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No, and no escort! But without doubt you are armed? No! No escort, no revolver, no companion, and you can live on Chinese food. Ah! you have a brave heart, Monsieur." At the time of my visit to Yunnan, Père de Gorostarza, the accomplished Provicaire, was absent at Mungtze deciding a question of discipline.
Hosie, formerly H.B.M. Consul in Chungking, and well known as a traveller in Western China, was in Yunnan City in 1882. In September, 1890, Bonvalot and Prince Henri d'Orleans stopped here at the French Mission on their way to Mungtze in Tonquin.
He received me in his private office, gave me the best seat on the left, and handed me tea with his own fat hands. A mandarin whose rank is above that of an expectant Taotai, Li is to be the next Taotai of Mungtze, where, from an official salary of 400 taels per annum, he hopes to save from 10,000 to 20,000 taels per annum.
From Yunnan City to Mungtze on the borders of Tonquin, where there is a branch of the Imperial Maritime Customs of China, is a journey of eight days over an easy road. Four days from Mungtze is Laokai on the Red River, a river which is navigable by boat or steamer to Hanoi, the chief river port of Tonquin.
Once, when repairing the line from Pase, in Kwangsi, to Mungtze, during the rainy season of 1889, fifty-six out of sixty men employed by him died of what there can be little doubt was the same plague that has lately devastated Hong Kong. On this occasion, of twelve men who at different times were employed as his chair-bearers, all died.
In May, 1892, the Commissioner from the French Government opium farm in Hanoi, M. Tommé, arrived in Yunnan City from Mungtze, sent by his Government in search of improved methods of poppy cultivation the Yunnan opium, with the exception of the Shansi opium, being probably the finest in China.
It is carried overland by the fastest trade route that through Mungtze to Laokai and thence by a boat down stream to Hanoi in Tonquin, from which port it is sent by registered post to Saigon and Hong Kong. Here then is a venture open to all, with excitement sufficient for the most blasé speculator. Ample profits are made by the dealer.
Four months before one of the most trusted converts of the mission had been sent to Mungtze to purchase a property for the use of the mission. He was given the purchase-money of 400 taels, but, when he arrived in Mungtze, and the eye of the mission was no longer upon him, he invested the money, not in premises for the mission, but in a coolie-hong for himself.
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