le file procession to the pagoda
along the top of the river bank. The arrangement might have been taken
from the procession of the Parthenon. Most of the people were women,
some carried offerings in lacquer bowls on their heads, others carried
between them pagodas and pyramids in wicker-work hung with new pots and
pans and, odd bits of pretty colours and flowers. Others carried round
palm leaf fans, the whole effect through the sunny morning mist was
exquisite in colour and perfectly decorative. I think it was part of the
Phoungie funeral of last night. We got fairly cold looking at it from
the deck in dressing-gowns.

... It gets cold truly--morning tub makes one gasp, but the Burmans are
bathing and soaping themselves this morning alongside, apparently
enjoying the cold water as much as they do down south.

The fog lifts and we swing out and into the current at eight o'clock;
the mail boat that came up last night just ahead of us, and we go
surging up in her wake, two mighty fine children of the great Cleutha;
Glasgow owned, Clyde built and engineered--900 horse-power has this
Mandalay, and she has twenty years behind her, and the engines run as
smoothly as if she were new: and the whole ship fore and aft is so well
kept, she might have come from the makers yesterday! I don't say that
the mail boat in front exactly adds to the beauty of the scenery but it
gives a big sense of successful enterprise. How gratifying it must be to
Germans and other foreigners to have the use of such a fine line of
steamers for their goods.

The cottages on your left after Katha are rather pretty. They are on
piles of course, on account of the floods in the monsoon, not "because
of ye tygers which here be very plentifull," as the old travellers had
it. Their silvery weather-worn teak or cane showing here and there, is a
pleasant contrast to the rich green foliage. We pass so close to the
bank that we can see the bright colours of the women's tamaines inside
them and through the trees we get glimpses of the blue hills to the
west-- d---- we are aground again--and my snipe shooting at Moda won't
come off--horrid sell! No--I believe she's over. No, she's stuck!

... But we got off--and have arrived at Moda; and I think the show of
native beauty crowding down the white sand here is even more effective
and exquisite than any village crowds we have seen so far on either of
the two sides of the river.

The girls are pictures; one has a yello