The Last of the Mekong 233 
an extensive beach composed of shingle and_ boulders, 
some of the latter being of enormous size. Here then was 
some hint of the prodigious feats of strength performed by 
the Salween during the summer rise, for it was evident 
that these well-smoothed masses of stone were not only 
covered at high water, being indeed scarcely fifteen feet 
above the present level, but that they were also picked up 
and flung about in the most reckless confusion, like so 
much flotsam. Indeed, the rise of a big river like the 
Salween, which not merely receives an enormous accession 
of water from the melting of the snows towards its source, 
but is at the same time inundated throughout the length 
and breadth of its valley for over a thousand miles by the 
monsoon rains, passes belief till one has seen it. The roar 
of the rapid was very plainly heard in the hut where we 
slept, but what must it not be night and day throughout 
the summer when boulders weighing several tons are being 
ground against each other like pebbles in a rill! 
The much greater volume of water brought down by 
the Salween was now apparent, as was also the far heavier 
local rainfall. The Mekong gorge may be briefly described 
as V-shaped in cross section, the Salween valley as U-shaped, 
and to this circumstance must be attributed its greater 
population in the monsoon area, since here there is far 
more land available for cultivation. The distant views we 
were able to obtain up or down the valley presented a 
charming picture of the river winding between mountainous 
spurs which, thrust boldly out from the dark forested ridge 
to the west, rose one beyond another till they became 
blurred and indistinct in the haze, and were thus entirely 
different from the burnt-up cliffs of the Mekong, standing 
out sharply in the immediate foreground and forbidding 
any view down the tortuous gorges. 
On the right bank the valley rises gradually at first, the 
slope becoming more and more abrupt as the crest of the 
divide is approached. Torrents plunging down the preci- 
pices have dissected the country below into rolling foot- 
hills, breached by wide-mouthed openings from which 
project extensive alluvial fans sloping gently to the river. 
These contiguous fans have been built out till they now 
form a shelf averaging a mile in breadth and terraced 
