changes of their tragic character. The most .callous
cannot regard the fall of a nation without some sorrow,
or the final extinction of a picturesque Court and of
ancient institutions without regret. “ Burma,” in the
words of the royal chronicler of China, “ Burma, from
the Han dynasty until our .
day, has existed for over
seventeen hundred years,
and now alas! by reason of
a few years of tyranny and
indiscretion on the part of
its monarch, the country
has been obliterated in the
twinkling of an eye.”
Not the least of its
many fascinations is the
mystery which shrouds the
river’s birthplace. Soon
after entering Burma it
presents the appearance of
a pellucid stream eight
hundred yards in width.
. r , . K A CH IN WOMEN I hat is the farthest knowledge
of it possessed by the ordinary traveller. The
men who live up there, the Englishmen who rule and
fight in the wild border country, know it a little farther,
as far up as and beyond the confluence, where the
N’Maikha and N ’Mlekha, its two main sources, unite.
Beyond this point the Irrawaddy is unnavigable, and
it has not yet been given to any man to say whence it
H