e greater proportion of the population of the
country, for with the exception of a few isolated towns and
settlements, which are surrounded by cultivated areas of limited
extent, the whole country away from the river-banks is densely covered
by scrub jungle and primeval forest, practically uninhabited and
uncultivable. Throughout the length of the river, however, is one long
series of towns and villages, whose pagodas and monasteries crown
every knoll, and whose population seems largely to live upon the
water.

The Irrawaddy is a stream of great size and volume, and, like all
rivers subject to periodic flood, is enclosed by high banks of
alluvial deposit, between which the river winds its devious way, laden
with that rich and fertile mud which, in the course of ages, has
formed the delta at its mouth.

In the case of the Irrawaddy this delta is of large extent, and is
everywhere intersected by the deep creeks which form the many mouths
of the river, thus breaking up the alluvial plain into numerous
islands, between which communication is impossible except by means of
boats.

These islands are for the most part covered with a dense jungle, which
forms a lair for tigers and many other wild beasts, and so close do
these tigers approach to Rangoon that one was recently shot inside the
great pagoda, in which it had taken refuge. While there I heard of an
amusing adventure which befell the keeper of the lighthouse at the
mouth of the Rangoon River. He was enjoying a morning stroll along the
beach, reading a book as he walked, and, as the sun was bright, he
held his white umbrella before him to shield himself from the glare of
sand and water. Suddenly he stumbled over a tiger lying fast asleep
upon the shore, and with a yell of terror the lighthouse man, dropping
book and sunshade on the ground, fled away as hard as he could run in
one direction, to discover presently that the tiger, just as much
alarmed as himself, had made an equally precipitous flight in the
other.

All these lower water-ways of the Irrawaddy are tidal, for they are
quite close to the sea, and at high water the land is scarcely raised
at all above the water level. Mango-trees, dwarf palms, and reeds
fringe the muddy banks, on which, raised upon poles and built partly
over the water, are the huts of the fishermen, who, half naked, ply
their calling in quaintly-shaped, dug-out canoes. To the north of the
principal creek which connects Rangoon with Basse