d fresh in their white jackets, with flowers in
their hair. And they are all delighted to talk to you and show you their
goods, even if you do not buy; and they will take a compliment sedately,
as a girl should, and they will probably charge you an extra rupee for
it when you come to pay for your purchases. So it is never wise for a
man, unless he have a heart of stone, to go marketing for silks. He
should always ask a lady friend to go with him and do the bargaining,
and he will lose no courtesy thereby, for these women know how to be
courteous to fellow-women as well as to fellow-men.

In the provincial bazaars it is much the same. There may be a few
travelling merchants from Rangoon or Mandalay, most of whom are men; but
nearly all the retailers are women. Indeed, speaking broadly, it may be
said that the retail trade of the country is in the hands of the women,
and they nearly all trade on their own account. Just as the men farm
their own land, the women own their businesses. They are not saleswomen
for others, but traders on their own account; and with the exception of
the silk and cloth branches of the trade, it does not interfere with
home-life. The bazaar lasts but three hours, and a woman has ample time
for her home duties when her daily visit to the bazaar is over; she is
never kept away all day in shops and factories.

Her home-life is always the centre of her life; she could not neglect it
for any other: it would seem to her a losing of the greater in the less.
But the effect of this custom of nearly every woman having a little
business of her own has a great influence on her life. It broadens her
views; it teaches her things she could not learn in the narrow circle of
home duties; it gives her that tolerance and understanding which so
forcibly strikes everyone who knows her. It teaches her to know her own
strength and weakness, and how to make the best of each. Above all, by
showing her the real life about her, and how much beauty there is
everywhere, to those whose eyes are not shut by conventions, it saves
her from that dreary, weary pessimism that seeks its relief in fancied
idealism, in a smattering of art, of literature, or of religion, and
which is the curse of so many of her sisters in other lands.

And yet, with all their freedom, Burmese women are very particular in
their conduct. Do not imagine that young girls are allowed, or allow
themselves, to go about alone except on very frequented roads. I