UNTOURED BURMA 



853 



and often when in funds his generosity 

 takes the form of a pwe at full moon. 

 For this he engages musicians, actors, 

 and dancers, and invites everybody to 

 come. The stage is usually covered, but 

 the audience sits under the sky, strolls 

 under the trees, eats, smokes, sleeps now 

 and then for an hour, while all night 

 long the entertainment goes on. 



Beside each village is a monastery, and 

 about the monastery are always noble 

 trees, for Buddha commanded medita- 

 tion under the trees. These monasteries 

 are of teakwood, dark and rich in color- 

 ing, and bring out in sharp relief the 

 yellow robes of the monks. 



A SIMPIvE GUIIv^LESS PI:OPI.e: 



Here are no noble classes, no aristoc- 

 racy, none very rich, none very poor. 



Superstitious as are all ignorant peo- 

 ple, believers in charms, their supersti- 

 tions never take the form of cruel rites, 

 blood offerings, etc. Their lives are 

 frank and open, with none of the dark 

 places so common to other Orientals. 



This may not always be so literally 

 true, as in the pictures sometimes drawn 

 by some enthusiastic travelers, where one 

 is shown the family eating, the sleeping 

 rugs spread on the floor, beneath which, 

 in all the primitive simplicity of a pas- 

 toral people, are the cattle in their stalls. 

 This is, however, by no means untrue, 

 taken as a general average, of this sim- 

 ple, happy people, where everything is 

 open to the light of the day. They marry 

 and divorce without constraint of any re- 

 ligion ; their women are the freest in the 



world, and they are chaste and happy to 

 a degree rarely to be found elsewhere. 



The Burman minds his own affairs 

 and meddles not at all in his neighbor's. 

 Courteous assistance when it is asked, 

 and an equally courteous and infinitely 

 more rare non-interference under all 

 other circumstances is the rule in Burma 

 and the teaching of Buddha. Here is no 

 officious advice, no managing the affairs 

 of others. How rare! How beautiful, 

 even if carried to the extreme of letting 

 a man drown himself if he be so minded 

 or die ni any way he pleases. 



The traveler, to acquire any wisdom in 

 his travels, must go always with an open 

 mind. He must not judge Buddha, 

 Brahma, or Mohammed from the acts of 

 their followers any more than he may 

 judge Christ from the acts of men of 

 Christian nations, or His teachings from 

 the way we do not embody them in our 

 lives. We are sure there has been re- 

 vealed to us in our religion truth from 

 behind the veil. We cannot prove it ex- 

 cept by our faith, our belief. The Ori- 

 ental is equally sure that his is the true 

 faith, that through his prophet was re- 

 vealed the divine truth. 



This attitude of mind is essential to 

 any comprehension of other peoples, of 

 their customs, of their lives, and this is 

 why missionaries going out with intense 

 religious conviction (which is very nec- 

 essary), surcharged with zeal against all 

 other religions and even sects sometimes 

 fail to get into really sympathetic rela- 

 tions with the devout of other faiths. 



