Page:Provincial geographies of India (Volume 4).djvu/18

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GENERAL DESCRIPTION
[CH.

eastern front marches successively with Siam, French Indo-china, China.

Boundaries. A small section of the boundary in the extreme south is the Pakchan river. North of this, hill and mountain ranges mark the eastern frontier except where the rivers Thaungyin, Salween and Mèkong are the dividing lines. With China, the boundary was partially laid down by a joint Commission between 1897 and 1900 and was demarcated by

Fig. 1. A Burmese holiday.

Fig. 1. A Burmese holiday.

masonry pillars, some erected in later years, as far north as the head waters of the Akyang river in about 27° 30′ N. The northern part of this boundary follows successively the Irrawaddy-Shweli and Irrawaddy-Salween watersheds. The extremity of the eastern boundary and the northern frontier facing Tibet, as yet undefined, are marked by lofty mountain ranges. On the west, other mountain chains separate Burma from Assam, Manipur and Chittagong as far as the estuary of the Naaf. Thence, west and south, to Victoria Point, the limit is the coast-line washed by the waters of the Bay of Bengal, the Gulf of Martaban and the Indian Ocean.