Page:Provincial geographies of India (Volume 4).djvu/24

8 and west the sand fly adds his bite to the other terrors of the insect world, and some people compare these parts to Nga-yè (hell), saying that the water is all salt, the country is always submerged, and the mosquitoes and sand flies are the masters and asking what further misery could be devised besides this of revising the settlement.

Yet, improbable as it may seem, over some minds the Delta exercises a singular fascination. Straggling villages, pagodas, monasteries, at rare intervals, vary the monotony

of the outlook. As one floats on a broad river or a winding creek with forest to the water's edge, at night with swarms of fireflies lighting the banks, many an aspect of calm and silent beauty is revealed.

East of the Delta are more vast stretches of rice-fields broken only by spurs of the Pegu Yoma in Hanthawaddy and Insein and by the Yoma itself which borders Tharrawaddy and traverses Pegu, clad with deciduous and ever-green forests.