cked him up in his blanket under the bungalow and
left him in charge of the native Durwan, and arranged to send out a
conveyance for him on the morrow from Bhamo.

Then we took the hard high road again in the pony cart, and it felt very
hum-drum trundling along on wheels on the straight level road across the
plain. Groups of Kachins passed us going homewards to the high ground we
had left, and we envied them; for hills are elevating and plains
depressing, whatever Shopenhaur or the Fleet Street philosopher may have
said to the contrary.

As the evening came on, we passed the Mission House, and the cemetery,
and the Dak bungalow and the Club, pretty nearly all there is of
European interest in Bhamo, excepting the Fort, and pulled up at the
Deputy-Commissioner's Bungalow. The D.C., Mr Leveson, was at home this
time, and gave us a very hospitable welcome.

... The military police officers to dinner. The conversation mostly on
sport; what constitutes a "good snipe shot," what may be called a "good
bag of snipe," and the many ramifications of these subjects. Then
music, our host singing, "When Sparrows Build," and Kirke sang and
played his own "Farewell to Burmah," of which both music and words
expressed the very essence of the charm of this country, and a little of
the sweet sadness there is in glens and rivers, and of the peace of
evening when the kaing grass is still and the white ibis and crows
flight home across the broad river into the sunset. You who know the
song of Dierdre of Naoise, fairest of the sons of Uisneach, and the
charms of each glen she sings of in Alba--you will know the quality I
mean....

"Beloved, the water o'er pure sand,
Oh, that I might not part from the East,
But that I go with my Beloved."

[Illustration]

I think Percy Smith was strongest at coon songs, and Trail sang all
sorts, and G. and Kirke played accompaniments, whilst the writer picked
out his own to a chantie respecting the procedure to be taken with an
inebriated mariner--such a merry evening!--the best of which, to me,
was the jolly rattle of witty talk of these youthful administrators, the
oldest, if you please, well under thirty, talking of the other soldier
men as boys. We finished our concert at one, and the young soldiers had
to get home, and start up the river before daybreak for warlike
manoeuvres--(or polo?) at Myitkyna, 140 miles north-west of Bhamo;
there will be a jolly reunion I gather, of men who have b