TOWN LIFE
Owing to their primitive methods of building and choice of materials, a Burmese town differs very little from a village except in point of size, though occasionally the houses are of two stories and timber-built throughout.
The stockade is absent, and in its place deep ditches, partly filled with water, surround the houses, and run alongside of the streets, which are, perhaps, somewhat wider and more regularly planned.
The approach to the town is often very pretty, the water reflecting the waving palm-trees and picturesque buildings, while the roads, which in Burma are usually nothing but a track, have, as they near the town, some semblance of solidity.
Little bridges cross the ditches, and give access to the houses, round about which are often raised paths or causeways of burnt brick set "herring-bone" fashion. These prove a comfort in the rains, when the streets of the town are rivers and the whole country a sea of mud.
Trees in plenty shade the road and houses, and shops and small bazaars give an air of business to the town, whose principal street, however, is largely covered with grass, and affords a convenient place in which to try a pony's paces.
Some of the streets have side-walks, a shade less dusty (or muddy, as the case may be) than the road itself, and in the least frequented of them dwarf palmettos enjoy a lusty existence.
Enclosed by low palisades in front of many houses, cannas, hibiscus, poinsettia, or lilies are growing, and rare orchids hang from the eaves, to provide in their strange but lovely blossoms a flower for some woman's hair. Indoors, in coloured pots or stands of often elaborate design, are other flowers, always most carefully tended, for the Burmans love what is beautiful in Nature.
In the streets the life of the people is only a slight amplification of that of the villages, the shops with their attendant customers marking the principal difference, while in bullock-carts of more ornamental design than those of the villages, the families of the well-to-do enjoy their outing.
Though always two-wheeled and drawn by a pair of oxen, there is a certain amount of variety in the native carts. The wheels are generally large, and are placed very wide apart, in order to lessen the risk of capsizing in the terribly rough roads they often have to travel.