all its burden, the driver stands up and calls to his cattle
by name. They make a splendid, frantic effort, go down
on their knees, recover, and so come panting out of the
slough in which they have been all but entombed. Such
is the Burman unmetalled highway at this season, after
three days of fine weather.
T H E V IL LA G E
After tea, partaken of under the shelter of a village
stockade, I set out again, leaving the cart to follow.
The darkness comes very swiftly after the sun has set.
Happily, thé moon is nearly full.
Ye-gyan-zin lies high on a ridge of hills, the watershed
between the valleys of the Mahtoon and the Pani,
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and to Ye-gyan-zin we climb. The road is bad in
places, running into and along the beds of streams ;
but much of it lies through waving grasses and rich
forest, bathed in the moonlight.
From the rest-house at Ye-gyan-zin one gets a
glimpse into the true life of these wild and sparsely
inhabited countries. There is scarcely a breath of air
stirring, but the night is resonant with the cheep of
crickets, and there is a wide view over hilly tracts to
the blue outline of the Yoma and the white moonlit
clouds beyond. A pony tethered here was carried
off by a tiger a few days ago ; a Chin was killed in
the early dawn as he went out to his fields. Night
after night there is the same stillness ; the pageantry
of the hours unfolds itself; dawn and noon and
evening follow incessant on each other’s footsteps;
as they have done all through the incalculable years.
Here is something of the romance of the primeval
country ; wide spaces are visible from here, which
no human being has yet brought under dominion.
LO O K ING DOWN ON TH E V A L L E Y OF TH E MAHTOON
293