The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1909-07-25

Other shrines and pagOdas are respiend-
ent in Jewel work of stained glass, others
Opulent in their covering Of beaten gold.
All have figures of the BUddha, and many
have dozens OF them OF all sizes and ma
terials. Here is shrine covered with
gold protecting a figure Of Buddha cut
from alabasteT. 1t IS neglected and no
pilgrim kneels before it. Adjoining it is
crude structure Of brick enshrining a
rude wooden Buddha. Before il scores of
candles blaze the Buddha is weighted
down with fresh garlands of sweet-smell-
ing flowers and the pavement in front IS
covered with kneeling. silh-clad men and
women.
Strikingly ugly amid these surroundings
Of fairy-like Oriental beauty are the new
pagOdas builded by men who sought TO
follow after British ways as well as to
acquire merit in their effort to escape tn
chains Of Karma. SOm7 Of them are like
the Queen Anne cottages of a boom
town suburb, from their dirty brown paint
TO their corrugated iron roofs. Some have
copied the Greek styles as modified by
several centuries of English usage and
the peculiar notions of a Chinese carpen-
ter. And one is built after the pleasing
architectural order OF d cotton mill tower,
ornamented with a Connecticut clock on
each side of which a carved wood En-
giish flag perennialIy waves.
But fallen as may be their arts. the Bur
mese people and their Chinese co-relig-
iOnists lack nothing of picturesgueness
swarms with wOrshipers, with yellow
ROBBED monks, with shorn nuns. with as
tTolOgeTs and fOrtune-telleTs and with mu-
slcians and mOuntebanks.
RangOOn owes a large share of its west
ern fame to the fact that It is "On the
Road TO Mandalay," and is therefore sung
Of Kipling. Here about the Shwe Dagon
is found every picture that the retired
heard the east a-Callin' ~. The Burma
girl is still here, with her yellow silk pet
ticoat and her little green cap, just as
when:
Z seed her first a-smolin of a whackin
white cheroot
An a wastin Christian kisses on a 'eathen
idols foot"
The "whackin white cheroot' is a dis
tinctive Burmese institution. IT is a foot
long an inch in diameter and is cylindri-
cal like a cigarette, not shaped as a cigar.
II is wonderfully made of q wrapper of
corn shuck, and a filling compounded of
tobacco of various kinds, chopped sandal
wood, raw sugar and many incense bear
ing spices. 1t is lighted with some diff
Guilty, but after d few puffs it is permit
ted to 60 out. But the "snipe' Is care
fully preserved, and one cheroot will last
a frugal mother and daughter for day
or two.
The pagoda square is the loafing place
of the Burmese. Here the girls keep shop
and the lads stop to chat with them. Here
the old and young come to play at games
or listen to music. to take refreshment
or to have their fortunes told. In Ran
COON not more than a fourth of the people
are Burmese, and the streets are filled
with Indian coolies and Chinese artisans.
Here at the great pagOda the Burmese
are vastly in the majority. and only few
Chinese Buddhists and an occasional Eu-
ropean intrude
Here there is no hint of the hustle Of the
busy city over which the great pagOda
stands guard Life is sweet and the peO-
pie take it easy. They are devoted to "A
religion which teaches that desire for
greater possessions and higher station
in life is a sinful waste Of mental energy
which surely will be punished in succeed
ing lives. There is no worry, not even
the metaphysics of the learned priesthood
is given a passing thought. There is no
hurry, for sufficient unto the day is the
evil thereof, and no good comes of hast
ing another day. There is no dissensiOn,
for the happy Burmese goes his own way
and permits his neighbOr to do likewise.
There is no politics. for the Burmese of
all the people I'm the Indian empire do
not care a hang who rules over them, or
how, so long as there is no forced labor
to be done. Kipling caught the spirit of
the people when he made the City of Ran
COON sing to the empire:
Hail mother, Do they call me rich IN
trade?
Little care I. but hear the shorn priest
drone.
And watch my sHk-clad lovers, man by
maid,
Laugh meath my Shwe Dagon."
The everlasting and unheeding east looks
on the young and thriving city of sixty
years unmOved, and turns TO dream in the
shadow of that pile under which 1t has
dreamed since long before light broke into
the wilds Of barbaric Britain
TomOrrow-The Road to Msudalay.
lI-Rangoon, the Boom City.