ROAD TO MANDALAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9308, 7 August 1908, Page 2

ROAD TO MANDALAY.

NOW A RESORT OF TOURISTS. (" New York Sun.") Burma, once forbidden, has become attractive to tourists. Steamships from Glasgow and Liverpool run direct to Rangoon, the great city of the country, and a book has been published for the use of travellers for pleasure. There is much to be seen that is novel in Burma, and visitors have only to plan their journey for the cooler months between November and March to have a good time Travellers are cautioned not to make personal remarks about the Burmans they may meet. The more intelligent natives probably understand English, and in any case they are very sensitive to ridicule. The women of the country are very charming at a distance but do not bear close inspection. They are quite as naive as the Japanese and far more free in their ways, but they greatly resent familiarity. They are the merchants of the market places, <and the traveller must have his wits about him or he will be overreached in trade. The Government has found it necessary to warn 'all white comers against the " intelligence and business capacity " of these women merchants. . ■■ i You may travel by rail' or steamboat up the majestic Irrawaddy to Mandalay, the capital of Upper Burma, in the heart of the country. You may steam up that river to Bhamo, for above Mandalay, on the splendid steamers that ply from Rangoon to 'the head of navigation. Rangoon has become a great commercial city, as much European as Burmese, so that it does not offer the eurprises that are found farther inland, though its pagodas are among the meet magnificent in Asia-. For massive gran- j deur the Shwe Dagon Pagoda, with its huge dome overlaid with gold leaf, has few equals in the world, and the Burmese take special pride in it: For 350 miles up the river from Rangoon the country may be said to be one vast rice field. Burma is the largest producer of rice, and for several months during the shipping season tourists see at every railroad and steamboat station long lines of rice bags piled up eight feet high awaiting transport to the rice mills and the docks of Rangoon. The greatest objects of interest at Mandalay are King Thebaw's palaces, where lived that weak ruler and his handsome queen, who controlled him and incited the bloody deeds that made him infamous. The palaces stand in a walled enclosure four miles square, pierced with guard gates and surrounded by a moat. Thebaw and his queen> now live in India, prisoners of the British Government. To-day there is not an article of the furniture in any of the palaces. A part of the queen's palace was used for a while as a club, for Europeans, but Lord Curzon ordered it to be given up, as all the buildings are of teak, and a fire might easily destroy everything. Nearly every building has its curious history. One of the structures is a watch tower of solid wood, started and completed in one day by Thebaw's* father, who told the builder that unless he completed the structure in twenty-four hours he would be beheaded. All visitors have a talk with Captain Redman, who was imprisoned with other Europeans by Thebaw. For a week he and the other whites were led out every day to be beheaded, but for some reason were remanded to prison. They were all released when the British forces name up, but the strain was too great for one of the unfortunates, who went mad in that week. It was Thebaw who, incited by his wife, put to death under circumstances of great brutality between seventy and eighty princes, princesses and high officials in February. 1879. The outburst of horror and indignation which those massacres caused led soon after to the overthrow of Thebaw ' and the occupation of his country by the Brit-