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3 - White collar Flowerland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2009

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Summary

The houses of these strange people are of the most miserable description – mere pigeon houses perched in the air on poles, with a notched stick as the sole means of egress and ingress to the dwelling. They are, however, well adapted for protecting their inmates from the ravages of the periodical deluge, and the still more destructive inroads of prowling tigers, in which the woods abound.

Major J. J. Snodgrass (1827, p. 141)

I wrote home that I'd reached Riverside by elephant – but it was only my rucksack, my oil lamps and the tin of paraffin that rode down to the village. Elephants are slow and uncomfortable transport; walking is pleasanter. Unfortunately, between Headquarters up at the border and the lower village, where the tributary debouches into the great river, we had to wade the stream thirtyseven times. I was accompanied by Timothy, the Army medical officer, who wore Wellington boots – but the water reached our waists.

Halfway down the valley there was a hamlet where we stopped at the store, and a rotund little gentleman with a jaw abscess called on his wife to serve us tea, giggling as he recounted his days in the Burma Rifles: ‘Ordinary soldier, sixteen shillings a month, no pension! Hee hee!’

There were no villages here ten years back. Headquarters had been at Barterville, on the banks of the main river at the next tributary to the south. In many respects it made more sense there; that was where not only the trade but also much of the population was, in Barterville itself or the villages nearby.

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True Love and Bartholomew
Rebels on the Burmese Border
, pp. 31 - 51
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1991

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