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148
BIRMAII.
are trees and verdure. We left the towns of Segahghee
on the east, and Summeingtoh on the west. Our
voyage this day was delightful; the weather turned
out fine, and the wind was so strong, that we passed
the banks at the rate of three miles an hour. There
were no fewer than a hundred sail of boats of differ-
ent sorts in company, and the whole was a cheerful
and pleasing sight. We stopped at sunset near the
town of Yeoung-benzah. The next day (the sixth),
we passed several islands of sand. In one place, we
perceived the roots and stump of a tree growing close
to the water's edge under a high bank, about fourteen
feet beneath the surface of the soil. This singular
appearance is to be accounted for by supposing that,
where the bank is now raised, there had formerly
been a sand-bank level with the water, on which a
tree had taken root, and which had been covered by
annual deposites from the river during the inunda-
tion. It is probable, that the tall reeds and coarse
grass which every year rot and incorporate with the
sand of the river, form the fine soil of the plains.
Thus, aquatic exuviae are to be discovered every where
deep in the earth. The stream, however, washes
away on one side as much as it deposits on the other ;
and, as is the case with all streams flowing through
champaign countries, is continually changing its
channel. In the morning we passed Taykyat, a long
and straggling town on the west side ; also Terriato,
or Mango village, small, but beautifully situated on a
high bank that commands the country on the opposite
side to a great distance : it is surrounded by groves of
from which it takes the name. Taam-
mango-trees,
boo-terra, on the same side, is a long town. The
country, in this day's voyage, did not appear so well
inhabited as that we passed through the day before.