aze of sun, and three dug-out canoes, with men in pink and white,
flying bannerets, go out to meet her. With their gay colours, the white
steamer, and the gleam of brass-work, you have a subject for a picture
after the style of Van Beers--if there was only time! I just make a
modest grab at it with an inky pen.

[Illustration]

Burmans come streaming along the yellow sandy shore in rainbow tints,
and two of our soldiers in khaki, almost invisible but for the boots and
red necks, sweat along the loose sand with them. Up the bank are seated
groups of girls and women, quietly filling their souls with the joy of
gazing at the white ship that contains the Imperial Ti.

... Put in the night at Minhla.--After dropping anchor, our new
passengers, Mrs Jacobs and daughter, and their guests and ourselves sit
round the deck-table and talk of the celebrations in Rangoon, and we all
turn in at ten, for we grudge an hour taken off these days of light.
They got off at Yenangyat further up the river, a place where there are
oil springs and works.

21st.--We get up early these days, because the country is so beautiful,
and because it is a little chilly out of the sun, and morning tub begins
to have attractions again; it is so cold and exhilarating, and you feel
fifty times more energetic up here than in Rangoon; you feel you must
not miss any of the river's features, so tumble out betimes. Possibly
the anchor coming up at daybreak awakened you, and if that did not, a
dear little Burmese boy's cock and hen must have done so; the cock sends
out such clarion challenges to all the cocks ashore before daybreak. The
boy in green silk kilt with touch of pink, holding his two white pets
with their red combs, makes a most fetching piece of colour.

We begin to think thicker clothing would not be amiss--but a quick walk
on shore makes one's blood go merrily. We decided to come here again
with some sort of a house on a keel of our own, and stop and shoot here
and there, and paint; perhaps drift down river from Bhamo through the
defiles, with sport wherever one wanted it--four kinds of deer,
elephant, jungle fowl, francolin, snipe, geese, duck, possibly leopard
or tiger, and a few miles inland there are rhino and gaur--there's a
choice!--and I'd have a net too--four weeks out, by "Henderson" or
"Bibby," four here, and four back--I wonder if my presence could be
spared at home.

MIMBU.--Here are splendid trees, like those in Watteau's pictures,