the newly metalled roads, running between the wide
unoccupied spaces of newly reclaimed land. Thinking
of Rangoon I feel that the interest of it liés far more in
the future than in the present or the past. If it were
not already very proud of its achievements, it might
adopt as its civic motto the phrase that Cicero
applied to youth— “ AW res sed spes est." It has no
history to speak of; no buried past. Here is no
“ rose-red city, half as old as time” ; but it is full of
life and colour, a kaleidoscope of races with a growing
character of its own, and the joyous atmosphere of
youth.
East of Rangoon lie the Royal lakes, and Dalhousie
Park, which owes its inception to the great Viceroy.
There is no city in the East with a finer playground,
and in time, when the Victoria lakes which provide
Rangoon with its drinking-water are added to the total
of finished beauty, they will become famous. Some of
the turf is as fine already as the turf of an English
park. Amongst the^ trees are many of the sumptuous
kind, which break into one dazzling mass of bloom,
such as the pagoda-tree, the padouk, the pinma, and
the laburnum acacia. These trees are already a feature
of Rangoon ; but their wealth is too widely scattered
to make its full impression. It remains to collect
them in long avenues of several miles of each speciesjgl
the labour of a single generationfi-to make Rangoon
in the spring-time a spectacle of the most striking
beauty. The roads of the Municipality run into a
hundred and twenty miles. I sometimes picture a
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hundred and twenty miles of trees in the most dazzling,
riotous bloom, each marshalled under its own
kind.
The neighbourhood of the lakes is becoming more
and more the resort of the wealthier classes. Villas,
TH E P IN K A C A C IA IN BLOOM
many of them of considerable beauty, have sprung up
of recent years in large numbers ; and the descendants
of those merchants who met a century ago on the
main wharf of Rangoon to converse and transact
business now pass the cool of the morning and evening
in their country houses at Kokine.