ces, sometimes as much as
two miles across, and at these places great care has to be taken not to
run on sandbanks; there is much poling and shouting out of soundings,
and when we do stick, a boat rows out with an anchor and drops it, and
after a while we ride up to the anchor and there we are!

There is far more vegetation to be seen on the banks than in Egypt, and
the life in the villages is much more attractive. The houses are
perfectly beautiful--at a distance. They are built of dark wood, and
stand on posts, with wide verandahs and thatched roofs, are nearly
always embowered in great trees, and have a luxuriant growth of
plantains and trees around. The spires of the pagodas and the pinnacles
and roofs of the choungs generally rise up somewhere in the picture, and
in the evening, when the whole village comes down to the water, the
scene is charming. The cattle stand knee-deep and the people bathe and
wash their clothes and drink heartily of the muddy stream, and then slip
on dry garments, after which the women and girls stream up the steep
banks, carrying red chatties of water on their heads. All are lively,
full of play and chaff. Their life is a happy one, because perfectly
simple and natural; no one need starve and no one wants to be rich.

All day the steamer floats along, generally winding slowly across and
across the river wherever a little red flag stuck up on the banks tells
that there are a few cases or barrels or packets to be taken down to the
market. At one place it is _let-pet_, or pickled tea, though the plant
from which the stuff is made is not really a tea-plant. Burmans love it,
and no feast is complete without it, indeed a packet of let-pet is an
invitation to something festive.

It is early afternoon and quite hot and still as we circle toward the
shore where the red flag hangs drooping; people in gay clothes are
dabbed about like little splashes of colour on the whity-yellow sand.
Suddenly there is a splash, and from our bows, which are high up in the
air, one of the Lascars, dressed in blue dungaree trousers, drops feet
first into the water like a stone; while he is in the air another
follows and another, until there are half a dozen of them in the water,
and they go across to the shore, paddling with each hand alternately as
a dog does with his paws. They are carrying a line ashore. They always
jump off like this at every landing-place. They shake themselves like
dogs as they land, and the su