194 
BURMA AND ITS PEOPLE. 
Sep., 1891. 
This is a change from the sweetness and luxury of the big 
P. and 0. vessel on which we have come out, for it is only a 
ship of 3,000 tons, and 600 coolies are crowded on the deck, 
and out of this number about 400 are, at any time of day or 
night, smoking their hubble-bubbles, a kind of primitive 
hookah, charged with a mixture in which tobacco, opium, 
and Indian hemp are choicely blended with a much larger 
proportion of dried cow manure, and the effluvium makes food 
a disgust, and sleep an impossibility. 
Happily, it is but a four days’ run to Rangoon. 
Long before you reach that port the deep sapphire of the 
open ocean changes to a brownish hue, proclaiming that you 
are abreast of the mouths of the mighty Irrawaddy, which, 
after flowing south for 800 miles, pours its waters into the sea 
by a network of outlets spreading out over 100 miles of coast 
line. 
At last the ship enters the principal channel, between low 
banks dotted with villages and fringed with tropical trees, 
and after a few hours the golden spire of the great Pagoda of 
Rangoon is seen, towering high above surrounding palms, 
against the cloudless sky. 
Then we run alongside the landing-stage, and, amid 
prodigious clamour and bustle, join hands with those dear 
ones whom we have journeyed so many leagues to see face to 
face once again. 
Rangoon is a city of some 200,000 people. In its 
commercial quarter great bazaars, lofty warehouses and 
imposing public buildings stand in juxta-position with the 
bamboo shanties of the native population ; and in the streets, 
Burmese, Tamuls, Bengalees, Madrasees, Chinamen and 
English mingle in a medley of costumes and a Babel of 
tongues. 
The cantonments of the British garrison and the bunga¬ 
lows of the European residents stand on high ground a couple 
of miles behind the city, in an environment of palms and 
other stately trees which make the situation eminently 
picturesque, 
But the glory of Rangoon is its great Golden Pagoda, 
the Schway Dagon. What the sacred city of Benares is to 
the Hindoo, the shrine of the Prophet at Mecca to the 
Mahomedan, St. Peter’s at Rome to the devout Roman 
Catholic, such is the Schway Dagon to the pious Buddhist 
of Ceylon, Burma, or Siam, and to see it once in his life is 
his heart’s desire. 
