_, but I've got entirely out
of the use of chairs, and me bones are too stiff to sit doubled up on
the floor like a skewered chicken."

"Oh, that's all right," said Shafto, who was very sleepy. "I suppose
you have just come from Upper Burma?"

"Yes, that's the part I most belong to and that suits me. I can't do
with this soft, wet climate, though I am an Irishman. I'm from Mogok,
that's the ruby mine district, but what I like best is the real jungle.
Oh, you'd love to see the scenery and to walk through miles and miles
of grand trees on the Upper Chindwin; forests blazing with flowers and
alive with birds, not to speak of game. Many's the time I've been
aching for the hould of a gun, but, of course, it was an evil thought."

"Your religion forbids you to take life?"

"That's true; I've not tasted meat for years, but there's not a word to
be said agin fish or an odd egg."

"Tell me something more about your new faith!"

"Well now, let me think," said the _pongye_ meditatively. "We have no
regular service for marriage or burial, and no preaching. We keep the
five great rules--poverty, chastity, honesty, truth, and respect all
life. There are two hundred and twenty-seven precepts besides. Most
men can say them off out of the big book of the Palamauk, and there are
stacks and stacks--thousands of stacks--of sacred writings, but I just
stick to the five commandments, the path of virtue and the daily
prayers. The singing and chanting is in Pali--a wonderful fine, loud
language. Many of the _pongyes_ is teachers, for every boy in Burma
passes through their hands; but I'm no schoolmaster, though I was once
a clerk in the Orderly room. I could not stand the gabble of them
scholars, all roaring out the same words at the top of their voices for
hours together."

"I can't imagine how you pass your time," remarked Shafto, "or how you
stand the idleness--a man like you who were accustomed to an active
life."

"Oh, I get through me day all right. In the early morning there's
prayers and a small refreshment, and I sit and meditate; the young
fellows, like novices, sweep and carry water and put flowers about the
Buddha; then we all go with our bowls in our hands, parading through
the village, looking neither right nor left, but we get all we want and
more--for giving is a great merit. When we return to the _kyoung_ we
have our big midday meal, and then for a few hours I meditate again.
The life suits me. It's a d