Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/351

Rh have the care of a bridge, should it be constructed.

For three days after crossing the frontier one travels on through magnificent tropical scenery. Huge flowering trees cover the mountain-sides, great creepers trail from branch to branch, lovely tree-ferns, and other vegetation brought into being by a combination of heat and moisture, abound on all sides. The road is excellently built, but passes through a practically uninhabited tract of country until it debouches on the third day on to the Bhamo plain. Rest-houses providing shelter for the night exist, but supplies are not forthcoming, and this was pointed out to me by my Chinese coolies as a grave disadvantage to the road. In the eyes of the Chinese, the state of a road from an engineering point of view is not comparable in importance with the facilities which it holds out for obtaining pork and rice. Caravans of mules and ponies were met with here and there, mostly carrying loads of raw cotton from Burma