r herself or her parents. Almost
every girl will do something, if only to pass the time.

You see, they have no accomplishments. They do not sing, nor play, nor
paint. It must never be forgotten that their civilization is relatively
a thousand years behind ours. Accomplishments are part of the polish
that a civilization gives, and this they have not yet reached.
Accomplishments are also the means to fill up time otherwise unoccupied;
but very few Burmese girls have any time on their hands. There is no
leisured class, and there are very few girls who have not to help, in
one way or another, at the upkeep of the household.

Mr. Rudyard Kipling tells of an astonishing young lady who played the
banjo. He has been more fortunate than myself, for I have never had such
good luck. They have no accomplishments at all. Housekeeping they have
not very much of. You see, houses are small, and households also are
small; there is very little furniture; and as the cooking is all the
same, there is not much to learn in that way. I fear, too, that their
houses could not compete as models of neatness with any other nation.
Tidiness is one of the last gifts of civilization. We now pride
ourselves on our order; we forget how very recent an accomplishment it
is. To them it will come with the other gifts of age, for it must never
be forgotten that they are a very young people--only children, big
children--learning very slowly the lessons of experience and knowledge.

When they are between eight and fourteen years of age the boys become
monks for a time, as every boy must, and they have a great festival at
their entrance into the monastery. Girls do not enter nunneries, but
they, too, have a great feast in their honour. They have their ears
bored. It is a festival for a girl of great importance, this ear-boring,
and, according to the wealth of the parents, it is accompanied by pwes
and other rejoicings.

A little girl, the daughter of a shopkeeper here in this town, had her
ears bored the other day, and there were great rejoicings. There was a
pwe open to all for three nights, and there were great quantities of
food, and sweets, and many presents given away, and on the last night
the river was illuminated. There was a boat anchored in mid-stream, and
from this were launched myriads of tiny rafts, each with a little lamp
on board. The lamps gleamed bright with golden light as they drifted on
the bosom of the great water, a moving line of liv