1865.] Notes of a trip up the Salween. 135 



Notes of a trip up the Salween — By Rev, C. Parish. 

 [Received 30th June, 1865.] 



In March, last, as I had never travelled on the Martahan side of the 

 Salween, and as I had heen promised hy Captain Harrison, the Deputy 

 Commissioner of Shway-gyeen, that, if I would pay him a visit, he 

 would accompany me through the Fir forests of the Yoonzalin, which 

 I have long wished to see ; I availed myself of a month's privilege 

 leave to take a trip northwards. Col. Fytche was going, at the same 

 time, on his official tour to Shway-gyeen. His company was an 

 additional inducement to go in that direction. 



The road to Shway-gyeen lies through Beling and Sittoung, and 

 affords good riding ground all the way in the dry season, as it keeps 

 to the plain, leaving the mountains on the right hand, that is, on the 

 east. These mountains, which, N. E. of Shway-gyeen, cover a great 

 breadth of country, divide themselves towards the south into two 

 narrow ranges, one of which separates the Yoonzalin and Salween 

 rivers, terminating at their point of confluence : the other and longer 

 range terminates at Martaban, and is the watershed between the 

 Sittoung and Beling rivers on the west, and the lower Salween on 

 the east. Westward of the latter range stretches a vast plain ; and it 

 is along this plain, parallel with the mountains, though at some 

 little distance from them, that the road from Martaban to Shway-gyeen 

 lies. 



While at Beling, on the way, I rode out in company with Col. 

 Fytche and Capt. Harrison to a place called Kothanaiong, about 7 

 miles off, to see the Amherstia trees there. This place had often been 

 mentioned as one where the Amherstia was to be seen in great 

 perfection, and where, indeed, it might perhaps he wild. I was well 

 rewarded, for a prettier little spot I never visited. The Amherstias, 

 growing in a well-shaded place and watered by a perennial stream 

 which tumbles down a steep granite hill, and is ingeniously directed 

 hither and thither in large bamboo troughs, were, indeed, to be seen 

 in the wildest luxuriance of growth. But Kothanaiong is a sacred 

 spot. Here are Pagodas, Pongyee-houses, Zayats all around. A flight 

 of stone steps leads from the bottom to the top of the overhanging 



