Dawn found us already astir. A fruit-seller in the bazaars, given to early rising, served us breakfast. We did not know the directions, however, and had to wait for the rising sun to show us which way was east. When we saw it peering boldly over the horizon, we were off.
A sandy highway led forth from the village, but soon swung northward; and we struck across an untracked plain. Far away to the eastward were rocky hills, deep blue in color, foot-hills of wild mountain chains that we would have to cross later. But around us lay a stretch of sandy lowlands, dull and flat, with never a hut or a human being in sight.
Ten miles of plodding, without even a mud-hole in which to quench our thirst, brought us to a crowded village of bamboo huts hidden away in a tangled wood. A pack of dogs came leaping toward us, barking noisily. We drove them off and drank our fill, while the natives stood about us, staring curiously. As we started on again, a babu pushed his way through the group and invited us to his bungalow. He was employed on the new railway line that was being built from Pegu to Moulmein, and which when it was completed was to bring him the title of station-master in his own town. In honor of his future position he was already wearing a brilliant uniform, designed by himself, which made his fellow townsmen gaze in wonder.
We squatted with him on the floor of his open hut, and made away with a dinner of rice, fruit, bread-cakes, and—red ants. No Burmese lunch would be complete without the last. When we offered to pay for the meal, the babu rose, chattering with anger, and would not pardon us until we had patted him on the back and put our thin pocket-books out of sight.
A few miles beyond the village we came upon a gang of men and women at work on the new railroad. There were at least three hundred of them, all Hindus, for the Burman scorns coolie labor. There was no machinery. A few scooped up the earth with shovels in the shallow trenches; the others swarmed up the embankment in endless line, carrying flat baskets of earth on their heads.
Nightfall found us still plodding on in a lonely jungle. We had heard that a division engineer lived just across the Sittang River, and we were determined to reach his bungalow before midnight. Not long afterward we were brought to a sudden halt at the bank of the river. Under the moon’s rays the broad sheet of water showed dark and dangerously rough, racing by with the swiftness of a mountain stream. A light twinkled high up above the opposite shore nearly half a mile away—too far to swim in that rushing flood. I tore myself free from the entangling bushes, and, making a trumpet of my hands, bellowed across the water.
For a time only the echo answered. Then a faint cry was borne to our ears, and we caught the Hindustanee words, “Quam hai?” (“Who is it?”)
I took a deep breath and shouted into the night:
“Do sahib hai! Engineer sampan, key sampan key derah?”
A moment of silence. Then the answer came back, soft, yet distinct, like a near-by whisper: