Mandalay to Momien : A narrative of the two expeditions to western China of 1868 and 1875, under Colonel Edward B. Sladen and Colonel Horace Browne / by John Anderson ; with maps and illustrations.

  • John Anderson
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mandalay to Momien : A narrative of the two expeditions to western China of 1868 and 1875, under Colonel Edward B. Sladen and Colonel Horace Browne / by John Anderson ; with maps and illustrations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    hung up to dry. This was at once the stage, green- room, and orchestra. The musicians were seated along the walls on benches ; the instruments were a flageolet and a small violin, formed of a segment of bamboo, with a snake-skin over the opening, and two strings stretched to the end of the bamboo handle. One man thumped two stones on a desk by way of drum; another played the cymbals, and others small gongs. Behind the transparent windows, at one end, stood a row of Chinese moving the puppets and shouting the dialogue. All were amateurs engaged in a work of charity, though how the patient was to be benefitted did not appear. During this exchange of civilities, the prepara- tions for as early an advance as was possible were not pretermitted. With regard to the route to be traversed by the expedition, the Woon had fully expected that the embassy or centra] road would be selected, and the Mattin tsawbwa, through whose territory it passes, had come to Bhamo to make arrangements for our transit. The Burmese preferred this route, as they had more influence over those Kakhyens, and declared that they could guarantee our safe passage more certainly by this route than any other. The line to be followed would correspond with that travelled over on our return journey in 1868. A Burmese embassy, carrying tribute to China, had recently gone by this road, but was reported to have been detained in the hills for more than a month, the mountaineers having