We managed to make a stage of six miles before it was daylight, and pushed on the next stage of fifteen miles farther without stopping. There we halted at one of the establishments constructed at every stage along this route, to accommodate troops and convoys, on the march to the military and police stations on the frontier. It consisted of long rows of temporary bamboo barracks, and a bamboo shed for the officers. There was a Burmese police guard close by. How regularly and irreproachably that Burman constable shouldered his rifle, and did his “sentry go,” _while we were looking on_! Here we halted for our midday meal and a short rest. It is wonderful with what dexterity your native servant, availing himself of almost no facilities for cooking, can produce you a savoury breakfast on the march. Three stones or bricks to support the kettle, and the same for the frying-pan, are all he requires for a fireplace, and a few sticks and bits of bamboo out of the jungle are enough for a fire. In the afternoon we did another twelve miles, making thirty-three miles that day, which was rather more than the cartman would have driven his bullocks, if it had not been that the next day was Sunday, the day of rest. The weather was lovely, being the best time of the year for a journey. It was not much hotter in the day than a warm summer day in England; the nights and mornings were chilly. At Pyinchaung we halted on the Saturday night, again putting up in the temporary military lines. The route we had taken was not a road, as we understand roads in England, but, strictly speaking, more of a track, fairly passable in dry weather for carts, but almost impracticable after heavy rains. Good metalled roads are a luxury we have not seen much of as yet in Upper Burma, but we shall get them in course of time. On the Sunday we rested, and spent some time amongst the villagers, distributing tracts and preaching. Here we had the misfortune to lose our two ponies. Mr. Bestall, pitying them, that there was so little grass to eat in the rest-house enclosure, opened his kind heart, and the gate at the same time, and let them out to graze, giving them in charge to the cartman to look after. He followed them for awhile, and then, native-like, came back without them. We went in search of them, but never saw them again that journey. They strayed for many miles, and it was a month before they were brought back. It speaks well for the hold the English now have on the country, and the great diminution of crime, that search was made in all the district round, and they were returned by the police, as we felt sure they would be. We had to borrow for the rest of the way.