We now began to make our way over a mountainous ridge, along which an earthen road had been cut out, but not gravelled, and many a rustic bridge erected over the torrents that crossed the track, by the British, about a year before, on purpose for the Chin Expedition, and for subsequent traffic. Some £35,000 we were told had been spent upon it. Some thousands of coolies were brought over from India, and the thing was done without delay. The expedition would have been almost impossible without a road. This serves to give the reader a glimpse of what it means to undertake the pacification and administration of a new country of abundant resources, but without means of communication, and with much raiding and dacoity going on. A road, or still better a railway, always means increased traffic and commerce, better markets for produce, and better means of getting about, and is itself, therefore, a pacifier and civiliser of no mean account; and it soon tends, under British law and insistence on good behaviour, to demonstrate that honesty is the best policy. Good government should always make it pay better to lead an honest, industrious, orderly life, than to pursue a career of robbery and violence—should, in fact, make it hard to do wrong and easy to do right. This part of our journey was through a hilly and picturesque country, consisting almost entirely of thick natural forest, with many teak and other fine timber trees, and bamboo jungle everywhere. At Thileng we were ninety-eight miles from Pakokku, and close to the Chin Hills. We had here to leave the road, and our cart could go no farther with us, as the hills are very precipitous, and there is only a jungle path. We therefore reduced our baggage to the lowest possible limits of sheer necessity, and had our few things carried the remainder of the journey by a couple of coolies.