Then Mr B. showed us his teak logs tethered alongside the banks, waiting for high water to take them on their road south. Some logs are said to take nine years to come down from the upper reaches to Rangoon. Then he rode away on a pretty white pony, first asking me to come and stay in the jungle with him, and don't I wish I could. You feel inclined to stop at Henzada for ever, it is so picturesque and fresh, and the walks by the river under the high trees are very pretty, and there's no dustiness or towniness.
I am sorry Mr Buchanan went; there's much to ask, about what he knew; of trees and beasts and people, or of the geology of these mountains that are beginning to appear to our left and right: to the west, the southern spine of the Arrakan Mountains, and to the east, the ranges of the Shan Highlands, which divide the Irrawaddy valley from the valley of the Salwin river.[26]
For short concentrated descriptions of Burmah and Shan States, see Holdich's "India."
I ought to be painting these boats that pass—but there's breakfast-bell—boats my friends, with the colours of Loch Fyne skiffs, as to their sails and woodwork, a little deeper in colour, perhaps, and set off with brighter figures, with here and there a rose pink turban or white jacket. The hulls have a quaint dignity about them, and the carvings on their sterns are as rich as the woodwork in a Belgian cathedral.
Prome.—The sandbanks withdraw, and the wooded ranges of blue hills show more firmly in the background. It is as if we were at the beginning of a very wide Norwegian valley. Fishermen's mat shelters break the monotony of some long sandbanks—isolated signs of life, each on its sharply-cast purple shadow; a naked boy and his sister run along the freshly broken edge of a sandbank, and wave to us.
Round, bend after bend, each a splendid delight to the eye—till two o'clock we look, and look, loath to leave the deck, though our eyes are sore and appetites keen—then lunch, watching the passing scenes—and Prome.
Looking out of our windows, to our left across the river, the scenery reminds me of loch Suinnart or loch Swene in Argyll: there are knolly hills, with woodcock scrub, and terns, or sea-swallows, dipping in the current. To the right the shore is flat, then rises steeply to the road on the bundar, above which we see the tops of brown teak bungalows, set amongst rich green trees like planes, and beyond these again, stand grey stemmed teak trees, and over all, the deep blue sky, and the Shwe Sandaw Pagoda spire glittering with gold, with lower spires of marble whiteness.