After continuing northwards along the river-bank for two miles we turned eastward, crossing the low land that lies between the Salween and the high laterite ground which separates it from the basin of the Hlineboay river. The highest point passed by the cart-road between Shoaygoon and Hlineboay is less than a hundred feet above the former place. The great flood of 1877 rose two feet six inches above the bank of the Salween at Shoaygoon, or to a level twenty feet above the ground in the interior; but owing to the breadth of the valley and the slope of the country, the flood-water passed off in a stream a mile in breadth and about ten feet deep. Leaving the valley, we proceeded over laterite ground, amongst small trees and scrub-jungle. Before reaching the Hlineboay river we had been pretty nearly jolted to death by our abominable driver, the worst and most apathetic of his kind I have ever suffered from. The carts, as is usual in Burmah, were springless, and ordinary jolts might be expected; but this creature drove us against trees and over tree-roots a tyro might have avoided. I was particularly annoyed, as Dr Cushing was only just recovering from an attack of liver complaint. It was no use expostulating (though expostulate we did), for there only came bang, bang, bang over another tree-root. We had to laugh, the man seemed so utterly irreclaimable. Loogalay, my half-breed Burmese Mohammedan, who was walking by the cart, assured us that it was no use talking to the man,—“He was _yainday_ (a country lout); born a bullock, and would die a buffalo”—that is, he was born a bumpkin and would die a blockhead. On passing near the village of Quanta, which is situated about eleven miles from Shoaygoon, Dr Cushing called to me to hold my nose,—the Karens, to propitiate the _nats_ (demons, gnomes, and fairies) of the vicinity, had sacrificed a dog to them, and the air for a hundred yards was reeking with the stench from the crucified remains.