East of India, across the Bay of Bengal, is Burmah, a country where, as in Japan, everything seems to be picturesque and artistic. Here we see little gaily clad women driving in charming two-wheeled carts which have gracefully curved fronts like the bows of a boat. Over the heads of the passengers is arranged an umbrella-shaped awning, and the bullocks which draw these dainty conveyances wear elaborately decorated harness and have collars hung with tinkling bells. From Burmah our journey takes us to Siam, where elephants are used both for transport purposes and to carry travellers into the mountains and forests of the interior. The howdahs of these elephants are very curious, having large hoods which project both in front and at the back. Leaving the continent of Asia we cross the sea to the Dutch island of Java, where the women ride in palanquins suspended from a long pole and carried by two or four porters. Hammocks, which are very much like the kagos of Japan, are also used, and there are quaint ox-carts with little pent roofs and rough wheels made out of solid slabs of wood. Not very far from Java are the Philippine Islands, which now belong to America. Here strange-looking animals called water-buffaloes, or carabaos, are employed to draw clumsy wooden carts. The carabao is guided by a cord attached to a ring in his nose, the driver sitting either on the shaft of the cart or on the animal's back. CHAPTER XI TRAVEL OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY At the present time, when England, and indeed almost the whole of the civilised world, is covered with a network of railways, and the cuttings, the tunnels, and the high embankments seem almost to be physical features of the landscape that we see around us, it is difficult to realise that a hundred years ago none of these things were in existence. Our great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers, as we have seen, had to be content with very different modes of travel, and would have been amazed if they had been told that it would be possible before very long to make the journey from London to York in a few hours. It is said that Lord Worcester in the reign of Charles II. was one of the first scientists to experiment with steam engines, and about a century later James Watt improved and utilised this invention. We have all heard of the little Scotch boy who used to sit watching the steam coming from the spout of a boiling kettle, who puzzled his head over its power and who, when he grew up, worked hard in order to earn money and be able to carry out his experiments. The first railway was opened in 1825, but before that the steam engine invented by Watt had been in use for some time in collieries. One of these early engines, which was called "Puffing Billy," can still be seen in a London museum.