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 Railways. because of its unrivalled waterways, partly because in the dry season the ordinary Burmese springless bullock cart, often on solid wheels, can be driven over the reaped fields, mostly because for many years Burma was hardly treated by the Imperial Government and allowed a share of its revenues too scant to provide adequately for its development, the Province is still insufficiently equipped in the matter of land communication. It was not till 1877, more than fifty years after the acquisition of Tenasserim and Arakan, a quarter of a century after the conquest of Pegu, that the first railway from Rangoon to Prome, 161 miles in length, was opened. In the next seven or eight years a line was built from Rangoon to Pegu and extended to Toungoo which, at a distance of about 160 miles, had up to that time been more than a week's journey from the capital. Owing entirely to the insistence of Sir Charles Bernard, the continuation of this line to Mandalay was taken in hand in the first year of the occupation of Upper Burma. The country being flat and engineering difficulties few, the whole length to Mandalay (384 miles) was completed and opened for traffic early in 1889. From Mandalay a line runs through Maymyo to Lashio, the headquarters of the Northern Shan States (180 miles). From the foot of the hills to the Maymyo plateau the line zigzags up the side of the cliffs, with the inevitable corkscrew. The intention was to continue the line as far as the Salween at Kunlôn Ferry, with the design of piercing China and reaching Talifu. But doubts were cast on the commercial possibilities of the project, and the line remains suspended in mid-air at Lashio. One of its