( 59 ) 



a landsman, I question if the indications would be apparent, even 

 when pointed out ; certainly they were not to me. 



106. For the last half hour the man heaving the lead may have 



been intoning na-ba-tun (which is 



IntricatenavigationontiHsxiver. tended for "no bottom"), in the most 



stentorian voice, and the next moment he will be heard to 

 yell in a higher key sara do balm (two and a half fathoms) ; this 

 draws the Captain to the side of the vessel, and the movements of the 

 man with the lead are expedited by a volley of nautical vociferation : 

 do balm (two fathoms) is the next sounding shrieked, and the Cap- 

 tain rushes to telegraph "half speed" to the engine-room — ek balm 

 (one fathom) is then heard, followed by the order to turn astern full 

 power, but it is too late : we are aground, and many of us on our 

 backs. This is no exaggregated sketch, but one that happens two 

 or three times on a voyage between Eangoon and Bhanio, so 

 treacherous are the channels : still the navigation on this river is 

 not nearly so intricate as that of the river Indus, for I believe the 

 Irrawaddy has seldom been known to entirely shift its navigable 

 course under a fortnight or a month, while a change in the set of 

 the cm-rent in the Indus, a few hours after the Pilots have taken 

 their soundings and decided on the course, will so entirely alter 

 the nature of the channels as to render the one first decided upon 

 the most dangerous. There is, perhaps, no river in the world, the 

 fickle nature of whose course and propensity to erode its banks 

 works greater changes, and with it brings more sorrow and ruin on 

 the population, than the Indus. In one season whole villages, and 

 even entire forests, are swept away, and the sites they once occupied 

 transformed into a desolate waste, studded with the debris of the 

 gigantic wreck, or converted into a sand-bank covered with a fresh 

 growth of tamarisk indica, whose seed has been brought down in 

 suspension by the river which now flows, perhaps, two or three miles 

 from its original course. No analogy can be drawn between the 

 surrounding scenery of the two great waters ; for, while the Indus 

 traverses a sparsely-wooded, flat, and uninteresting valley, eroding 

 its steep banks, which maybe seen yielding tons of earth and trees 

 to the boiling action of the under-current, the Irrawaddy winds its 

 course through a densely -wooded and mountainous land, whose 

 beauty cannot be surpassed. 



107. A little north of Singoo, the river is walled in on 



either side by a low line of coarse- 

 Entrance to third defile. sandstone hills, which take the form 



of a series of steps, the lowest reaching the water's edge. This is 

 known as the third defile or kyouk-dwen, signifying rock-pond, and 

 extends to Malee, with an average breadth of a quarter of a mile. 



