good life, for it is a step of
promotion to be a man in this life; but he will not talk of it. He
forgets most of it, he says, though he remembered it when he was a
child.

Sometimes this belief leads to lawsuits of a peculiarly difficult
nature. In 1883, two years before the annexation of Upper Burma, there
was a case that came into the local Court of the oil district, which
depended upon this theory of transmigration.

Opposite Yenangyaung there are many large islands in the river. These
islands during the low water months are joined to the mainland, and are
covered with a dense high grass in which many deer live.

When the river rises, it rises rapidly, communication with the mainland
is cut off, and the islands are for a time, in the higher rises,
entirely submerged. During the progress of the first rise some hunters
went to one of these islands where many deer were to be found and set
fire to the grass to drive them out of cover, shooting them as they came
out. Some deer, fleeing before the fire, swam across and escaped, others
fell victims, but one fawn, barely half grown, ran right down the
island, and in its blind terror it leaped into a boat at anchor there.
This boat was that of a fisherman who was plying his trade at some
distance, and the only occupant of the boat was his wife. Now this woman
had a year or so before lost her son, very much loved by her, but who
was not quite of the best character, and when she saw the deer leaping
into the boat, she at once fancied that she saw the soul of her erring
son looking at her out of its great terrified eyes. So she got up and
took the poor panting beast in her arms and soothed it, and when the
hunters came running to her to claim it she refused. 'He is my son,' she
said, 'he is mine. Shall I give him up to death?' The hunters clamoured
and threatened to take the deer by force, but the woman was quite firm.
She would never give him up except with her life. 'You can see,' she
said, 'that it is true that he is my son. He came running straight to
me, as he always did in his trouble when he was a boy, and he is now
quite quiet and contented, instead of being afraid of me as an ordinary
deer would be.' And it was quite true that the deer took to her at once,
and remained with her willingly. So the hunters went off to the court of
the governor and filed a suit for the deer.

The case was tried in open court, and the deer was produced with a
ribbon round its neck. Evi