The subdivision was of very large extent. Comprising the townships of Pantanaw and Shwelaung, it stretched past Kyunpyathat to the sea. At Shwelaung there was a Myo-ôk, but at Pantanaw I was my own township officer. I had to try all civil and criminal cases, to copy English correspondence, and to do the revenue and executive work of the township. Though during my year at Pantanaw I had only second class powers as a magistrate, still, without a Myo-ôk at headquarters, and with all these various duties, it might be supposed that I was grossly overworked. On the contrary, I had an easier time there than ever after fell to my lot. Still young and zealous, I believe I did all there was to be done. But I found time to be on tour about half of every month, while in the cold weather I spent more than a solid month in the jungle, walking over rice-fields, inspecting, measuring, and computing the out-turn of every holding in respect of which remission of revenue was claimed. As there had been a somewhat widespread failure of the rice crop, this was a task of some magnitude. The development of the country and the growth of work are impressed on me by nothing so much as by a comparison between the Pantanaw subdivision in 1879-80 and the same area in the present day. Then, with the help of one not very efficient Burmese Myo-ôk, I did all the work of the subdivision with ease. Now that area is a large part of the Ma-u-bin and Myaung-my̆a districts. It occupies half the time of a Deputy Commissioner and District Judge, and half the time of one or two subdivisional officers, who break down in succession from overwork, four or five township officers, and several judicial and additional Myo-ôks. The Shwelaung Township is now the Wakèma Subdivision, one of the most laborious charges in the Province. A very small, obscure, and swampy village was Mawlamyainggyun, now the headquarters of a township, and one of the most flourishing towns in the Delta. I have always cherished the belief that I was the first European official to discover it. In those days and in that part of the country there was a remarkable absence of serious crime. During my year at Pantanaw one murder was committed and one dacoity was reported. Of the dacoity I made a full meal. The report reached me when on tour in the middle of the rains. Off I went in a small open dugout to make an investigation on the spot. Arriving, drenched to the bones, with no kit, I held the inquiry, clad in a bath towel, reclining in the balcony of a Burmese hut, partly sheltered by a mat-wall. I fared sumptuously on boiled eggs, rice, and jaggery (palm sugar), fare, which I commend, as, if not noble, yet enough. A mat on a plank floor was a sufficient sleeping-place. I never found any difficulty in sleeping on boards. The really hard bed is the bosom of mother earth with too scanty an allowance of straw. The report of the dacoity was false.