the dry season its aspect changes. Then for a great part of its course, it is shallow, strewn with islands and with sandbanks which shift from year to year, impeding navigation and leaving riverine towns such as Bhamo and Myingyan often miles from the water's edge. At this season, only flat-bottomed vessels of very shallow draught can pick their way; sometimes even these are stranded. Often at Prome and below Mandalay, rows of steamers have been held fast for days. Elsewhere, steamers have grounded and remained high and dry for months till released by the rise of the river. Meanwhile the vessel becomes a stationary dwelling round which the caretaker plants a little garden for profit and for pastime. In the rains, high rises flood the banks to the destruction of growing crops. At the same time, the silt deposited enriches the soil.
The scenery of the Irrawaddy has been often celebrated. It is declared to be "as stately as it is beautiful; as passionate as it is serene." From the Confluence to the sea, it presents innumerable types of the picturesque, the rugged grandeur of the defiles, the smooth stream flowing between storied banks, the multitudinous mazes of the lower reaches. Sir Henry Yule, who accompanied Sir Arthur Phayre on his Mission to the Court of Ava in 1855 and who has recorded his observations in a classic work of absorbing interest, has drawn this brilliant picture of one gorgeous view:
The scene was one to be registered in the memory with some half dozen others which cannot be forgotten. Nothing on the Rhine could be compared to it. At the point where the temple stood, the Irrawaddy forms a great elbow, almost indeed a right angle, coming down to us from the North, but here diverted to the West. Northwards the wide river stretched, embracing innumerable islands, till seemingly hemmed in and lost among the mountains. Behind us, curving rapidly round the point on which we stood, it passed away to the Westward, and was lost in the blaze of a dazzling sunset. Northward ran
