Mr. Tai Chi-tao, the Chinese Government's representative to the burial rites of the Panchen has left Tachienlu for Kanze. Owing to an injured ankle he was forced to cancel many important engagements and delay his departure for the interior. The Chinese Mission to Eastern Tibet, however, was not idle, and while the Minister of State nursed his foot his large caravan moved forward toward Kanze.
Mr. Tai made a very friendly gesture by visiting the foreigners in Tachienlu. Having lived abroad for some time and visited Geneva he was no stranger to foreign ways and customs, and those who had the privilege of meeting the minister found him a delightful fellow. It appears that though he had never visited the frontier he had always taken a lively interest in its welfare. I reminded him that we had a high snow mountain in the famous Gongga Range named after him and he told us how it came about.
In 1930 a young Swiss geologist sent out by the Sun Yat-sen University came to the Tibetan border. It now transpires that Mr. Tai Chi-tao sponsored this expedition and was largely responsible for Dr. Heim's important geological work along the Chinese border of Tibet. Among the numerous high peaks forming the Gongga complex stands one that will go down in history as Mount Ta Other mountains named then, are Mount Edgar, Mount Sun Yat-sen, and Mount Sherap, Paul Sherap acting as Tibetan inter-prefer to the scientific expedition.
Dr. Helm was accompanied by a number of European and Chinese scientists, and his work, part from Gongga Range, covered a good part of Eastern Tibet. It was important in being the first Chinese-European scientific expedition really to tackle this enormous section and made known to the world the heights of some of the snow peak: Dr. Helm, as a professor in geology, at the Sun Yat-sen University, also discovered other scientific data which were later released to the geological societies in the different home countries.
A man of learning and culture and an ardent Buddhist Mr. Tai is yet an official deeply interested in scientific pursuit. He has shown some interest in the different wild fruits found along the frontier and is now devising means whereby they can be cultivated and improved. He is keenly interested in the welfare and advancement of the Chinese-Tibetan border, and during his stay in Tachienlu, made himself acquainted with all the activities of the city and the province. Before leaving, this Minister of State sent some beautiful presents to a French, American and British missions in Tachienlu.
There is some talk that after the burial rites in Kanze, he may proceed to Derge on the left bank of the Yangtze, and from there to Batang, returning east to Litang, and back io Tachienlu. 1f this journey can be accomplished it will let the minister see something of the large province of Sikang. There are still those who believe, and some are connected with the present expedition, that ihere is enormous mineral wealth stored away among the high mountains of Sikang. Unfortunately this is not so, and the present Chinese Mission to the frontier may establish this fact once and for all.
There is some gold but not much and it is a question if the introduction of foreign machinery would increase the output. Sikang extends from the Amni Machen Range in the north to the Gonggalin Range in the south, from the right bank of {he Yellow River in the north to the left bank of the Yangtze in the sough, and from the Yangtze in the west {o the Tung River in the east. Enclosed within this enormous square is very rich pasture land, able with no difficulty whatever, to support large herds of yak and flocks of sheep, but quite unable, without importing food, to sustain. a large population. This fact will have to be faced.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.