The new Woon arrived on the 20th of February, but declined to land for three days, as they were _dies nefasti_. In the meantime he sent word that we might have boats to take the baggage to Tsitkaw, but advised us to wait until he had fired his guns, and brought in the various Kakhyen chiefs. The day after his landing, Sladen, with Sala, visited him, and the Ponline chief asked for a Burmese guard, alleging as a precedent that a guard had been sent up with the king’s cotton. The Woon, however, declared it to be quite unnecessary and uncalled for, and told the chief that the cases were quite different. The tsawbwa then consented to take us on without the guard, but told the Woon that he had received threatening letters from the Chinese. The Woon admitted his knowledge of the Chinese opposition, and promised to admonish the head Chinaman at Bhamô that he would be held responsible for our safety. The morning after the Woon arrived, he proceeded in state to the court-house, escorted by two hundred men. He wore the fantastic dress of a Burmese prince, a short tight richly coloured coat covered with gold tinsel, with two enormous wing-like epaulettes, and a tall gilt hat like a fireman’s helmet, surmounted by a pagoda-like spire. His appointment was read, and the guns fired, after an hour had been spent in driving home the powder and cartridge of green plantain leaf. Our baggage was despatched the next day, but two difficulties remained. We had no Kakhyen interpreters, and the rupees, which were said to be useless in the Shan country, had not been changed, for no country silver was to be found in Bhamô, a mysterious and suggestive fact. But these were not held sufficient to delay our departure, which took place on the morning of the 26th of February. Our want of a guide was removed by an accidental meeting in the street with the head jailor, a good-natured Shan, whom Sladen induced to guide us to Tsitkaw, promising to screen him from any displeasure of the authorities. Although the distance is only twenty-one miles, the loss of time caused by ferrying our party of one hundred men over the Tapeng compelled us to halt at the village of Tahmeylon, where we put up in a small monastery. Early the next morning we started, skirting the Tapeng through tall grass, with occasional rice clearings. At the junction of the Manloung river with the Tapeng, a number of ruined pagodas marked the site of the second town of Tsampenago, built at a much later date than that near Bhamô.