New Britain herald., 1917-02-26
|ISIT TO INDIA
 WITH DR. CROSS
aptiSt Pastor Lectures on "SomeWhere East of Suez"

Attired in the peculiar Oriental
 arb of the Burmese, Rev. Dr. Earl
 ]. Cross. at the evening service of the lsirst Baptist church last evening,
 ave a talk, the title of which might
 Tell be termed Somewhere East of nez.' pr. Cross, himself the son Of
 n American missionary and born in { Eldia, threw aside the cloak of for
 hality at the service last evening and
 ddrcssed his congregation in de-
 ghtfully informal manner, inter1ect-
 fc g personal element into his talk
 nat made it the more interesting. 4sr. Cross spoke in part as follows;
 ..The visitor to Burma finds con- Eitions of life different in details from
 hose found in the homeland and yet
 f general life is similar wherever men
 Ire found. Tho weather conditions
 nom up at once in talking of new
 bnd. The traveller who visits the
 trand hotel in Rangoon for the first
 tnie during the hot season would find
 IL
 hcets. a pillow and a mosquito net,
 Tut the thermometer will probably register above 9s degrees all night. 4 treat fan hung from the ceiling alds n making sleep possible. The Native Houses.
 "Outside of the city's heart the flted upon posts so that the first floor
 s from six to ten feet above the kround. This removes the household erom dampness in the wet season and llso prevents the intrusion of insect beets. snakes and rats. During the .ainy season no one would think of 'roing to bed without first drying the Ded <clothes over a charcoal fire. nu1e wicker frame much like an 1n- verted bowl in shape Is used as means of support and a brazier of Aoals smoulders beneath. It is not out bf order to leave ones clothes on the frame after retiring. Shoes left on the aloor will produce by morning an ex- sellent crop of mildew. but that hap pens at the shore in this country also, Something About Elephants.
 Every traveller from the East, or from anywhere else for that matter, has weird stories to rarrate Of his We must discount these for we know too well our own fond ness for describing the exceptional and the unusual happenings in our lives rather than the commonplace. Therefore we will omit many stories of animals, descriptions of mighty snakes. and other unusual experiences tonight, although We have many such which we might narrate. Our purpose |s to present Bumese life as far as we may under it's normal aspect. No ac- count of Burma of twenty years ago would be complete without some notice of the 'hathispilin' teak in the sludgy, squdgy creek Today the traveller to Rangoon sees only one or two elephants in the old kemmendlne lumber yards. These are the relics of B larger crew which used to toll there in earnest: the relics toll merely for Inc delectation of visitors. It was sight long to be remembered to sec Inc elephants in former days hauling tho logs from out the deep mud of the river short, or piling beams and blanks while their keepers snored in the shade. At the first sound of the even Ing whistle which marked the end of kheir days work, however, these mon- strous workers would drop their bur dens like the eight-hour- day man in this fair land and with tails at the horizontal and trunks at the vertical loud trumpetings of glee, away they would rush to their stables and fodder After their feeding they would move sedately in line down to the great tanks, where, like boys at the old swimming hole they would frolic in the water When they tired of having their keepers scrubbing their backs, they would simply sub- merge themselves and leave the man to swim ashore in the wet. The