.

Contrast Constantinople with Eternal Rome. Constantinople, with its
pathetic remains of greatness, failed to remain "at unity in itself";
ancient Byzantium the "Guardian of the Gate" against the invading
Oriental, lived to see its churches turned into mosques, below which
lie, broken and untended, the porphyry monuments of Paleologue and
Cantacuzene.

What of things beautiful was spared wandered to Rome, whence from the
crumbling remnants of an old civilization came the light of the
Renaissance that spread over Western Europe.

Most pathetic of all cities that have failed is Amarapura, not so long
ago the capital of Burma, and a flourishing city on the banks of the
Irrawaddy, placed indeed in the most appropriate position for its former
purpose.

But a new King came who was not content with the capital of his fathers,
so he ordered its removal. A sycophantic priesthood was loud in
prophecies of the great future of the new capital to be built some few
miles away, but Mandalay is this day the provincial centre of the
government of a race alien to those who founded the city; the race of
Kings, the last scion of which abandoned the city of his fathers, is all
but extinct, and Amarapura has returned to the jungle from which it
rose.

Now this, I admit, appears to have nothing to do with the city of
Prague; it is indeed a far stretch of vision from "a Terrace in Prague"
to the banks of the Irrawaddy.

Nevertheless, memories of far-off days in Burma came surging up one day
as I sat on my terrace reading a newspaper printed and published in the
city that lay shrouded in historic mist below. The paper brought news of
an old acquaintance, not exactly a close, not even a bowing
acquaintance, for we were generally kept apart by force of circumstances
(which he might have controlled) at a distance of about a rifle-shot.
This acquaintance was one Wun Thu, a son of Thebaw, last of the Burman
Kings.

Wun Thu objected strongly to British rule, and emphasized his objection
by making trouble with his bands of patriots, whom we called dacoits,
robbers.

Even my peaceable occupation of surveying the land met with obstruction
on the part of Wun Thu, and led to a frequent exchange of perfectly
harmless rifle-shots. And here in Prague, looking down over my newspaper
from the terrace of my choice, I seemed to see the spires of the city
mass closer together and take on the form of giant jungle trees, the
broad Vltava to shrink to