Page:Provincial geographies of India (Volume 4).djvu/47

CH. III] the little barren, broken ridges of Sagaing, every point and spur of which was marked by some monastic building or pagoda. Nearly opposite to us lay Amarapoora, with just enough haze upon its temples and towers to lend them all the magic of an Italian city. A great bell-shaped spire, rising faintly white in the middle of the town, might well pass for a great Duomo. You could not discern that the domes and spires were all of dead heathen masses of brickwork and that the body of the city was bamboo and thatch. It might have been Venice, it looked so beautiful. Behind it rose range after range of mountains robed in blue enchantment. Between our station and the river was only a narrow strip of intense green foliage, mingled with white temples, spires, and cottage roofs. The great elbow of the river below us, mirroring the shadows of the wood on its banks, and the glowing clouds above, had been like a lake, were it not that the downward drift of the war-boats as they crossed and recrossed, marked so distinctly the rapidity of the kingly stream. The high bank of the river, opposite Sagaing eastward, was seen to be a long belt of island crowned with glorious foliage (and there are no trees like those of Burma); only here and there rose an unwooded crest, crowned with its Cybeleian coronet of towers. Behind this were numerous other wooded islands, or isolated villages, and temples, and monasteries, rising directly out of the flood waters. Southward, across the river, was the old city of Ava, now a thicket of tangled gardens and jungle, but marked by the remaining spires of temples. On this side lay Sagaing quite buried in tamarind trees.

Affluents of the Irrawaddy. Stated in order from the north, the principal tributaries of the Irrawaddy above Bhamo, on the left bank, are the Nantabet, formed by the junction of the Tabak and Paknoi, the Mole, and the Taiping. Of these, the Taiping which flows westward out of China is the only river of importance; the others are mountain streams winding through the Kachin Hills. On the right bank is the Mogaung or Namkawng which debouches at Sinbo, after passing Mogaung, the depot of the jadeite industry, and after receiving there, its main tributary, the Namyin from Katha. Below Bhamo, on the left bank, are the Sinkan and the Shweli, the latter a river of