CHAPTER 4: A Ruined Temple.
After the officer left him, Stanley sat thinking for a long time.
He himself inclined strongly towards the river; but he saw that, at present, the difficulties would be very great.

The war boats were passing up and down, and bodies of troops were being carried down in large craft.

In every village the men, he knew, were assembling and drilling.

Even in Ava he could see the difference in the population, the proportion of men to women having markedly decreased since his arrival.
As to the journey by land, it appeared to him impossible.

He was, too, altogether without money and, whether by water or land, it would be necessary to go into the villages to buy provisions.
Indeed, money would have been almost useless, for there was no coined money in Burma; payments being made in lead, for small amounts, or in silver for large ones--the quantity necessary being cut off from small sticks or bars, or paid in filings.
It seemed to him that the best thing would be to take to the forest, for a time; and endeavour to subsist upon wild fruits or, if these were not to be found there, to go out into the fields and orchards at night, and so manage to hold on for a few weeks.