ABSTRACT
THE country inhabited by the Burmans, properly so called, may be described roughly as the valleys of the Irrawaddy and Chindwin Rivers, south of 23 N. Latitude. The hills which bound the Irrawaddy Valley on the east, close in the great river in its northern reaches, and as far south as Mandalay. Below that point the river turns westward and leaves a widening plain between its left bank, and the spurs of the Eastern Range, which rise abruptly from the low ground. The passes through this range lead to a hilly plateau, the altitude of which is from two to four thousand feet above sea-level rising occasionally to five and six thousand feet. This plateau is intersected from north to south by the Salween River, which, rising somewhere in the mountains to the northwest of Yunnan, enters the sea at Moulmein. The channel of the Salween is in most places deep. To the east the high land continues, but is rougher and more mountainous, and rises until the watershed between the Salween and the Mekong is crossed. The descent to the Mekong is then made through difficult and rugged country much cut up by watercourses. The Shan States, which were at the time of the annexation tributary to the Burman monarch, are situated, with some insigificant exceptions, on this plateau.
