a British force at bay at Donabyu. But the tale is an
old one, fading swiftly into the past. The rice-fields in
their season wave yellow in the midst of Bandoola s entrenchments,
and a grave or two, and lines of grass-
covered ramparts, are all that survive of that episode.
Two hours north of Donabyu there become visible
for the first time the blue outlines of those hills which
henceforth to the uttermost northern frontier are never
absent from the landscape. At noon the river spreads
over immense areas, encircling islands and flooding the
low-lying tracts. Its width, one would think, is at least
miles. At two o’clock it still continues immense, but
is less scattered. Numerous villages deploy on its
banks, many of them large and flourishing. But a
village here makes in truth but a small feature of
the landscape; little more than a line between vast
spaces of cloud-emblazoned sky and dun water. Palmyras
mark its presence, and the tapering spires of
pagodas and monasteries lift it up to some little dignity.
Women, clad in the one garment that does not detract
from their natural beauty, come down with their pitchers
to the water, and the children, clad in nothing, plunge
into it and swim, as happy and as much at home in the
bountiful river as they are on land.
The colours at this season (August) vary with the
rain, which comes down in purple sheets, blotting out
whole tracts of the horizon, while the sunlight pours
and flames on the rest of the circle. The only monotony
-is that of space.
As we near Henzada, the apex of the Delta, the