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In the Arracan Temple in Mandalay, as in the Shway-dagon Pagoda in Rangoon, you see the gold leaf that Yunnan produces, and in the future will produce in infinitely greater quantities. Gold comes chiefly from the mines of Talang, eighteen days journey by land S.W. from Yunnan City, on the confines of the district which produces the famous Puerh tea.

Pack-horses, laden clumsily with their heavy loads of Puerh tea, Manchester goods, oil and native exports from Yün-nan province, passed us on the mountain-side, and sometimes numbers of these willing but ill-treated animals were seen grazing in the hollows, by the wayside, their backs in almost every instance cruelly lacerated by the continuous rubbing of the wooden frames on which their loads were strapped.

The horrors of war were at this point increased by those of pestilence, for the plague broke out at Puerh on the southern frontier, and, before it disappeared, devastated the whole of the province, completing the effect of the civil war, and ruining the few districts which had escaped from its ravages.

Hundreds of pack horses carrying Puerh tea met us on the road; while all day long we were passing files of coolies toiling patiently along under heavy loads of crockery. They were going in the same direction as ourselves to the confines of the empire, distributing those teacups, saucers, and cuplids, china spoons, and rice-bowls that one sees in every inn in China.