And now there is something to write about—the mangosteen
A Hindu comes with a cup of coffee, some toast, and six mangosteens on a tray, and asks: "Will master have his chota hazri here?" And now there is something to write about—the mangosteen!
The most unprepossessing fruit to look at, the size of a black walnut in its husk; an unlovely dark brown color on the outside. If you didn't know the mangosteen; if a plateful were brought to you for breakfast you'd eye the things askance, and say, "Take 'em away, please; take 'em away." But cut around its circumference through the husk, a quarter of an inch thick, and lift it apart. One of the halves makes a little bowl, its inside the most lovely old rose color, the other half holding a beautiful white pulp. The rich old rose edge of the husk hugs the mound of pulp, the combination making a color scheme to delight an artist's soul.
Insert a fork in the edge of the pulp, lift it out bodily, open your mouth, and—oh, say, after all the other delicious fruits on earth were made and pronounced good by the beneficent Creator, it would seem as if He had said: "Go to, now, let one more fruit be made for man, more delicate in flavor, more delicious than all the rest"—so He made the mangosteen.
XXI
BURMA AND BUDDHA
And Rangoon is in Burma, a city of some three hundred thousand, the chief commercial city of Burma.
It is located in the south of that country, on one of the numerous mouths of the Irawadi River. Burma forms a part of the narrow Malay Peninsula, broadening out after Rangoon is reached, coming north from Penang, into a country as large as Texas, bounded on the west by India, on the north by Thibet, on the east by Siam, Laos and China, with the Bay of Bengal washing its southern coast.
Burma is the most thoroughly Buddhistic country in the world.