Another class not native, but long resident in Upper Burma, are the Ponnâs or Brahmins from Manipur. To one accustomed to meet with that caste in India they look very degenerate, and although they still wear the sacred Brahmin thread over the shoulder as in India, they seem to have become very much less fastidious about mixing with other castes than their brethren of the great continent. They seem to enjoy a position of considerable standing and influence in the country of their adoption, and gain a good livelihood by the two apparently not very kindred occupations of dairy-keeping and fortune-telling. It is their reputation for the latter that gains them their position of importance with a light-hearted, casual and very superstitious people like the Burmans. This soothsaying seems to be quite a recognised function, that makes the Ponnâ welcome throughout Burmese society, and nowhere more so than at court. In their literature, the Ponnâ constantly figures as an honoured and indispensable personage at the palace, whose business it is to study the stars, consult the horoscopes, make known lucky days, and, in fact, decide the thousand and one important affairs of life wherein the Burman considers it necessary to appeal to the occult. Coming now to the mercantile classes, we have some interesting specimens. First, the Suratees, keen business men, merchants and shopkeepers, men capable of large transactions, Mahomedans in religion, Oriental in dress. The leading member of this community in Upper Burma, a very wealthy man, did a good deal of financing for the king, and no doubt made it pay well. When the downfall of the Burman kingdom took place he came to no harm. Amongst other transactions he was the lessee of the Great Bazaar, and as the lease had still some years to run, he continued to hold it, and profited greatly by the enormously improved trade. The Marwarees are another class of traders hailing from India. They are Hindus from Gujerat, wholesale dealers in piece goods, and very smart business men. The Moguls are Mahomedans from Persia, with a complexion almost as fair as a European’s. They are the only people of all the many nationalities I have met with in the East who dress exactly like the pictures that are drawn of Bible scenes and characters. The special shape and size of turban, and the long loose outer garment some of them wear, put one in mind of the pictures exactly. A cosmopolitan place would be incomplete without some Jews. We have them in Mandalay of various nationalities, European and Oriental, and they seem to be all shopkeepers. One firm hail from Baghdad, very near the dwelling-place of our first parents, and speak a vernacular which they call Hebrew.