the barbarous people showed us no little kindness, offering fruits from their Taungyas[238] and encouraging us to explore their long, low thatched houses. A stretch of the march led easily over the saddle of a range of hills. In the morning the valleys were covered with a veil of mist; as this dispersed, at our feet were spread fertile plains, and in the distance gleamed the Irrawaddy like a silver thread. Our escort was a score of mounted military police, our transport mules from China. Early, but not too early, we rose and took a substantial chota haziri[239] beside the camp-fire while the mules were loading up. Chinese muleteers have many good points, but they need handling, and submit with reluctance to interference with their little ways. You may hearken, but their voice is not in heaven before the lark. Even when they have been roused from slumber, it is any odds that two or three mules have wandered off in the night and have to be sought with vituperation best left obscure. The actual loading is comparatively simple. The baggage is tied to a wooden saddle which is lifted on to the mule’s back and left there unfastened. At that season, at the height of some three or four thousand feet, the climate was perfect, cool, and bright. We could march all day without inconvenience. Once started, we walked and rode, staying now and then to interview headmen and villagers with special reference to an inquiry into the opium habit which I was making for my own satisfaction, till we reached our halting-place, on the bank of a crystal stream. One inviolable rule was enforced. The sumpter mule always headed the cavalcade. After a dip in the river, while tents were being pitched we breakfasted under a shady tree at any hour from one to five, as the length of the march determined. The best servant in the camp was Captain Bower’s Pathan, a hook-nosed ruffian from the North-West Frontier, who had been in every scrap on the border for a generation. When he raised his finger, the other servants fled gibbering. After dinner, the day’s work over, he relaxed. In a leafy bower, like a figure from the Arabian Nights, smoking a hookah he sat holding enthralled a breathless audience with, one fondly hoped, stories of adventure. Perhaps he was only discussing prices in the bazaar. Next to him, _longo intervallo_, was the Kachin Zinaw who acted as interpreter and handyman. He began the march speaking Chinese, Shan, Burmese, and several Kachin dialects; he ended with a working knowledge of English and Hindustani. Zinaw was a man of great intelligence, but not of lofty principle. For negotiating the passage of a rushing stream, or for hastily rigging up a camp, he was invaluable. Some years he flourished, till misdirected ingenuity brought him to grief. His last service to Government was rendered, I believe, in the Bhamo Jail.