In 1862 the government of India, in the prospect of a treaty being negotiated with the king of Burma, directed their Chief Commissioner, Sir A. Phayre, to include in it, if possible, the reopening of the caravan route from Western China by the town of Bhamô, and the concession of facilities to British merchants to reside at that place, or to travel to Yunnan, and for Chinese from Yunnan to have free access to British territory, including Assam. The first of these objects was to be effected by obtaining the king’s sanction to a joint Burmese and British mission to China. A treaty was concluded whereby the British and Burmese governments were declared friends, and trade in and through Upper Burma was freely thrown open to British enterprise. It was further stipulated that a direct trade with China might be carried on through Upper Burma, subject to a transit duty of one per cent. _ad valorem_ on Chinese exports, and _nil_ on imports. The proposal, however, as to the joint mission was unsuccessful. In the following year, Dr. Williams, formerly resident at the court of Mandalay, obtained the royal permission to proceed as far as Bhamô, where he arrived in February, after a journey of twenty-two days. His object was to test the practicability of a route through Burma to Western China, and the results of his experience led him to strongly advocate the Bhamô routes as politically, physically, and commercially the most advantageous. His energetic advocacy led the mercantile community of Rangoon to appreciate the importance of their own position, commanding, as it does, the most ancient highway to Western China. His claim, however, to have been the first to suggest this trade route must yield to that of Otto des Granges; and the assertion that he was the first Englishman who visited Bhamô could only have been made in ignorance or forgetfulness of the labours of Hannay, Bayfield, and Griffiths. When the commercial acuteness of the merchants was thus directed to the possibilities of the overland trade, it might seem at first sight that the stream could be tapped at Mandalay without following it up to the borders of Yunnan. But our growing intercourse with the capital of Burma made it known that for twelve years the Burmo-Chinese trade via Bhamô, which in 1855 represented £500,000 per annum, had almost entirely ceased. Whether this were owing to the effects of the Mahommedan rebellion in Yunnan, or, as some alleged, to Burmese policy, was uncertain. It was an additional problem, and the then Chief Commissioner, General Fytche, anxiously pressed upon the government of India the importance of solving it, and under the treaty of 1862 of thoroughly examining the possibility and probable results of reopening the Bhamô trade route.