LECTURE II.
BURMA.
THE BUDDHIST RELIGION.
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Map of India, distinguishing Burma.| In the last lecture we visited Madras, the southernmost and oldest province of the Indian Empire. In this lecture we will cross the Bay of Bengal from Madras to Burma, the easternmost and newest of the provinces, if we except a recent sub-division of an older unit. Politically, Burma is a part of India, for it is ruled by the Viceroy, and commercially it is coming every day into closer relation with the remainder of India. In most other respects, however, Burma is rather the first land of the Far East than the last of India, the Middle East. In race and language probably, in religion and social customs certainly, it is nearer to China than to India. Geographically, however, though placed in the Indo-Chinese peninsula beyond the Bay of Bengal, Burma is in relation with the Indian world, for it has a great navigable river which drains into the Indian Ocean, and not into the Pacific as do the rivers of Siam and Annam, the remaining countries of the southeastward promontory of Asia.
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The Shore, Madras.| |3.
In Madras Harbour.| We embark from Madras on the steamer which is to carry us to Rangoon. Formerly it was necessary to go out to the vessel through the surf in specially constructed boats, for all the Coromandel Coast is shoal, and there is not a single natural harbour. Often the surf is very rough. Now, however, a harbour has been made at Madras. Two piers have been built out into the sea at right angles to the shore. They may be seen in the distance in this view. At their extremities they bend inward towards one another, so as to enclose a quadrangular space within which the steamers lie. None the less there are times when the mighty waves sweep through the open mouth, rendering the harbour unsafe, so that the shipping must stand out to sea. There have been many terrible disasters in the cyclones which from time to time strike the east coast of India. When the Madras harbour was half completed the works were overwhelmed by a storm and the undertaking had to be recommenced.
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Coolies on Steamer.| Our vessel carries nearly two thousand coolies, natives of Madras, going to Burma to work in the rice mills or on the wharves, for Burma is a thinly peopled land. It has great natural resources, which are being rapidly developed by British capital. The coolies take passage as deck passengers for a few rupees, and each on landing at Rangoon has to undergo a searching medical examination, because the Plague is often carried from Madras to Burma. The disease manifests itself first by swollen glands, especially under the arms. The contagion, caused by a minute organism, is conveyed by rats. This terrible sickness is one of the worst scourges of modern India. It first broke out in Bombay in August, 1896. Since that date there have been three years in each of which a million deaths were due to it. As time goes on the mortality will probably decrease, for the first onslaught of a new disease is generally deadly. We must beware, however, of exaggerating its significance. There are three hundred million people in the Indian Empire, and the death rate by plague, even at its maximum, is therefore not very high. It is, indeed, low as compared with the death rate by malarial fever.