There appears to be a great number
of Mussulmans, who would here seem to form the majority of the
population. Strong winds from the south interrupt our progress.

_Monday_, _18th_.--Delayed by bad weather.

_Tuesday_, _19th_.--Continued to pass through same kind of country, but
less jheelly. The Cook boat was left behind on the 17th in a squall, and
has not come up yet, so that I dine with the boatmen.

The black and white long-toed water-hen continues plentiful: when alarmed
by kites, etc. it pursues them uttering a low mournful scream, until it
has succeeded in getting its enemy off to some distance; it then returns,
I suppose to its young; otherwise its cry is something like the mewing of
a cat, or rather a low hollow moan. The hills are plainly visible to-
day, lying towards the north.

The males of the white and black water-hen have tails something like
those of a pheasant. There are two other species: one that is found on
the Tenasserim coast; the other is much larger,--the size, of a large
domestic fowl: one of the sexes, has red wattles on its head. The white
and black one is far the most common; it feeds apparently, in flocks: the
Maulmain one is the least common. These with Ardea Indica, the white,
black-toed, yellow-beaked Ardea, Ciconia nudiceps a small brown _chat_?,
Pica vagabunda, are the birds of the jheels or rather the dry spots in
them. I saw yesterday a flock of the black Ibis, flying _in a_
_triangle_ (>) _without a base_, the party was headed by one of the
white paddy-birds! Villages have become very numerous, and the
population abundant and flourishing. The cattle are, as I have said,
stalled and fed with paddy grass, quantities of boats being employed for
its conveyance. Oplismenus stagninus appears less common about here.

_Thursday_, _21st_.--Still among jheels; our progress is necessarily very
slow; we are indeed scarcely moving, there being no tracking ground:
jheels occur in every direction, although the hills are not 15 miles
distant. Pelicans with white and black marked wings occur, together with
the slate-colored eagle with white tail, barred at tip with black; it is
common in the low wooded places surrounded by jheels. Black-bellied Tern
occurs, but not that of Assam.

_Friday_, _22nd_.--Arundo and two species of Saccharum occur, among which
S. spontaneum, is very common and of large size. We reached the Soorma
river about 12 o'clock, 3 or 4 miles above Mr. Inglis's ho