ictures by Rousseau and Daubigny, and twice, in the shadows
of bamboo groves I saw veritable Monticelli's, when we met people and ox
carts labouring through the sand; when forms and colours were all soft
and blended, and the glow of day changed to night--Art is consoling when
the bag is empty, even the purse sometimes!

Had a cast before we left with fly in the morning; fish were rising, had
one on for a moment--saw a fish taken from a balance net on shore,
seemed about seven to ten pounds, bright and silvery as a salmon, with a
rather forked tail, should think said fish might be taken on a blue
phantom or Devon. I have both here, and, granted a stay of any time,
will try harling.

The shores of the river now are closer together, wooded and steep,
showing here and there boulders through the sand rather like the lower
reaches of Namsen in Norway, which perhaps only describes the appearance
to rather a restricted number of fortunates.

We saw two elephants grazing by the river-side; I believe they were
wild.

[Illustration: A Priests' Bathing Pool]

CHAPTER XXX

30th January 1906.--Fog--6 o'clock A.M.--half daylight, and the anchor
chain comes clanking on board--a cheery sound, the steady clink clank of
the pall-pin in the winch--a comforting sound, and bit of machinery to
anyone who has hauled in anchor overhand--what say you Baldy--or
Mclntyre, do you remember Rue Breichnich or Lowlandman's Bay, before we
got a winch, and the last three fathoms out of green mud?--and the kink
in the back before breakfast, and the feeling you'd never stand straight
again in your life?

We barely have the anchor up and fast and have steamed less than ten
minutes when we run into a fog bank set cunningly across the stream by
some river Nat. The bell rings, "Stop her"--and plunge goes the anchor
with the chain rattling out behind it, and we lie still again in the
silence of the fog. Sea swallows come out of the mist and give their
gentle call and flit out of sight, they give a regular flavour of the
sea; the mist hangs on our clothes and drips from the corrugated iron
roof of the flat, and our iron lower decks are shining wet.

9 o'clock.--The mist very gently rises off the river and wanders away in
the tree-tops and climbs the distant mountains slowly, and the warm sun
comes out to dry everything. The anchor is up again and its "paddle and
go,"--the leadsman is at his chant again. All the way up from Rangoon to
Mandalay a