the chief and his heir. As we approached the haw, three trumpeters blew a lusty blast, and the three saluting guns were fired as we ascended the steps leading to the gateway, where the chief and his grandson awaited us. After a hearty handshaking, and formal adieus, we mounted under a second salute, and rode out of the town preceded by the trumpeters in full bray. The road at this season was carried along the embankments of the paddy fields nearer to the base of the hills. The courses of the many mountain streams showed the traces of the devastation caused by the unprecedented floods of the past week; whole rice fields had been swept away, and in others the crop had been hopelessly buried in silt. Roots and stems of large trees everywhere blocked the channels, and the sides of the mountains showed red patches, like wounds, where landslips had occurred. These had been most destructive; nine villages were said to have been overwhelmed in the Sanda valley, one, a village of forty houses, being completely destroyed with all its inhabitants, save nine who were absent. The nineteen miles to Manwyne were accomplished by 5 P.M., and we took up our quarters in the same khyoung as on the former visit; some trouble and a little gentle violence being requisite to exclude the pertinacious and curious Chinese, who went so far as to hustle a sentry. These Manwyne people (not including the Shans), though not so hostile as on our first visit, were evidently ill-disposed, and can be only classed as “rowdies.” At sundown a bell was rung and a huge candle lit in front of the altar, while the priests, kneeling on the upper daïs, supported by choristers on the lower one, chanted their vespers. Bell-ringing and matins woke us up early in the morning, and, as before, the devout women trooped in with their offerings of rice and flowers. The phoongyees and some others were very much interested in hearing about railways, telegraphs, and other wonders of Western civilisation. One of the Sanda headmen remarked that they were much privileged to hear of such things, and that we must all have met before in a previous existence, and would doubtless meet again. They were awed by viewing the moon through a good telescope; and a prediction of the coming eclipse of the sun evidently impressed them with a deep sense of our astrological powers, the chief phoongyee, with bated breath, inquiring whether it presaged war or famine.