i 4 WILD SPORTS OF BURMA AND ASSAM 



For Easterns, I consider the Burmese woman decidedly 

 virtuous. If well and kindly treated, she will seldom commit 

 adultery, and is faithful to her husband unless she has had a 

 liaison before marriage, and then, if tempted, she yields, as 

 she thinks the first man has a prior claim on her. If a couple 

 do not agree, nothing is easier than for them to be divorced ; 

 they can part by an equal division of goods, or either can go, 

 leaving all the property they possess behind. Occasionally, 

 to be rid of a termagant wife, a Burman will turn priest, or 

 the woman become a nun, or the slave of a pagoda. The man 

 can readily resume his ordinary garb again, and remarry, but 

 not the woman. She can do so, but to have been a pagoda- 

 slave is always a term of reproach, and very few men would 

 marry one, even if she were young and pretty ; generally they 

 are old hags. A doctor who visited Burma and travelled in 

 it for some weeks, calls them vestal virgins, which would 

 astonish the old women not a little, as they have probably 

 done their share to multiply and replenish the earth. The 

 people are very sensitive, and put an end to themselves on 

 the slightest provocation, generally by an over-dose of opium. 

 They are omnivorous, will eat or drink anything, from a 

 dead and half-putrid elephant to a snail. They are very fond 

 of fish, and preserve it in various ways ; a favourite dish of 

 theirs is nga-pee, a horrid decoction of rotten fish pounded 

 with chillies, garlic, and other condiments. 



As Buddhists, they are forbidden to take life, and most 

 Burmans would not tread upon a worm, but there are always 

 local shikaries, who kill game and bring it in for sale, and no 

 one will refuse to purchase and partake of it, as the sin lies 

 on him who deprived it of life. But between man to man 

 they are most bloodthirsty, and kill and mutilate an enemy 

 with horrid tortures. I have known and seen men who had 

 been strapped down and holes bored through them with red- 

 hot irons. I have seen a string of men, crucified, impaled, 

 ripped open, and left to die with a fire lit under them ! They 

 are a mass of contradictions, but for all that, I prefer them to 

 the natives of Southern India. 



Burmese burn their dead ; only the few who cannot afford 

 to do so, bury them. Directly the breath has left the body, 



