The Assistant Commissioner early learns self-reliance, decision, and ability to wield authority; and he can always look forward to the time when he may become Chief Commissioner.
There is a wonderful mixture of types in Bhamo.

Nowhere in the world, not even in Macao, is there a greater intermingling of races.

Here live in cheerful promiscuity Britishers and Chinese, Shans and Kachins, Sikhs and Madrasis, Punjabis, Arabs, German Jews and French adventurers, American missionaries and Japanese ladies.
There are many ruined pagodas and some wooden temples which, however, do not display the higher features of Burmese architecture.

There is a club, of course; a polo and football ground, and a cricket ground.
Inside the fort, among the barracks, there is a building which has a double debt to pay, being a theatre at one end and a church at the other, the same athletic gentleman being the chief performer at both places.

But, at its best, Bhamo is a forlorn, miserable, and wretched station, where all men seem to regard it as their first duty to the stranger to apologise to him for being there.
The distinguished Chinese scholar and traveller, E.Colborne Baber, who wrote the classic book of travel in Western China, was formerly British Resident in Bhamo.