The Abbeville messenger. (Abbeville, S.C.) 1884-1887, 1885-12-22
QUEER SIGHTS IN BURMAH
"A Land Where Men, Women
and Children Smoke.

"A Land Where Men, Women
and Children Smoke.
The Public Exeoutioner an Elephant
Women Strung by the Ear
An English engineer describes in
the st. James Gazette some of the
queer sights of Burmah, Asia. He
says:
1t was my heavy task to do with the
crop destroying Irrawaddy what Ca
mute admitted his inability to Go with
the sea; in other words 1 was told off
to construct an embankment against a
river that destroyed on an average
one crop In every three.
I had 10000 Burmese working for
. me. men, women and children. The
embankment was seventy miles, the
swollen water would have run over it
had it been less than twenty feet high;
and would have whirled it into the
plain if its base had not been a hun
dred 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 workpeo-
pie 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
The mass of them were not from Brit
ish Burmah, but slaves of the King of
Kings. the Burmese of the highlands.
In the heat of the day, when work
was out Of the question, l have listen
ed with establishment 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
them.
1 have said that my workpeople re-
turned to their homes during the wet
season. There is no option in the
matter; 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 rem.
der an account of themselves by the
stipulated time, the hostages would
have been given over to the State, and,
If the King desired it. trampled to
death by the elephant, which in Bur-
ma discharges the duties of public exc
cutioner. Out Of every rupee I paid
my laborers part had to be laid aside
Tor the King.
The Burmese smoke to a man. to a
woman, I might almost say to a child.
[ was physician-in-chie to those un-
der me, and I soon learned to rely
upon it that when a patient gave up
smoking he or she was really ill. The
Burmese ladies have q very peculiar
cigar case. But there are two obiec-
lions to its 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 ordi-
nary earrings, the Burmese women
AVE alarge hole in their ears and
wear a cheroot in it till wanted. The
really great advantage of this cigar
case is that IL is never left behind.
The men would think it beneath their
dignity to carry cheroots in this man
aer, but they do not mind helping
themselves from the wife's case.
When the 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
:heroots, a dozen women or even more
going to one cane.
OF late years there have been at
tempts on a small scale to grow tobac-
0 o in Burmah; but most Of it is sent
from Madras in monster stacks Of to-
bacco leaf. The climate is not cold
enough for growing potatoes and other
vegetables; and the trade in ivory,
&C.. is 80 slight that the natives may
be said to live almost entirely on their
rice.
S- ~
Got the Reward.