protected it on the one hand from the aggression of
Indian invaders, on the other from the enormous
absorbing power of China. Yet placed as it were between
these vast millstones, it would be surprising had
it escaped all traces of their contact. From India it
has received the religion, which more than any other
factor has moulded the Burmese people; from India
there came to it the earliest impulse of civilisation.
The influence of China is less patent. On successive
occasions Burma has been called upon to resist with
all its power the military aggression of the Chinese
races ; on one notable occasion it received through
them a blow from which its civilisation has never
recovered ; and from time to time it has gone some
e x p l o r e r ’s c a m p , m o u n t v i c t o r i a
4
way towards accepting the suzerainty of China. But
the influence of China has been social rather than
political. The instinct of race has taught the two
people their essential kinship, and if the Burman is
proud of his quite mythical descent from the princes
MOVING TH E FE L LED LOG
of India, he is much more in his daily life in sympathy
with, the Chinaman, in whom he recogfnises an “ elder
brother.”
But the mountains which have hitherto preserved
the nationality of this people are no longer a protection.
The sea has opened the floodgates o f invasion, and
under the political supremacy of England, the economic
5