climate, may be gathered from its conformation. It is
a long country reaching from the tenth to the twenty-
sixth degree of north latitude. In its extreme south
the sensation of cold is unknown. Save that there is
more rain at one season than at another, there is little
to choose at Mergui between June and December.
In the far north, on the borders of China, the cold is
bitter of winter nights, and men go clad in fur-lined
satins. In the middle country a great dryness prevails,
and the rainfall, excessive at either end, is reduced
there to twelve inches a year.
The great river Irrawaddy marshalled by hills and
mountains makes scenery that is as stately as it is
beautiful ; as passionate as it is serene. The mountains
visited by tropical rains sustain forests of primeval
growth, in which herds of elephants and rhinoceroses,
of wild cattle and deer, wander in comparative peace;
and at their summits, reaching in Mount Victoria a
height of eight thousand, and in Saramati a height of
twelve thousand feet, there grow the trees and flowers
of temperate climates, the oak, the pine, and the
violet. The gleam of snow upon Saramati and the:
more distant mountains of the northern hinterland
remind the traveller in Burma that he has put the
tropics behind him. In the flat lands of the Delta the
largest surplus rice crop of the world is produced ; in
the Mogok valley there lie buried the finest of rubies.
And lastly there is the sea with its infinite variety.
All along the coast it runs in a million ramifications
into the land, and the traveller for whom such travel
12
RAFT OF TEAK LOGS