wood, and hill, and running water, and we have a good
Mahseer in the bag--or pot rather--a perfect beauty, though not quite up
to the record weights we read of; but it played handsomely, and it comes
in handily for lunch. I got it at the tail of a lovely clear running
pool,[36] just above the ford where the caravans cross from China. The
river must be much netted by the coolies who camp for the night here; as
I wound up before lunch one of these, a Chinaman, with a boy came and
cast a circular net with great skill over half the pool in which I'd
landed the Mahseer, but they didn't get anything, as I expect I'd driven
the Mahseer into the rough water at the top of the pool. Down the river
where it meets the Taiping I am told there is splendid fishing, but I
must content myself with the hope that "a time will come." It is
pleasant in the meantime; there are sweet scents in the air, and
pleasant colours. Our little camp kitchen, one hundred yards down the
river, wreaths the trees with wisps of blue smoke. The Burmese girl and
her brother wear bright red and white, and near us there are wild
capsicums and lemon trees dangling all over with yellow fruit and
sweet-scented blossoms. The fruit has rather a coarse skin, but the
juice is pleasant enough under the circumstances.

[36] Fresh food a treat, as larder is becoming "tinny."

How good the Mahseer was fried, with a touch of lemon! I daresay if it
had been big enough to feed all hands it would not have had such a
delicate flavour; it was rather like fresh herring. If our servants
hadn't much fish, I at least, helped their larder to a crow from a
swaying bough above us some forty odd yards--brought it down with a
four-inch barrelled Browning's colt. It and its comrades made a racket
above us, and disturbed a nap G. and I were having on the bank up the
river from our camp, so I drew as I lay and fired, and was fairly well
pleased with the shot; but the smiles and astonishment of some Chinese
and Kachins, who had gathered from I don't know where, and were very
unexpectedly showing their heads round us, were truly delightful, and
the feathers were off in a twinkling. I liked these aborigines'
expressions after the shot a good deal better than before.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Then we got up and went on to China, G. on her white pony, the writer on
foot, and when we came to the ford the pony wouldn't face the stream for
love or a