Burma Peeps at Many Lands   By: R. Talbot (Robert Talbot) Kelly (1861-1934)

PEEPS AT MANY LANDS

BURMA

BY

R. TALBOT KELLY R.I., R.B.A., F.R.G.S. COMMANDER OF THE MEDJIDIEH

WITH TWELVE FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY THE AUTHOR

LONDON

ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK

1908

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE LAND 1

II. RANGOON 5

III. THE PEOPLE 13

IV. THE IRRAWADDY 21

V. THE IRRAWADDY ( continued ) 29

VI. VILLAGE LIFE 35

VII. TOWN LIFE 41

VIII. FIELD WORK 50

IX. THE FOREST 56

X. THE FOREST ( continued ) 65

XI. TEMPLES AND RELIGION 74

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

IN COLOUR

BY R. TALBOT KELLY

THE PAGODA STEPS, RANGOON frontispiece

FACING PAGE

"A DAINTILY CLAD BURMESE LADY" 9

A REST HOUSE 16

A NATIVE BOAT SAILING UPSTREAM WITH THE WIND 25

THE IRRAWADDY 32

ENTRANCE TO A BURMESE VILLAGE 41

AT THE WELL 44

THE MARKET PLACE 48

IN THE DEPTHS OF THE FOREST 57

A DAK BUNGALOW 64

THE QUEEN'S GOLDEN MONASTERY, MANDALAY 72

THE SHWE ZIGON PAGODA, PAGAN 80

SHRINE ON THE PLATFORM OF THE SHWE DAGON PAGODA on the cover

Sketch Map of Burma on p. viii.

[Illustration: A SKETCH MAP OF BURMA.]

BURMA

CHAPTER I

THE LAND

How many boys or girls, I wonder, ever turn to their school atlas for amusement, or try to picture to themselves what manner of countries those might be whose strange and unfamiliar place names so often make their geography lesson a difficulty?

Yet there are few subjects, I think, which might be made more interesting than geography, and a map may often serve to suggest delightful fancies to a boy or girl of imagination.

Open your atlas at random and see what it has to tell you. Here, perhaps in the heart of a great continent, stretches a mountain range, and from it in many directions wind those serpent like lines which denote rivers.

Following these lines in their course, through narrow valleys or wide plains, we notice that upon their banks presently appear those towns and cities whose names you so often find it difficult to remember, and at length, frequently by many mouths that cut up the delta it has formed, the river eventually finds its way into the sea.

These are the simple facts our map gives us, but there is a great deal of poetry behind. That mountain range is Nature's means of attracting and holding the moisture laden clouds which have been blown in from the sea, and either in the form of rain or snow it stores up the water evaporated from it.