138 Notes of a trip up the Sahveen. [No. 3, 



a general southerly direction until it joins the Salween at Kankareet, 

 a little below the Hat-gyee. It drains a very mountainous district, 

 and during the rainy season, rolls down a considerable body of water, but 

 during the dry weather, it is a shallow rocky stream, full of rapids and 

 scours. It takes small boats 15 or 20 days to ascend from Kankareet 

 to Pahpoon, about two-thirds of its course. It took us 5 days to 

 descend that distance. 



The valley of the Yoonzalin is an extremely wild and almost 

 uninhabited district. All the way from Bangatah in the valley of the 

 Sittoung to Panpoon we did not meet with a single village. The 

 Karens, the only inhabitants, are very few and scattered ; and they 

 have been so harried during the last few years, by the incursions of 

 the Shan Pretender who styled himself Ming-loung, on the one side : 

 and by us, in our attempts to drive him out, on the other, that they 

 have hidden themselves away in the most inaccessible places. Occa- 

 sionally only we saw a stray house or two perched up on the top of 

 some distant mountain, or on its almost perpendicular side, with no 

 vi>ible way of approach from the spot where we stood. When the 

 inhabitants become reassured and gain confidence in the permanency of 

 peace, they will no doubt increase, and settle down in more accessible 

 places. 



I will not attempt any description of the scenery of this district, 

 because mountain scenery in one place is very like mountain scenery 

 in another place ; and because I have rarely found that attempted 

 descriptions of the kind convey any definite picture to the mind. . All 

 that needs be said is, that it was extremely wild and beautiful, and 

 afforded all that endless variety of view which a chaos of mountains 

 rudely thrown together, might be expected to afford. Neither shall I 

 give the length of the stages which we performed, nor the names of 

 the places where we halted ; for these places were not villages, only well 

 known spots conveniently chosen for the purpose, as combining the 

 advantages of level ground and water. And the stages, if measured 

 by miles, might appear small; though measured by labour, by no 

 means so. A more laborious, at the same time thoroughly enjoyable 

 walking tour I never took. It is ceaseless ascent and descent, to the 

 extent of several thousand feet a day, all the way. There are two 

 words in Burmese for hill : Toung : and Ron. A Toung, hereabouts, is 



