TH E MYSTIC SALWIN
the river curves in ample spaces, in which the whole
world of sky and mountain is mirrored.
A few miles more and my limit is reached. At
Yinbaung the- mountains close in on every hand ;
shadowy and fantastic masses deploy behind each other ;
the river is in the grip of its iron keepers. Yet its
power is unabated, and traces of its scorn and fury are
legible in the shattered rocks that have come into
nearest contact with it. Scarcely a vestige of their
own individuality survives I in everything they betray
their subjection to its caprice. Worn into the most
fantastic forms, hollowed out into caverns, sliced like
sawn timber,-pitted like the target of a battery of guns,
cut into pinnacles like ant-hills, they are graven with
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the imapfe of water in its rise and fall and infinite sue-
cession of waves.
The face of the river itself is at this season calm
and untroubled. One might take it, at a glance, for
some land-locked water without exit or entrance. But
a nearer look reveals a world of subdued life and passion,
of which symptoms may be traced on its calm. Some
of these are but faint dimples, delicate as any on a
woman’s face ; others are as rich in their involute beauty
as the rose windows of a cathedral; others, again, are
like wayward strings of pearls moving under a secret
influence; and some are like open-mouthed trumpets
whirling round at incredible speed. They are very
TH E HOME. OF- TH E FOREST RANGER