For a few years preceding to the date of the excursion of which the development is narrated in those pages, the eye of British traders at domestic and in India were directed to the possibility of an overland change with Western China. Most in particular did this hobby the economic network of Rangoon, the capital of British Burma, and the port of the terrific water toll road of the Irawady, boasting a change the yearly cost of which had elevated in fifteen years to £2,500,000. The avoidance of the lengthy and perilous voyage via way of the Straits and Indian Archipelago and a right away interchange of our manufactures for the goods of the wealthy provinces of Yunnan and Sz-chuen would possibly nicely appear to be benefits which might richly pay off nearly any efforts to perform this cause.