* * * * *
And now lovely, lovely Burma!
I had not been in Burma two minutes before the very box containing the
clothes into which I must change before I could enter into the social
life of Bhamo swung from the broken pole of one of my coolies, and
rolled rapidly towards the river. It was recovered after great trouble.
Thick jungle land lay out before me, fleecy clouds in the dense blue sky
hung lazily over the green hills, the heavy air was pregnant with that
delicious ease known only in the tropics--all was still and sweet. The
river flowed grandly from the interior through magnificent forest
country, receiving on either shore the frequent tribute of other minor
streams, and its banks were marvelous cliffs of jungle--tangles of giant
trees on crowding underwood, clinging vine and festooning
parasite--rising sheer from the water's brink. Now long clusters of
villages, deep in the shade of palm and fruit trees; now wide expanses
of grass-grown meadow, where the grazing grounds dip to the river, and
where the only echoes of China are the resting pack-horse caravans--the
banks cut into huge trampled clefts by the passage of the kine trooping
down to drink.
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