Entering the garden, where English roses were growing amongst the glorious flowers and flowering shrubs of the tropics, and the air was scented with the sweet blossoms of orange and pummelo trees, we were met by Dr and Mrs M‘Gilvary and their little son, who gave us a hearty welcome, and insisted upon our enjoying their hospitality during our stay in Zimmé. Nothing could be more agreeable to us. Pleasant friendly faces, lovely flowers, beautiful fruit-trees, a fine, large, commodious house, a splendid view of Loi Soo Tayp, and the best possible position for collecting information—what more could be desired? The house was constructed for the accommodation of two families of missionaries. One-half was unoccupied, as the Rev. Mr Martin and his wife were on their way from Bangkok, so no one would be cramped by our taking up our quarters there; besides which, Drs M‘Gilvary and Cushing were old friends. We therefore gladly accepted the offer. The Mission-house is built of teak with a shingle roof, in the ordinary style of bungalows in Burmah. A staircase leads up to a broad verandah, from which the front bedrooms and sitting-rooms are entered. At the back are the bath-rooms and another verandah, with a flight of steps leading to the garden and kitchen. The orchard contains fine shady clumps of bamboos, cocoa-nut, mango, tamarind, pomegranate, custard-apple, pummelo, guava, orange, citron, papaw, and coffee trees. The passion-flower grows in great luxuriance, and affords a luscious fruit, which can either be eaten as a vegetable, or like a papaw or a melon. After the constant strain upon my attention during the journey, I greatly enjoyed reclining in a long-armed chair in the front verandah of the house, and watching, whilst I lazily puffed at my cigar, the ever-changing expression of the great mountain at the back of the city. The lights and shades swiftly flitting across its forest-clad slopes, as the clouds coursed betwixt it and the sun; the beautiful _bijou_ views in the early morning, as the mist opened out and closed in when dissolving under the influence of the sun; the foreground formed by suburbs on the other side of the river, embosomed in orchards, amongst which the areca-nut, palmyra, and cocoa-nut palms reared their graceful stems and beautiful plumes; the stream of ever-varying and ever-picturesque life moving along the road and river; the music formed of the murmur of distant voices; the clearer notes of those that were near, and the clash and clatter that proceeds from the busy haunts of men,—the whole was like a pleasant dream, such a one as Ole Luk Oi, in Andersen’s ‘Fairy Tales,’ showed the good little boy when he had thrown dust in his eyes and led him into Dreamland. Having been shown our rooms, we had the luggage carried up and the necessary things unpacked, adding some of our stores to Mrs M‘Gilvary’s _cuisine_ for the forthcoming banquet.