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Rh despatched by the Government of India to examine the country with a view to determining the practicability or otherwise of railway construction in this part of China. The results of the survey completed by Mr Lilley and his party during the early summer of 1907 are likely to have a modifying effect upon prevalent ideas, founded upon the witty criticisms of Colborne Baber, with regard to trade routes in this quarter. The whole question of railways in Western China is dealt with in a later chapter, but it may not be amiss to explain here the origin of existing prejudice against the T'eng Yüeh-Tali Fu line as a possible route for a railway from Burma.

It is based chiefly upon certain remarks of Colborne Baber, who travelled over this route as a member of the Grosvenor Mission in 1877. The science of mountain railway construction was less advanced thirty years ago than it is now, and it is perhaps because it has not been generally recognised how great have been the strides which have been made, during recent years, in this particular branch of the engineering profession, that the conclusions arrived at