Burma is another country which was added to our list after leaving home, but as its people are quite distinct from the inhabitants of India and as it is one of the strongholds of Buddhism, we turned aside to visit it en route from Ceylon to Calcutta. On the map it occupies a part of the east side of the first of the three great peninsulas that stretch down from Asia to the Indian ocean and is separated from India proper by the Bay of Bengal. Its principal stream is the Irawaddy, famed in story for the magnificent scenery along its course and for the fertile valley through which it passes on its way to the sea.
Rangoon, the seaport of Burma, is situated some twenty miles inland upon a river of the same name, and has a harbor quite different from those at Singapore and Colombo. At those places the passengers on the incoming and outgoing steamers amuse themselves by tossing silver coins into the transparent waters and watching the divers catch them before they can reach the bottom, but at Rangoon the water is so muddy that a diver would have difficulty in finding an electric light. The depth of the water, too, is insufficient except when the tide is high. But the city of Rangoon is substantially built and has a number of fine business blocks and excellent public buildings. A municipal hospital now in course of construction surpasses anything which we have seen in the East. The park system at Rangoon is very attractive, and one sees the well-to-do element of the city fully represented there in the early evening. The roads about Rangoon are good, but not equal to those of Ceylon and Java. I have already spoken of the Java roads, and those of Ceylon are not behind them. No one can see these well graded, well drained and beautifully shaded highways without having his interest in good roads quickened.
At Rangoon we saw the elephants at work in a lumber yard, but they do not attract anything like the attention from the natives that "Jumbo" and the "Baby Elephant" did in the United States during my boyhood days. It is not necessary here for the head of the family to take his wife and all the children to the circus in order that the younger members of the family may catch a glimpse of one of these ungainly beasts. In Burma the elephant is simply an everyday beast of burden and earns his food as faithfully as the horse or the ox. We saw three at work in the lumber yard which we visited, the oldest of which is more than threescore and ten years, and has labored industriously for more than fifty years. A native rides upon his back and directs him by word, sometimes emphasized by an iron pointed stick, and the huge fellow lifts, pushes and twists the logs about with almost human intelligence. The elephant has an eye for neatness, and one would hardly believe from hearsay with what regularity and carefulness he works, moving from one end of the log to the other until it is in exactly the right place. In lifting he uses his tusks, kneeling when his work requires it. In carrying large blocks of wood he uses both tusks and trunk. Sometimes the elephant pushes a heavy log along the ground with one of his forefeet, walking on the other three, but generally the logs are drawn by a chain attached to a broad breast strap. An eighteen-year-old elephant, working in the same yard, was thus drawing heavy timbers and went about his work uncomplainingly so long as he was permitted to draw one at a time, but when two of these timbers were fastened together, he raised his voice in a pathetic lament which grew more touching when he received a pointed suggestion from his driver. These trumpetings were really terrifying to a stranger, but did not seem to alarm the Burmese. The ears of the old elephant showed signs of age; in fact, they were thin and frayed with flapping and looked like drooping begonia leaves.
AN ELEPHANT AT WORK IN RANGOON.
The elephants which we saw weighed about two tons each, and consumed about 800 pounds of feed per day. When I was informed that an elephant ate regularly one-fifth of his own weight per day, I could understand better than ever before what it means to "have an elephant on one's hands." The fact that they can be profitably used in business shows their capacity for work. The old song that credits the elephant with eating all night as well as all day is founded on fact, for the animal requires but two hours' sleep out of twenty-four, and when not otherwise employed, he puts in his time eating.
THE PARK AT RANGOON.