284
A Priests' Bathing Pool 302
A Chinese Joss House 324
A Kachin Girl 370
A Girl of Upper Burmah 372
A Fakir at Benares 387
A Delhi Street Scene 390

_Illustrations by "G_."

A Sacred Lake near Rangoon 244
Sunset on the Irrawaddy 251
Mid-day on the Irrawaddy, distant Ruby Mountains 298

CHAPTER I

[Illustration]

Some time ago I wrote a book about a voyage in a whaler to the far
south, to a white, silent land where the sun shines all day and night
and it is quiet as the grave and beautiful as heaven--when it is not
blowing and black as--the other place! A number of people said they
liked it, and asked me to write again; therefore these notes and
sketches on a Journey to India and Burmah. They may not be so
interesting as notes about Antarctic adventure and jolly old Shell Backs
and South Spainers on a whaler; but one journal ought at least, to be a
contrast to the other. The first, a voyage on a tiny wooden ship with a
menu of salt beef, biscuit, and penguin, to unsailed seas and
uninhabited ice-bound lands; the other, in a floating hotel, with
complicated meals, and crowds of passengers, to a hot land with
innumerable inhabitants.

I trust that the sketches I make on the way will help out my notes when
they are not quite King's-English, and that the notes will help to
explain the sketches if they are not sufficiently academical for the
general reader, and moreover, I fondly believe that any journal written
in the East in these years of grace 1905-6, must catch a little
reflected interest from the historic visit of their Royal Highnesses the
Prince and Princess of Wales to India and Burmah.

Edinburgh is our point of departure; the date 13th Oct. and the hour 10
P.M. All journeys seem to me to begin in Edinburgh, from the moment my
baggage is on the dickey and the word "Waverley" is given to the cabby.
On this occasion we have three cabs, and a pile of baggage, for six
months clothing for hot and cold places, and sketching, shooting, and
fishing things