( 89 ) 



164. According to appointment the Governor called the follow- 



, . .. ing day, and I made it a duty to show 



Governor s visit. i • xii j- i i i t i 



him the same cordial welcome he had 

 extended to me. We chatted away over tea and biscuits for about 

 quarter of an horn*, the conversation chiefly being of an official 

 nature. He reiterated his regret at my determination to travel 

 among the mountaineers, and offered some really very good and 

 sound advice, in case I should fall into difficulties. I was glad he had 

 found time to return my visit, or I should have been disappointed 

 in the character I had formed of him ; — certainly he was by no 

 means called upon to show me a civility, he had up to that time, 

 not even extended to the Assistant Resident, and I was told not 

 to expect it of him. 



165. In the evening Mr. Cooper and myself as usual went out 



, . _ shooting, and I was sorry to find on 



Misconduct of two Peons. . ° n , e ±i 



our return that two of my peons — the 

 party already spoken of as a debauchee, and his companion, an 

 equal sybarite — had disarmed some Shans and shown them over the 

 Residency ! I was greatly put out at this, and requested Mr. Cooper 

 to have the men confined in the guard-house till next morning, 

 when they had twenty-four stripes each administered, and confined 

 to the Residency compound for the remainder of their stay at 

 Bhamo. I was not aware native liquor was procurable here, until 

 Mr. Cooper informed me that shumshoo was openly sold by the 

 Chinese, and that it was not very long since that he had to 

 punish one of his guard for getting drunk ; had I only known this, 

 I should have been on the qui vive, knowing the character of my 

 escort. 



166. In the course of my wanderings through the suburbs I came 

 Observations on the Kakhyens on a number of Kakhyens encamped 



found encamped under a Ficus under a wide-spreading Ficus elastica. 

 elastica tree. ^he p ar ty consisted of thirty; — 



fourteen men with their families — who had come down from the 

 neighbouring moimtain to barter fire-wood, pigs, silver, rice, bark 

 of cinnamomum cassia (which is used as a substitute for C. 

 zeylanicum), and other natural and cultivated products of the hills ; 

 for salt, suparee, cowries (cyprcea moneta), cotton, gaudy cloths, 

 beads, &c, &c. They were busy cooking opium in a small brass 

 spoon, sufficiently large to hold half a wine-glass of water ; a piece 

 of the drug, about the size of an ordinary pill, was thrown in, and 

 allowed to simmer for a few minutes ; the liquor was poured off 

 and fresh water added ; this process was repeated three times ; 

 when the pill was thrown away, and the liquor boiled down to the 



12 



