7th February.—To-day a young soldier and an artist conclude that they both had their fill of exercise yesterday.
We started at break of day and didn't get home till after sunset and then had to dine at the old Fort and witness a Kachin Pwé in the moonlight till the small hours.
I confess I was tired after the day's shoot, but so was Carter and he was in the pink of condition, which consoled me. It was a memorable day amongst my sporting days, because of the novelty of surroundings, not on account of the bag of snipe.
We turned out before daybreak, which was neither novel nor pleasant; it was cold and very uncomfortable getting from warm blankets into the chilly morning in the draughty bungalow, and reminded me of the way we are turned out in winter starts for Black Game, and woodcock in Morven—being routed out half awake in the dark by a certain energetic sportsman, hurricane lamp in hand.
I had to meet Carter at the Fort where we were to take canoes, and an elephant, across the Irrawaddy to a jheel, five miles through jungle.
The sun came up splendidly, hot and yellow over China, and warmed me comfortably as I drove to the Fort, and the mist off the plain rose and became sunlit cumuli to lie for the rest of the day on the shoulders of the Kachin Highlands.
Carter, I found in the midst of impedimenta; servants, Burmese, Kachins and natives, lunch boxes, cartridges, guns and a Mauser rifle; for though we were going for snipe the country we were to go through holds all sorts of big game, though the chance of our seeing any was remote as the jungle is dense and covers great areas.
A quarter of a mile across the exposed sand of the river bed brought us to the canoes in which we were to cross. Our elephant swam, or waded, across higher up. We divided our party into two, and we crossed in the dugouts. These are graceful long canoes, cut from a teak tree trunk, with a fine smooth surface and with a suggestion about them of being easy to roll over; bamboos lashed alongside steadied them, and allowed our Kachin and Burman to walk along the side when poling. We made use of a slack water on our side, and another behind a sandy reed-covered island half-way across to make up our leeway. Silvery fish were jumping, pursued by some larger fish, and C. and I laid plans to try harling for them after the Shannon or Namsen fashion. On the far side we got all our baggage made fast to the sides of the pad—a sort of mattress on the elephant's back—as it knelt on the shore, and on the top of the pad we stretched ourselves and held on to the ropes as the elephant heaved up. Quite a string of men tailed out behind us over the sands with cartridge bags, and gun cases on their shoulders. On the bank we found a Burman guide at a little village beside a small white pagoda. There were yellow-robed priests walking in the groves of trees and palms, and they noticed us I daresay, but made no sign that to their way of thinking we were doing harm to ourselves by going to kill snipe—the Phoungyi does not judge.