ould see it
when it's all uncovered. They're regilding it now."

Why is it that when one views for the first time any of the wonders of
the earth a bystander always strikes in with, "You should see it, etc."?
Such men given twenty minutes from the tomb at the Day of Judgment,
would patronize the naked souls as they hurried up with the glare of
Tophet on their faces, and say: "You should have seen this when Gabriel
first began to blow." What the Shway Dagon really is and how many books
may have been written upon its history and archaeology is no part of my
business. As it stood overlooking everything it seemed to explain all
about Burma--why the boys had gone north and died, why the troopers
bustled to and fro, and why the steamers of the Irrawaddy Flotilla lay
like black-backed gulls upon the water.

Then we came to a new land, and the first thing that one of the regular
residents said was: "This place isn't India at all. They ought to have
made it a Crown colony." Judging the Empire as it ought to be judged, by
its most prominent points--_videlicet_, its smells--he was right; for
though there is one stink in Calcutta, another in Bombay, and a third
and most pungent one in the Punjab, yet they have a kinship of stinks,
whereas Burma smells quite otherwise. It is not exactly what China ought
to smell like, but it is not India. "What is it?" I asked; and the man
said "_Napi_," which is fish pickled when it ought to have been buried
long ago. This food, in guide-book language, is inordinately consumed by
... but everybody who has been within downwind range of Rangoon knows
what _napi_ means, and those who do not will not understand.

Yes, it was a very new land--a land where the people understood
colour--a delightfully lazy land full of pretty girls and very bad
cheroots.

The worst of it was that the Anglo-Indian was a foreigner, a creature of
no account. He did not know Burman,--which was no great loss,--and the
Madrassi insisted upon addressing him in English. The Madrassi, by the
way, is a great institution. He takes the place of the Burman, who will
not work, and in a few years returns to his native coast with rings on
his fingers and bells on his toes. The consequences are obvious. The
Madrassi demands, and receives, enormous wages, and gets to know that he
is indispensable. The Burman exists beautifully, while his women-folk
marry the Madrassi and the Chinaman, because these support them in
affluence. When the B