MODESTY OF BURMESE WOMEN 345 



so Moung Hpe and I, on curiosity bent, made our way to the 

 spot to see what all the merriment was about. On arriving 

 at the spot and looking down into the river we saw three or 

 four young girls of from seventeen to eighteen years of age, 

 disporting themselves in mid-stream and along the banks in 

 puris naturalibus, perfectly unconscious that any one was 

 looking on. Moung Hpe recognized the girls to belong to 

 the village of Sagadaung. We retraced our steps without 

 making our presence known, and returned to camp. 



It has been said by a critic in Land and Water that Burmese 

 women are very modest in all their actions and pourparlers 

 before the opposite sex, and that they never, when bathing in 

 a river, enter the water in puris naturalibus. In contradicting 

 this, and without wishing it to be thought for one moment 

 that it detracts in any way from their modesty, I may say 

 that I have over and over again seen girls, both old and young, 

 disporting themselves in the water in the above-mentioned 

 state, not only in outlying jungle streams, but in those which 

 flowed through or close to a village. 1 



Some days later my men, who had gone out to cut out the 

 tusks of an elephant I' had bagged, reported on their return 

 that they had seen the tracks of a huge herd of bison on the 

 outskirts of a large tract of - cane jungle some three miles 

 off. 



After arriving at the spot where the tracks had first been 

 seen, we took them on through some patches of "kaing" and 

 cane jungle. At times the tracks were very scattered, wander- 

 ing in and out and round in circles, and it was no easy matter 

 often to hit on the right line taken by the animals. After 

 threading our way in this manner through a long stretch of 

 thorny cane and bamboo we eventually came on fresh signs 

 of the herd's immediate vicinity, and were at the same time 

 warned by a low " moo " and the faint snapping of a twig 

 that the gaur were close by. The cane and grass at times 

 were rather dense ; fortunately for us, however, elephants had 



1 During thirteen years' residence and extensive travel all over the 

 country, from Mandalay to Mergui, I have seen girls bathing without a 

 stitch of clothing, hundreds of times. It was a common occurrence in my 

 day. F. T. P. 



