A Burmese wonderland; a tale of travel in Lower and ... - Khamkoo

222 A BURMESE WONDERLAND.
less in need of endowments than any of the other
monuments. The estimated cost of conserving the
Tilo-minlo and Dhamma-yan Gyi Pagodas is Rs. 27,000,
but even that sum only covers the most urgent repairs.
The permanent preservation of these unique and
splendid monuments can only be ensured by providing
them with small, but steady, incomes.
Riverine villages in the Mandalay district are
comparatively poor. This tour, in June 1920, was the
first
effort to recruit in such areas, and on the whole the
result was promising. Most of the crops depend for
success upon rain alone. Others rely on flooding,
which may easily be too much or too little. Island
property is constantly disappearing in one place and
building up in another, but fresh silt is often covered
with sand for the first few years. Nevertheless, efforts
are being made to encourage island cultivation. It is
at any rate less precarious for the pioneer than the
opening up of virgin
jungle, where he usually succumbs
physically or financially to fever, failure or tree-stumps,
leaving those who succeed him to benefit by his labours.
Jungle clearing has been up-hill work in Katha and
Mogaung. In Pegu it was found that no single pioneer
who had cleared jungle iu
1902 was in possession of the
paddy land that was bearing valuable crops in 1912.
Even their successors had failed, and it was the third
generation that reaped the harvest.
At Singu I was met by Mr. C. F. Grant, i.c.s.,
Deputy Commissioner of Mandalay, who had served