Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/364

284 machine have been set in motion from time to time with a view to determining boundaries between the now coterminous empires, but the engaging spectacle of India and China grasping hands can even now be only said to have been realised in a modified degree.

For more than a century the prospect of opening up communications between Burma and Western China has excited the attention not only of the British mercantile community resident in Rangoon,—naturally directly interested in such a project,—but of a far wider public in England itself; while the British Government, moved from time to time by the importunity of the associated chambers of commerce in England, India, and China, has made fitful and not altogether well-timed endeavours to further the various schemes proposed. Such trade as there was between Burma and China—amounting to £500,000 half a century ago—came to an abrupt termination with the outbreak of the Mohammedan rebellion in 1855, which trailed with fire and sword across the province of Yün-nan for a