C H A P T E R X X X V I I I
THE YU N ZA L IN
AT Kawkarit the whole character of my journey
suddenly changes. From a great and deep river,
I pass into a shallow-hearted forest stream f the
frowning crags and mystic battlements of the Salwin
have no fellowship with the narrower Yunzalin ; and
the sense of space gradually passes away. A new
world of travel opens out before me, for here I have
the jungle very near me, resonant with the music ot
many birds; swift waters racing over stony rapids ;
and a sultry air. The polesmen run up and down,
and are hard put to it at places, where the rapids
tax their utmost skill.
At one of these, as we pass on, a bamboo raft is
wrecked and jammed, fragments of it aimlessly floating
away, while its two occupants labour to release what
survives from the clutches of the rocks. Teak logs
float past, and where the press of timber obstructs
the passage of the Yunzalin, elephants toil to relieve
its congestion. Again and again I come upon the
felled timber lying " high and dry, wedged in among
the rocks, or shattered into touchwood.