Wanting A Local Scale For A Distance
Of Five Days, I Find That Our Next Point In Advance, Marco's City
Of
Carajan undisputably Tali-fu, is said by him to be ten days from Yachi.
The direct distance between the
Cities of Yun-nan and Ta-li I find by
measurement on Keith Johnston's map to be 133 Italian miles. [The distance
by road is 215 English miles. (See Baber, p. 191.) - H.C.] Taking half
this as radius, the compasses swept from Yun-nan-fu as centre, intersect
near its most southerly elbow the great upper branch of the Kiang, the
Kin-sha Kiang of the Chinese, or "River of the Golden Sands," the MURUS
USSU and BRICHU of the Mongols and Tibetans, and manifestly the auriferous
BRIUS of our traveller.[1] Hence also the country north of this elbow is
CAINDU.
I leave the preceding paragraph as it stood in the first edition, because
it shows how near the true position of Caindu these unaided deductions
from our author's data had carried me. That paragraph was followed by an
erroneous hypothesis as to the intermediate part of that journey, but,
thanks to the new light shed by Baron Richthofen, we are enabled now to
lay down the whole itinerary from Ch'eng-tu fu to Yun-nan fu with
confidence in its accuracy.
The Kin-sha Kiang or Upper course of the Great Yang-tzu, descending from
Tibet to Yun-nan, forms the great bight or elbow to which allusion has
just been made, and which has been a feature known to geographers ever
since the publication of D'Anville's atlas. The tract enclosed in this
elbow is cut in two by another great Tibetan River, the Yarlung, or
Yalung-Kiang, which joins the Kin-sha not far from the middle of the great
bight; and this Yalung, just before the confluence, receives on the left a
stream of inferior calibre, the Ngan-ning Ho, which also flows in a valley
parallel to the meridian, like all that singular fascis of great rivers
between Assam and Sze-ch'wan.
This River Ngan-ning waters a valley called Kien-ch'ang, containing near
its northern end a city known by the same name, but in our modern maps
marked as Ning-yuan fu; this last being the name of a department of which
it is the capital, and which embraces much more than the valley of
Kien-ch'ang. The town appears, however, as Kien-ch'ang in the Atlas
Sinensis of Martini, and as Kienchang-ouei in D'Anville. This remarkable
valley, imbedded as it were in a wilderness of rugged highlands and wild
races, accessible only by two or three long and difficult routes, rejoices
in a warm climate, a most productive soil, scenery that seems to excite
enthusiasm even in Chinamen, and a population noted for amiable temper.
Towns and villages are numerous. The people are said to be descended from
Chinese immigrants, but their features have little of the Chinese type, and
they have probably a large infusion of aboriginal blood.
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