1839.] Mission to the Court of Sianu 1033 



milies ; villages in their Hne of operation are likewise exposed to their 

 tender mercies. The line of our march has been at no great distance 

 from the river, and on its banks we are encamped to night ; we have 

 all day been surrounded by hills on all sides, except to the north-west, 

 the jungle a mixture of trees and bamboos as heretofore ; the only tree 

 of any value we have seen is the Kanean, or oil tree, a considerable 

 number of which we have passed in the last two days, towering as 

 they always do far above the highest trees in the forest, with their 

 beautiful straight stems and light green foliage ; many of them reach a 

 height of fifty or sixty feet without a branch. 



January 18th. — May-nam-noi, 2h. 50m., nine miles. One month 

 from Maulmain. I had calculated on being in Bankok in twenty 

 days, and we are still eleven days from it ; we have lost several 

 days, by the loss and straying of the elephants, and want of guides 

 in the uninhabited forest, which it has been the policy of the Siamese 

 and Birmans to keep between them. Had all circumstances been 

 most favourable, it would have been impossible to have accomplished 

 it in any thing like the time I anticipated, travelling as I have done 

 with elephants, and obliged for days to cut away the interwoven 

 branches to allow them to pass. Left the last ground at 8 a. m. and 

 travelling for about twenty minutes through the old clearing near 

 which we had encamped, reach the river near which we march for ten 

 minutes, when the path takes a direction more to the westward, and 

 we commence the ascent of the hill we have seen to the S. W. of us 

 for the last three days ; the passage of the range occupied about an hour, 

 the path, after those I have travelled to the N. E., by no means steep 

 or difficult ; at the bottom of the hills to the southward, after crossing, 

 we came on a path more travelled than any we have seen since 

 leaving the Meta-keet teak forest, leading the west to Tavoy, which 

 may easily be reached from this with elephants in five days, the road 

 is said to be generally hilly and difficult in some places; at lOh. 20m. 

 after passing a new clearing we came on the river again, where we cross 

 and halted here in a shed prepared for us on the shingle (its bed) by 

 the Myotsa of this place, who soon after we halted came to my tent, 

 and remained for upwards of an hour ; he brought a basket of rice, some 

 vegetables, dried meat, cocoanuts, &c, for which he refused to receive 

 payment; about lh. 30m. the elephants came in. The May-nam-noi, 

 from which the lower part of this river now takes its name, has its 

 source in the hill somewhere east of Yea, and falls into the Dayeik, or 

 Dareik, by a deep rocky ravine of not more than a few yards wide, op- 

 posite the present small frontier post of the same name. The old city 



