CHAPTER LVII.

CONCERNING THE PROVINCE OF ANIN.

Anin is a Province towards the east, the people of which are subject to
the Great Kaan, and are Idolaters. They live by cattle and tillage, and
have a peculiar language. The women wear on the legs and arms bracelets of
gold and silver of great value, and the men wear such as are even yet more
costly. They have plenty of horses which they sell in great numbers to the
Indians, making a great profit thereby. And they have also vast herds of
buffaloes and oxen, having excellent pastures for these. They have
likewise all the necessaries of life in abundance.[NOTE 1]

Now you must know that between Anin and Caugigu, which we have left behind
us, there is a distance of [25] days' journey;[NOTE 2] and from Caugigu to
Bangala, the third province in our rear, is 30 days' journey. We shall now
leave Anin and proceed to another province which is some 8 days' journey
further, always going eastward.

NOTE 1.--Ramusio, the printed text of the Soc. de Geographie, and most
editions have _Amu_; Pauthier reads _Aniu_ and considers the name to
represent Tungking or Annam, called also _Nan-yue_. The latter word he
supposes to be converted into _Anyue_, _Aniu_. And accordingly he carries
the traveller to the capital of Tungking.

Leaving the name for the present, according to the scheme of the route as
I shall try to explain it below, I should seek for Amu or Aniu or _Anin_
in the extreme south-east of Yun-nan. A part of this region was for the
first time traversed by the officers of the French expedition up the
Mekong, who in 1867 visited Sheu-ping, Lin-ngan and the upper valley of
the River of Tungking on their way to Yun-nan-fu. To my question whether
the description in the text, of Aniu or Anin and its fine pastures,
applied to the tract just indicated, Lieut. Garnier replied on the whole
favourably (see further on), proceeding: "The population about Sheu-ping
is excessively mixt. On market days at that town one sees a gathering of
wild people in great number and variety, and whose costumes are highly
picturesque, as well as often very rich. There are the _Pa-is_, who are
also found again higher up, the _Ho-nhi_, the _Khato_, the _Lope_, the
_Shentseu_. These tribes appear to be allied in part to the Laotians, in
part to the Kakhyens.... The wilder races about Sheuping are remarkably
handsome, and you see there types of women exhibiting an extraordinary
regularity of feature, a