During the day many of the villagers have been busy in the rice-fields, for rice is their staple food and the only crop generally cultivated; even infants of a day old are fed upon it, the rice being first chewed by the mother, and each tiny mouthful washed down by a few drops of water. Towards evening, when the tired cattle draw their creaking carts homewards, the streets are thronged with the labourers returning from their work, ready for the simple meal of rice and "ngapi" their wives have prepared for them.
It is a simple, happy life which these villagers lead, graced by many pretty customs of domesticity.
Rising with the sun, with it also they retire to rest, and as the last sweet tones of many gongs from the village monastery proclaim the close of their evening prayer the stockade-gates are closed, and, save for the howling of jackals outside, or the yapping of a dog, silence reigns throughout the village.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO A BURMESE VILLAGE. _Page 10._]
Owing to their primitive methods of building and choice of materials, a Burmese town differs very little from a village except in point of size, though occasionally the houses are of two stories and timber-built throughout.
The stockade is absent, and in its place deep ditches, partly filled with water, surround the houses, and run alongside of the streets, which are, perhaps, somewhat wider and more regularly planned.
The approach to the town is often very pretty, the water reflecting the waving palm-trees and picturesque buildings, while the roads, which in Burma are usually nothing but a track, have, as they near the town, some semblance of solidity.
Little bridges cross the ditches, and give access to the houses, round about which are often raised paths or causeways of burnt brick set "herring-bone" fashion. These prove a comfort in the rains, when the streets of the town are rivers and the whole country a sea of mud.
Trees in plenty shade the road and houses, and shops and small bazaars give an air of business to the town, whose principal street, however, is largely covered with grass, and affords a convenient place in which to try a pony's paces.
Some of the streets have side-walks, a shade less dusty (or muddy, as the case may be) than the road itself, and in the least frequented of them dwarf palmettos enjoy a lusty existence.