ASSAM, BURMA, AND CEYLON 177

tains that the Irawadi rises. Nowhere is the progress in
sconomic development of Burma since British occupation
 so marked as it is in the upper reaches of the
rawadi north of Bhamo. Bhamo is our most northerly
cantonment, and it is 250 miles (as the crow flies) above

w

AG

Fy — — — —

100 MY

F1G. r7 — Upper Basin of the Trawadi.

Mandalay, and 20 miles west of the Chinese frontier.
Above it the river passes through a craggy, forest-covered
defile in the mountains, which is only navigable for half
the year, and beyond this, for 150 miles farther, it still
stretches, sometimes half a mile wide, to the confluence
of its two northerly affluents, the N’maika and the