The romantic East: Burma, Assam, & Kashmir - Khamkoo

118 THE ROMANTIC EAST
round numbers used in giving
the distance from
station to station on the river.
From Nigri Ting, where we embarked for our
journey down the Brahmaputra,
to Dhubri is
about 325 miles, and we were made comfortable on
the Minhla, the best boat of the Indian General
Navigation and Railway Company's
river fleet.
In spite of the great variety of bird life the
Brahmaputra seems, as compared with the Irawadi,
to be rather a mournful river.
Wading birds, from
the big herons, cranes, and storks to the little white
herons and egrets whose feathers, assumed only at
the nesting season, make the fashionable " "
ospreys
or aigrettes are seen everywhere. The brilliant
Indian oriole or mango - bird and the maina, a
member of the starling family, flash through the
air, snake-birds cover the water, and the housecrows
and jungle-crows haunt the landing-places
;
but for the first
day hardly
a boat is seen on the
river,
nor, except the temporary
huts of the watermen,
a single human habitation on the banks.
The landing-places have sometimes a moored
flat alongside which the steamer makes fast, and
at other places the steamer's nose is
merely pushed