1865.] Notes of a trip up the Salween. 143 
by a small ladder on to our house, and on going to the front of a 
broad balcony or verandah ornamented with a balustrade, the whole 
made of bamboo, we found that the boughs of the trees had been cut 
away in front, and that we stood over a large circular pool of water 
into which the Yoonzalin poured itself on one side, and out of which 
it flowed on the other, and we had the best view that it was possible 
to have. We were in a perfect punch-bowl, shut in by almost perpen- 
dicular mountains on all sides. Before us lay the still pool, 60 feet 
deep and about 150 yards across: we heard the roar of the water 
rushing in and rushing out, but, so hemmed in with rocks is the spot 
that we could neither see the course of the river above or below. As 
I said, we were charmed with the place, but where was the waterfall 
of 400 feet? The reply was, that this was the “ Yaytagon’” (so the 
Burmese call a waterfall) and that there was nothing more to be seen 
than this! A raft of bamboos was made for us, and on it we went 
close up to the “ embouchwre’ of the stream, the mouth of the passage 
through which the water from above pours into the pool. It was a 
singular sight. The whole of the waters of the Yoonzalin at this 
point are poured through a long, straight, and very narrow street of 
rock. The passage, or street as I call it, through the rock is perfectly 
straight, about 14 feet wide only, and having exactly the same width 
throughout its whole length, which is about 20 or 30 yards. The rock, 
granite, rises on either side of this passage to the height, in the centre, 
of about 50 feet in perpendicular walls with smooth faces, as straight 
and smooth as if measured with a plumb line, and cut with a hay- 
knife. As the water enters the upper end of this passage at a right 
angle, we could see no more of the river than the length of the 
passage, but we could hear the roar of the water as it boiled and 
bubbled in its tortuous and bouldered channel above. But though 
lashed into foam above, so smooth and polished is the narrow passage 
that the water glides through it with a surface like glass, and sinks at 
once to the bottom of the pool, causing little or no commotion init. I 
climbed to the top of the overhanging rock on one side to get a sight 
of the river above, but it takes so many short and sudden turns and 
the gorge in the mountains is so narrow, that I could see but a few 
yards upwards. Thinking that we had seen all that was to be seen, and 
having already spent a day and a half here, we determined to set out 

