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258 in western Yün-nan has been based. For they have definitely ascertained that there is no insuperable obstacle to the construction of a metre-gauge railway from Bhamo to Tali Fu.

On February 20th I climbed a range of mountains to gaze down from their summit upon the waters of a great river, flowing deep and silent between towering walls of rock, and spanned by a bridge which hung like a cord between perpendicular cliffs on either side. Here at last was the famous Mekong, at once the delight and the despair of Francis Garnier,—the magnet which has irresistibly drawn to its rugged course the flower of the explorers of France, a vast volume of water speeding eternally from the frozen highlands of Tibet, and travelling for 2800 miles through the tumbled mountain labyrinths of Yün-nan, on through the Shan States and Laos, adding to its volume at each stride forward in its course, to find the ocean at last through the mazes of its delta on the southern shores of Cochin China.

The pathetic persistence with which a whole