FORESTERS’ LIFE IN BURMA 181 
to repeat the amusement. Then from the nearest 
monastery arrive the acolytes with bamboo water- 
pots, 6 feet long and 7 or 8 inches in diameter. 
They swim out into the stream, and fill them with 
unpolluted water for the use of the monks. The 
evening falls with the tinkling of pagoda bells and 
the booming of gongs, commencing at first with 
single slow notes, and rising in rapid crescendo till 
the air is converted into waves of sound, the one 
following the other with the hurried regularity of a 
breezy sea. 
One cannot proceed at this season beyond Bhaémo, 
for the two upper defiles bar the way, and even the 
third defile is often difficult in heavy water. The 
river, compressed within narrow space, flows under 
the left bank with smooth and silent power ; under 
the right bank is a return current flowing in the 
reverse direction, whose waters are perceptibly 
higher than those in the main stream, so that it 
seems quite simple to float up-current on its waters, 
until at their meeting the boat is swept round with 
irresistible force, and may not escape from the whirl- 
pool without hard labour and anxiety. 
On each pinnacle of rock a pagoda marks where 
one of the faithful has paid a vow or publicly pro- 
fessed his gratitude for temporal blessings enjoyed. 
The country is full of these offerings, and pity it is 
that their maintenance should not be considered so 
marked an expression of piety as their construction, 
for then there would be fewer ruins, both of works 
of art and of public utility, than is now the case. In 
every well-known religion man has to work out his 
own salvation by faith and the works that result 
