CH A P T E R III
I T S B E G I N N I N G S
\ C IT Y which faces the ocean, whence world-
x j L travellers come, and is itself served by a river
navigable for nine hundred miles,, the main artery
through which the life-blood of a nation pulses, is a
city that is clearly destined to be great. Yet it is only
in the last half-century of the many during which these
conditions necessary to the birth of a great city have
in some measure prevailed, that Rangoon has responded
to them. Why not sooner, it would be difficult to say.
The causes which make great cities and great nations
seem as palpable on the surface as In reality they are
mysterious and obscure. One may infer that some
psychologic moment is necessary, some sudden and
subtle coming, together, in order that from causes long
known to exist the new and splendid offspring should
be born. Yet there are circumstances which partly
explain the long delay before Rangoon definitely stepped
out into the highway of its present prosperity. There
was a time when the sea ran into the coast of Burma
much farther than it does to-day ; when ships cast
anchor at Thaton, the earliest capital of the south ; when
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