[Sidenote: 20. A Rice Mill, Rangoon.] [Sidenote: 21. The Same.] While we are on the river front let us glance also at a rice mill, where a process equivalent to thrashing is carried out, the grain being separated from the husk. The black smoke is from the paddy husks used to supply the motive power of the mill. Paddy, or unthrashed rice, is mostly brought to Rangoon by water, though more than a million and a half tons now come annually by rail. After the milling process is complete, the rice is packed into bags for shipment all over the world. [Sidenote: 22. A Burmese Railway Train.] We will take train and run by the Burmese Sittang Railway over the broad levels of the delta, passing through fields from which the paddy has recently been cut. Only the ears are lopped off, and the straw is burnt as it stands. The Burmans are mostly yeomen, each owning his cattle and doing his own work in the field. Beyond Pegu we follow the Sittang River, with hill ranges low on the eastern and western horizons, until we come to Mandalay, once capital of the independent kingdom of Upper Burma. This kingdom was annexed to India in 1885 at the conclusion of the third Burmese war. Mandalay is the last of three capitals a few miles apart, which at different times in the past century have been the seat of the Burmese kings. Amarapura, a few miles to the south, was the earliest, and Ava, a few miles to the west, was the capital from 1822 to 1837. [Sidenote: 23. The 450 Pagodas from Mandalay Hill.] At Mandalay we are again on the banks of the Irawaddy. There is a hill in the northern suburbs several hundred feet in height, from which we may look over the city. The houses are so buried in foliage that, seen from the height, the place appears almost like a wood of green trees. The square Dufferin Fort, with walled and moated boundary, and sides more than a mile in length, is distinguishable in the centre, but for the rest there is none of the ordinary panorama of a European city. One striking feature, however, lies at our feet, a little to one side. It is a square group of 450 white pagodas, with a more considerable gilded pagoda in the centre. Beside each of these pagodas there stands a large stone, and on these stones are inscribed quotations from the sacred books of the Buddhists. In the distance to the southeast are the hills inhabited by the Shan tribes.