together. One of them picks out an eligible-looking bumpkin in the street, some rice-farmer, who has come in with his boat-load of paddy; or a raftsman, who has brought down a lot of teak logs; or a pious man come to worship at the pagoda. He gets into conversation with the intended victim-asks him for a light for his cherut, perhaps, and brings round the talk to tohn-boo. Then he says he has got a fine sample of it, and draws a packet out of his pocket. The unsuspecting taw-thah admires it and is asked how much he thinks there is. He guesses three rupees weight. The speculator happens, singularly enough, to have a little pair of scales in the folds of his waist cloth. The lime is duly weighed, and the countryman proves to be right—Burmans have a natural faculty for estimating by the eye. The scales and the lime are put away, when up comes the confederate, who has been loitering about at a distance. He pretends to recognize a friend in our farmer, with his old-fashioned zig-zag pasoh and red-tanned face. After explanations he asks who his friend-the man with the tohn-boo-is. The latter immediately introduces himself, produces his lime again, and asks the new comer how much he thinks there is. He says right off, "two rupees weight"; our taw-thah breaks in, "No there isn't." Bet you a-seht (a quarter century, twenty-five rupees) there is.” All Burmans love gambling, and the farmer straightway tables his pieces, thinking he has got rather a “soft” thing. The scales come into use again, and the lime weighs two rupees-it is another packet. That night the two rascals are drunk together, and the farmer makes an offering to the nats, persuaded that there is something supernatural in the matter.

Pitch and toss is common enough in Rangoon now, as is also the three-card trick, introductions of Western

industry. Pitch and toss is called myouk pan-myouk is the lion and unicorn on the old "Jan Kumpani's" coin, while the pan, the "flower" is the laurel wreath on the other side. Two rupees or pice are spun, and the bystanders call. One says two tails, and if they turn up, he wins double his stake; similarly if he is equally fortunate as to his guess of two heads. If he hedges with a head and tail, he only wins what he laid. The "tossing shilling,” and the "lucky penny," of Box and Cox, one of which had no head and the other two, are not by any means novelties in the Pabè-dan, and other disreputable streets in Rangoon.

Another sleight-of-hand trick at which the town loafers are very skilful and are constantly deluding the unwary, is a performance called kyoh toh-thee, tilting at the string. A narrow strip of hide is doubled across, and the doubled end being in the centre, it is wound round and round in a complicated way. Then one of the bystanders is asked to place either his finger or a stick into the centre. The thong is then unwound, and if the man has his finger in the doubled-up end he wins, otherwise the manipulator gathers up the money. It is obvious that manual dexterity may do a great deal in a venture of this kind, and the operator usually makes a good thing of it.

Cock fighting is also a very favourite pastime, and though forbidden by the authorities, is still carried on more or less openly in country villages and quiet streets in the towns. Theebaw's uncle, the deposed Pagahn Min, who died of small-pox in 1880, was so fond of the practice that he went by the name of the cock-fighting king. In independent territory pretty nearly every house has its kyet-hpa, or its teik-kyet, the latter, splendid-looking birds, being bred specially for their pluck in fighting.

Buffalo fights, which used to be great festivals in the

Tenasserim province, especially round about Amherst and Tavoy, have, under the influence of the British government, almost totally died out. Each village used to have its champion, songs were composed in its honour, and special guards appointed to look after it, and the conqueror brought as much honour to the village as a personal victory of the inhabitants would have done. But they were nearly as brutal exhibitions as Spanish bull-fights, and only a little less dangerous.

Field sports are barred to all but professional hunters by the religious objection to taking animal life, though when a Burman does enter upon the pursuit, he is always an enthusiastic and skilful sportsman and generally a clever shot.

CHAPTER X.

LUCKY AND UNLUCKY DAYS.

IT has come to be considered an axiom that the Burmese are irredeemably lazy. Some authors who have written about the country ascribe a very great number of additional bad qualities to them; others are more favourable; but all are unanimous in the declaration that they are lazy. The reverend missioner, Father San Germano, who was almost the first European to write a definite account of Burma, is the most unkind critic of all. He gathered together a great deal of information about the country during his long residence, but the opinion he formed of the people would be crushing were it not so strongly at variance with that expressed by a Christian priest who has been still longer in Burma, and whose knowledge of everything connected with it yields to none, the Right Reverend Bishop Bigandet. But it is as well to see ourselves as others see us. The good father says: "The Burmese are distinguished for that timidity and servility which is the characteristic of slaves. . . . There is no contempt, oppression, or injustice they will not exercise towards their fellow-men when they can assure themselves of the protection of government. They are thus vile and abject in adversity, but arrogant and presumptuous in prosperity. There is

no one amongst them, however mean, who does not aim at the dignity of mandarin (minister)." But the chief characteristic of the Burmese "is an incorrigible idleness. Instead of employing their time in improving their possessions, they prefer to give themselves up to an indolent repose; to spend the day in talking, smoking, and chewing betel, or else to become the satellites of some powerful mandarin. The same hatred of labour leads to an excessive love of cunning, and also to thieving, to which they are much addicted. It would seem that it is impossible for this people to tell the truth; nay, a person who ventures to do it is called a fool, a good kind of man, but not fitted for managing his affairs." Still the padre has a little good to say of them: "Besides giving daily alms to their talapoins, they all lay by something to be applied to some sort of public benefit. They are very fond of thus signalising their generosity, and will often deprive themselves of comforts to have the pleasure of being benefactors to the public." This is an unlovely picture. But the good father's head was on fire."

It is pleasant after this to turn to a soldier's opinion. Major Grant Allen says: "Unlike the generality of Asiatics, the Burmese are not a fawning race. They are cheerful, and singularly alive to the ridiclous; buoyant, elastic, soon recovering from personal or domestic disaster. Free from the prejudices of caste or creed, they readily fraternise with strangers, and at all times frankly yield to the superiority of the European. . . . Indifferent to the shedding of blood on the part of their rulers, yet not individually cruel; temperate, abstemious, and hardy, but idle, with neither fixedness of purpose nor perseverance. Discipline, or any continued employment, becomes most irksome to them, yet they are not devoid of a certain degree of enterprise."