The Madrasi garrison of the post was prostrate with fever almost to a man; of our own small force about a quarter fell sick. By judicious doses of quinine, I saved my servants and myself, so that we all came through unscathed. After three days the rain ceased and we began our march in cool November sunshine. On that delightful plateau, some three thousand feet above the sea, the winter climate is perfect. We rode through forest paths and fairy glades, wild roses clustering in the hedges. At Pyintha and Singaing, we first saw the bazaar, held every five days, a custom peculiar to the Shan States and Further East. Buyers and sellers came from all the countryside, often from distant places. It is much like market-day in a country town in England. The market at Singaing and at Pyinulwin was of some interest, and attracted strange folk from the hills. It was not to be compared with the great bazaars held at Kēngtūng, Namkham, or even Mogôk, thronged with many varieties of races in rich diversities of attire. To us, the people most novel and attractive were the Shans, men swaggering in baggy trousers and large flapping straw hats brigand-like, but formidable only in appearance; girls with russet-rosy cheeks, shy and gentle. Pyin-u-lwin, a charmingly situated village of some five-and-twenty houses, with a market-place and a gambling ring, won our hearts. Though we did not actually discover Pyin-u-lwin, we were among its earliest visitors. We were received with all kindness and hospitality. Several of us were housed in the village monastery, where we were heartily welcomed by the monk. He was still there when I left Burma twenty-four years later. With Captain E. W. Dun, our Intelligence Officer, I inspected a curious magnetic rock in the neighbouring jungle. Some years afterwards it was described as a new discovery by a geologist of note. It has been lost again, but will doubtless be found some day. Soon after our return, on Colonel Stedman’s recommendation, a military post was established at Pyin-u-lwin, and called May-my̆o, after Colonel May, of the Bengal army, a Mutiny veteran, the first Commandant. May-my̆o is now the summer residence of the Burma Government and the headquarters of the Burma division, a flourishing hill-station with a population of about 12,000. Without pretension to the picturesque, it is a place of great charm and quiet beauty, with no palm-trees and few pagodas, conspicuously un-Oriental, more like a corner of Surrey than of Burma.[174]