The Rangoon-Prome railroad was opened in 1878. The Rangoon-Toungoo line will be in use this year, following the Sittang valley to the borders of Siam. British capitalists have now under contemplation a road crossing from Maulmain to Cheung Mai, a distance of about one hundred and sixty miles, with only one comparatively low hill-chain east of the Salween River. A terminus at Cheung Mai would create an increased traffic, leading to a further extension _viâ_ Kiang Kung to Szmao on the Yunnanese frontier, a distance roughly estimated at two hundred and forty miles, with no intervening mountain-system. Although as yet untraveled by European exploration, this track is in use by the native caravans, and the projected railroad will open a most important exchange market with millions of well-to-do, industrious inhabitants, occupying some of the richest mining and agricultural districts of Southern Asia. The official census report of Burmah states: “There is possibly no country in the world whose inhabitants are more varied in race, customs and language. There are said to be as many as forty-seven different tribes in the narrow boundaries of the two Burmahs, but these may be classed under four――Peguans, Burmese, Karens and Shans or Laos. The Peguans seem to have first occupied the country. The Burmese followed, and took possession of the plains and valleys of Upper and Lower Burmah. Their language is used in the English courts of justice, and is probably destined to be the prevailing language of the country. The Laos, occupying the north-eastern plateaux skirting the Chinese border, are from a great trunk of uncertain root which appears to have been derived originally from Yunnan, where the main stem still retains its primitive designation of La’o――a name commonly exchanged for ’shan’ in the language of the modern Burmese and English writers. The Karens, scattered along the Siamese frontiers, are various tribes having their own customs, dialects and religion. They have a tradition that when they left Central Asia they were accompanied by a younger brother, who traveled faster, went directly east and founded the Chinese empire. Before the British acquired Lower Burmah these simple mountaineers were subjected to brutal persecutions. So late as 1851 the Burmese viceroy told Mr. Kincaid that he ‘would instantly shoot the first Karens he found that could read.’” The Karens live among the vast forests, now in one and anon in another valley, clearing a little patch for rice-fields and gardens, their upland rice and cotton furnishing food and clothing and the mountain-streams fish in abundance. They seldom remain more than two seasons in one spot, and all through the jungles are found abandoned Karen hamlets, where rank weeds and young bamboo-shoots supplant the cultivated fields. II. THE SECOND BASIN――SIAM.