A Burmese wonderland; a tale of travel in Lower and ... - Khamkoo

250 A BURMESE WONDERLAND.
Once again the festive season opens in October
with illuminations at the full moon of Thadingyut.
The time when Lotus open radiantly :
When candles light the Hill of Mandalay.
Like Merus' Mount it glitters brilliantly
This festival of lights, when people pay
Their homage, bowing thrice before the shrines
Where ancestors bowed down in ancient times.
(Burmese Verse, by the
Poet U Min.)
It is the season for tours and camps, the season of
clean atmosphere, the season of picnics when gay
Burmese parties, the sunshine beating down upon their
silks through luminous umbrellas, set out in boats and
carts to spend the day beneath the trees of some favourite
pagoda.
Burma, our Burma, the real Burma, is most truly a
Wonderland, replete with marvels and mysteries of which
the people are half incredulous, yet not willing to be
wholly disillusioned. And why rob legend of romance ?
Why expose our Nats to the merciless light of reason ?
We are not prepared to sacrifice imagination and fancy
to a mere vulgar thirst for truth ; nor strip a 20th
century fairy-land of its gauze-wings and gold-dust.
God knows, our world is material enough to warrant a
little indulgence. In this preserve the Nats shall
survive,
and tiny houses must be built for their accommodation.
Here wonderful tales really are true—^every
bit of them. Scientific research explodes a good
many myths, but reveals new wonders undreamed