--*> Over the Paung-Laung Hills
sent his broad shafts of light through the shady places !
H ow clear was the air, and pure, after the previous day’s
tribulation of rain ! How the quiet life of the place
unfolded itself before me with the interest of a play!
As the evening closed in, men who had been at
work came back from their toil ; carpenters, with their
tools over their shoulders, from the new bridge across
a neighbouring stream ; herdsmen with their droves of
red cattle ; labourers with their mattocks. A small
world of travelling men drew up and gathered at the
sa-khan for the night ; and the Shan with his red
wallet, his flapping hat and his dah across his shoulders ;
a Burman party of traders from Kyaikto ; a pothoodaw
in semi-clerical guise, a rosary in his hand. The cooking
fires were lit and the rice began to boil and simmer
in the pot ; and groups of men sat round the smoking
food to eat it with their hands. Thereafter white
cheroots, and story-telling, and ease ; and so, as the
night closed in, while bugles were blowing in far-away
centres of life—sleep. The. broad laugh, the bland
voice, were stilled in slumber, and no sound prevailed
save the cheeping of the crickets, the murmur of
running water, the intermittent call of the night-jar,
and the crash of the elephants feeding in the jungle.
Tinka-linka, tinka-linka, t in k B t in k— tink,
Tinka-linka, tinka-linka, tlink— tlink— tlink.
The melody of bells, now in unison, now in échelon,
as the speed of thé cattle varied, for a long while filled
the stillness of the dawn. There is some quality in
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