Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/363

Rh on the Burmese frontier, and anxiously scanning the country beyond for the first glimpse of Indian helmets approaching from the west. Then you can picture the meeting. China and India grasping hands, and awakening those primeval echoes with a British hurrah over the fait accompli."

The Momein pass was reached, beyond on the Burmese frontier the Indian helmets were found, the long solitary journey had been successfully accomplished. But with the advance of the Indian mission a sudden change came over the scene. The gallant traveller, who as an individual had met, with but few exceptions, with the greatest courtesy and the warmest hospitality, was treacherously and brutally murdered, and the mission itself forced to beat a precarious and undignified retreat to the land whence it had come. Thirty and more years have rolled by since the defeat of the ill-starred expedition, Upper Burma has since fallen into the lap of Great Britain, the ponderous wheels of the Chinese