a few tons of feed to be brought
aboard for the elephants' breakfast.

I haven't seen a white elephant yet, but in the Shwe Dagon {196}
Temple I found a lively eight-months-old youngster, an orphan from
Mandalay, that could eat bananas twice as fast as my Burmese boy-guide
and I could peel them, and the boy-guide in question assured me that
he will turn white by the time he is two or three years old. Which
would be very interesting if true, but I fear it isn't.

I am now hurrying on to India proper and must conclude my impression
of Burma with this letter. In Rangoon the lighter-skinned and
lighter-hearted Burmese contrast rather notably with the dark and
serious Hindus. Many of the Hindus are in Burma only temporarily. One
ship that I saw coming into Rangoon from the Coromandel Coast, India,
was literally spilling over with 3000 brown Hindu coolies. They will
work through the Burman rice harvest--rice is the one great crop of
the country--at eight to twelve annas (16 to 24 cents) a day, and
after three or four months of this will return home. Because they are
so poor at home the steamship charges only ten rupees ($3) for
bringing them to Rangoon, but requires fifteen rupees for carrying
them back.

Nor should I fail to mention another thing that impressed me very much
in Rangoon: the graves of the English officers who were killed in the
war with the Burmans many years ago, and are now buried within the
walls of the picturesque old Buddhist Temple. True it is that the sun
never sets on the English flag; and one finds much to remind him, too,
that the sun never sets on the graves of that flag's defenders.
Scattered through every zone and clime are they: countless thousands
of them far, far from the land that gave them birth. Nearby the place
where those of the Shwe Dagon sleep I stood on the temple walls and
looked out on the fading beauty of the tropic sunset, the silvery
outline of the Irrawaddy River breaking into the darkening green of
the jungle growth. And then came up the cool night breeze of the
Torrid Zone--more refreshing and delightful than our Temperate climate
ever knows. As gentle and caressing as a mother's lullaby, how {197}
it crooned among the foliage of the cocoanut palms, whispered among
the papaya leaves, and how joyously the great blades of the bananas
welcomed it!

With that fair view before our eyes, with the breezes as if of Araby
the Blest making mere existence a joy, we take our leave of