Chapter XXIV: The Glass of Ice Water That Jarred Rangoon

To come to Rangoon and not go to see the elephants work the teak timber that comes down the Irawadi River would be like going to Venice and not have your picture taken in St. Mark's Square with the doves roosting all over you; or to leave the pyramids without a photograph of yourself with the great pyramid of Cheops for a background.

I plead guilty to the dove picture--it's on our mantle at home--had it taken to please my wife, who was with me on that trip.

The great satisfaction I take in that picture is its proof of my self-sacrificing nature.

Having visited Venice several times before I took my wife there, I knew all about that "picture-with-the-doves" game.

Just before the photograph fiend in Venice, who will photograph an American with the doves for $2.00, an Englishman for $1.00, and a German for 20 cents, made his exposure, I bought my wife a cornucopia of corn that venders sell for a cent, with which to feed the doves.

The woman in the picture behind the cloud of doves is my wife. The man at her side, minus any doves on him to mar his seraphic smile, is myself.

The photograph of me at the pyramids, taken on a former trip, would be a pretty good picture of me, too, if my natural modesty hadn't got the better of me, which modesty prompted me to get behind the pyramid when the photographer made his exposure.

This photographer is on the ground and does a rushing business photographing globe trotters at the pyramids. The pyramid being betwixt me and the camera made a failure of the picture so far as being a good one of me is concerned; but I'm ready to bet good money that I'm the only world tourist who can show a photograph of Cheops without a globe-trotter in the foreground. It's a good photograph of the pyramid.

But really one shouldn't leave Rangoon without seeing the elephants work the teak logs.

The human intelligence of the animals, coupled with their great strength as they push the logs into place, accurately measure distances, walk back and forth to study the problem of how best to place a log, and then roll and put it into place, is one of the sights worth seeing in Rangoon; which, in itself, is a town worth seeing.

A city well laid out with wide streets running at right angles, extending several miles along the river front, and a mile inland.

Many beautiful lakes are in the suburbs, and tropical parks abound: and it is the third city in British India.

It's an old, old town. Its chief attraction to draw visitors from the ends of the earth is the great Shwe Dagon Pagoda, the oldest Buddhist temple in the world, the foundation of which was laid 588 B. C.

And Rangoon has trolley cars and water-works, and electric lights, and an ice plant.

And ice is a precious commodity in Rangoon. In fact, ice is a precious commodity in any Oriental city excepting Manila.

In Manila they have caught onto the idea that ice is not a deadly poison or precious stones.

I attribute it to the influence of the white Filipinos living there, who are wonderfully like Americans in taste, habits and general all-around desirableness.

Ask for a glass of ice-water at a hotel in Rangoon, or Hong Kong, or Pekin, or Yokohama, or Calcutta, or Bombay and watch what happens.

Your table boy will bring you a high glass of tepid water and drop a piece of ice in it as big as a hickory-nut, and the only thing in the whole transaction worthy of note is the boy's self-satisfied air of having done his whole duty.

I have demoralized the whole running-gear of the best hotel in Rangoon--I'll be known among the hotel fraternity of Rangoon in future as the "ice man" who visited the town in 1914.

Becoming weary of watching that little nugget of ice in a large glass of tepid water, doing its best to chill the water as it rapidly diminished to the size of a two-carat diamond, finally to dissolve entirely in an heroic effort to make good, I called the table boy to me and ordered him to empty the glass and bring me the several receptacles in the dining room that held ice for all the guests. Fishing enough nuggets from the lot to pack the glass full of ice, I ordered it filled with water--looked up at the boy and said: "Savvy? Ice-water!"

I leave town today for Calcutta--that glass of ice water has jarred Rangoon.