TSEKOU TO KHAMTI 



undressed as usual, squatted on a rock apart, beneath a great 

 tree, whose branches swept the stream and up-bore a hanging 

 garden of ferns, orchids, and woodbine clinging by long lianas 

 to the forest behind. This forest assumed more and more the 

 character of warm regions ; the bamboos were enormous, tree- 

 ferns 30 feet high, and above the pale green stars with which the 

 plantains studded the hills palms with their metallic sheen rose 

 rigid and erect. But from the dense mass of humid vegetation 

 issued an army of leeches ; they dropped from the bushes, they 

 crawled upon the ground, and fastened on the calves of the men. 

 Even we in our boots were not spared. Although their puncture 

 was not painful, it often caused a wound to spread round the 

 place. 



On the 30th (October) we reached at nightfall another con- 

 fluence of two torrents. One was the Dublu, the other was 

 the Neydu or Telo — the great river of which we had heard 

 so much, its silent tide and tranquil depth! " Voces non c/aniant,'* 

 as the poetic Joseph rendered it. 



It was a wretched disappointment. Instead of level fields, 

 hills and impenetrable forest as before ; instead of houses, crags 

 as savage as any in the valley of the Kiou-kiang. We did not 

 feel in the least moved to join in the songs of our men. 

 Nevertheless, the lengthy stage of the day had gained us ground, 

 and here the proverb " Time is money " was fast becoming " Time 

 is life." 



We had attained one of the principal feeders of the Irawadi. 



Like the Kiou-kiang, it did not come from far, but it brought 



a considerable body of water, and it is the great number of 



these large tributaries that accounts for a river of the size of 



the Irawadi in Burmah. 



T 289 



