Whereas India is protected from her neighbours in the north by mountain ranges, running from east to west, Burma, now so much in the news, has been neglected by geography in this respect. Her mountains are isolated chains going from north to south, thus offering her as an easy prey to peoples tired of toiling in the deserts of Central Asia, and aiming at an easier life in the coastal countries.
This geographical situation has been responsible for four Chinese invasions, not to mention minor plunderings. It was responsible, too, for a foreign aristocracy and a foreign sovereign by the end of the nineteenth century.
Since England took the country under her protection in 1885, Burma has developed her trade and become one of the wealthiest countries of Asia, Rangoon is considered the greatest of the rice ports. Rice is shipped from the interior by way of the broad Irawadi River, from the centre of Mandalay.
Teak forests, copper mines, and "liquid gold" (all-important oil) are also being exploited commercially by the Burmese.
The social and economic life of these people is different from life as we see it in China and India, and so is the constitution. Burma has been given much more liberal laws than India. Being 90 per cent Buddhist, the religious disunity that makes government in India such a problem, does not obtrude in Burma.
The Stronger Sex An Indian woman devotes herself to her husband and considers herself mere "dust in the path" when she becomes a widow. The Burmese woman, on the other hand, has much of the outlook of the European and American women. According to her intelligence and adaptability, she is the bread-winner of the household. She has more courage than her husband; she likes doing thin whereas he prefers to be easy-going and cherishes his comfort. Thus, business has become a woman's field in Burma. That social revelation has developed smoothly during the centuries. Naturally, with the duties of the other sex, the women of Burma have also assumed some of the rights usually exclusively enjoyed by men in the East.
In the streets of the city, girls and young women sing the praises of their goods in high voices. Practically the whole retail trade of the country is in the hands of the "fair." At the same time, they have retained the peculiar charm of the woman of the East, the first to get up in the morning to cook rice for the monks and nun: who come for their food. By helping them, she procures God's blessing on her family. Moreover, she will always clean the altar of the house herself, light the candles, and neve forget the prescribed prayer at the prescribed hour.
Despite all this, she has adopted the American woman's principle, "My looks are my fortune." Her long hair is turned into a smooth knot and held with combs inside a wreath of flowers, mostly jasmine. A paste made from tanaka, the stem of a plant, is rubbed into her skin, thus making it smooth and very light.
To see Burmese women at work, equipped as they are, not only with the weapon of intelligence, but also with charm and womanly instinct, is a revelation. An English traveller some time ago deplored the fact they were not given a share in the politics of the country. And rightly so, for their natural diplomatic skill might well help to solve the problems arising from Burma's position as a trade route for China, a neighbour to French Indo-China, and a possible stepping-stone for Japanese ambitions.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.