The frontier-line started from a pillar on the bank of the Irrawaddy, on a spot visited by the great Governor-General himself. Hard by, on each side of the boundary, was a telegraph office. Though the wires ran from Rangoon to the border, and from the border to Mandalay, there was not sufficient comity between the Governments to allow the line to be linked. Every message to and from Upper Burma had to be carried by hand across the intervening space of a few yards and resignalled. Our telegraph office was the place where the subdivisional officer met the Wun[53] of Sinbaungwè for the discussion of frontier affairs. With that official, who was of about the same standing as myself, my relations were somewhat stiff, civil but hardly cordial. It is a mistake to suppose that the relations between Europeans and Burmans are less intimate now than in earlier days. Twenty years later, in similar circumstances, I should certainly have asked the Wun to breakfast or dinner. Then, our meetings were rigidly formal and official. The Wun used to annoy me by coming into the room wearing Burmese shoes, a studiously discourteous act.[54] I could think of no better retort than to keep my hat on during the interview. I dare say it was unworthy, but I think it was human to feel a thrill of satisfaction when, four or five years later, my old friend Maung Lat came to me in my office in Mandalay crouching on the ground in the Burmese attitude of respect. Maung Lat was a handsome man, of the usual type of Burmese district officials. After the annexation he took service under our Government and became a My̆o-ôk. He did good work, and _felix opportunitate mortis_, died before he was found out. At our meetings at Myedè, cattle-driving raids across the frontier were among the most frequent subjects of discussion. This was the darling sin of adventurous spirits on each side of the border. In a country where cattle are the most valuable of the farmer’s possessions, cattle theft is one of the crimes which most sorely vexes the magistrate’s righteous soul, and is most rigorously punished. All possible steps were taken to suppress it, and offenders were visited with stripes and imprisonment. Yet one could not help recognizing that to drive whole herds of oxen across the border, to evade police posts, to carry the spoil by unfrequented paths through the heart of our districts till it could be sold many miles away, perhaps in a cattle-market under the eyes of officials, was an attractive and exciting adventure. On the whole, our men had the worst of the game. If they were caught driving cattle from across the frontier, they were punished as if they had committed the offence in British territory, while cattle-thieves from Upper Burma who got over the line with their plunder were seldom brought to justice. Hence many wrangles with Maung Lat. Once only I really had the best of the encounter. I bluffed him into handing back to me on the spot a man who