over a country of more than 2,500 square miles in
extent ; the finest of all the fine shooting grounds
of Burma.
Early dawn, and I am afloat once more on the
Chindwin, making the great curve above Homalin
under forest-clad cliffs ; while the mountain masses
deploy in the west, in peaks and waves and precipices.
Faint clouds hover near their summits, but
this morning not on them, and the first efforts of the
sun only make shadows fall on their broad expanses.
They are no hills these, but mountains of the grand
order, and the spectacle of them, their rocky peaks
and wooded valleys, so near that one can recognise all
the familiar features, stirs up a great longing to be
up amongst them. A h ! what views must expand from
there, over the fair river valley, and the waves upon
waves of mountains that roll away to the far plains of
the west! What under-worlds of fern and bracken, and
violets dew-besprinkled ! What beakers of divine a ir !
And for the rest, elephants crashing through the forest,
rhinoceroses in the secret woods, panthers in lair, wandering
herds of bison, and visionary pheasants dropping
from heights into the gloom of the sheltered valleys.
But I am bound to-day to the river, and may not
neglect its beauty, at this hour of soft lights and long
shadows. An island, with its familiar chisel-like apex,
bears down upon us in mid-stream. The river enfolds
it in two sweeping curves^ and it looks like a mighty
ship afloat. It is of a new order, for all the islands I
have hitherto met have borne the family feature of
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