river, a white pagoda, a telegraph office, and many
palms. The telegraph wire spans the whole width of
the river. Masein bore an evil reputation in the first
days after the war, and from its cliffs the outlaws who
haunted it kept a sharp lookout for the coming of the
troops. These cliffs indeed are like the walls of a
mighty natural fortress.
For a long distance above Masein the river curves
majestically under the blue wooded mountains. Their
crests are cut like the sharp over-reaching teeth of a
saw, and the effect of this succession of curved teeth,
all curving up-stream, is a singular one, for they make
the mountains look as if they were pursuing the river.
For miles there is no sign of human habitation, till we
come upon the hamlet of “ Nancy Lee,” a collection
of huts and plantain-groves, a small pagoda, and a
chapel, built to appease the evil spirit of the place. It is
built on the bank of a creek, which flows through a deep
gorge, from whose far gloomy interior the trunks of
trees are floated down by the timber-contractors. In
the flood season the timber, rushing together down the
narrow waters, is stayed in its progress, and the chaos
of logs, plunging and crashing in the fury pf the river,
[ piles up incessantly as each new log is added to the
[ mass. The loneliness, the savage isolation of such a
spot, is heightened for a white man by the knowledge
that, far away behind the gorge, and in the remotest
; places of the hills, there are Englishmen who spend
their lives in the timber trade. It is one thing to pass
| swiftly by in a steamer equipped with the comforts of