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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 8, p. 47.

ills TOR Y 47 air raw and disagreeable. On the hills in January it is very cold, frost occurring occasionally at as low an elevation as 500 feet above the plain. The hot months are close ; the mountains shut off the plain from cool breezes in the rains, and towards the end of the monsoon the atmosphere becomes steamy and enervating. The District had a bad reputation for sickness till lately; but the conversion of a number of malarious back- waters in the neighbourhood of Bhamo town into permanent lakes has diminished the prevalence of fever among Europeans. Burmans from the dry zone, however, are still apt to sicken and die during the rainy season. The lowest temperature recorded at Bhamo town was 38° in i8gi, and the highest io6° in 18go. The average maximum and mini- mum are about 87° and 6o° respectively. The rainfall is fairly copious and regular. Since 1887 it has averaged about 72 inches per annum. The name of the District (Banmaw or 1Ylanmaw, converted by the Burmans into Bamazv) is Shan, and signifies `the village of pots or potters.' The early history of Bhamo is legendary, but it is clear that at one time a powerful Shan State History. was more or less conterminous with the present District. It had its capital at Sampenago, the ruins of which are still to be seen at the northern end of the town of Bhamo, and became a Burmese dependency (with the M'6ngmit State) in the latter part of the sixteenth century. In 1668, according to Mr. Ney Elias, the Sawbwa, Sao Ngawk Hpa, insti- gated a Chinese attack upon Burma, but failing in his design, fled the country and was replaced by Min Gon, a Burmese general. In 1742 the Sawbwa freed himself from the Burmese yoke. Shortly afterwards, however, the Burmans, after repelling a Chinese invasion, which centred round Bhamo, permanently assumed control and appointed governors; but their hold on Bhamo was loose, and up to the time of the British occupation the wun in charge was often to all intents and purposes an independent ruler. A mission sent to inquire into the China-Burma trade, which had almost ceased owing to the Panthay rebellion in Yiinnan, led to the appointment of a British Resident at Bhamo in 1869. Though British commerce benefited but little directly from this arrange- ment, trade in general increased rapidly, and the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company in 1874 carried 30 lakhs' worth of merchandise to and from Bhamo. On the re-establishment of the authority of the Chinese Government in 1875 a mission under Colonel Horace Browne was sent into Yiinnan, by way of Bhamo, but failed to achieve its object, one of the party, :Mr. Margary, who went ahead by himself, being murdered at Manwaing beyond the frontier. The villages on the plains were at this time always being harried by the wild Kachins and Chinese. The Burmese government was quite unable to cope with the situation; and in r885 a quarrel between the Bkamo wun and one Set Kyin, an adventurer who had raised a body of