138 Notes of a trip up the Salween. [No. 3, 
a general southerly direction until it joins the Salween at Kankareet, 
a little below the Hat-gyee. It drains a very mountainous district, 
and during the rainy season, rolls down a considerable body of water, but 
during the dry weather, it is a shallow rocky stream, full of rapids and 
scours. It takes small boats 15 or 20 days to ascend from Kankareet 
to Pahpoon, about two-thirds of its course. It took us 5 days to 
descend that distance. 
The valley of the Yoonzalin is an extremely wild and almost 
uninhabited district. All the way from Bangatah in the valley of the 
Sittoung to Paapoon we did not meet with a single village. The 
Karens, the only inhabitants, are very few and scattered; and they 
have been so harried during the last few years, by the incursions of 
the Shan Pretender who styled himself Ming-loung, on the one side ; 
and by us, in our attempts to drive him out, on the other, that they 
have hidden themselves away in the most inaccessible places. Occa- 
sionally only we saw a stray house or two perched up on the top of 
some distant mountain, or on its almost perpendicular side, with no 
visible way of approach from the spot where we stood. When the 
inhabitants become reassured and gain confidence in the permanency of 
peace, they will no doubt increase, and settle down in more accessible 
places. 
I will not attempt any description of the scenery of this district, 
because mountain scenery in one place is very like mountain scenery 
in another place; and because I have rarely found that attempted 
descriptions of the kind convey any definite picture tothe mind. All 
that needs be said is, that it was extremely wild and beautiful, and 
afforded all that endless variety of view which a chaos of mountains 
rudely thrown together, might be expected to afford. Neither shall I 
give the length of the stages which we performed, nor the names of — 
the places where we halted ; for these places were not villages, only well 
known spots conveniently chosen for the purpose, as combining the 
advantages of level ground and water. And the stages, if measured f 
by miles, might appear small; though measured by labour, by no — 
means so. A more laborious, at the same time thoroughly enjoyable, 
walking tour I never took. It is ceaseless ascent and descent, to the 
extent of several thousand feet a day, all the way. There are two 
words in Burmese for hill: Zowng, and Kén. A Towng, hereabouts, is 

