About a mile north of the town, the Tapeng river debouches into the Irawady, after flowing twenty miles through the plain as a quiet navigable stream, hardly recognisable as the furious torrent which rushes through the neighbouring gorge. During the dry season, it is one hundred and fifty to two hundred yards wide, and navigable only by boats, which convey a constant traffic between the Irawady and Tsitkaw, where the merchandise is transferred to and from mules. During the rains, the Tapeng is at least five hundred yards wide, and navigable for small river steamers up to this place. Occupying the angle between the two rivers, the remains of an ancient city are still discernible, though completely overgrown by magnificent trees and thickets of bamboo and elephant grass. The broad wall, composed of bricks and pebbles, can be traced from the river banks at its northern and southern extremities, which are a mile apart. We followed one section for three quarters of a mile, and found it in some places thirty feet high from the bottom of the moat, which is still traceable. The ruins, which, to judge from appearances, are coeval with those of Tagoung, mark the site of the oldest Tsampenago. This city, according to tradition, quoted by the old phoongyee at Bhamô, flourished in the days of Gaudama. There is yet another ruined city of the same name on the other side of the Tapeng, which does not present the same appearance of great antiquity. Twelve miles to the east of Bhamô are the ruins of another city named Kuttha, while Bhamô itself has a predecessor in the village called Old Bhamô, near the foot of the Kakhyen hills, the former importance of which is witnessed by its ruined pagodas. Here too is that old brick building mentioned by Dr. Bayfield as probably the remains of the old English factory erected in the beginning of the seventeenth century. We have little but conjecture to guide us as to the vicissitudes of these ancient cities of the Shan kingdom of Pong. As elsewhere in Burma, each new founder of a dynasty seems to have transferred the seat of power to a new site. But the legend of the origin of Tsampenago, of which the history of Bhamô is a continuation, may be more interesting than dryasdust details of antiquity.[19] Tsampenago is the Burmese form of a Pali name, Champa-nagara, from _nagam_, town, and Champa, the seat of a powerful kingdom, flourishing in the era of Gaudama, the ruins of which are still visible near Bhaugulpore, on the Ganges. Tsampenago, then, means the city of Champa.