174 FOREST LIFE AND SPORT IN INDIA 
the more populous portions of the Province, and it is 
not unlikely that if the establishment of foreign 
settlements were encouraged, and a through rail- 
way journey from India provided at no great 
expense, the Indians of the east and centre of the 
Peninsula would flock to a land where Nature is 
kind and taxation light. 
As for the Burmaa, if it is agreed that he is a 
person who as a rule finds happiness in ease, his 
charm is undeniable. The peasant who devotes 
three months to agriculture, and for the rest of the 
year can reside in a well-built, comfortable house 
supplied with every requirement of his simple life ; 
whose womenfolk will wear either gold ornaments 
or none; whose dress on the gala-days that occur so 
frequently in this beautiful land is always of silk, 
may be pardoned for refusing to work in order that 
he may possess more than he can use, especially 
when the accumulation of wealth does not, in Burma, 
appear to bring more luxury or more refinement 
in life. The people are already refined; they have 
charming manners and a charming hospitality ; but 
if work is waiting to be done, it is better to employ 
the Chinaman or the native of India, although these 
may be actuated only by the interested motive of 
improving a hard lot, and not by the truly Western 
incentive of pleasure in work for work’s sake. 
Already in Lower Burma there are signs that the 
Burman may be supplanted by his more energetic 
fellow-subjects from the West, and, when to a natural 
indolence of temperament is added the love of 
gambling and the general recklessness characteristic 
of his race, there can be little doubt that even laws 
