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sort of chronologicial register to these people, for no Kakhyen can 

 tell you his age but will always give the number of clearings he has 

 survived. They are not dependent on the rains, but irrigate by 

 the mountain streams, which are so skilfully brought under con- 

 trol as to admit of the water being turned on, or off at pleasure : 

 excess of rain is therefore always more dreaded than drought. 

 Approaching Eonelein the path gradually narrowed, until it became 

 absolutely dangerous, and there was barely room for two people 

 to cross one another. To the left, was a perpendicular side of the 

 hill ; and on the right, a sheer drop of some hundreds of feet that 

 made one giddy to look down. Here my Kakhyen guide told us 

 to keep a sharp look out, as it was a favourite place of the moun- 

 taineers to commit plunder : they either fired down from above, or 

 hurled large boulders down on passers-by, — not an enviable posi- 

 tion evidently my Burmans thought, for they pushed on with fresh 

 life, not forgetting to do as they had been recommended. The 

 path terminated in a dislodged block of sandstone twenty-nine feet 

 high, said to have been hurled down on a rich Chinaman, whose 

 wealth was buried with him, and still remains beneath the stone. 

 Over this we had to climb by means of the niches made as substitutes 

 for steps, but they were so shallow and narrow, that I was obliged 

 to perform the feat without shoes or socks, — the only possible way 

 I could have got across. On the opposite side, the path was most 

 ingeniously faced with stone, and in places where the earth had been 

 partly washed away, the repairs were quite recent ; this continued to 

 the base of the last ascent, where I observed a cradle suspended to a 

 tree, with what I supposed to be the corpse of a child, — so carefully 

 were the contents rolled up in clean white cloth, and prettily 

 decorated with flowers, and canopied by a white sheet ; — but I was 

 mistaken, it turned out to be an embalmed dog, a bi-monthly offer- 

 ing to the ndt who is supposed to reside in this spot, and ward off 

 all evil-disposed persons. Ronelein stands at an elevation of 1,850 

 feet, and occupies the highest point of this range ; the thermometer 

 registered in the shade 69° 5' at 10*30 a.m., when we reached our 

 destination. A more romantic spot it would be difficult to imagine, 

 the houses are not huddled together as we had been accustomed to 

 see them in the villages of the plains, but the htay (house) which 

 affords accommodation to a whole family, — from the grand-parents 

 downwards, — has its separate little plot of land sufficiently cleaved 

 to admit of cultivation round about, without the entire area having 

 being denuded of its trees ; and when situated on the lpige of a 

 hill-side, the banks are carefully fenced with stone to protect them 

 from being washed away by rain. The first htay we came to was the 

 residence of the old patriarch whose acquaintance I had formed last 



