180 FOREST LIFE AND SPORT IN INDIA 
Irrawadi at its cold-weather level. He passes between 
sandy or rocky banks that obscure the distant view, 
at a season when the forests have already lost their 
full vitality ; he cannot realize the greater charm of 
being borne on the summer floods high above islands, 
of struggling against the foam-capped waves on the 
open reaches, or of fighting against cross-currents 
and whirlpools that are concealing the fair-weather 
waterway. He will not see the great wooden boats 
with high sterns and bellying sails blown against the 
stream by the more powerful monsoon, nor the timber 
and bamboo rafts like floating villages sullenly swing- 
ing with the current. He travels in ease under 
brilliant skies in an Irrawadi Flotilla mail-steamer, 
and recks little of the adventures of those who in 
smaller, sometimes tiny, craft brave the dangers of 
this noble river. 
The Burmans are excellent sailormen, and at home 
on the water. They manage their own boats with 
consummate skill, and it is surely only owing to 
their general untrustworthiness that the less volatile 
Mohammedan is chosen to man all European craft. 
From the villages the whole population turn out 
daily to bathe, and much fun and chaff goes on at 
this social hour. It is a lesson in skilful modesty to 
watch the manner in which the women undress as 
they gradually enter the muddy water, and don their 
clothes as they slowly emerge, to stand on the bank 
radiant in their dry costumes. 
The small boys at the same time will be disporting 
themselves by towing a log laboriously to the head 
of a neighbouring rapid, and whirling down astride 
it, often falling off and swimming like frogs to land, 
