( 190 ) 



In respect to the remaining portion of my programme, he said, the 

 matter must be left to the discretion of my guide, who would better 

 be able to regulate my movements as we progressed ; on leaving, 

 he took my hand in both of his, and with a tremulous voice and 

 extra squeeze wished me good-bye, but appeared too agitated and 

 overcome to say more : the old fox played his part admirably ; I 

 am sure he must have once been educated for the stage. I failed 

 lamentably in doing justice to the scene ; the warning was too 

 short, though the by-standers endeavoured to elicit my sympathy 

 by drawing attention to the leaky condition of the Governor's eyes. 

 Yan Sing suggested that I should produce my handkerchief, and 

 trumpet in it ; but this would have overpoised the gravity I had 

 hitherto been able to preserve, and I should, I am afraid, have but 

 too clearly shown that I regarded the whole thing a farce. I left 

 Mogoung at 4 p.m. ; the first creek passed was the Nanmyne, which 

 forms the western boundary of Mogoung, and takes its rise in the 

 hills to the south-west. I made fast for the night at Nanpoung, a 

 Shan stockaded hamlet of seven houses. The country on either 

 bank thus far is fiat, and covered with high grasses and a few Salix. 



318. Thursday, 26th February 1874.— Thermometer, 69° at 

 6 a.m. ; heavy dew overnight ; I heard to-day for the first time 

 that Shan children take the names of their fathers, and wives that 

 of their husbands. Old Mogoung we passed by 2 p.m. ; nothing 

 more remains to mark the site of the old village but a long square 

 slab of sandstone on the right bank of the river. Here and there 

 I diverged to explore some little way inland. The country we 

 were passing through was very uninteresting ; a low range of hills 

 on either side, with a few stunted teak trees here and there, and 

 the banks overgrown with Saccliarum and Arundo grasses, was all 

 that was seen throughout the day. I collected specimens of a 

 giant creeper unknown to me. Made fast for the night at a sand 

 bank about two miles above old Mogoung. The cry of jungle fowl 

 was everywhere to be heard, but I did not get a shot. 



319. Friday, 27th February 25^.— Thermometer, 72° at 6 

 a.m. It was cloudy throughout the day : portions of the creek 

 were walled in by banks of sandstone formation, and here the 

 current was exceedingly strong. I gave my boatmen a rest at Nan- 

 soukir on the right bank, a hamlet of eighteen houses enclosed in 

 a bamboo stockade : nearly all the male population had left by 

 order of the Governor to attack a party of Kakhyens that had 

 committed a raid, on a village south, a few days back. Heavy 

 firing from the direction in which the men had gone could be 



* I am inclined to think it was here that queen Soognampha, in 1337 A.D., established 

 the capital of the Pong Kingdom. 



