Morning journal and courier., 1885-11-24
What a British Engineer Saw In Eur.
 lnah

What British Engineer Saw In Rur.
 nah.
 From the St. James, Gazette.l
 It was my heavy task to do with the crop destroying Irrawaddy what Canute admitted his inability to- do with the sea- in other words, I was told off to construct an en- bankment against river that destroyed on an average one crop in every three.
 I had sixteen thousand Burmese working for me, men, women and children. The embankment was seventy miles; the swollen water would have run oyer it had it been less than twenty feet high, and would have whirled it into the plain if it's base had not been hundred feet broad. Then we could only work by snatches even in the dry months, and not at all during the long and dreary wet season. My workpeop1e returned to their homes for the wet months but I stayed on to see that our foundation was not washed away.
 My best laborers were the women. The mass of them were not from British Burmah, but slaves of the king of kings, the Bur nese of the highlands. If there is to be fighting it is from these that the King of Burmah will draw his army. Had they their own way quite certain that there would be no war. They have not the practical ex- periences of the English possessed by the na- tives of British Burmah; but they know them by repute and by their works. In the heat of the day, when work was out of the question: have listened with astonishment and pity to their talk over the everlasting cheroot It was evident that such an idea as not carrying out to the letter the mandates of the king was inconceivable to theR.
 I have said that my workpeople returned to their homes during the wet season. There was no option in the natter they had to do it. The king takes a fatherly interest in them and sees that they pay for it if they desert him. His favorite method is to keep hostages, and my laborers had to leave their families in his hands before they came to me Had they failed to render account of themselves by the stipulated time the hosta- ges would have been given over to the State, and, if the king desired it, trampIed to death by the elephant, which in Burnah discharges the duties of public executioner. Out of ev- cry rupee paid my laborers part had to be laid aside for the king.
 The Burmese smoke to man, to a woman, might almost say to a child I was physi- clan in-chief to those under me, and I soon learned to rely upon it that when 8 patient gave up smoking he or she was really i'll. The Burmese ladies have very peculiar cigar ease. But there are two objections to it's ever becoming popular here, of which the less important is that each cigar case only holds one cigar. And then the cigar case is the lady's ear. Instead of wearing ordinary earrings the Burmese women have large hole in their ears and wear cheroot in it till wanted. The really great advantage of this cigar case is that it is never left behind. The men would think # beneath their dignity a t te not mind helping themselves from the wife's case. When t.ie King of Kings wants to keep his women folk together or to punish them he strings them, so to speak, by the ear. A long cane is passed through the holes made for eheroots, 8 dozen women or even more going to one cane.
 Of late years there have been attemp pts on s small scale to grow tobacco in Rurmah, but most of it is sent from Madras in monster stacks of tobacco leaf. The climate is not cold enough for growing potatoes and other vegetables and the trade in ivory, &c., is so light that the natives may be said to live al most entirely on their rice. The German speculators in Rangoon, who are always on the spot to relieve the Burmese when in need of money, are really their worst friends. The course of affairs is this: A food destroys the rice crop and the natives have no money to raise another. Then the German puts in an appearance, offering them so much for the next crop in advance. The rupees they get are nothing like an equivalent for the crop, but the native is glad to take them. So far as I could learn no respectable English mer- chant lent rupees to the Burmese on these principles