The Silken East <*-
rafts and boats on their way to Maubin. But this life
does not begin to move on the river till the last expected
rise has taken place, and the bare sandbanks
leave the channel more defined. Raft-owners profit
also by the buoys of the Flotilla Company, which begin
to appear by the first of November. At that time an
officer of the company who spends each summer in
CATTLE-RAFT
England returns to his work on the river, and, day
by day and foot by foot, marks out with a hundred
thousand buoys the navigable channel. The company
¡2 in fact supreme on the Irrawaddy. Its steamers bear
its trade,, and every hamlet and town along the river’s
course for nine hundred miles is conscious of its
presence. But a hundred years ago it would have done
more ; it would have won for itself the sovereign power
in Burma.
THE ANANDA PAGODA AT PAGAN
