Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/49

Rh it has been the medium of recording their very interesting literature. Its alphabet is said to be of Indian origin, and was ushered in with the religion of Buddha. Burmese are not behindhand in the matter of some manufactures, though they are by no means up to the better races of India in these particulars. Upon crudely constructed looms, their women make a cloth of a very good quality, such as is worn by the child and its mother shown in Fig. 3. Gorgeous silk cloths, made from Chinese silk, are woven in other localities, and patterns of flowers are frequently embroidered (see Fig. 3). They also use numerous fabrics which they obtain through the medium of trade with the British, who have already conquered a considerable part of the Empire of Burma. As is the case with so many other peoples of the East, the women are fond of personal adornment. They wear from five to six bracelets around their wrists, a multiplicity of necklaces, and very frequently circular, worked ear ornaments of silver or gold on the lobes of the ears. In Fig. 3 the woman is smoking a large cigar. An authority at my hand says the Burmese are passionately fond of the drama, "which appears under the various forms of masquerades, puppet shows, ballet opera, and farces, as well as in the more dignified character of the regular tragedy. The moral character of the plays is often of the lowest kind, the utmost license both of speech and action being allowed on the stage. The scenery is of a very simple and purely suggestive kind, a single branch of a tree standing for a forest, and frequently the filling up of the dialogue is largely left to the ingenuity of the actors, little more than hints of the plot being contained in many of the librettos. The popular interest in the dramatic exhibitions is intense, and, as in Siam, the same piece often drags its slow length along for days together." Some of the young Burmese women have very intelligent features, and are far from being unprepossessing. The young girl shown in Fig. 4 is of this class, and it is seen that she