at Daung-sarit it was perhaps two hundred yards
across. But gradually it widened, and trees and grasses
increased.
The launch stopped at intervals to pick up and
disembark passengers, who went to and fro in her
sampan. I was in a country boat, enjoying the novelty
of being towed. The sensation of motion without effort
was attractive; there was neither creak of oar nor
throb of paddle, and it felt like floating over velvet. A
faint oscillation alone conveyed a hint of movement.
But whenever the launch forged ahead after a pause,
the boat for an instant shot forward as the hawser
pulled, only to lapse once more into its state of rest..
Cotton-trees, with their candelabra tracery and scarlet
bloom, made their patterns against the blue. The
sky was charged with electric clouds; the landscape
of mountains looked pale in the mists of advancing
summer ; the glare of noon was oppressive to my eyes ;
yet there was a breeze upon the river, and travel in
this country boat proved far from unpleasant.
At Myit-kyo I reached the mouth of the Pegu-
Sittang canal, constructed to circumvent the bore of
the Sittang. Coringhi labourers abounded here, and
natives of India generally. Lock-gates shut off the
canal from the river, and an avenue of acacias followed
the banks of the canal. There were a few shops by
the wayside, and in the distance, emerging like an
island from a sea of grass, stood a monastery, typical
of the Delta. After a while the Pegu launch came in ;
we shipped some passengers, and proceeded on our
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way. Villages lined the banks and the river ever
widened as we went.
At Khayo low hills again descended to the stream’s
edge, and behind them rose the blue bulwarks of the
Paung-Laung hills, an outcrop of white rocks near
their summits giving an impression of snow. But as
the sun paled, they stood out clear and blue against
the tinted sky. Cotton-trees and birds innumerable,
plantain-groves and mangoes bursting into bloom,
pagodas upon the river heights, met me as I took my
way, and so I came in the late evening to Sittang.
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