living there and he is in debt. And Kindat is hated
for these things, and because it is built on a low slip
of fever-haunted land, between a marsh and a river.
Yet all things have their relative value, and to the
timber-cutter, fresh from the solitude of the jungle,
Kindat is a little capital ; for it is a place in which
there is more than one white man.
From Kindat to Homalin, a distance of 147 miles,
there is little regular traffic, save by means of the
Government launches, which ply to and fro with military
stores and rations and bodies of armed men. Yet it
is above Kindat that the fascination of remote travel
finds its full expression.
Past Tatkon, where peewits wing their flight, and
glossy ferns and foliage rising in tiers grace the steep
banks of the river, the traveller bound for Homalin
comes to Pantha and its clusters of white pagodas.
Thereafter, the river sweeps round under two thousand
feet of hills, and receives the tribute of the Yu from the
valley of Kale. Manipur is not far distant, and troops
have marched this way to the relief of beleaguered garrisons.
The telegraph wire, earliest pioneer of British
civilisation, here crosses the Chindwin to Tammu, as
far as which outpost the Yu is navigable. At Kadu-
gyabaung the river, flowing through a picturesque defile,
makes a curve, from the apex of which its course can
be traced through three-quarters of a circle. The curve
completes itself under a magnificent cliff, that is crowned
with pagodas and is sacred to a nat. It is known as
the Shw¿ Palin Daung, and it is typical of the hills
426
TH E HAMLET OF SITTAUNG