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

46 A BURMESE WONDERLAND.
'
our caravan but rested its hour or two.' These
mountains, dispersed in broken fragments over the
^/5imtrv, are after all the skeleton, the scattered bones,
of what was once a mighty strata. Moment by moment
through this night, disintegration continued, whose
progress is not appreciable in one Ufe or in ten. The
single water-drop that fell on my face in the darkness, will
fall again—when ? In consideration of these matters,
and because my Kachin Orderly Sau Yaw deemed the
place distinctly
*****
a likely abode for Nats, we were careful
to keep candles burning before the lonely pagoda until
far into the night.
From Paan we motored 24 miles through charming
woodland scenery to Hlaingbwe township, holding
meetings at the Karen village of Yebu 4 miles off the
road, and at Tilon, a Taungthu village. Hlaingbwe
derives its appropriate name Lake ' of the Rains from
'
the Taking words hlaing a lake, and hve rain. Here
I passed into the friendly charge of the Township
Officer Maung San Tun, a dehghtful young Arakanese,
who gave me a great deal of information, particularly
regarding the Karens in his charge. San Tun however
vras oppressed with fears lest his family should grow
faster than his income, and we discussed every means
by which incomes may be legitimately increased, or
famiUes curbed. I learned something in this of the
temptations to which officials on small salaries are
exposed, and the strength of character it requires to