and poor to being bound and rich. Nothing is further
from him than the feeling of exclusiveness. He abominates secrecy,
mystery. His religion, his women, himself, are free; there are no dark
places in his life where the light cannot come. He is ready that
everything should be known, that all men should be his brothers.

And so all the people are on the same level. Richer and poorer there
are, of course, but there are no very rich; there is none so poor that
he cannot get plenty to eat and drink. All eat much the same food, all
dress much alike. The amusements of all are the same, for entertainments
are nearly always free. So the Burman does not care to be rich. It is
not in his nature to desire wealth, it is not in his nature to care to
keep it when it comes to him. Beyond a sufficiency for his daily needs
money has not much value. He does not care to add field to field or coin
to coin; the mere fact that he has money causes him no pleasure. Money
is worth to him what it will buy. With us, when we have made a little
money we keep it to be a nest-egg to make more from. Not so a Burman: he
will spend it. And after his own little wants are satisfied, after he
has bought himself a new silk, after he has given his wife a gold
bangle, after he has called all his village together and entertained
them with a dramatic entertainment--sometimes even before all this--he
will spend the rest on charity.

He will build a pagoda to the honour of the great teacher, where men
may go to meditate on the great laws of existence. He will build a
monastery school where the village lads are taught, and where each
villager retires some time in his life to learn the great wisdom. He
will dig a well or build a bridge, or make a rest-house. And if the sum
be very small indeed, then he will build, perhaps, a little house--a
tiny little house--to hold two or three jars of water for travellers to
drink. And he will keep the jars full of water, and put a little
cocoanut-shell to act as cup.

The amount spent thus every year in charity is enormous. The country is
full of pagodas; you see them on every peak, on every ridge along the
river. They stand there as do the castles of the robber barons on the
Rhine, only with what another meaning! Near villages and towns there are
clusters of them, great and small. The great pagoda in Rangoon is as
tall as St. Paul's; I have seen many a one not three feet high--the
offering of some poor old man to the Great N