The Belted Seas

lding. That was a new port to me, and it wasn't a port-of-call at all till the English took it. You go some thirty miles up the Rangoon River, which is one of

Indian Empire, and houses of English residents. The gilded pagoda looks over everything from a hill. The crowds in the streets are Eastern

the right, for nearly a mile. Then it grew wooded on each side. Gateways with carved stone posts and plaster griffins, took the place of shops, and behind them you could see the slanting roofs of the monasteries, and their towers, strung to the top with rows of little roofs. A stream of people moved drowsy in the road, monks in yello

in the air, and getting bewildered to see so near by the quantity of dancing statues on the roofs of the

at had enamelled goggle eyes and a size that called for respect. The gateway led under a row of r

at under a roof near the gate with some children squatted around. He wasn't Sadler. He didn't look as if an inquiry f

down on the creek where the boys were rowing with his countrymen, and looking down on Saleratus that was a pretty unkempt community, and saying, "Vely good j

nt. By the black clay pipe he was smoking, and by his hair that was red enough to keep

and said I'd find Sadler ov

nything rampageous, nor the women, nor the drink, nor clawin' to do nothin', since we

d to a small temple on a mound, a sort of pointed roof on a circle of lacquer pillars. A yellow-robed man sat on the floor, with right shoulder bare, leaning against a pillar. A woman stood in front of him, talking fast. Three c

led away, and I says, "How's bus

e were his remarks, and it didn't look as if the East had swallowed him, except that he was

ll, that one has had four girls. Every time she comes around afterwards and lays down the law. Sometimes she brings her man, and they both lay down the law. Well, it's lively! That one on the left," he says, pointing to the children, "that's Nan, proper name Ananda. She's one of their four. She's got the nerve of a horse

He seemed to have trouble getting his mind to those long-past th

ts in '53, when they annexed the town, and the title appeared to be good. I investigated some more. There were twenty yellow monks teaching school here. There's forty now. I got 'em in. But they appeared to think Lum Shan, or me, was a sort financial manager, that managed affairs mysterious. They said, 'Why should the holy be troubled? All things are one.' I thought they were prett

, 'All things are one,' till it seemed to me every one of 'em was thinking that identical thing too, and every one of 'em had the same identical and balmy smile over it. 'Take it on the whole,' I says, 'that's a singular coincidence, ain't it?' After three or four weeks

day, and they all go into the city mornings with begging bowls to give people a chance to acquire merit by charity. Then they come back and give away what they've collected to poverty that's collected at the gate. That way they acquire merit for

the temple keeps puttin' her off with girls, then Kiyi's got the fever and chills, or somethin' else is goin' on. Always something to worry about. But a man can go o

. Laying down the law appeared to run in her family. Soaker took his thumping in a way that I judged it was a custom between them. Little Kiyi crept up the steps and squatted on the stone floor in front of us

Sadler, speaking hus

hat?"

t injected with the extract of misery beforehand," he says. "He was born wishing he wasn't. I know what it is,

on the edge of Sadler's yellow robe, curled up, and shut his eyes, and went to sleep. He had no clothes but a green loin cloth. His hai

ad. The yellow old man sat inside the gate alone. There were no children under the trees. He came out of his dream, and motioned to stop us, and mumbled something about "Tha-Thana-Peing," whi

ping school to

bles the ye

adler! No.

the grass, and Irish, with his hair remarkable wild, among them, and against a pillar sat Sadler, bent over Kiyi's body that was on his knees. One of the yellow robes recited a monotonous c

ght, Tommy. Now, is it? No, it ain't right." He looked old and weighted down. He

recollect how little Kiyi looked like a wisp of dry hay, and Sadler uncommon large, with his fists on the

was Julius R. that was slippery and ambitious; there was Sadler that had a worm in his soul; there was Clyde that kept one conscience for argument, and another for the trade; there was Tommy Buckingham who was getting older and troubled about the intentions of things. And yet again there was folks like Kreps and Stevey Todd, say, mild and warm people,

rs, or thereabout, altogether. The time I saw Sadler behind

st Indies? Why don't you liquidate on Clyde? Why don't you quit your foolishness?" and when Stevey Todd and I got b