on every hand. For another day or two I might
prolong the journey to where the cataract of Taro
forbids all progress ; but, to all practical purposes,
I am already at the end of civilised means of travel.
Leaving Tamanthe at grey dawn, I am now ascending
through loops and curves, and under cliffs buried
deep in forest. Miles of wild plantains line the more
level banks, and bamboos reach over with a million
fingers to the river’s edge. Toucans O 0 and hornbills
flutter purple through the spaces; peacocks throw their
splendid plumage to the sun ; the narrow turnings blaze
with the jewels of the morning. Here and there at
long intervals a village shelters, pathetic in its suggestion
of human loneliness. At Tonma Hlut the river
turns westward; the mountains deploy. In the foreground
there are green hills, and at the turn—again
north—the whirlpool of Tonlon lies in wait. Duck
wing in flights up the river courses. Tributaries steal
through the woods, charged with the secrets of their
hidden birthplace. The air pulses with the spirit of
the unknown. That is the charm of these lonely
reaches.
I continue north. Saramati and the great peaks rise
above, me in a great wall to the west. Every mile the
ship steams on takes me nearer to blessed centres of
the Temperate Zone'/; and here, and at this season
(October), the climate attains to something that is very
near perfection. The sky is a clear and limpid blue.
The clouds that are never wholly absent through the
hours add to it only gracious things—light, and action,
and an infinite variety. At the close and at the dawn
of each day, they are palettes for every colour that
can rejoice the eyes of man. All through the long
hours of the day they swoon on the mirror face of
the river, and every peak has their benediction. High
noon has no power in it to overcome the coolness of
the air. Midnight has not yet learnt her secret of
chilling cold. There is»- no rawness yet in the dawn.
At this turning season Nature seems to suspend her
life, in some subtle state of equilibrium. Summer and
winter mingle in full harmony ; and the coming panoplies
of autumn give no note of their approach in the
heart of the green forests, where ferns drip, and flowers
breathe, as if the spring were young.
Fresh curves and avenues bring me to Malin, and
the river still runs on in its pride, as though-it derived
its life from secret springs, and cared nothing for its
tributaries-Jihe Myittha, and the Uyu and the Nam
Talei-jpe'ft far in the 'fading south.
I pas® into the territories- of Zingkaling Hkamti,
three hundred miles due west of Tali Fu, and in a
line with the confluence of the Irrawaddy. The state,
almost extinct when the British power advanced up the
waters of the Chindwin, was revived in favour of a scion
of the old royal house. 11 has an area of two thousand
square miles, extending northwards as far as the
waterfall, which finally forbids the navigation of the
Chindwin, and it is one o f the last surviving relics of
the ancient Shan kingdom, which long disputed the
supremacy of the Burmese race' in the valley of the