About this time the Diocese of Rangoon was constituted, and Dr. J. H. Titcomb was consecrated the first Bishop. Coming straight from England, with no knowledge of the East, Bishop Titcomb’s inexperience betrayed him into some pardonable mistakes. Very soon after his arrival, he surprised some friends with words to this effect: “Though I have been here such a short time, I regret to say that already sorrow has visited my household. I have had to give my cook a week’s leave to bury his grandmother.” For a cook to ask leave to attend his grandmother’s funeral is much the same as for an undergraduate to prefer a similar request in Derby week. I mean no disrespect to a good man’s memory by telling this innocent story. The Bishop won all hearts by his kind and gentle bearing, and was, I am sure, an excellent occupant of the new See. He was the first Prelate with whom I was privileged to play lawn-tennis. A little earlier had been tried the eccentric experiment of appointing a Forest Officer to the charge of the Education Department in the temporary absence of the Director. The acting Director played the part of Balaam with a difference. In his first and last Annual Report, instead of blessing, he freely cursed the Department and all its works. Mr. Max Ferrars still flourishes. He has returned to his early love, and professes literature at a German University. He will forgive me for exhuming this early incident of his career. The Education Department, from time to time, has incurred much obloquy, for the most part undeserved. Its errors have been due to want of intimate knowledge of the language and customs of the people. Certainly it has never merited the cynical censure, perhaps unwittingly implied in a Government Resolution which, in removing an officer as an incorrigible drunkard, remarked that he might obtain employment in the Education Department. CHAPTER III THE FIRST SUBDIVISION: THE SECRETARIAT