inde- 
 pendently of the four lakhs of sicca rupees paid annually 
 by the Madras Government to the Pondicherry Govern- 
 ment, are a little more than four lakhs of Company's 
 rupees, and the total expenditure is also four lakhs of 
 Company's rupees; consequently there is a surplus 
 revenue of the whole amount of the four lakhs of com- 
 pensation money. This the French metropolitan govern- 
 ment applies to the necessities of some of its other 
 
118 ADDENDA. 
 
 colonies, whose revenues are inferior to their expenses. 
 [This is an important point. I suppose some of it 
 goes to support Algeria.*] 
 
 The very small apparent importance of the French 
 establishments in India, has frequently given rise to 
 the opinion that the Metropolitan Government would 
 willingly give them up to the East India Company, as 
 have lately done the Danes with their settlements of 
 Tranquebar on the Malabar coast, and Serampore on 
 the banks of the Hoogly. I believe the impression to 
 be an erroneous one, as without Pondicherry we should 
 not have the means of carrying on the very important 
 exchange of India blue cloth with the gum produced 
 by the forests of the interior of Africa, the only 
 really prosperous trade France can boast of at present, 
 the monopoly of which we now possess, but which 
 would undoubtedly fall into the hands of the English, 
 if we could no longer offer the only article of exchange 
 the Arabs will accept, f 
 
 * In 1883, styled "one of the glories of France." Any surplus 
 revenue at Pondicherry will now probably go to Tonquin ! 
 
 f In NoTember 1883, there was a rumoured purchase of Chau- 
 demagore. It was said that the GoTemment of India were in 
 treaty with the French for the purchase of it, but nothing was 
 known for certain on the subject. If all the towns and pettahs — 
 the remnants of old factories established in the days of the French 
 occupation — were sold to the British Government, it might save 
 a vast deal of annoyance in the event of a great European war, or 
 of European complications in the East. 
 
119 
 
 V. 
 
 " England and Prance in Indo-China." 
 
 In the " National Review " for May 1883 there is a valu- 
 able article by Mr. A. R. Colquhoun on the situation of 
 the French in Indo-China. Mr. Colquhoun has only 
 recently returned from Tonquin^ after his travels in 
 Yunnan and other quarters. This energetic traveller 
 reminds one of that useful functionary of the past^ as 
 described by Cowper : — 
 
 He comeB the herald of a noisy world, 
 News of all nations lumbering on his back. 
 
 The contribution, of which the following is an 
 extract, is entitled "^ England and France in Indo- 
 China":— 
 
 "The only means by which the King of Siam can 
 hope to foil the French in their present policy, and 
 develop the material prosperity of his country, is by 
 opening it up by means of roads and railways. It is 
 our duty, as well as our interest, to aid this friendly 
 Potentate in the retention^ consolidation, and develop- 
 ment of his dominion. In no better and in no more 
 
120 ADDENDA. 
 
 effectual way can this be done than by connecting the 
 
 interior of his kingdom with his own capital and with 
 
 British Burma by means of railways. The deep 
 
 commercial interest — already a considerable one — 
 
 which we should then have in the autonomy of his 
 
 empire would be the strongest barrier against further 
 
 possible aggression. The value of the country as a 
 
 field for commercial enterprise is fully evidenced by 
 
 the character of the people^ the richness of the soU, 
 
 the mineral wealth, the vastness of the teak forests^ the 
 
 fine quality of the tea^ the large area available for 
 
 cultivation^ and the magnificent grazing-plains. The 
 
 great richness of the country between Zinime and 
 
 Bangkok, and the density of the population and the 
 
 value of Zinime as a central entrepot of trade are 
 
 strongly dwelt upon by Carl Boch in Petermanns 
 
 Mitteilungen for May. He strongly advocates the 
 
 railway from Zinime to Bangkok for political and 
 
 commercial reasons. The G-overnment of India and 
 
 the commercial community of this country are now 
 
 fully alive to the importance of the question ; and 
 
 with the cordial assistance of the King of Siam, a 
 
 reconnaissance of North Siam and the Shan country 
 
 wiU shortly be made, as the initial step of this policy. 
 
 The English trade with China amounts to more than 
 
 half the total of £100,000,000, while that of France is 
 
 trifling ; in Indo-China the trade of England amounts 
 
 to more than two-thirds the total of £60,000,000, 
 
 while French commerce, even at Saigon, is so slight as 
 
ENGLAND AND FEANOE IN INDO-CHINA. 121 
 
 hardly to be worth discussion. The occupation of 
 Tonquin will almost certainly lead to a Franco-Chinese 
 war^ the results of which would be disastrous chiefly to 
 the commerce of England and America^ but also to 
 that o£ Germany and other European Powers. Such 
 a war — no matter what its issue may be — would undo 
 all the progress made during forty years of peace in 
 the relations of European Powers with China. It 
 would be certain to raise the antagonism of the popu- 
 lace in the interior against the missionaries and their 
 Christian converts, as has occurred already in Tonquin 
 after French interference. Should the French prove 
 successful in Tonquin, that province will be used 
 merely as a northern base for aggression against Siam 
 and the independent Shan country, leading to compli- 
 cations with Siam, and, as a sequitur, ultimately with 
 this country. The first step in the French programme- 
 has already been taken in the commencement of the 
 first section of the Mehong Valley Railway; the 
 second will be the expedition to Tonquin. The 
 European articles found in the interior of Siam and 
 the Shan country are British goods, distributed through 
 the agency of British merchants. The independent 
 Shan States have thrown off the yoke of Burma, and 
 it should be our policy to allow them to gravitate 
 towards the kingdom of Siam, whose people are of the 
 same race, religion, and language as themselves. 
 Burma, whose intrigues with France have been lately 
 resumed^ is in a state of disintegration, and on no- 
 
122 ADDENDA. 
 
 account should the importation of arms into that 
 ■country be permitted, to be used for the re-subjugation 
 of the Shans or against ourselves. Siam is friendly 
 and progressive, and the country is being gradually 
 opened up ; the kingdom can best be consolidated and 
 strengthened by means of railways, one of which 
 should connect the railway system of British Burma 
 with Siam. The issues involved by the expedition to 
 Tonquin seem absolutely uncomprehended by the 
 French public. They have been blinded by the dream 
 of an easy creation of a vast Indo-Chinese Empire, 
 and the moment is said to be opportune for the birth 
 of this Nouvelle France. The annexation of Tonquin 
 is regarded as a mere bagatelle, not involving the dis- 
 charge of a single musket ; and the idea of an ' armed 
 expedition, a campaign, an adventure,' ever arising from 
 it is ridiculed. The injury which would be the result 
 to the enormous commerce of Europe and America of 
 a war with China, seems not to be considered a factor 
 in the case. Should, however, the occupation of 
 Tonquin not lead to a Chinese war, as I believe it 
 certainly will, the French will have not only the 
 Tonquinese to deal with, but Annam, and — a fact 
 ignored by the few Frenchmen who are aware of it — 
 after the subjugation of Tonquin and Annam, there 
 will still remain between them and China the hardy 
 and resolute hill tribes, who have to this day remained 
 unsubdued before the most absorbing nation in the 
 ■world, the Chinese.'' 
 
ENGLAND AND FEANCE IN INDO-CHINA. 123 
 
 Perhaps some thoughtful Englishmen may be inclined 
 to hold the opinion that our country is quite as 
 ^' absorbing " a nation as China. Any way, it is our 
 bounden duty, especially at the present timCj to preserve 
 intact our good relations with the Celestial Empire 
 which, from the days of Noah, has been the wonder of 
 the world. It may here be well to recommend to public 
 attention Dr. Williams' re-written volume, brought 
 down to the present time, entitled " The Middle King- 
 dom/' published by Messrs. W. H. Allen & Co. — 
 a splendid and useful work for information on China. 
 
1 24 ADDENDA. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Geographical and other Notes. 
 
 Malte Bkun, the Frencli geograplier, was tte first 
 to give the title Chin-India to the countries now 
 exciting so much interest. 
 
 The Empire of Annam, for many years past, has been 
 set down as containing 130,000 English square miles, 
 with a population ranging as high as 10,000,000, or 
 about eighty-three persons to the square mile. 
 
 Just before the second Burmese war (1852) the 
 Burman Empire was said to contain 350,000 square 
 miles, with under four millions of inhabitants (ex- 
 clusive of Shans), about fourteen or fifteen to the 
 square mile. Siam has long been said to measure 
 300,000 square miles, with a population of 4,000,000,. 
 or twenty to the square mile. 
 
 The following remarks by the Tonquin correspondent 
 of the Times (Oct. 18) are valuable : — 
 
 " Considerable confusion is noticeable in the em- 
 ployment of the terms Tonquin, Annam, Cochin- 
 China, and it will be worth while, before entering 
 
GBOGKAPHIOAL AND OTHEE NOTES. 125 
 
 upon any account of certain features of the country, 
 to understand clearly what these terms mean, and how 
 they gained their present political significance. Refe- 
 rence to a map of Indo- China — by preference a French 
 one — ^wiU greatly facilitate the comprehension of what 
 I have to say on this subject. 
 
 " The most eastern portion of the enormous penin- 
 sula of Indo-China — a name invented by Dr. Leyden 
 to replace the old term Transgangetic India — now 
 dominated by the Annamese is divided in^o two parts, 
 Tonquin in the north, and Cochin-China in the south. 
 Tonquin, which till 1802 was a powerful and inde- 
 pendent kingdom, was conquered in that year by the 
 Emperor Nguyen and absorbed into the kingdom of 
 Cochin-China. Cochin-China comprises two parts — 
 Annam proper, with Hue for capital, and Gia-dinh or 
 Lower Cochin- China, of which the French now occupy 
 the greater portion. In the time of Nguyen there 
 was a Viceroy for Tonquin, one for Annam, and one 
 for Lower Cochin-China. The kingdom of Tsiampa 
 — by which term Marco Polo called Indo-China — 
 occupied in its prosperous days the whole of Annam 
 proper, comprised to-day between the southern frontier 
 of Tonquin and the French colony at the mouth of 
 the Mekong. 
 
 " Tonquin, which extends along the gulf of the same 
 name from 18 deg. to Cape Paklung in 21 deg. 30 m. 
 north latitude, is usually known to the Annamese by 
 the name of Bac-tanh or Bac-ki (region of the north). 
 
126 ADDENDA. 
 
 in opposition to Nam-ki (region of the south). To> 
 the Cantonese and Southern Chinese near Tonquin 
 it is known as Yuan^ but among the names borne 
 during its varying fortunes are those given to it by 
 the Chinese, and still in use — namely Cao-chi or Giao- 
 chi (Forked toes) — that is to say, the kingdom of those 
 who have forked toes and Ngan-nan or An-nam 
 (Peace of the South). The variety of names in use 
 under different dynasties previous to 1803 need not be 
 referred to. The name Tonquin or Tong-king is 
 derived from the surname of the principal capital 
 Kesho, close by which stands to-day Hanoi (Interior 
 of the river), which was called " Capital of the East," 
 namely Tong-king, in opposition to Tay-kinh (capital 
 of the West). 
 
 " Cochin-China was the first name given to Tonquin 
 by Europeans, and seems to have been of Malay origin. 
 Tonquin formed part of the Thsing dynasty in the 
 third century, when the Malays first visited China, 
 which country they called Tchina after the Thsing 
 dynasty, and they named the country of Cao-chi, 
 the Tonquin of to-day, Canchichuin in order to dis- 
 tinguish it from the Cochin of India." 
 
 The well-read correspondent likewise gives the 
 following information: "The Japanese who were found 
 in Tonquin by the Dutch, had been settled in that 
 country for some time, but the edict issued by the 
 Mikado in 1635 forbade the Japanese, under penalty 
 of death, to venture abroad, and put an end to the 
 
GBOGBAPHIOAL AND OTHEE NOTES. 127 
 
 commercial relations whicli had till that time existed 
 with the countries of Indo-China." Again^ ^'The 
 principal waterway of Tonquin^ known to Europe to- 
 day as the Song-Ka or Song-Koi (great or principal 
 river), and christened by the French ' Meuve Rouge/ 
 
 is called by the natives Bo-de, the ancient name 
 
 To the Tonquinese and Annamites, the Song-Koi is 
 not the principal river of Tonquin^ for the reason that 
 the Red River beyond the Delta has never known 
 Annamese domination. Its steep banks and turret- 
 like character offered no field to the Annamese, whose 
 home was in the alluvial flat lands of the Delta. In 
 Yunnan, among the many names borne by it is that of 
 Hong-Kiang or Red River, given to it on account of 
 the red-coloured clay carried by it, and which sug- 
 gested the name to French and Chinese alike." 
 
 Regarding Dr. Harmand, we learn that the Com- 
 missioner-General in Tonquin was " a member of the 
 famous French Government Expedition of 1868-69, 
 known commonly as Garnier^'s, and who has since then 
 been employed in Indo-China, recently at Bangkok." 
 He sent " a Laolian (Shan) messenger in fifteen days 
 from the Mekong to the upper waters of a stream 
 falling into the Tonquin Gulph." 
 
128 ADDENDA. 
 
 VII. 
 
 NOTES ON THE SITUATION IN INDO-CHINA. 
 
 The Treaty of Hub. 
 
 By tlie middle of October tte full text of the 
 Treaty of Hue, or the " Draft Treaty between France 
 and Anam," was published. This treaty promises to 
 be one of the most important ever made in the East ; 
 and a summary of it is as follows : — 
 
 [Paris, Oct. 14. 
 
 The full text of the draft Treaty concluded between 
 Prance and Annam on the 25th August has just been 
 communicated to the Press. It consists of twenty-seven 
 Articles, and was signed by M. Harmand, Civil Com- 
 missary and Plenipotentiary, acting in the name of 
 Prance, and by Troan Dirih Tuc, and Nijuyan Troug 
 Hiep, the Plenipotentiaries of the King of Anam. 
 MM. Palasne de Champeaux and de la Bastide Masse 
 Hait^e also signed the Treaty as M. Harmand's 
 witnesses and counsellors.] 
 
 In Article 1, Anam "recognises and accepts the 
 
THE TREATY OF HUE. 129 
 
 Protectorate of Francej with the consequences entailed 
 by that kind of connection as it is understood by 
 European diplomacy ; that is to say, that France will 
 preside over the relations of the Anamite Government 
 with all foreign Powers, including China^ with which 
 powers the Anamite Government will only be able to 
 communicate by the intermediary of France/' 
 
 Articles 8, 9, and 10, concern the construction of 
 light-houses, roads^ bridges, and telegraph lines. 
 
 Article 11 is as follows : — 
 
 " There will be at Hue a French Eesident Agent, a 
 functionary of very high rank. He will not interfere 
 in the internal affairs of the province of Hue, but he 
 will be the representative of the French Protectorate, 
 under the control of the General Commissary delegated 
 by the Government of the French Republic. The 
 General Commissary will preside over the foreign 
 relations of the kingdom of Anam, but will be able 
 to delegate his authority^ and all, or part of his 
 powerSj to the French Resident at Hue. The French 
 Resident Agent at Hue will have the right to be 
 received in private and personal audience by his 
 Majesty the King of Anam, who cannot refuse to 
 receive him without a valid reason." 
 
 Articles 13, 13^ 14^ 15, 16, and 17 contain the 
 stipulations for the establishment of French Resident 
 Agents in Tonquin. A French Resident Agent is to 
 be established at Hanoi, another at Haiphong, another 
 in a maritime town to be named in the future^ and 
 
 9 
 
130 ADDENDA. 
 
 others in the capitals of all the great provinces. 
 Prench resident functionaries are also to be placed in 
 the chief towns of the secondary provinces, as it may- 
 be found necessary. These latter will be placed under 
 the authority of the French Residents in the capitals 
 of the great provinces. The French agents will be 
 protected by a garrison of French and native troops. 
 The Mandarins are to continue to administer the 
 Government under the control of the French agents, 
 but if they manifest hostility towards the French they 
 will be removed on the demand of the French autho- 
 rities. The Resident Agents wiU be charged with the 
 distribution of justice in all civil, correctional, and 
 commercial affairs between Europeans of all nation- 
 alities and the natives ; appeal from their decisions will 
 have to be made to the Courts of Saigon. The 
 French Residents will, with the assistance of the 
 Quan Bo, superintend the collection of the taxes. 
 
 Article 19 provides that the re-organised Custom 
 House service shall be confided entirely to French 
 administrators. The Custom Houses will be placed 
 on the sea-shore and the frontiers wherever they may 
 be required. 
 
 Article 20 provides that French citizens and subjects, 
 and all foreigners who claim the benefit of French 
 protection, shall enjoy perfect liberty throughout the 
 whole of Tonquin, and in the ports open to commerce 
 in Anam. They are to live in safety, and be permitted 
 to establish commercial houses and possess property. 
 
THE TBEATT OF HUE. 131 
 
 Article 21 says that all persons who may wish to 
 travel in Anam will be able to obtain the authorisa- 
 tion from the French Eesident Agent at Hue, the 
 Governor of Cochin-China, and the French Commissary 
 for Tonquin. 
 
 The text of Article 22 is as follows: — "^ France 
 will maintain, as long as that precaution shall seem 
 to her necessary, military stations along the course 
 of the Red Eiver, in order to guarantee its free navi- 
 gation. She may also raise permanent fortifications 
 on it at such points as she may judge fit." 
 
 Article 23 runs thus : — 
 
 " France undertakes to guarantee for the future the 
 ■complete integrity of the States of His Majesty the 
 King of Anam, to defend that Sovereign against all 
 aggressions from without, and against all rebellions 
 from within his dominions, and to support his just 
 claims against foreigners. France undertakes alone 
 to purge Tonquin of the bands known by the name of 
 Black Flags, and to ensure by that means the security 
 and liberty of commerce on the Red River. His 
 Majesty the King of Anam is to continue, as in the 
 past, to direct the internal administration of his States, 
 with the exception, however, of the restrictions which 
 result from the present Treaty.^' 
 
 The remaining Articles state that France will pro- 
 vide the King of Anam with all the officers, engineers, 
 scientific men, &c., he may need, and that the pro- 
 portion in which the Anamite Grovernment is to par- 
 
 9 * 
 
132 ADDENDA. 
 
 ticipate in the revenue derived from the Customs duties, 
 telegraph services, and monopolies that may be con- 
 ceded to France, will be decided at future conference. 
 France and Anam are to nominate plenipotentiaries, 
 who are to meet at Hue to settle all points of detail. 
 They are also to study all the questions concerning 
 the monopolies of Tonquin, and concessions of mines 
 and forests. — " Standard," October 15. 
 
 General Bouet on the State of Tonquin. 
 
 Paris, Nov. 2nd. 
 
 The late Commander-in-Chief in Tonquin has allowed 
 himself to be freely interviewed by newspaper reporters, 
 and appears to have been most communicative to a 
 representative of the " Gaulois," who gives an almost 
 verbatim report of the conversation. It is as follows : — 
 
 Reporter. — You have come home on a mission, it 
 seems. It had, however, been stated that your depar- 
 ture from Tonquin was the result of disagreement 
 between yourself and Commissary Harmand. 
 
 General Bouet. — I am home on a mission. The Civil 
 Commissary has charged me to enlighten the Govern- 
 ment with regard to the real state of affairs in Tonquin, 
 and the sacrifices which it is indispensable to make to 
 seize that country. 
 
 Reporter. — And, in your opinion, what must be 
 done ? 
 
GENERAL BOUET ON TONQUIN. 138 
 
 General Bouet. — At least ten thousand men are 
 required there, and they must comprise all the elements 
 of a complete division — infantry, artillery, and cavalry. 
 
 Beporter. — After your campaign in Tonquin, what is 
 your impression ? 
 
 General Bouet. — Tonquin is a fine country, and the 
 population docile ; but the climate is very hot. We had 
 to contend with formidable inundations. If, in the 
 middle of August, our troops had been in the open 
 country they would have been drowned. In reply to 
 further questions, the General said Nam-Dinh, Hai- 
 phong, and Hanoi are the three principal points on 
 which our operations are based. We have to contend 
 with pirates, and, in the north and north-west. Black 
 Mags and Chinese. Indeed, there is from the north- 
 west to the south-east an incessant movement of 
 Chinese. I put the number of our adversaries at ten 
 thousand men. A third part of the Black Flags and 
 Chinese are armed with Remingtons, the rest with 
 rifles of various models. The diversity of arms is a 
 cause of inferiority for our enemies, but they are 
 disciplined and drilled in the German fashion^ and 
 led by Europeans. From the manner in which I ob- 
 served they entrenched themselves, their leaders must 
 be Germans. They have smooth-bore cannons. I 
 never found myself confronted with Krupp guns ; but 
 before my departure I heard of important Chinese 
 reinforcements which arrived with Krupp cannons. 
 As for the garrison of Bac-Ninh, I do not know 
 
134 ADDENDA. 
 
 whether that garrison had been sent there by Chinaj 
 but certainly it consisted of Chinamen. The men 
 were^ however, badly armed, a quarter of them at most 
 having Eemingtons. The Chinese and Black Flags 
 in an open country are not at all dangerous. The 
 impetuosity of the French terrifies them. When they 
 are protected by their earthworks it is another matter, 
 and they hold out very long. The length of the war 
 depends both on the number of the enemy and that of 
 our own troops. When I left Tonquin we had three 
 thousand three hundred men, but now there are eight 
 thousand. Ten thousand are required. It is necessary 
 to leave garrisons everywhere. Thus the three towns 
 we occupy require garrisons amounting to fifteen hun- 
 dred men. As to whether ten thousand men will 
 sufiice if China intervenes, I must say I do not take 
 that eventuality into consideration. What I say is 
 that ten thousand men are necessary to drive out of 
 Tonquin the enemies we have now to contend against 
 there. If China intervenes, it will be requisite to 
 reinforce the Expeditionary Corps. What it is indis- 
 pensable to have is cavalry, to pursue and terrorise the 
 enemy. So long as we have no horsemen they will 
 escape us, and will not fear us, for they run faster than 
 our soldiers. Our troops, on my departure, were in 
 good health. They bear the climate well, thanks to 
 a modification I introduced in their costume. In Ton- 
 quin the French soldiers wear black trousers, and a 
 loose jacket of thin cloth. That light attire has the 
 
GENEEAL BOUBT ON TONQUIN. 135 
 
 advantage of not overloading the men, and of drying 
 quickly when it has been wet by the rain. The Black 
 Flags fight with relentless courage. I will give you 
 but one example, perhaps rather old now. When 
 Hanoi was taken by Riviere, they burnt down the 
 houses of the principal street. It is now very like 
 what the Rue de Lille was after the Commune. I 
 cannot say how long I shall remain in France. I trust 
 the Minister of the Marine will send me back to 
 Tonquin to accomplish the work I have commenced 
 there. — " Standard," November 3. 
 
 It was eventually announced in the "Daily Telegraph," 
 from " a very interesting letter " written by the corre- 
 spondent of the "France" at Haiphong, dated November 
 23rd, "that everyone is now aware that the Chinese are 
 commanded by European officers, and that the Anna- 
 mese who have come from Bac-Ninh declare that it is 
 defended by Krupp guns.'^ Speculating on Admiral 
 Courbet's chances of success, he continues : — 
 
 " He is a first-rate officer, and may be trusted to do 
 what is to be done; but may he not be mistaken? If 
 he sustain a check, what will become of the Expedi- 
 tionary Corps when attacked by the Chinese hordes 
 which will swoop down upon us from every quarter if 
 — which heaven forfend— we have to retreat? The 
 reinforcements from France all arrived here quite a 
 fortnight ago, and you may be sure that if Admiral 
 Courbet has not commenced operations, it is because 
 he recognises the gravity of the situation, and will not 
 
136 ADDENDA. 
 
 take the field without turning to account the smallest 
 circumstances that m^ay prove favourable to \is." 
 
 Interview with the Marquess T'seng. 
 
 PariSj November 6th. 
 The following is the substance of the statements of 
 the Marquess T'seng in reply to interrogatories by 
 a representative of the " Gaulois/' who went over to 
 Folkestone to interview him. " If the French Chamber 
 vote such credits as would indicate the intention to 
 pursue and extend hostilities, China will most assuredly 
 respond with military measures. As to the despatch 
 of M. Tricou concerning Li Hung Tchaug's disavowal, 
 it is either due to a misapprehension, or it was written 
 to order received from Paris. However it may be, 
 I have a telegram from Pekin, in which both the 
 Oovernment and Li Hung Tchang deny having ex- 
 pressed the slightest desire for M. Tricou to remain, 
 and in which entire approbation is testified of the 
 manner in which I have followed their instructions. 
 France is making war upon us, and hostilities are, 
 therefore, unfortunately, to be expected. Our Pro- 
 vinces of Canton, Quang Si, and Yunnan are in a good 
 condition to offer resistance, and as to the report of 
 a threatened revolution at Pekin, there is no truth 
 in it. There are eleven thousand Black Flags now 
 in the field, and they have strong reserves on the upper 
 
INTERVIEW WITH THE MARQUESS t'sENG. 137 
 
 course of the Red River. They are still paid by the 
 Emperor of Anam. You may rest assured that both 
 the Anamites and Tonquinians would make common 
 cause with China, and forty thousand Frenchmen would 
 be inadequate to meet them. M. Harmand has no 
 influence whatever in Tonquin. I know M. Patenotre, 
 the appointed successor of M. Bouree, to be an able 
 and a conciliatory diplomatist. If China were beaten 
 in the first battles with France, the Empire might 
 become divided into several Governments ; but each 
 would resist as long and as resolutely as if all the 
 forces of the country were united under a single hand. 
 Germany would be too glad at seeing you engaged 
 upon a distant and difficult enterprise to offer any 
 interference ; but it would be otherwise with England. 
 England might not interfere at the outset of hostilities, 
 seeing that her mediation is not desired, nor would 
 it be accepted by the belligerents. But you may be 
 certain that England would interfere at the proper time 
 to defend her interests, just as she did in Europe in the 
 Russo-Turkish war. I shall remain at Folkestone, as, 
 seeing that hostilities may break out at any moment, 
 I think it better that my family should be here than 
 in PariSj but I shall continue to go either to Paris or 
 London, as the affairs of the Embassy may require." 
 " Standard," November 7th. 
 
138 ADDENDA. 
 
 Note of the Chinese Legation in Paris. 
 
 PariSj November 7th.. 
 
 The Chinese Legation communicates the following- 
 Note to the French Press : — " After the despatch read 
 from the tribune of the Chamber of Deputies by the 
 President of the Council, the Chinese Legation thought 
 it necessary to publish a protest at once. Since then 
 the Imperial Government, informed of the allegation, 
 in this despatch, has ordered the Marquis T'seng to 
 address an official note to the French Minister of 
 Foreign Affairs, to express astonishment at the attitude 
 imputed to the Viceroy, Li Hung Chang, and to mark 
 its confidence in its Ambassador and its approval of 
 his conduct. 
 
 "Four opportunities for a pacific solution have been 
 discarded. The first was presented by M. Bouree, 
 who was disavowed and recalled ; the second took 
 place in the simultaneous presence of M. Tricou and 
 Li Hung Chang at Shanghai. It was lost owing to 
 the menacing attitude of the former. Then a Great 
 Power on whose friendship Republican France might 
 count offered in the most friendly and disinterested 
 manner her good offices. Finally, the French Minister 
 declined to enter into a pacific understanding with the 
 Marquis Tseng, who, though having power to treat, did 
 not meet with the reception to which he was entitled. 
 From all this China must infer a deliberate purpose to 
 quarrel. Because of this inference she has not been 
 able to treat seriously the proposals made to the 
 
NOTE OF THE CHINESE LEGATION IN PARIS. 139" 
 
 Government of Peking and even if she had not dis- 
 cerned a hostile animus^ she could not have treated on 
 the basis the French Minister proposed, that Hang^ 
 Hoa should be opened to French commerce as a port. 
 That city stands inland on a mountain. It also pro- 
 posed that the neutral zone should be occupied by 
 proteges of France, or, in other words, be placed in 
 French safe-keeping. Consequently, the zone in ques- 
 tion would have lacked the quality of neutrality. 
 There would have been no buffer between the French 
 and Chinese territories. 
 
 "The Marquis Tseng denies the alleged danger of 
 revolution at Pekin or anywhere else in the Celestial 
 Empire. The Chinese people are excited and irritated 
 at the occupation of Tonquin and the projected attack 
 on the Red River cities. Were riots to take place, 
 their object would be to force the Imperial Govern- 
 ment to resist aggression by declaring war. During 
 the last twenty years a native newspaper press has 
 sprung up in China. A mass of journals are printed, 
 and there is an organised public opinion such as has 
 never before existed. The Marquis Tseng does not 
 apprehend a massacre of the French or any other 
 Europeans. The Imperial Government will take every 
 precaution to guard against patriotic anger taking a 
 violent and lawless form. The friendly Power referred 
 to in the Chinese note is understood to be the United 
 States." — " Daily News/' November 8th. 
 
140 ADDENDA. 
 
 The Tonquin Campaign. 
 
 DifiPerent accounts were received on Saturday evening 
 (December 39) of the total French loss in killed and 
 wounded in the attack on Sontay. One account says 
 the loss was 36 officers and nearly 1,000 men ; while 
 -the Black Flags lost 6,000 men. The bulk of their 
 force withdrew to Hong Hoa and Nam-Dinh. It is 
 stated that the French found 3,000,000 dollars in 
 silver in Sontay. The place was strongly fortified and 
 defended by Krupp guns. On the other hand, the cor- 
 respondent of the " New York Herald," telegraphing 
 from Hong Kong on Saturday, says : — '•' The total 
 French loss was 320, of which 75 were killed. The 
 enemy^s loss is not reliably known. My correspondent 
 at Haiphong says that there is nothing to prevent an 
 attack on the rear of the citadel, which would avoid 
 the loss attending a direct assault on the front, where 
 the succeeding lines are mutually protected. The 
 Turcos behaved like madmen. One company of 140 
 men threw themselves upon the intrenchments, despite 
 the orders of their officers, who, seeing their men so 
 impetuous, rushed to the front and led them to 
 destruction. Only 20 men and one officer escaped. 
 After the intrenchments were taken the enemy 
 evacuated Sontay. This occurred on the night of the 
 16th. The French entered on the following morning 
 with guns shouldered. Admiral Courbet did not 
 
THE TONQUIN CAMPAIGN. 141 
 
 intend to follow up the victory and attack Bac-Ninh* 
 until he had received reinforcements. These cannot 
 arrive before the rainy season again approaches. 
 Thus all advantage will be lost. M. Tricou left 
 Haiphong on the 26th, together with Dr. Harmand. 
 The staff of the latter proceed directly to France. M. 
 Tricou stops at Hue to secure the signature of the new 
 King in ratification of Dr. Harmand's treaty made on 
 the 25th of August. Meantime^ the poor Tonquinese 
 suffer on all sides. The French Government affords 
 them no protection against the pirates and robbers, 
 who pillage and burn their villages. They cannot 
 protect themselves, as they have been disarmed for 
 more than twenty-five years. Each expedition into 
 the country reveals on every side villages robbed and 
 burned, pagodas destroyed, people suffering the pangs 
 of hunger and terror. If they declare openly for the 
 French they are exterminated by Harmand's mandarins, 
 who have been imported from Hue. If they show 
 indifference their property is destroyed and their homes 
 are sacked by the French reconnoitring parties. From 
 whatever quarter troops approach them they suffer,, 
 and when no soldiers arrive, then they are oppressed 
 by the mandarins." 
 
 A French despatch says : — " Sontay and the forts 
 on the river are strongly occupied by our troops. All 
 
 * It will be recollected that the Chinese declared they would con- 
 sider an attack on Bac-Ninh a casus belli, from its being garrisoned 
 by Chinese troops. 
 
142 ADDENDA. 
 
 the garrisons will very shortly be reinforced, in order 
 to completely clear the delta of the rebels and pirates 
 infesting it." In a further despatch^ dated the 22nd 
 inst.j " Admiral Courbet refers to the praiseworthy 
 bravery displayed by the Algerian Tirailleurs and the 
 Marine Infantry, adding that the Annamite Tirailleurs 
 also took a glorious part in all engagements, and 
 praising the services rendered by the Tonquin auxi- 
 liaries." 
 
 The following interesting " Note of the Day " 
 appeared in the " Globe" of 31st December : 
 
 France and China. 
 The news from the seat of war in Tonquin is a 
 great deal less interesting than the communicated 
 article which the "Times" publishes this morning under 
 the head of " China and the capture of Sontay." It is 
 hardly using too strong an expression to describe this 
 article as an appeal ad miser icordiam. The Marquis 
 T'seng, we are told^ is unable to do more, in the present 
 ■circumstances, than to inform his Government of his 
 own impressions and of those of the European Powers, 
 whose "intuitive disposition" is "to recognise and 
 accept accomplished facts." China, it seems, is willing 
 to forget " the wrongs inflicted upon her vassal," and 
 to condone " the outrages caused to her own dignity," 
 in order to negotiate on the basis of the status quo ; 
 
I'EANOE AND CHINA. 143 
 
 for " China, in plain language, wants peace." France 
 must not attack Bac-Ninh, and must understand that 
 *' the northern bank of the main navigable stream of 
 the Red River represents the ne plus ultra of Chinese 
 concession." The question of the permanent occupa- 
 tion of Sontay should be settled by the arbitration of a 
 third party. If France hesitates to meet this offer, she 
 is bidden to remember that the position of the present 
 governing party at Pekin is precarious, and may be 
 succeeded by a Conservative Cabinet, representing the 
 anti-foreign traditions of the old Chinese party, which 
 includes men " full of talent and enthusiasm." The 
 Western Powers are reminded that they have a com- 
 mon interest in preventing such a transfer of responsi- 
 bility as this, and the American Government is appealed 
 to, as especially bound by the Burlingame Treaty, to 
 use its good offices whenever China may ask for them. 
 The change of tone from the last recorded utterances 
 of the Marquis Tseng to the language of this article 
 will too probably be received in France as an en- 
 couragement to persevere in a warlike policy. Such 
 perseverance would not necessarily be wise, for, if the 
 present tone of China betokens a disposition to back 
 down, it does not follow that a war, if it comes to war, 
 would be otherwise than costly to France. The latest 
 accounts from Admiral Courbet certainly do not tend 
 to warrant such a conclusion. 
 
144 ADDENDA. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The following is a very concise and interesting account 
 of " English Pioneers in Indo-China '': — 
 
 It is rather strange that in all that has lately been 
 written on the subject of French enterprise in Annam 
 no reference has been made to old Thomas Bowyear 
 and to English activity in Cochin-China so far back as 
 the seventeenth century. The truth is^ however, that 
 Englishmen were among the first pioneers of Euro- 
 pean commerce in Indo-China. If we look for the 
 origin of French influence in this quarter of Asia we 
 shall trace it to Constantine Falcon, the successful 
 Greek Minister of Siam, who would never have found 
 the opportunity of distinction but for his taking service 
 under our East India Company. It was he who con- 
 cluded a treaty of a most favourable character with 
 Louis XIV., and perhaps aspired to make himself the 
 ruler of the country by means of an alliance with the 
 "■ Grand Monarque." At the very time that Falcon 
 was supreme in Siam, Captain Dampier was cruising 
 off the coast of Tong-king, and reporting many strange 
 customs of the natives. At this period the principal 
 traders in the country, which had been brought under 
 European notice by the Portuguese at the end of the 
 
ENGLISH PIONEBES IN INDO-OHINA. 145 
 
 sixteenth century, were the Japanese. They then 
 practically enjoyed the monopoly of its commerce, 
 although now there is probably not a single Japanese 
 merchant throughout the whole of Annam. Captain 
 Dampier^s voyage was in the year 1687; the more 
 important one of Thomas Bowyear followed it at an 
 interval of eight years. 
 
 In 1695 — the French Embassy under De La Lou- 
 bere having returned in the meantime to Paris with- 
 out accomplishing any permanent object — the East 
 India Company's representatives at Calcutta resolved 
 to send an expedition to the countries lying on the 
 route to Canton; and no doubt Captain Dampier's 
 narrative had something to do with the special refer- 
 ence to Tong-king. The ship " Dolphin " was accord- 
 ingly fitted out in that year and placed under the 
 command of Captain Zachariah Stilgoe ; a letter from 
 Mr. Nathaniel Higgins, as representative of the East 
 India Company, to the King of Cochin-China being 
 ■entrusted to the supercargo, Mr. Thomas Bowyear. 
 He has left a brief but graphic description of the 
 journey, which will be found recorded in Dalrymple's 
 " Oriental Repertory." In Mr. Higgins's letter occurs 
 a passage to the effect that "the English were not 
 seeking to conquer kingdoms, but only to carry on a 
 trade.'' The " Dolphin " was away on its voyage 
 nearly two years, and during that period she visited 
 the coast of Annam and the Gulf of Tong-king. The 
 King of Cochin-China, as the ruler of the country 
 
 10 
 
146 ADDENDA. 
 
 was called, gave Mr. Bowyear a most favourable recep- 
 tion, and promised to afford those Englishmen who- 
 visited his realm protection and every facility for 
 trade. Greater success could hardly have attended a 
 commercial mission than that which befell Mr. Thomas 
 Bowyear ; but whether Mr. Higgins had found other 
 matters to engage his mind nearer home, or whether 
 he had been succeeded as director of the East India 
 Company at Calcutta by some less adventurous spirit, 
 nothing further was done towards extending our trade- 
 with the States and peoples of Further India. This 
 is the more remarkable because the terms secured by 
 Mr. Bowyear were exceptionally encouraging, while the 
 reports he brought back of the region depicted it as 
 " a land flowing with milk and honey." — " St. James's 
 Gazette," August 14, 1883. 
 
 Such pioneers are too apt to be forgotten by intel- 
 ligent EngUsbmen, being too remote for the present 
 busy times. Prom Mr. Higgins's letter it would appear 
 that our policy then was Hot very different to what it 
 is now in the East and elsewhere, viz. not conquest but 
 trade. With the French in Cochin-China and Tonquin, 
 the rule would now appear to be (as also in Mada- 
 gascar) conquest first and trade after, a mode of 
 operation we have too often practised ourselves to be 
 able to give any sound advice to others on the 
 subject. 
 
 Printed by W. H. Allen & Co., 13 "Waterloo Place, S.W. 
 
Works on Burma by the same Author*. 
 
 I. 
 
 In One Volume, Svo. Price 16s. 
 
 OUR BURMESE WARS 
 
 RELATIONS WITH BURMA, 
 
 WITB MAPS AND MILITARY SKETCHES. 
 
 Opinions of the Press (1880). 
 
 Athen^um. 
 "No one is better capable of treating the subject than the 
 author." 
 
 Bkoab Arrow. 
 " It is valuable to the merchant and the politician, as well as to 
 the Services." 
 
 Academy. 
 " There is a pleasant individuality in his style, which is vigorous, 
 chatty, and, above all, highly discursive." 
 
 Bell's Weekly Messenger. 
 " This ably -written volume is most valuable." 
 
 British Mail. 
 " The volume is a complete history of Burma, British and Inde- 
 pendent, for the last fifty-six years. . Whether viewed as a 
 military, a commercial, a poKtical, a geographical, or an historical 
 work, the volume is a highly commendable production." 
 
 Standard. 
 " May have a very timely use." 
 
 Saturday Review. 
 " His narrative of the events of 1852, in which he took an active- 
 part, is spirited and correct." 
 
 Army and Navy Gazette. 
 " His work is an interesting and instructive one, either to the 
 soldier or to the civilian." 
 
 Daily News. 
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 the subject on which he writes, and he has conveyed a large- 
 amount of trustworthy information in a very readable form." 
 
 London Figaro. 
 " Such works are neither -sYritten, nor mastered, in a day." 
 
II. 
 
 PRICE 5s. 
 
 ASHE PYEE, 
 
 THE SUPERIOR COUNTRY; 
 
 OK, 
 
 The Great Attractions of Burma to British Enterprise 
 and Commerce. 
 
 Opinions of the Pr>ess (1882). 
 
 Beoad Akrow. 
 " Anything wMcli the author writes about Burma must be worth 
 reading. This is so with the present work, in which are set forth 
 the great attractions of Burma to British enterprise and commerce. 
 Our merchants and manufacturers, who are on the look-out for 
 new markets, will do well to study these pages ; while those who 
 wish merely to be amused will find much to please them in the 
 author's sketches of character and customs." 
 
 St. James's Gazette. 
 
 " The author produces a narrative which is particularly inte- 
 resting at the present time, when there is a possibility of new 
 troubles with the country which, in its relation to British Burma, 
 has been forcibly described as a 'lunatic asylum next door to a 
 private house.' ' Ashe Pyee ' would be better translated ' The 
 Front Country.' " 
 
 Daily Telegraph. 
 
 " ' Ash^ Pyee ' gives a number of very important particulars of 
 ' The Superior Country ' — in other words, sets forth with much 
 clearness the great attractions of Burma to British enterprise and 
 commerce. The geographical details, and the particulars as to the 
 resources and customs of this wonderful land, are all useful in 
 afiording the means of judging the exact value of the author's 
 recommendations as to the course which should be pursued by this 
 country in regard to Burma." 
 
 British Mail. 
 " The burden of his work is, ' Can we establish sound political 
 and commercial relations with Upper Burma ? ' As the writer 
 served in the Burmese War of 1852-53, and was for some years 
 quartered in Pegu, he should be able to speak with authority on 
 this subject. The more so, as he has made the country his careful 
 study, and has brought to the composition of this work the result of 
 years of observation and consideration, and presents his conclusions 
 in a somewhat original and piquant style." 
 
 W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13 "Wateeloo Place. S.W.