Sep., 1891. 
BURMA AND ITS PEOPLE. 
198 
BURMA AND ITS PEOPLE.* 
BY A. W. WILLS. 
Farther India is not yet overrun by personally con¬ 
ducted tours, and not much frequented by the British globe¬ 
trotter. 
I have observed that many people are possessed by a 
rooted belief—derived, I believe, from the communications of 
the Rangoon correspondent of the Times —that it is princi¬ 
pally inhabited by bands of desperate criminals, called 
Dacoits ; and that their knowledge of the country does not 
extend far beyond this supposed fact. 
It seemed to me, therefore, that, having visited Burma 
under circumstances which enabled me to get more into 
touch with its people than is possible to those who travel 
there under less fortunate conditions, I should be guilty of 
something approaching to a dereliction of duty if I failed to 
respond to your invitation to communicate to you some of the 
impressions which my wife and I derived from our recent 
sojourn in that sunny land. 
Were our time less limited, I would ask you to linger with 
me awhile on the way thither, in the beautiful island of 
Ceylon, to wander among the depths of its primeval jungles 
and under the shade of its palms, to breathe the balmy air of 
its cinnamon gardens and to admire the splendour of its flora 
and the thousand charms with which nature has clothe""' its 
length and breadth. But I have asked you to travel WAoii me 
to-night not to Ceylon, but to Burma. 
You must suppose that we have already escaped from the 
heat of the Red Sea, passed the grim rocks of Perim, landed 
our mails at Aden ( where, according to the popular saying, 
only a sheet of paper separates you from the nether regions, 
and that is scorched), and set foot once more on terra firma 
among the Cocoa palms of Colombo. Please imagine, too, 
that we have spent a delightful fortnight with old friends 
among the mountains, of which Adam’s Peak is the best 
known, though by no means the highest, and then re-embarked 
and steamed on through the Bay of Bengal to Calcutta, where 
we have finally transferred ourselves and our impedimenta to 
the British India Company’s ship “ Bundara.” 
* Read before the Birmingham Natural History and Microscopical 
Society, December 2nd, 1890. 
