The river was well on our right.

The plain down which we rode is of exceeding richness and highly cultivated, water being trained into the paddy-fields in the same way that everywhere prevails in China proper.

Buffaloes were ploughing--wearily plodding through mud and water up to their middles.

We were now among the Shans, and those working in the fields were Shans, not Chinese.

Ganai, Santa, and other places are but little principalities or Shan States, governed by hereditary princelets or Sawbwas, and preserving a form of self-government under the protection of the Chinese.