BTRDS OF UPPER PEGU. 9 



still stands a huge pagoda, which, like those of Rangoon and 

 Prome, attract many people at certain festivals and are held in 

 much veneration. 



" The cantonment is of an irregular shape, well- wooded and 

 traversed by many roads ; hut the general appearance of the station 

 is not so neat as that of Thayetmyo. Officers' houses and military 

 buildings are, however, very similar. The garrison consists of a 

 wing of European infantry, a small battery of artillery (with the 

 guns drawn by Burman ponies), and a regiment of sepoys. 



" The Sittang is a shallow river, unnavigable by any thing 

 larger than a Burmese boat. The trip from Rangoon to Tonghoo 

 occupies eighteen or twenty days under favorable circumstances ! '" 



Of the country west of the Irrawaddy, in the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood of Thayetmyo, Captain Feilden says : — 



" You ask for a description of Thayetmyo. The country is one 

 difficult to describe ; its general appearance is not unlike that 

 of the lower ranges of the Western Ghats, where they are crossed 

 by the Bombay and Poona Railway; but the hills, instead of being 

 masses of rock, are a mixture of mud and gravel. 



" The country rises from the bed of the Irrawaddy (which is 

 composed of whitish sand mixed with mud) in a mass of un- 

 dulating ground intersected in every direction by deep ravines, 

 which never appear to run for two yards in the same direction, 

 but all eventually work their way into three tolerably large 

 streams which empty themselves into the Irrawaddy, one south, 

 one just to the north, and the third about two miles north of 

 Thayetmyo. Two of these streams appear to take their rise in 

 table-land, perhaps fifteen miles west of Thayetmyo, without any 

 reference to the hill ranges through which one of them cuts 

 its way, forming a rocky torrent, in which the Fork-tail (E: 

 immaculatus) is found. The other rises far inland, running south 

 of a long range of hills said to be a spur of the Arracan Moun- 

 tains. A very peculiar hill, cut into two parts by the stream 

 already mentioned, rises perhaps seven miles west of Thayetmyo. 

 It appears to break through the undulating mass of twisting 

 ravines, without affecting them in the least ; they run steadily 

 up to its eastern slope, and continue their rise from the western 

 slope far away into the interior. Another line of hills, running 

 south-east from the southern slope of this hill, reaches the 

 Irrawaddy perhaps eight miles south of Thayetmyo. 



" These hills occupy rather more than a quarter of the horizon, 

 and the spur of the Arracan Mountains occupies a considerable 

 space to the north, so that Thayetmyo is almost surrounded by 

 hills on the land side. 



" The ravines in the hill ranges are rocky, and rock breaks 

 through the crest of the hills in one or two places ; but the whole 

 of the rest of the country consists of black soil, like cotton soil, 



B 



