eventy to
eighty yards but never closer, and went off flaunting its green and blue
plumage derisively, and I hurried home at top speed long after the
second whistle, rather glad I'd done no damage to anything.

At Shewgee in the afternoon we pulled out of the sunlight on the river
into the shadow of a steep bank with some sixty black-tarred wooden
steps up it. Creepers and foliage hung in masses over the edge and on
the top were the usual groups of brightly dressed people and palms and
trees in half tone, against a warm sky; and a pagoda too, of course, in
white and gold, with a banner staff in white glass mosaic. The dainty
figures came trooping down the long black steps and surged on board,
first of all politely making way to let us go ashore.

We wandered through, I think, the neatest village we have seen, each
dainty mat house had a tiny compound with palms, trees, and roses and
other flowers round it. We heard "The Potter thumping his wet clay" and
stopped and watched. He, or she, sat on the ground with feet out in
front and modelled bowls round the left hand, thumping and patting the
stiff clay with a little wooden spade, and without any further appliance
made complicated forms perfectly symmetrical. I'd no idea such symmetry
could be attained without the use of the wheel.

As we came back the darkness was falling and there were fires in most of
the houses on trays of earth and the light shone through the bamboo
walls, and we could see figures sitting beside them, either for warmth
or possibly to get away from mosquitoes.

We met a gold prospector here, a lean, brown, blue-eyed man in khaki
shirt and well-cut, and well-worn tweed continuations. I think all
prospectors must be somewhat alike. The last I saw was a similar
type--drinking beer in "The First and Last,"--Port Stanley--he was just
back from "the Coast," and his rig, and particularly, his expression
were much the same, but the man from Terra del had found gold, "like
melon seeds--G--D--two inches deep!"--this one hadn't.

Dinner talk suddenly interesting--the new passenger, Captain Kirke, R.
A., commandant of the military police is just in from the hills on the
west, where he has been on a punitive expedition. His three hundred
Sikhs and Ghurkas and ponies are on a small government steamer which we
have passed and repassed lately, so we have the latest news of our
neighbours to the west, the "partially subdued" Chins. The expedition
was, I understand