IN THE CHITTAGONG HILL TRACTS 115 



4.30 that morning, but did not leave till 7.30 and had a 

 shocking morning of it. The weather had completely 

 changed. It had pelted with rain during the night and 

 about eight o'clock a thunderstorm commenced and we had 

 three hours of heavy rain. It was horribly cold and the 

 mat roofing of my boat leaked like a sieve. I had to give up 

 reading and in the end smoking also. I could not even 

 swear in comfort, so I lay upon my back and stoically bore 

 being leaked upon. Yesterday baked and roasted and 

 parched with thirst the contrast this morning was almost 

 ludicrous in its completeness. My only consolation was that 

 the Commissioner had seen the hills blazing as I had 

 promised him he would. Had the rain come twenty-four 

 hours earlier I should not have had the satisfaction of 

 having this point definitely settled. About 11.30 it 

 brightened and I shortly heard a hail and was brought along- 

 side the Commissioner's boat. He invited me in and we sat 

 back to back under the bamboo covering, the only way 

 we could sit without upsetting the craft, and had a strong 

 whiskey and soda and some biscuits. (We were not always 

 drinking whiskies and sodas. But whiskey is the best 

 antidote to malaria in unusual conditions such as we had 

 been experiencing). Soon after one of the boatmen in 

 front shouted " Samp, sahib, samp." I crawled out at the 

 end and sure enough a large grass snake was swimming 

 across the river just in front of the boat. I had never seen 

 one swimming before and the pace it went was prodigious. 

 The Commissioner shot it. This woke us up a bit and I soon 

 after got a brace of jungle cock, a number of these birds 

 and the black Kaleej pheasants having come down to the 

 river's edge to drink. We reached the landing-stage below 

 the falls of this river at 2.30 and had breakfast, another 

 thunderstorm hovering about making this a hurried meal. 

 A little tramway connects the section of rapids below 

 the falls and the rapids above them, with the navig- 

 able waters higher up and, breakfast over, we got on to a 

 trolley and were run up to the bungalow at the Falls, 

 reaching the house just as a thunderstorm burst over us. 

 The line runs through thick forest with hills rising above 

 the river, the scenery being exceedingly picturesque. This 

 bungalow really forms the southern outpost of the wild 

 frontier country which stretches for league on league to the 

 north and east, the few white men who rule this part being 



