[11] A sort of demon-monkeys, grotesquely hideous and fearfully funny,—generally depicted as black Calibans, with tusks. Judson defines them as "monsters which devour human flesh, and possess certain superhuman powers." According to a Buddhist legend, Guadma, when he attempted to land at Martaban, was stoned by the Nats and Biloos, who then inhabited that country, as well as Tavoy and Mergui; and Captain Yule imagines there may be some dim tradition here of an alien and savage race of aborigines (akin, perhaps, to the quasi-negroes of the Andamans), who have become the Biloos, or Ogres, of Burman legend, "just as our Ogres took their name, probably, from the Ugrians of Northeastern Europe." The description of the Andaman negroes by the Mohammedan travellers of the ninth century, as quoted by Prichard, would answer well for the Biloos of Burmah: "The people eat human flesh quite raw; their complexion is black, their hair frizzled, their countenance and eyes frightful; their feet are almost a cubit in length, and they go quite naked." The comic element, however, always enters into the Burmese conception of a Biloo. On the pavement of a royal monastery at Amarapoora is a set of bas-reliefs representing Biloos in all sorts of impish attitudes and antics.
[12] Hlapet, or pickled tea, made up with a little oil, salt, and garlic, or assafœtida, is eaten in small quantities by the Burmese, after dinner, as we eat cheese. They say it promotes digestion, and they cannot live in comfort without it. Hlapet is also passed around on many ceremonial occasions, and on the conclusion of lawsuits.
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A QUACK.
IN TWO PARTS.
PART I.
At this present moment of time I am what the doctors call an interesting case, and am to be found in bed No. 10, Ward II. Massachusetts General Hospital. I am told that I have what is called Addison's Disease,—and that it is this pleasing malady which causes me to be covered with large blotches of a dark mulatto tint, such as I suppose would make me peculiarly acceptable to a Massachusetts constituency, if my legs were only strong enough to enable me to run for Congress. However, it is a rather grim subject to joke about, because, if I believe the doctor who comes around every day and thumps me, and listens to my chest with as much pleasure as if I was music all through,—I say, if I believed him, I should suppose I was going to die. The fact is, I don't believe him at all. Some of these days I shall take a turn and get about again, but meanwhile it is rather dull for a stirring, active person to have to lie still and watch myself getting big brown and yellow spots all over me, like a map that has taken to growing.
The man on my right has consumption, smells of cod-liver oil, and coughs all night. The man on my left is a Down-Easter, with a liver which has struck work; looks like a human pumpkin; and how he contrives to whittle jack-straws all day, and eat as he does, I can't understand. I have tried reading and tried whittling, but they don't either of them satisfy me, so that yesterday I concluded to ask the doctor if he could n't suggest some other amusement.
I waited until he had gone through the ward, and then I seized my chance, and asked him to stop a moment.
"Well," said he, "what do you want?"