Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ... Pha-an. Yet one more sensation remains to complete the bizarre suggestions of the day. For as I near the gateways of Pha-gat, I am startled by the sound of a great flight of birds, a sound as of grey geese on the wing, but of such volume as can proceed only from a great host. These are the bats of the Pha-gat cave. For more than twenty minutes they sweep out, in a long swift line that grows tortuous as it recedes; and, as far as I can see into the ruddy twilight, the line extends. Swiftly as each creature in it is flying, it looks in the distance like a smoke spiral I 6! W Q Q S! Q waiting for a wind to blow it away. They go every evening, say my boatmen, to clrink the salt water of the sea; and they cross in their flight the crests of the Zingyaik hills. We move slowly on along the dead water, the half-moon overhead. White mists gather on the shadowy face on the river, and the air grows chill. CHAPTER XXXIV TO SHWEGUN FROM a faint shark streak, glinting white on the river's horizon, to a puffing monster of fire and iron; from faint paddle-throbs, like the humming of distant bees on a summer's day, to a loud roar and shriek; the steamer comes to take all the travelling world of Pha-an on its way. It is in great solitudes that the poetry of swift motion makes its finest appeal. Englishman, Shan, Panthay, Indian, Taungthu, and Karen--all.who are waiting here--embark; and we are borne away on this new, throbbing carpet of Solomon, .in a manner that delights us all. Past the shadow of Pha-boo. we enter the left channel of the river, skirting an island in our course, and Pha-nwe is-soon lost to sight behind us. The route we are following is in a sense historic, since the names of all these peaks and precipices are associated with the bygone..
