w-toned talk of the women fell, from far above, the
tinkle of innumerable metal leaves which were stirred by the breeze as
they hung from the _'htee_ of the pagoda. A golden image winked in the
sun; the painted ones stared straight in front of them over the heads of
the worshippers, and somewhere below a mallet and a plane were lazily
helping to build yet another pagoda in honour of the Lord of the Earth.

Sitting in meditation while the Professor went round with a sacrilegious
camera, to the vast terror of the Burmese youth, I made two notable
discoveries and nearly went to sleep over them. The first was that the
Lord of the Earth is Idleness--thick slab idleness with a little
religion stirred in to keep it sweet, and the second was that the shape
of the pagoda came originally from a bulging toddy-palm trunk. There was
one between me and the far-off sky line, and it exactly duplicated the
outlines of a small grey stone building.

Yet a third discovery, and a much more important one, came to me later
on. A dirty little imp of a boy ran by clothed more or less in a
beautifully worked silk putso, the like of which I had in vain attempted
to secure at Rangoon. A bystander told me that such an article would
cost one hundred and ten rupees--exactly ten rupees in excess of the
price demanded at Rangoon, when I had been discourteous to a pretty
Burmese girl with diamonds in her ears, and had treated her as though
she were a Delhi boxwallah.

"Professor," said I, when the camera spidered round the corner, "there
is something wrong with this people. They won't work, they aren't all
dacoits, and their babies run about with hundred-rupees putsoes on them,
while their parents speak the truth. How in the world do they get a
living?"

"They exist beautifully," said the Professor; "and I only brought half a
dozen plates with me. I shall come again in the morning with some more.
Did I ever dream of a place like this?"

"No," said I. "It's perfect, and for the life of me I can't quite see
where the precise charm lies."

"In its Beastly Laziness," said the Professor, as he packed the camera,
and we went away, regretfully, haunted by the voices of many wind-blown
bells.

Not ten minutes from the pagoda we saw a real British bandstand, a
shanty labelled "Municipal Office," a collection of P. W. D. bungalows
that in vain strove to blast the landscape, and a Madras band. I had
never seen Madrassi troops before. They seem to dress jus