MURDER OF A NOTED TRAVELLER.

Timaru Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 2101, 26 July 1878, Page 3

MURDER OF A NOTED TRAVELLER.

The murder of Mr T. T. Cooper, at Bhamo, is reported by the Madras Times, 7th May. The victim was at one time agent for the Chamber of Commerce at Calcutta, and m 18G8, he resolved to travel through China to India, by a route comparatively unknown and full of dangers. Starting from Hankow, he travelled along the Yang-tse-kiang and went down to Eastern Thibet and Yunnan, meeting with many adventures on the way. He started on this long journsy of several thousand miles with only £200 m his pocket, and as he might have been robbed at any point of the route he took, his position was a decidedly precarious one. He was imprisoned at least once, and on another occasion, m Thibet, had a more agreeable surprise by being married unawares. One day he found himself m a grove, surrounded bya group of girls, and according to him, "the whole scene was so arcadian and the romantic effect so irresistible, that though struck by the remarkable absence of the male sex, he gave himself up to the influence of the situation, and waited with languid curiosity for the denouement of this pleasant little adventure." He smoked with the girls and shared their meals, and afterwards they dragged m a young girl of sixteen, attired m a silk dress, seated her by his side, and then commenced dancing round the pair. He could not make it out until his servant explained that, according to one of the customs of Thibet, he had, without knowing it, allowed himself to be married. Ha at first wished to resist, pleading English customs, but tho tribe among whom he was would accept no explanations, and he was compelled to take the girl with him. He intended to take her to Calcutta and hand her over there to the Catholic Sisters, but fortunately for him Lo-lzuncr, his bride, had an uncle m some distant part of the country, who took her off his hands, much to his relief. At Wei3se - foo, about a hundred milc3 to the north of Yunnan, ho was imprisoned, but after submitting to a good deal of black mail he managed to make his escape, chiefly by giving his guards as much opium as they could smoke. From this place he had to beat a retreat to Hankow again. In 1870, however, with a spirit of adventure still strong within him, he left Calcutta for Thibet, travelling through ABsam and by the line of the Brahmapootra. He did not get further than the village of Prun, where he was compelled to retire. Mr Cooper published tho records of his travels, and attracted the notice of tho Government of India, which attached him to its political service. As an attache to the Foreign Office, he brought out from England the banners and other valuable articles connected with the Imperial Assemblage, and after fulfilling that duty he was sent to Bhamo as therepresentativeof theGovetnment of India. No details have yet transpired as to tho reason of his murder, which is said to have been committed by one of his own guards ; but it is natural to suspect that the Burmese Government may have been concerned m the crime. Ever since the suspicions roused by the murder of Mr Margary, and the somewhat acrimonious correspondence that then took place between the Burmese Government and the Government of India, the feeling between the bigoted and arrogant ruler m Mandalay and the British Government has not beeu remarkable for cordiality, and it is possible that the guard who committed the murder was bribed by somebody belouging to the Burmese Government to do it. If this has bsen the case, we trust that the King of Burmah will once for all receive a sharp lesson to show him that the lives of Englishmen m his territory must be considered sacrod.