gems, China, Burma, Myanmar, early Chinese trade with Burma

Account of Captain William Gill’s 1877 journey across China and the eastern Tibetan borderlands to Burma, undertaken partly to investigate the geography and commercial possibilities of regions then little known to Europeans. Beginning in eastern China and proceeding westward through Sichuan, Gill travelled from Chengdu through the highlands around Tachienlu (Kangding), Litang and Batang, crossed the upper Yangtze or Jinsha Jiang—the “River of Golden Sand”—and continued south through Yunnan to Dali and Bhamo. The narrative combines detailed geographical observations and route surveys with descriptions of towns, landscapes, trade, agriculture, peoples, languages, religions and local political conditions, and contains extensive discussion of the Tibetan–Chinese frontier and the great river systems of southwestern China. Particular attention is given to transport routes and their potential importance for commerce between China, Tibet, Burma and British India. The work includes numerous illustrations and maps based on Gill’s surveys and is prefaced by a substantial geographical and historical essay by Henry Yule placing the expedition in the context of earlier European exploration of eastern Tibet and southwestern China.