ON THE ARRAKAN YOMAHS 201 



their hill paddy. These people are very destructive to forests, 

 as they change their location every two years, trusting to the 

 ashes of what they have felled and burnt to manure their 

 crops for that period, then they seek fresh pastures. 



Just before dark we came to a teh, a raised platform fully 

 20 feet off the ground, but as there was space on it only 

 large enough to accommodate a couple of men sitting, I did 

 not think it worth while to ascend it, and although I was told 

 there were man-eating tigers about, I decided to take my 

 chance at the bottom, taking precautions to light fires all 

 round. My dinner was soon ready, and whilst I partook of it, 

 all hands but one servant set to work to collect wood. 



My meal finished and washed down with a bottle of that 

 divine nectar as it then existed, Bass's pale ale ; alas ! that 

 firm seems to have forgotten the knack of making the ale 

 which made them so famous in days gone by, or I cannot 

 get it, for the beer of the present day cannot hold a candle 

 to that which used to be exported in hogsheads to India in 

 the middle of this century, and which, when mature and 

 cooled, was a drink for the gods ! Never sleep on the ground 

 if it can be avoided, it is so simple to erect a platform of 

 bamboos or other wood a foot or two off the ground ; this 

 done, I wrapped a cumbly round me, and with an air-pillow 

 under the head I was soon asleep, and slept like a top till 

 within an hour of dawn, when we were all astir. Drinking a 

 cup of cafe noir, for no milk was procurable, we resumed our 

 march by daylight, and it was a case of ascending and 

 descending all day. The lower spurs of all considerable 

 mountains consist of a mass of teelahs ; no sooner have you 

 come to the crest of one than down you go into a valley, 

 cross a rivulet, and ascend a hillock higher than the last, and 

 so on, till the intermediary stage is passed and the base of the 

 mountains itself is reached, which may be at any altitude 

 from 600 to 1000 feet or more. About 6 p.m. we halted at 

 the top of a sk>pe, a stream running down close by. We 

 must have been fully thirty miles from Mendoon. The water 

 of this rivulet was deliciously cool and clear, and I utilized it 

 for cooling a bottle of beer. I delight in water for lavatory 

 purposes, but at my meals I prefer something stronger. 



