at the west end, but met with a striking sign of the recent decay of the place in the closed gate, and no house near enough to answer our call for admittance. We first passed through the grass-grown compound of a deserted monastery, then over a bridge-stile in moderately good repair, and next over a dry ditch filled with jungle-shrub, when the closed gateway and bamboo fence forbade our further approach. On each side the gateway stood a gigantic Palmyra (P. gigantea), as if to sentinel the unused portal. After trying in vain to force the gate or make some one hear us from within, we retired, and, passing down into the moat, got round to the river face, and met some of the villagers at the north gateway. They eagerly showed us the triple fence round their village, and the evidence for its necessity in the many ruined and deserted houses within. The Kakhyeens, they said, had destroyed the place; nearly all the people had left-some of them living for the present on the sand-bank opposite. Their enemies had last come upon them in September (about five months before); and they had had a regular fight, some fleeing, and others defending themselves from the Thoogyee's house, which still bore marks of the skir mish. Several houses in the village had been burnt, and nearly all looted. The poor people complained bitterly of these Kakhyeens. Only a few years ago, this village was wealthy and prosperous; now, it is scarcely a hamlet. To aggravate their case, they were heavily taxed in timber, which had to be delivered at the capital. His majesty, they said, knew nothing of the real state of the district, and so they begged that on my return I would lay their case before him. From Kyoungtoung to Sawuddy the boatmen had very hard work-the current being strong, and the bank so steep and covered with impediments of driftwood, jungly brushwood, prickly rattans, &c., that frequently both towing and poling were all but impracticable. Despite all obstacles, however, we reached Sawuddy a little after four in the afternoon, having determined to be there that evening. From Kyoungtoung the bank is of a stiff clay, and at some spots full forty feet from the water-level to the surface soil. At one reach I met with numbers of those singular concentric domein-dome concretions (fairy stones) of ochrey clay, imbedded in a dyke of blue clay, in which alone they were found, their shape being extremely uniform. On a bluff of the left bank, about 60 feet in height, stands the village of Sawuddy, which is approached from the river by several flights of steps cut in the bank. On the landward side it is enclosed by a substantial double bamboo fence-the inhabitants entertaining the same dread of the Kakhyeens as the people of Kyoungtoung. Outside the fence, at the time of our visit, was a company of these mountaineers, with their bullocks. They had come down for salt, and with the honest intentions of trade; but the Burmese and Shan inhabitants of the village were in a panic of fear, and would rather have been without them. I paid a visit to their encampment, but the villagers strongly protested against my going near such formidable monsters, lest I should suffer violence. They were certainly a set of fierce and powerful-looking savages— the very boys wearing swords, prepared apparently to enforce compliance where friendly terms might be declined. The Burmese do not allow them to come into the village, and at the gateway is a watch-tower, where sentinels are on duty day and night. We observed that the women all left the village at night to sleep in boats, on rafts, or in temporary huts in the neighbouring sand-island. Even the Kyoung* was removed to a raft, on which was erected a shed, whence the noise of children repeating their lessons (and later in the evening their prayers) came monotonously, and anything but musically, across the waters. It was considered unsafe for us to proceed further, so we moored under an island-one of the many that now stud the rapidly widening and shallower river--and awaited the light of the following morning. Not long ago we were told that a trading boat had been hailed in this neighbourhood by a party of Kakhyeens on the pretence of dealing. After buying some salt and salt-fish from the master, they persuaded him to wait till they apprised another party who had similar purchases to make. This the poor fellow did, and in less than half an hour a reinforcement of the rascals returned, attacked and killed the crew, carried off the cargo, broke up the boat, and set the wreck adrift down the river. 16th. To-day we threaded the maze of sandislands, shoals, and devious channels which form the river between Sawuddy and Bamò, which town we reached about dusk. I sent my native clerk to the governor with the royal order; and turned in for the night after an observation of the polar star, from which I made the latitude 23° 55′ 23". At this stage the river spreads out in a broad lake-like expanse studded with islands-some low and evidently under water *Kyoung, a Buddish monastery-the brotherhood as well as the building, and in this instance the former, during inundations, some higher and covered with jungle, while others are inhabited and partly under cultivation. Throughout the whole, however, the river still maintains a perceptible current-the deeper navigable channel lying towards the Bamò side. RESIDENCE AT BAMÒ. AND CARAVAN A STROLL THROUGH THE TOWN CHINESE TEMPLE AND PRIESTS- 17th February 1863.-Early in the morning Raj Singh went on shore to see about the house which was to be given me by the Bamò Woon, and on his sending word that all had been cleaned and put in order, the boatmen took up the luggage about eleven o'clock. In the interim I went on shore, and, passing through the Chinese street, visited their temple, which, like everything else at Bamò, bore an aspect of decay and neglect. The courts are large, but in dirty disorder, and the shrines are not nearly so rich in grotesque and ferocious images, or in ornamental gilding and furniture, as the Chinese temple at Amarapoora. Two miserable-looking priests, or Pongyees (as they told me |