CHAPTER XXII.
CHINA AS A FIGHTING POWER--THE KACHINS--AND THE LAST STAGE INTO BHAMO.
We now left the low land and the open country, the pastures and meadows, and climbed up the jungle-clad spurs which form the triangular dividing range that separates the broad and open valley of the Taiping, where Manyuen is situated, from the confined and tropical valley of the Hongmuho, which lies at the foot of the English frontier fort of Nampoung, the present boundary of Burma.

Two miles below Nampoung the two rivers join, and the combined stream flows on to enter the Irrawaddy a mile or two above Bhamo.
No change could be greater or more sudden.

We toiled upwards in the blazing sun, and in two hours we were deep in the thickest jungle, in the exuberant vegetation of a tropical forest.

We had left the valley of the peaceful Shans and were in the forest inhabited by other "protected barbarians" of China--the wild tribes of Kachins, who even in Burma are slow to recognise the beneficent influences of British frontier administration.

Nature serenely sleeps in the valley; nature is throbbing with life in the forest, and the humming and buzzing of all insect life was strange to our unaccustomed ears.
A well-cut path has been made through the forest, and caravans of mules laden with bales of cotton were in the early stages of the long overland journey to Yunnan.