[Illustration: MANDALAY, THE CAPITAL OF INDEPENDENT BURMA; FROM MANDALÉ HILL. _Frontispiece._] 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, M.D.EDIN., F.R.S.E., F.L.S., F.Z.S. FELLOW OF CALCUTTA UNIVERSITY; CURATOR OF IMPERIAL MUSEUM AND PROFESSOR OF COMPARATIVE ANATOMY, MEDICAL COLLEGE, CALCUTTA; MEDICAL AND SCIENTIFIC OFFICER TO BOTH EXPEDITIONS. WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. London: MACMILLAN AND CO. 1876. LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. PREFACE. Seven years have elapsed since the date of the expedition which furnishes the subject of the larger portion of this work. Its results have been recorded, but can hardly be said to have been published, in the official reports of the several members, printed in India, and not accessible to the general reader. The public interest in the subject of the overland route from Burma to China, called forth by the repulse of the recent mission and the tragedy which attended it, has suggested the present publication. It is hoped that a compendious and popular account of the expedition of 1868 will be acceptable, if only as an introduction to the simple narrative of the mission of this year, commanded by Colonel Horace Browne. The statement of the difficulties which beset our advance in 1868 will prepare the reader to estimate the opposition which, under a changed political condition of the country, compelled the mission under Colonel Browne to return without accomplishing its object. The narrative of our experiences of the border country between Bhamô and Yunnan, and its motley population, has been supplemented from materials collected by Colonel Sladen, including a catalogue of Kakhyen deities obtained by him, and which will be found in the Appendix, along with a Panthay account of the origin of the Chinese Mahommedans. To him, as well as to my fellow travellers, Captain Bowers and Mr. Gordon, I gladly record my obligations for the information that has been derived from them. For many details illustrating the condition of Yunnan and the Mahommedan revolt in that province, I am indebted to the volumes, issued by the French government, which contain the results of the French expedition from Saigon to Yunnan, under Lagrée, Garnier, and Carné, whose premature loss their country has to deplore, and to the travels of that enterprising pioneer of commerce, Mr. T. T. Cooper. No one can treat of the border lands of Cathay without deriving assistance from the stores of knowledge collected and arranged by the erudite editor of ‘Marco Polo,’ Colonel Yule, to whom I tender my tribute of admiration and indebtedness.