picture of bustle,
heat, and toil.

Yet Rangoon is a very pleasant place to live in, and as many of my
readers will, no doubt, have fathers or brothers in the East, they
will like to hear something about the place, and how people live
there.

Behind the quay and warehouses the city lies, well laid out in broad
streets and squares, and having many fine shops and buildings. The
houses are mostly of that curious half-Italian, half-Oriental style
which we find in almost all Southern and Eastern seaports. They are
usually painted white, with green shutters to the windows, and are
often surrounded by broad verandas. The roofs are generally of red
tiles, which look pretty among the dark foliage of the trees which
often line the streets, and in spite of "topee"[1] and umbrella,
pedestrians are thankful to avail themselves of their shade, for the
air is hot and the white glare of the streets is most trying to the
eyes.

[Footnote 1: Sun-helmet.]

People of all nations throng the thoroughfares and bazaars--Indians
and Singalese, Chinese and Burmans--and one's first impression is a
vague confusion of picturesque costumes and unaccustomed types of
mankind; for Rangoon is cosmopolitan to a degree, and can hardly be
called a Burmese town at all.

Anyone visiting Rangoon for the first time will, I think, be struck by
the many strange trades carried on in the streets, and it is
interesting to sit in the veranda of your hotel in the Strand and
watch the crowd as it passes. Here is a water-carrier, whose
terra-cotta water-jars are slung from a bamboo carried on his
shoulder, another man bears on his head a tray upon which a charcoal
fire is cooking a strong-smelling "tit-bit" some hungry labourer will
presently enjoy. Again, a Chinaman, perhaps wearing black skull-cap
and loose jacket and trousers, endeavours to tempt you to purchase the
fans or sunshades he is hawking. Huge baskets of coco-nuts or
vegetables, gaudily printed calicoes and haberdashery, cheap knives
and looking-glasses, and baskets of cool melons, are some of the
articles carried across the shoulders of the pedlars, while porters
pass to and fro bearing huge burdens from one warehouse to another.

Flocks of goats are driven from house to house to be milked at the
doorstep, and occasionally a hill-man may be seen wandering about in
the hope of finding a purchaser for the freshly-caught leopard he is
leading. What will, perhaps, most strike Europeans are the bullo