Happily it is not all new. It is served by an
immemorial river upon whose bosom a great life pulses ,
it is dominated by an edifice whose stateliness and
beauty are unsurpassed in Burma; and in its streets
fifty races gather to give it picturesqueness. Unlike
most Eastern cities, it is devoid of mystery. Its streets
lie open to the eye, its life moves much upon the
surface. Superficial visitors are apt to pass it by as
of little interest. Yet there is much in it that will
“ repay investigation.”
TH E SU LE PAGODA
U n d e r th is p a g o d a A lom p r a b u ried a liv e a T a la in g P r in c e to k e e p w a tch an d w a rd
o v e r h i s n ew c i ty o f R a n g o o n
CH A P T E R IV
T H E M O D E R N C I T Y
R
AN G O O N ’S most cosmopolitan thoroughfare is
Mogul Street, which begins with the funnel of
an ocean steamer, climbs up to the white minarets of a
Musulman mosque, and ends under the wooden eaves of
a Native Christian chapel. A Chettis’ hall, with wooden
columns, of a design that was probably invented in
Southern India twenty centuries ago, faces the white
temple of Islam, and the voice of the green-turbaned
muezzin, as he calls the Faithful to prayer, is overborne
by the clatter and chink of money, and the guttural
brawlings of that loudest of vulgarians, the Chetti. Over
the way, in an adjoining street, the Hindu clangs his
bell and blows his conch before the altars of Shiv, in
defiance of his Musulman neighbour. His Musulman
neighbour retorts by sacrificing the sacred cow, and
spilling her blood before the very eyes of those who
worship her as a god. Gentle amenities of this kind,
fomented by turbulent Afghans and by Hindu millionaires,
whose care it is to establish an alibi, by retreating
at the crisis to a safe distance of fifteen hundred miles,
are apt occasionally to end in conflicts of a serious
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