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coast than any at which it had previously been visited by a white man, and it should be noted that the de Lagrée- Garnier expedition, which had for its primary object the exploration of the course of the great river, never suc- ceeded in attaining to a point above that reached by the Scotsman. McLeod estimated the average width of the river at 100 yards at the season of his visit, and at 220 yards at full water, its rise being at least 50 feet; he judged its velocity to be about 3 miles an hour. He re- mained at Chieng Hong for more than a fortnight while the authorities in Yun-nan were communicated with, but the answer to his request to be permitted to proceed was unfavourable. He was told that if he desired to enter the Celestial Empire, the front door, so to speak, was at Can- ton, a portal through which all foreigners were allowed to pass by the authorities at Peking, and that backdoors, such as the road into Yun-nan, were not open to visitors. He was also gravely told that “there was no precedent” for a foreign official coming by this route, and as, unlike the French travellers who later walked in his footsteps, he had not been furnished with letters of authority from Peking, he had no choice but to return to Burma. Ac- cordingly on March 26th he began his ride back to Chieng Tong, arriving there on the 31st; starting again on April 4th, he reached Chieng Mai on April 18th. Here he entered into long discussions with the King, his object being to get the road to Chieng Tong declared open to traffic for merchants from Maulmain, but in spite of the friendly nature of his intercourse with the authorities; he failed altogether in this object.

McLeod fixed the latitude and longitude of Chieng Mai