Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/259

Rh by jowl with the very walls of the capital, a perpetual blister upon the temper of young Yün-nan; a French school, established by the Governor-General of Indo-China, and at the expense of that colony, was teaching some eighty Chinese students the language and the ways of France; and now Great Britain was scheming to lay hold of some part of Western China by constructing railways from Burma to Tali Fu. Such things should not be: so said the young reforming party, and a board came into being with the object of frustrating all further encroachments—it was recognised that the concession to France could not now be altered—under the title at first of "The Yün-nan-Ssŭch'uan," and subsequently "The Yün-nan-Ssŭch'uan-T'eng Yüeh Railway Co.," pledged to survey and undertake all necessary railways themselves. English and French alike were undoubtedly anathema maranatha to the young Yün-nan party.

Among the people generally the English were not disliked, such English travellers as have visited the province having almost invariably left a good impression behind them.