he Irrawaddy, the Upper Chindwin, Katha, Bhamo,
Myitkyina and Ruby Mines districts, with the Kachin hills and a great part
of the Northern Shan states. In the Shan States there are a few open
plateaus, fertile and well populated, and Maymyo in the Mandalay district,
the hill-station to which in the hot weather the government of Burma
migrates, stands in the Pyin-u-lwin plateau, some 3500 ft. above the sea.
But the greater part of this country is a mass of rugged hills cut deep
with narrow gorges, within which even the biggest rivers are confined. The
second tract is that known as the dry zone of Burma, and includes the whole
of the lowlands lying between the Arakan Yomas and the western fringe of
the Southern Shan States. It stretches along both sides of the Irrawaddy
from the north of Mandalay to Thayetmyo, and embraces the Lower Chindwin,
Shwebo, Sagaing, Mandalay, Kyaukse, Meiktila, Yamethin, Myingyan, Magwe,
Pakokku and Minbu districts. This tract consists mostly of undulating
lowlands, but it is broken towards the south by the Pegu Yomas, a
considerable range of hills which divides the two remaining tracts of the
Irrawaddy basin. On the west, between the Pegu and the Arakan Yomas,
stretches the Irrawaddy delta, a vast expanse of level plain 12,000 sq.m.
in area falling in a gradual unbroken slope from its apex not far south of
Prome down to the sea. This delta, which includes the districts of Bassein,
Myaungmya, Thongwa, Henzada, Hanthawaddy, Tharrawaddy, Pegu and Rangoon
town, consists almost entirely of a rich alluvial deposit, and the whole
area, which between Cape Negrais and Elephant Point is 137 m. wide, is
fertile in the highest degree. To the east lies a tract of country which,
though geographically a part of the Irrawaddy basin, is cut off from it by
the Yomas, and forms a separate system draining into the Sittang river. The
northern portion of this tract, which on the east touches the basin of the
Salween river, is hilly; the remainder towards the confluence of the
Salween, Gyaing and Attaran rivers consists of broad fertile plains. The
whole is comprised in the districts of Toungoo and Thaton, part of the
Karen-ni hills, with the Salween hill tract and the northern parts of
Amherst, which form the northern portion of the Tenasserim administrative
division. The third natural division of Burma is the old province of
Tenasserim, which, constituted in 1826 with Moulmein as its capital, formed
the nucleus from w