Nor, in their opinion, did the transaction cast the slightest slur on the young lady’s character, since she was always at liberty to return home and resume her old place in the family, if such were the desire of the principal parties concerned. Moreover, Anglo-Indians are—I apologize, _were_—unfortunately among those who, in some encounters at all events, could not afford to throw stones; it used to be emphatically impressed upon young ladies that a civilian was worth so much, “dead or alive;” while the market-value of a military man was fixed at considerably less. Marriage was represented to them as a mere matter of £ s. d., a form of social barter; they were to pass by the “red coat” on principle, concentrating all their blandishments on the “black” one. In our insufferable egotism, which drivelling patriots dignify with the name of insular pride, we are very apt to lay down a code of ethics for others, without thinking it at all necessary to practise the morality we preach. As is customary in the East, most of the work fell to the lot of the women, their lords and masters only condescending to lend a helping hand whenever resources threatened to fail. The besetting vice of the Burmese was gambling and betting, as much, in fact, a part and parcel of their nature as with “Mr. John Chinaman;” on the whole, indeed, I am of opinion that they cast the Celestial into the shade. At a certain popular boat-race I remember sitting beside a Burmese of some position, whose proceedings were veritably those of a lunatic; he danced and cried, he undid his long black hair and tried to pull it out. I too, so he deigned to inform me, should have behaved likewise, if I had had such a bet on the race as he. In reply to my interrogation as to the extent of this wonderful bet that appeared so to affect him—“What have I betted? Oh! only my wife, children, house, clothes and furniture!” He positively lost all, and disappeared. Cock-fighting was another amusement at which large parties would gladly assemble. The birds came of a good stock, were large, heavy, well-spurred, and carefully bred, with, as I suspected, a strain of the “jungle-fowl,” a shapely bird, which abounds in the jungle, though difficult to get at on foot, and which, if hung for the proper time, eats as well as pheasant. The fanciers, each with his bird under his arm, would resort of an evening to any convenient shady spot, clear a ring, and set to work amid prodigious excitement. One never, perhaps, thoroughly grasped the utter brutality of this sport until he had seen it practised by those poor “savages;” in this case, however, it would have been too glaring a case of “glass houses,” etc., etc., to have even criticized it!