Burma : A Handbook of Practical Information - Khamkoo

MUD VOLCANOES 13
the pious. Other caves in the neiglibourhood are the
Sad(lan-Ku and the Payon-Ku. The Powindaung Hill,
in the Lower Chindwin district, is honey-combed with
these cave temples, which Burmans declare to contain
not less than 446,444 images of the Buddha. The lower
slope of the Menetaung Range, near Pindaya, in the Myelat,
has a celebrated cave temple of the kind. Long covered
ways lead up to it, and the vestibule cave is crowded
with images, some carved in the face of the rock, some
deposited in niches, some of great size carried in and
set on pedestals built for them. Arms of the cave burrow
far into the hillside. The annual festival here attracts
thousands, not only from the Shan States, but from Burma
The mud volcanoes of Minbu are not in any sense
hills: they are mere salscttes, little craters of mud gradually
formed, hardened, and raised by the intermittent
discharge of soft, greasy mud, which occurs whenever
there is a bubbling up of gas. In the similar volcano,
on the extreme north-west of the island of Cheduba
(Manaung), the gas is very inflammable, and occasionally
bursts out in flames. A variation of the same phenomenon
is the occurrence of hot springs, which are found all over
the country, and are especially common in the Shan States.
In Burma proper, and in the wealthier Shan valleys,
most knolls and many hill faces form the sites of pagodas
of all kinds and sizes, some glistening white like a yacht's
sail, some blazing like a beacon fire when the sun strikes
the gilding.
Elvers
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Irrawaddy.—The Irrawaddy, the chief river of
Burma, is one of the finest in Asia, and in the world.
Notwithstanding its size, it is probably much shorter than
the Sahveen. It is like the tropical darkness, which comes
at one stride. The Irrawaddy is an imposing river, in
the compass of a day's walk from its beginnings. A
number of streams rising in the Zayul Range, the possible
northern boundary of Burma, join at the foot of the hills,
to form the Mali and the 'Nmai Hka, the western and
eastern branches of the Irrawaddy. The 'Nmai and all
its affluents are savage torrents. The Mali Hka, comparatively
e^irly in the Hkamti-Long Valley, becomes a
river, and, so far as is known, it keeps up this modified