rustling, wind-blown savannahs, set with noble trees,
park-like, and of a light emerald-green. Here I come
to dark forest, and white stems ; forest to the outer
bulwarks, overhanging the very lips of the river. All
that I can fancy of American rivers in the north is here
depicted. There is no whisper of the East. The
change is opportune, for it reminds me that I have
passed out of the tropics, and am now within the
Temperate Zone
■—a comforting reflection,
when one
lives very near the
.... - Equator.
... % Sein Kan, with
its orange orchards
and the red spires
of its monastery,
waits .at the turning
of the river,
SARAMATI IN TH E DISTANCE
and its next curve, a quick, short loop, brings us up
to Kawya. For a long while past the wooded banks
of the river have talked of pines, and here the likeness
may be recorded. Straight grey trunks of the silver
hue and the nude beauty of the longifolia, gnarled and
twisted arms, and light summit foliage, make these
trees look like twin brothers of the pines, , and one is
grateful .for the suggestion. Also, when the red light
of evening flames on their bare trunks and arms, and
the sky is cut into patterns by their fantasies, it is
difficult to resist the illusion.
is a pleasing little village of the Shan.
Lanes wind through it, piloted by rustic fences.
Flowers add somewhat to its charm. The houses stand
for the most part in little enclosures of their own, and
it is not their way here to face the street. They are
roofed with rough palm thatch which projects far ovre
KAWYA
the front of each house in a semicircle. Under its open
shelter, weaving and winnowing and many other household
avocations are performed. Tea grows at Kawya,
but the bushes are allowed to grow up untrimmed.
Behind the village, amongst the tea-plants, one is rather
in a rough orchard, half jungle, than in a trim teaKawya