The romantic East: Burma, Assam, & Kashmir - Khamkoo

BHAMO AND THE IRAWADI
5i
Marco Polo) to Yim-nan Fu is 450 miles, and there
is a good road for 80 miles ;
while from Yun-nan
Fu are mule tracks connecting with the roads
entering the Yang-tsze valley.
From Bhamo to
the Yang-tsze
is about 800 miles by road,
and on
to Pekin 950 miles more. It takes nearly four
weeks to go from Bhamo to Ta Li Fu, and from
Ta Li Fu to Yun-nan Fu twelve days.
Owing to low water the river channel was full of
sand-banks, and the steamer had to tie up below
the ghat, near the caravan station where the camps
were pitched, and the pack-mules, ponies, and coolies
driven in from China were relieved of their loads.
They bring in tea, raw silk, walnuts, hides, gold,
straw hats, and orpiment or king's yellow, the lemon -
coloured tri-sulphide of arsenic used in dyeing and
making yellow "lacquer." Sometimes the hardy
little ponies are sold in Burma, but more often they
go back to China laden with dry fish, cotton yarns
and fabrics, or woollens. The trans-frontier trade
with China is valued at close on 2,500,000 per
annum.
The road from the caravan station along the
river bank is
called Irawadi Road up to the point