1865.] Notes of a trip up the Salween. 135 
Notes of a trip up the Salween—By Rev. C. Parisu. 
[Received 30th June, 1865.] 
In March last, as I had never travelled on the Martaban side of the 
Salween, and as I had been promised by Captain Harrison, the Deputy 
Commissioner of Shway-gyeen, that, if I would pay him a visit, he 
would accompany me through the Fir forests of the Yoonzalin, which 
I have long wished to see; I availed myself of a month’s privilege 
leave to take a trip northwards. Col. Fytche was going, at the same 
time, on his official tour to Shway-gyeen. His company was an 
additional inducement to go in that direction. 
The road to Shway-gyeen lies through Beling and Sittoung, and 
affords good riding ground all the way in the dry season, as it keeps 
to the plain, leaving the mountains on the right hand, that is, on the 
east. These mountains, which, N. E. of Shway-gyeen, cover a great 
breadth of country, divide themselves towards the south into two 
narrow ranges, one of which separates the Yoonzalin and Salween 
rivers, terminating at their point of confluence : the other and longer 
range terminates at Martaban, and is the watershed between the 
Sittoung and Beling rivers on the. west, and the lower Salween on 
the east. Westward of the latter range stretches a vast plain; and it 
is along this plain, parallel with the mountains, though at some 
little distance from them, that the road from Martaban to Shway-gyeen 
lies. . 
While at Beling, on the way, I rode out in company with Col. 
Fytche and Capt. Harrison to a place called Kothanaiong, about 7 
miles off, to see the Amherstia trees there. This place had often been 
mentioned as one where the Amherstia was to be seen in great 
perfection, and where, indeed, it might perhaps he wild. I was well 
rewarded, for a prettier little spot I never visited. The Amherstias, 
‘growing in a well-shaded place and watered by a perennial stream 
which tumbles down a steep granite hill, and is ingeniously directed 
hither and thither in large bamboo troughs, were, indeed, to be seen 
E the wildest luxuriance of growth. But Kothanaiong is a sacred 
spot. Here are Pagodas, Pongyee-houses, Zayats all around. A flight 
of stone steps leads from the bottom to the top of the overhanging 
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