banks up into a high wall of waters. Piercing this rampart, the Irrawaddy enters the First Defile, a gloomy, savage, rock-bound gorge, thirty-five miles in length. The Defile is narrow, tortuous, romantically beautiful, in places of un-fathomed depth. Rocks in mid-stream, sudden abrupt curves, seething whirlpools, render navigation difficult and hazardous. In the dry season, with care but without in-superable risk, launches steam up and down the Defile, their movements strictly regulated, under statutory sanction, by the civil authorities at Bhamo in telegraphic communication with Sinbo. When the rains begin, the Defile, closed to steam traffic, is traversed constantly by timber rafts, sparingly by boats. Down stream, boats rush with more speed than safety. Up stream, the voyage is laboriously effected by towage from the bank. If the rope slips, the toil of days is lost in a few minutes. Emerging at Pashaw, named by an illustrious visitor[1] the Ruby Gate of the Irrawaddy, the river flows peaceably past Bhamo. A few miles below that town lies the Second Defile, not so strait and winding as the first but bound between beetling crags and set with dangerous eddies and whirlpools. Less sternly sombre than the upper gorge, it is perhaps even more picturesquely beautiful, with one most striking feature, the towering Elephant Rock crowned by a tiny golden pagoda. In spite of this narrow approach, steamers reach Bhamo at all times of the year.
From the Second Defile the river issues just above the charming village of Shwegu. Thence past Moda, Katha, Tagaung, site of an ancient capital, Thabeik-kyin, Kyauk-myaung, it flows placidly on to Mandalay. Near Thabeikkyin, the port of the Ruby Mines, it is caught by the Third Defile, deep and somewhat narrow, but not to be compared with the Defiles above either in hazard or in beauty. A strong swimmer can cross from bank to bank. Leaving the wharves and the Hard of Mandalay thronged by
- ↑ Lord Kitchener.
