The shadowy jungle grows visible, one tree from
another ; the light falls in rippling bars across the river.
From the forest across the water there peals the shrill
sex-call of a tigress seeking her mate.
For a little while longer we smoke on under the
spell of the night and the bivouac. Then, one by one,
the company turns in under shelter, voices die down ;
the gurgle of huquahs ceases ; the embers of the untended
fire pale amidst the ashes. The moon has not
climbed three spears’ lengths of her way across the
heavens, when one and all of us lie in the deep
sleep that comes after a long day of toil.
As we near Pha-pun, the valley of the river widens
and yields more room for cultivation. Wild cottop-trees
reappear in great luxuriance, their rose-scarlet tracery
of bloom cut into the blue sky, their branches peopled
with monkeys and starlings ; and where they rise up
from the river’s edge, whole navies of red blossom
sweep along the surface of the water. Towards sunset
the colours become exquisitely soft and tender, and the
wild primeval character of the jungle is no longer
manifest.
PHA-PUN
Pha-pun is -a little: island of shadowy civilisation,
amidst the wilds of the Salwin and the Ytinzalin. It is
the capital of the district, and the only settlement within
its limits that can under any pretence be described as
a town. Its claim to notice, lies in this, that it stands
here an embodied symbol of the British power.
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THE WILD COTTON-TREE IN BLOOM