[171] Sir J. George Scott, K.C.I.E.
[172] General Sir Edward Stedman, G.C.B., K.C.I.E., successively Inspector-General of Police in Burma, Quartermaster-General in India, General Officer Commanding the Burma Division, and Military Secretary at the India Office, one of the most distinguished officers of the Bengal Army.
[173] Pickled tea.
[174] My wife spent the hot season of 1888 at May-my̆o, the first Englishwoman who ever visited it.
[175] Hein, a Shan official of about the standing of a Circle Thugyi in Burma.
[176] 13s. 4d.
[178] The suppleness of Burmese women is remarkable. To lean backwards and pick up with the eyelid a rupee placed on the floor is not an unknown feat.
[179] Sir George White’s close connection with Upper Burma was never forgotten. When Ladysmith was relieved, the Upper Burma Club sent him a telegram of congratulation, of which we received a courteous acknowledgment, probably the only instance of an exchange of telegrams between Mandalay and Ladysmith.
[180] A great deal of nonsense has been written from time to time on the subject of the Burmese custom of Shiko. A Burman coming into the presence of a superior, a monk, a member of the royal house, an official, an elder of his family, adopts an attitude akin to kneeling, and places the palms of his hands together. Placing the palms of the hands together and slightly raising them is the essence of the attitude of respect. It is a charming and graceful salutation. In European schools boys are taught to adopt instead a weird caricature of a military salute or a debased imitation of the Indian salaam, which they do ungracefully and with the ugliest effect. I do not care very much for the prostration on the floor, and think it may be overdone. I used to make people of any standing sit uncomfortably on chairs. But what objection there can be to the hands slightly lifted in reverence, a natural and beautiful action, why it should be thought more dignified to pretend to cast dust on the head in salaaming, I cannot understand. The last outrage perpetrated in school is to teach boys to stand with arms folded across their chests in the presence of their elders and betters.