e Hindu
faith, has a fatal facility for accepting, semi-assimilating, and
finally absorbing, all of religious belief and conviction that may
come into contact with it. And this never necessarily involves the
abandoning of the old beliefs.

CHAPTER III

BURMA, THE BEAUTIFUL

In order to appreciate the wide extent of the British Empire in the
East, one needs to travel over the main lines of India and then steam
a thousand miles across the Bay of Bengal to Burma. Landing at
Rangoon, which is the doorway of the land, he reembarks upon one of
the sumptuous Irrawady River boats and steams northward another
thousand miles into the very heart of the country. Thus without
leaving the eastern empire one can spend weeks of most interesting
travel, and pass through territories inhabited by peoples of separate
racial types and of totally different tongues. Perhaps no other region
of the world can furnish such a variety of climes and such marked
contrasts of national habits and costumes. And yet, all this vast
territory has been brought into subjection to the British crown and
furnishes facilities and conveniences of travel which are really
marvellous in the East. Burma is politically and industrially a part
of India.

It is a rich country, with four magnificent rivers reaching nearly its
whole length, furnishing abundant facilities for cheap travel and
commerce, and carrying fertility into all sections of the land.

It is the land of rice, of teak, and of oil. These are the triple
sources of Burmese industry, commerce, and wealth. Never was a land
richer than this in alluvial soil, in refreshing rains, and in
bountiful rivers. It is one great expanse of living, paddy green. The
teak timber furnished by the mighty forests of this land is carried to
many lands. The extent of this trade may be imagined from the
statement that the Bombay-Burma Trading Company in Burma employs three
thousand elephants for hauling its timber to the river. Every two
elephants are under the care of three men; so that there are
forty-five hundred men in charge of these animals alone.

Burma is called the "Land of Pagodas." The first object which attracts
the eye soon after the ship enters the river, and while still twenty
miles from the harbour, is the far-famed pagoda of Schwey Dagon, in
Rangoon. Buddhism is preeminently the faith of Burma. All the people
have been for many centuries its adherents. And the pagoda is the
outward emblem of th