Lawrence Dundas

“ Here is a situation and a task that will occupy the genius of the British race for many a long day to come.... I rejoice to think of what remains for those who come after me to do, and that not for many-generations will India fail within its borders to provide my countrymen with the work for which their instincts seem especially to fit them among the nations of the earth. ”

“ Chinese suspicion, moreover, as to the projects of Great Britain as a Mohammedan Power, already aroused by the procedure of the Sladen Mission in 1868, had received confirmation in the interim in the shape of a convention contracted with another Mohammedan rebel, on another troublous frontier of the flowery kingdom, the Athalik Ghazi Khan, Yakub Beg, who was playing at empire on his own in the dim distance of Chinese Turkestan. ”

“ The bubble of Chinese greatness still awaited pricking at the hands of Japan, and the exasperating subserviency displayed by the British Foreign Office to Chinese susceptibilities was seized upon by the astute diplomatists of that country and speedily turned to good account. A demand was preferred to the British Government for the continuance of the despatch of a decennial mission of tribute, said to be due from Burma in recognition of her vassalage. ”

“ It was found possible, however, to impress upon the understanding of the wild Was the necessity of attuning their conduct, in their intercourse with Great Britain, to the standards demanded by the canons of civilised society, and the chief difficulty in the way of a satisfactory and lasting delimitation arose not out of the social faux pas of the border tribes, but out of the action of the Chinese commissioners themselves. ”

“ The following year the Chinese made one more effort to inflict defeat upon the redoubtable Burmans, but finding themselves again unequal to the task, opened negotiations and concluded a treaty in which, according to the Burmese, no mention was made of Burma being a vassal of China, but an arrangement come to by which the respective monarchs of China and Burma were to exchange letters and presents once every ten years. ”

“ It was agreed that a tract of country to the south of the Nam Wan river belonging to China should be held on a perpetual lease by Great Britain, afterwards fixed at 1000 rupees a-year, and that neither Munglem nor any part of Kiang Hung on the right bank of the Mekong, nor any part of it in Chinese possession on the left bank, might be ceded to any other nation without Great Britain's consent. ”

“ When, therefore, a new village is formed, or a sacrifice of a special kind is needed, the young Was go out in bands head-hunting—which means that they waylay any strangers they may happen to meet and deprive them of their heads. ”

“ Burmese heads have not been available for nearly a generation, and Chinamen's heads run to about fifty rupees, for they are dangerous game. European heads have not come on the market; there are no quotations." [15] This last sentence, it is to be feared, no longer holds good, for two members of the boundary commission, Major W. Kiddle, R.A.M.C., and Mr A. B. Sutherland, fell victims to this peculiar greed, thus adding yet one more to the tragedies of the frontier. Mr Litton, too, narrowly escaped a similar fate, being saved by the prompt action of a Chinese officer. ”

“ However worthy in intention, the habit is none the less objectionable in practice, and is, indeed, as Marco Polo would doubtless have remarked—as he did of another matter—"a very evil custom and a parlous!" The market value of different varieties of heads is, according to the 'Gazetteer of Upper Burma,' as follows: "The skulls of the unwarlike Lem come lowest. ”

“ The most objectionable feature of this tribe is its head-hunting proclivities, though it appears that heads, being believed to be necessary to ensure good crops, peace, and prosperity, are sought after as a result of erroneous agricultural theories rather than out of mere wantonness or lust of killing. ”

“ And beyond all this, arrangements were made for connecting the telegraphic system of the two countries; permission was accorded to "Chinese vessels carrying merchandise, ores, and minerals of all kinds, and coming from or destined for China, freely to navigate the Irrawadi on the same conditions as to dues and other matters as British vessels," and China agreed to consider whether the conditions of trade justify the construction of railways in Yün-nan, and, "in the event of their construction, to connect them with the Burmese lines." ”

“ By a convention concluded in February of that year Great Britian consented to "waive her objections to the alienation by China by the convention with France of June 20th, 1895, of territory forming a portion of Kiang Hung, in derogation of the provisions of the convention between Great Britain and China of March 1st, 1894," in return for certain concessions on China's part in connection with the previously arranged frontier. ”

“ Such trade as there was between Burma and China—amounting to £500,000 half a century ago—came to an abrupt termination with the outbreak of the Mohammedan rebellion in 1855, which trailed with fire and sword across the province of Yün-nan for a period of seventeen years; and it was this unwelcome cessation of trade which led to the despatch of an expedition, under Colonel Sladen, across the borderland into Yün-nan in 1868. ”

“ Of these, the most uncouth and the most troublesome were the wild Wa, a primitive people occupying a block of territory extending for about one hundred miles along the Salwin, and for half that distance inland to the watershed between that river and the Mekong, an area bisected by the 99th parallel of east longitude and lying between and on either side of the 22nd and 23rd parallels of latitude. ”