matter for the white man, equipped with boots and
European garments.
It is well that this is recognised by the people of
the country. A woman who sat at work on the farther
shore, seeing me, ran off for some thongs of peeled
bamboo, a couple of Shan came hurrying up from a
plantain-grove, a raft was constructed in a trice, and
pushed across to where I stood. From there it was
gently pushed back again, and so as it touched the
pebbles of the west bank, I stepped ashore at
May-wine.
A few yards away on the river’s bank was the J J
rest-house, a little bamboo structure of two rooms and
-an open verandah, built by the villagers. The Kyi-
dan-gyi, or headman, brought an offering of papayas,
-another fetched water for the kitchen, while a third
filled a couple of goblets at the river. After which
they all sat down in a friendly way on the floor, and
smoked pipes, and talked.
In the afternoon the rain, which came just as I
had found this welcome shelter, ceased ; the sun shone
out, and I took a stroll in the village. I found it
a Shan village, peopled from Pha-pun, Bilin, and
Toungoo, some ten years ago. It ran to forty
houses, which clustered along narrow lanes, shady with
jack and horse-radish trees, the papaya and the
plantain. Betel-vines grew on trellises before the dooys,
and small gardens displayed beds of chillies, beans, and
pineapples. The cottages were of thatch and bamboo,
with plank floors, and wooden posts and rails. Most
•of them were large and airy, with projecting roofs,
-under which the people sat cleaning rice, and pursuing
their household avocations. There were reception-
rooms open to the street, and bedrooms on a higher
level behind. Seclusion finds no place in the economy
-of the farther East.
Many of these front rooms were shops, in which
"broad-cloth, silk trousers, tinned stores, and groceries
were exhibited for sale. In all, there was a quiet
-corner garnished with shrubs in pots and flower vases,
sacred to the house spirit. Even in the rest-houses
along the road I noticed masonic signs, which showed
that the cult of the house spirit had not been neglected.
Nearly every inhabitant was an agricultural labourer,
the village being the centre of a wide circle of rice
kwins, rough at this season with the harvest stubble.
The garnered rice was stored in mat cylinders under
-the eaves of the houses.
The only artisan of the village, a blacksmith, was
-occupied in a leisurely artistic way in designing an
iron hti or umbrella for the village monastery: This
building, with its thatched palm roof and plain architecture,
made no great claim to distinction. The
collection of images of the Buddha within it was a
curious one, and it purported to have come from Mandalay
; but there was a total absence of the conventional
Burmese type. Some were of wood, and most might
well have, come from some cave-collection, the hoarding
•of'ages, like that at Kaw-gun.
The house of the Kyi-dan-gyi was no larger or
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