of waters, it has twice fallen to me to traverse a belt of country in which the beauty and variety of water travel are so concentrated into the space of a few miles, as to form a succession of pictures not less striking in their way than the succession of marvels which keep the traveller agaze as he crosses an Alpine pass.

Each time I have felt irresistibly impelled to try to arrest the passing panorama, and to fix some of its fleeting beauties, however imperfectly, either with pen or pencil.

country the degradation of the "prison crop "adds terribly to the sentence of imprisonment. Usually tied in a tight shining ball on the top of the head, the hair is often left folded in trailing lengths with the gay-colored silk turban invariably worn. Surmounting this, the boatmen wear, for protection from sun and rain, a characteristic circular hat, with broad, stiff brim and sharp-pointed, conical crown, made, like almost everything in common use in the country, from that wonderful plant the bamboo."

But from the human figures in the foreground, the eye is soon drawn to the wild scene through which we are passing. Entering a narrow waterway, bordered by a fringe of dense underwood, by which the boat brushes on either side, we presently emerge into a forest landscape of such unusual beauty, that we seem to have lighted on the veritable reality of dreamland.

The railway which traverses the Sittang valley from Rangoon to Toungoo - now pushed forward to Mandalay leaves the old Burmese town of Shwegyin, on the banks of the Sittang, some fifteen miles to the eastward. The journey thence from Rangoon must be made either direct by boat, as from time immemorial, or by train as far as the station of Pyuntaza. From this point the Sittang is reached at Without exaggeration, one seems to one season by road, but in the south-west have left the every-day world far away, and monsoon, when the whole country is to be moving through an enchanted land. flooded, by canoe. It is this latter jour- In attempting to recall the scene, one exney, made at the height of the rainy sea-periences precisely the same difficulties as son, of which the strangeness prompts me to speak here.

A hundred yards from the railway station, the traveller finds drawn up in line at the edge of a sluggish stream a dozen long canoes bound for Shwegyin or other stations on the Sittang River. The forepart of each canoe is occupied by two men with paddles. At the stern is a boarded space for the passengers, with arched covering of bamboo matting, arranged as in boats on the Italian lakes, behind which there is room only for the steersman. The bamboo canopy is so low that it is only possible to sit or lie down after climbing into the boat on hands and knees; but with rugs and pillows the traveller finds himself in no less luxury than in a punt on the summer Cherwell, and for a five hours' journey through fascinating scenery, the situation is one of anything but discomfort.

As the boat glides for the first mile through level rice-fields, attention is most drawn to the picturesque figures of the Burmese boatmen as they paddle leisurely along, laughing together in low conversa tion, for there are no merrier people in the world than the Burmese.

The dress consists only of a coarse silk waist-cloth falling to the feet, and short white cotton jacket; but the most remark able part of the figure is the head. The long hair of the Burman is his glory, no less than that of his sisters; and in this

in trying to describe a dream; so that no language seems really appropriate, but the conventional wording in which dreams are clothed.

Methought I was suddenly transported from the bright glare of Eastern sunshine to the intense stillness of a vast tropical forest. There was no confinement of space, for the overarching roof of leaves was so lofty and so finely interwoven, as to seem hardly nearer or more palpable than the sky in the world of reality; yet so deep was the shade, that but for stray gleams which here and there stole in at some unseen loophole, and threw a fairy light into far-off corners, the daylight was converted into a uniform soft green twi light. The burning air had become cool and still, and silence reigned as in some vast empty cathedral.

I was on land, and yet reclining luxuriously in a boat; and the figures of the boatmen, my only companions - of strange complexion and garb and language

seemed in harmony with the unearthly surroundings. For the most striking feature of the scene was that instead of the solid ground, with beds of fern and scrub, such as underlie the earthly forest, this labyrinth of wild vegetation was planted in the still waters of a lake. Instead of the woodman's footpath threading the maze, there was free passage on every side, through avenues of tree-stems and walls of brushwool, reeds, and grasses.

Through this pathless wilderness the | into a tiny lake literally embosomed in water-ways, known only to the half-human the woodland, like a lark's nest hidden creatures by whom it was haunted, were marked at intervals by notches on the trees, or where a passage was cut through some dense hedge of bush. On all sides the view was bounded by towering walls of foliage, rising from invisible stems, and receding from time to time into dark glades of deepest shadow.

Suddenly the silence was broken by the clear tones of a child's voice ringing through the forest in a wild unknown cadence, and at a bend in the route a black narrow canoe shot across our path, laden with women and children, singing as they went, dressed in silks of many colors, and packed in with piles of fruit and vegeta-"Dee, dee!" every boat within miles is

theria in the ages before man had a place | the Yonzaleen valley. The whole picture on the earth. is mirrored in the smooth waters of the Sittang, and life is given to the scene by the sight of the long racing-boats in training for the forthcoming festival, and by the rhythmical shouts of the crews.

as

Pushing through the reeds, we presently launch our boat on the broad surface of the river and cross to the opposite bank, we are borne rapidly down stream. Here the banks are low and grassy, and the route lies by more than one peaceful bamboo village, with its quaint Buddhist monastery, from which rises the wellknown chorus of children repeating by rote the combinations of the Burmese alphabet.

Monotonous as is much of the scenery of the Sittang, there are reaches of great beauty, and nowhere is there a lovelier stretch of river landscape than in the approach to Shwegyin from the south. As we draw near to the town the prospect becomes every moment more beautiful, and the signs of life more frequent.

The banks rise into richly wooded hills on either side, and in the distance the mountain ranges of the Toungoo frontier come into view. The site of the town itself, at the junction with the Sittang of the tributary Shwegyin River, is eminently picturesque; and as a corner is turned, and the first reach of the smaller river opens before us, the ever-prominent feature of a Burmese town, the pagoda, comes in sight. Its graceful gilded spire rises from a bower of trees glowing in the evening sun, and backed by the blue hills of

The outburst of lawlessness following on the annexation of King Thebaw's adjacent territory has not seriously broken the normal quiet of the older province, and the ideal of rural peace presented by a Burmese village or country town has always seemed to me to represent the cream of the benefits which are conferred on an Indian province by English administration. To have bestowed such a condition of peaceful security on nations who for centuries have lived in a state of barbarous intertribal warfare, is the best reward of England's efforts in dealing with alien races, as it constitutes her strongest title to the tenure of her Eastern empire. In presence of such a spectacle, one is reminded of nothing so much as of the American poet's description of the Acadian village, every detail of which is faithfully represented by many a village in the land of which I write : Neither locks had they to their doors nor bars

to their windows,

But their dwellings were open as day and the

hearts of the owners. There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in abundance. P. HORDERN.

THE RUSSIAN BLACK SEA FLEET. The good account of herself when the next war announcement that the new Russian ironclad occurs. In 1876 Russia, betrayed in a naval Tchesmé has gone on a cruise along the Cri-sense through the incapacity displayed by the mean coast is too important to be passed over. Russia, it now appears, has complete and afloat an ironclad capable of facing the whole Turkish fleet and sending most of the vessels belonging to it to the bottom. It is now five years since Russia began building in the Black Sea a new fleet of ironclads, and in the mean time Turkey, which previously possessed a naval preponderance, has done absolutely nothing. Russia at length can assert her old predominance afresh, and with the gradual completion of the remaining ironclads under course of construction will not only prove a formidable antagonist to Turkey, but also to any other power attempting to send an attacking squadron on the Euxine. According to all accounts the new Russian ironclad is a well-built vessel, and, being an orthodox craft, devoid of the vagaries which rendered the Popoffkas the laughing-stock of Russia as well as the ridicule of Europe, may be expected to give a |

Popoffkas, had at the last moment to fall back upon a scratch squadron of cruisers and torpedo cutters for defence. This was practically the beginning of new methods in naval warfare which color the construction of every fleet at the present moment- - the cruiser and torpedo arms receiving in every country particular attention just now. Russia possesses scarcely any mercantile marine, and it would be hardly worth while for Turkey, which is far too poor to build another ironclad fleet, to create a cruiser squadron. Relatively, however, torpedoes and torpedo vessels constitute the cheapest method of naval warfare, and under the circumstances, therefore, Turkey's best policy obviously would be to develop at once more fully her torpedo service, so as to counter balance the power Russia has gained by completing the Tchesmé. No time, however, must be lost, as Russia will have a second ironclad finished before the autumn.

Engineering.

III. A VISIT TO THE KARUN River and KUM, Blackwood's Magazine,
IV. THE SONNET IN AMERICA,.

National Review,

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