E-text prepared by Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 59086-h.htm or 59086-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/59086/59086-h/59086-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/59086/59086-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/lifetravelinlowe00paskuoft Transcriber’s note: Italic text is enclosed by _underscores_. [Illustration: A BURMESE TEMPLE. Photo by F. Oertel. From Major Temple’s collection.] LIFE AND TRAVEL IN LOWER BURMAH A Retrospect by DEPUTY-SURGEON-GENERAL C. T. PASKE Late of the Bengal Army Edited by F. G. Aflalo (Authors of “The Sea and the Rod,” &c.) London W. H. Allen & Co., Limited, 13, Waterloo Place, Pall Mall, S.W. EDITOR’S PREFACE. When my friend asked me to read through these reminiscences in their original form, with a view to editing them, I had to tell him at the outset that the remoteness of the retrospect might probably prove a serious obstacle. But, being neither a history nor geography, and dealing lightly with a number of topics that should be of interest to many Englishmen, it soon occurred to me that they might perhaps find readers in spite of not being up to date. It is the fashion nowadays—and it seems to me a somewhat injudicious practice—to publish the record of one’s travels and experiences within a few weeks after returning home, whereas many opinions that the writer would naturally hold while still under the unsettling influence of travel, might be at least very considerably modified, were the final proof corrected ten years later, without losing in value. The present form of these retrospective glances, which skim lightly over half-a-dozen years in some kind of chronological order, has been prepared from a manuscript that has during the past two years received many amendments; so that the reader has at least an unbiassed account of a few years’ official residence in one of the most promising of our Eastern possessions. The appalling multiplication of English books is probably destined to continue until Macaulay’s New-Zealander contemplates the ruins of St. Paul’s, and it would almost appear that the classes and masses are alike following Dr. Johnson’s advice: “Read anything for five hours a day and you will soon be learned.”