sentations of the peacock. An Upper Burman would be promptly put in gaol-he would even run some risk of being killed outright—if he ventured upon one. Peacocks are for personages of the blood-royal. Most people in independent territory wear no coats at all; but if they do wear coats, they must be of the simplest possible "Chinese cut." Long-tailed teing-mathehns, surcoats and the like, are reserved for officials, with regulations as to buttons, gold or otherwise, and other minutiae which must severely tax the memory of informers and chamberlains.

As we ascend in the social, or rather the official scale, --for all dignity comes from office, or from a special patent from the king-distinctions thicken. Naturally in the land of the umbrella-bearing chiefs, the huge htees afford a prominent and obvious mode of marking rank. The umbrella is twelve or fifteen feet high, with an expanse of six feet or more across. A poor man has nothing to do with these big umbrellas whatever, unless he be employed to carry one over his master's head. If he owns an umbrella at all, it must be short in the handle and otherwise of Western dimensions. Royal officials about the palace have their umbrellas painted black inside; country people, and those not directly connected with the royal abode, must have the palm-leaf as near the original colour as the varnishing with wood-oil permits. Some have permission to cover the wide surface with pink or green satin; others, more honoured, may add a fringe, either plain or embroidered. A golden umbrella is given by special grace to the highest woons and the royal princess. A white umbrella belongs to the king alone, and not even the Ehng-shay min, the heirapparent, when such a person, as occasionally happens, exists, is allowed to use it. Matters are still further complicated by the number of umbrellas. Nine white ones mark the king; the Ehng-shay min has eight golden ones;

and the rest of the royal personages numbers corresponding to their achievements, or the regard the king has for them. If they achieve too much, however, and become popular, they die. Distinguished statesmen and generals may have several gold htees, which are duly displayed on all public occasions, and are put up in the house in prominent places. The king's "agent" in Rangoon has only one, which very fairly represents the consideration in which Great Britain is held, and the official rank thought good enough to communicate with the Chief Commissioner. A favourite trick of the king, Noung daw Gyee, was to issue perpetually new edicts as to the length of umbrella handles and the proper measurement of the pasoh. District officials used to make large sums of money in the way of fines in those days, and occasionally themselves fell victims. There has been nothing of the kind lately, unless we may consider the queen Soo-payah Lat's announcement as to the way in which her hair is dressed, being patented as her sole prerogative, an instance of the same nature. Nevertheless, the general distinctions are very tenaciously held by. Innocent, unwitting Englishmen have got themselves into serious trouble in Mandalay by going about carrying silk umbrellas with white covers. The offence is high treason and merits death. None have actually undergone the supreme penalty, but there are a few who have vivid denunciations for the stocks.

The metal, size, and construction of spittoons, betelboxes, cups, and the like household furniture for different grades are rigidly demarcated, and afford the most minute evidences of the owner's rank and his precedence in that rank. Anklets of gold (chay-gyin) are forbidden to all children but those of the royal family on pain of death. Silk cloth, brocaded with gold or silver flowers and figures of animals, may be worn by none but the royal blood and

such of the woon-kadaws, the ministers' wives, as receive a special grace enabling them to use it. Similarly the usage as to jewels and precious stones is very carefully laid down. Very few besides the king and his kinsfolk may wear diamonds. The display of emeralds and rubies is restricted in like manner, and so on with other precious stones less esteemed by Burmans. All rubies above a certain size found in the country are the property of the king, and the hapless digger as a rule gets nothing in return. His head pays the penalty if he listens to the temptings of black merchants from India, and chips it so as to bring it under the royalty size. Ka-dee-ba bee-nat, velvet sandals, are allowed to none but persons of royal blood. The use of hin-tha-pa-dah, a vermilion dye obtained from cinnabar, is very jealously guarded. The kamouk, a great wide-brimmed hat, is an honour eagerly sought after by the lower rank of officials. The institution is not very ancient, and was primarily due to a prophecy that Burma would come to be ruled by a hat-wearing people. To cut out the Englishmen, therefore, the kamouk was invented, and is looked upon as a great distinction, though it makes a Burman look a terrible guy, and is very difficult to wear with the national top-knot. Hundreds more instances might be given of the yazagaing, the sumptuary rules; but the above will probably suffice to exhibit their scope and character.

British Burma subjects delight in nothing so much as in their immunity from these enactments; and perhaps the permission to bury their dead in any way they please is the most popular privilege. In Mandalay, exclusive of the ceremonial at the cremation of a monk, which is identical all over the country, five kinds of funeral are ordained by the yazagaing. First, that of the king; then of any member of the royal family. Even if one of them

is executed, he is put in a red velvet bag and committed to the waters of the Irrawaddy. Third in order are the funerals of those who have died in the enjoyment of ministerial office-not always a certain thing, if the recipient does not die shortly after his promotion. Then come the obsequies of thootays, "rich men," people who have got royal edicts conferring that title on them; and finally the rites of poor people, which are practically no rites at all. They probably would not be buried at all were it not for sanitary reasons. But in Lower Burma, on the other hand, the poorest man, if he can borrow the money, may have any honours he pleases for his dead. He may shade the catafalque with golden umbrellas, or white ones for the matter of that; he may hire elephants; he may fire guns, as long as he does not do it in the public thoroughfares; he may have any number of bands of music; he may erect a pagoda over the ashes of the deceased; he may revel in all the honours restricted by the yazagaing to the most privileged dead; and, in consequence, he may suffer in pocket as much as he dares. Further, he may heap up honorifics in his conversation and correspondence to the utmost of his desire and capability; finding infinite gratification in the fact that were he to make use of a single one of them in Mandalay, he would infallibly be lodged in gaol, there to be treated according to the way in which he was able to satisfy the rapacity of his guardians. If yazagaing is unpleasant where it is in operation, the contemplation of it certainly affords an unfailing pleasure to those who are exempt from its provisions.

CHAPTER XV.

WIZARDS, DOCTORS, AND WISE MEN.

WIZARDS and witches are very common in Burma. The thing runs in families, and on the Chindwin river in Upper Burma, there is a village, called Kalay Thoung-toht, "the small town at the top of the sandbank," where the entire population is possessed of supernatural power of this kind. They have a king there, and if a person who has been bewitched goes to him and represents that he has been malignantly and unjustifiably laid under a spell by some unknown person, the wizard king goes through some inverted prayers and ceremonies, and utters an incantation, which forces the bewitcher to his presence. An explanation is then demanded, and if no just cause can be shown, the witch is punished and the afflicted person is freed from his ailment. Many bewitched people who have gone there to be cured have, however, never come back again, and pilgrimages thither are therefore not so common as they might be otherwise, and of course no one, not afflicted, would be reckless enough to go as it were into the lion's den.

But there are good witches and bad. There are the sohns, who delight in nothing so much as in killing people, afflicting them with epilepsy, fits, and divers