183/.] 



from Ava to the Frontier of 'Assam. 



393 



The party, consisting of the newly appointed Burmah governor 

 of Mogaung, of Captain Hannay and several Burmese officers of 

 inferior rants, with a military escort, left Ava on the 22d of Novem- 

 ber, 1835, in a fleet of 34 boats of various sizes, for a part of the 

 country which had been uniformly closed against strangers with the 

 most jealous vigilance. " No foreigners," says Captain Hannay, 

 " except the Chinese, are allowed to navigate the Irawadi above the 

 choki of Tsampaynago, situated about seventy miles above Ava ; and 

 no native of the country is even permitted to proceed above that post, 

 excepting under a special license from the Government. The trade 

 to the north of Ava is entirely in the hands of the Chinese, and the 

 individuals of that nation residing at Ava have always been vigilant 

 in trying to prevent any interference with their monopoly." 



The mission was detained the two following days near the former 

 capital of Amarapura, to complete the quota of troops by which it 

 was to be accompanied, and whose discipline, when they did join, was 

 very soon found to be on a par with their honesty. 



" They work their own boats," says Captain Hannay, " some of 

 which are covered in, and others are quite open. Their musquets 

 (if they deserve the name) are ranged here and there throughout the 

 boat, and are never cleared either from rust or dust, and wet or dry 

 they are left without any covering. Each man carries a canvass bag, 

 which is a receptacle for all sorts of things, including a few bambu 

 cartridges. He wears a black Shan jacket and a head dress or goung- 

 boung of red cotton handkerchief, and thus equipped he is a complete 

 Burmah militia man. They appear on further acquaintance to be 

 better humoured than I at first thought them, but they are sad plun- 

 derers, and I pity the owners of the fields of pumkins or beans they 

 come across. I have remarked that whatever a Burman boatman eats 

 in addition to bis rice, is generally stolen." 



Except at Kagyih, where there are said to be several Christian 

 villages, of which, however, no satisfactory information could be 

 obtained, the progress of the mission was unmarked by any circum- 

 stance of interest, until its arrival at Fedan, where they entered the 

 first Jujouk-dwen, or rocky defile, through which the river directs its 

 course. Lower down, the extreme breadth of the stream had varied 

 from one to two and a half miles, but here its width was contr.icted 

 to less than a quarter of a mile, with a porportionatc increase in the 

 depth and velocity of the current. During the rainy season of the 

 year, boats shoot through these narrow passes with terrific velocity, 

 and the numerous eddies caused by the projecting rocks, add greatly 



