1865.] Notes of a trip up the Sahoeen. 143 



by a small ladder on to our house, and on going to the front of a 

 broad bidcony or verandah ornamented with a balustrade, the whole 

 made of bamboo, we found that the boughs of the trees had been cut 

 away in front, and that we stood over a large circular pool of water 

 into which the Yoonzalin poured itself on one side, and out of which 

 it flowed on the other, and we had the best view that it was possible 

 to have. "We were in a perfect punch-bowl, shut in by almost perpen- 

 dicular mountains on all sides. Before us lay the still pool, 60 feet 

 deep and about 150 yards across: we heard the roar of the water 

 rushing in and rushing out, but, so hemmed in with rocks is the spot 

 that we could neither see the course of the river above or below. As 

 I said, we were charmed with the place, but where was the waterfall 

 of 400 feet ? The reply was, that this was the " Yaytagon" (so the 

 Burmese call a waterfall) and that there was nothing more to be seen 

 than this ! A raft of bamboos was made for us, and on it we went 

 close up to the " emooucliure n of the stream, the mouth of the passage 

 through which the water from above pours into the pool. It was a 

 singular- sight. The whole of the waters of the Yoonzalin at this 

 point are poured through a long, straight, and very narrow street of 

 rock. The passage, or street as I call it, through the rock is perfectly 

 straight, about 14 feet wide only, and having exactly the same width 

 throughout its whole length, which is about 20 or 30 yards. The rock, 

 granite, rises on either side of this passage to the height, in the centre, 

 of about 50 feet in perpendicular walls with smooth faces, as straight 

 and smooth as if measured with a plumb line, and cut with a hay- 

 knife. As the water enters the upper end of this passage at a right 

 angle, we could see no more of the river than the length of the 

 passage, but we could hear the roar of the water as it boiled and 

 bubbled in its tortuous and bouldered channel above. But though 

 lashed into foam above, so smooth and polished is the narrow passage 

 that the water glides through it with a surface like glass, and sinks at 

 once to the bottom of the pool, causing little or no commotion in it. I 

 climbed to the top of the overhanging rock on one side to get a sight 

 of the river above, but it takes so many short and sudden turns and 

 the gorge in the mountains is so narrow, that I could see but a few 

 yards upwards. Thinking that we had seen all that was to be seen, and 

 having already spent a day and a half here, we determined to set out 



