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that the white one had said, "That black buffalo eats so much I shall be starved."

He then went to the white one, and reported that the black buffalo had said, "That white buffalo eats so much I shall be starved."

In this way he soon raised a fight, and while the buffaloes were goring each other, the hare kept skipping from the head of one combatant to the other, and urging them on to fight with greater fury.

By a misstep he fell between the two just as their heads met, and was crushed to death. Even wisdom and cunning like that of the hare will not save a mischief-maker.

The hares multiplied rapidly till they filled all Pegu. Such was the dread inspired by the marvellous cunning of the progenitor of all the hares, that no animals or men dared to venture to live in Pegu.

When Taw-mai-pah's descendants began to find the Toungoo hill tracts too strait for them, a wise man arose among them who proposed to colonize Pegu.

"Who dares to go there?" was the reply of all. "Tigers, elephants, alligators, and men have all

* The mythical ancestor of all the Karen clans.

been beaten by this cunning hare, and what chance have we?"

The wise man undertook the task of conquering the hares. He went to Pegu on a pretended visit, and, talking to the hares, said, "It's strange you should all hang together so well. Your progenitor, single-handed, conquered all beasts by his cunning ; are you less wise than he that you unite yourselves so closely? Why don't you live a hare to each bunch of kaing grass, and each trust to his individual cunning?"

This roused the pride of the hares, and they followed his counsel. When the hares were separated, men and beasts attacked them, and lived for years on their flesh, till not a hare is left in Pegu to-day, even for a curiosity. Disunion means defeat.

CHAPTER VII.

SOME OF THEIR NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS.

THE oppression of ages has made the Karen reticent and very suspicious up to the point where he yields his confidence. If he thinks he can trust you, he passes at once from the extreme of suspicion to excessive confidence, and yields himself unconditionally. He knows no half-measure in this. A party of Karens once came to Dr. Vinton in Rangoon from the Cambodia. They had been shown his signature by a travelling teacher. When they came into the doctor's house, they cautiously talked round the bush for a time, and no one could make anything of them. At last, professing a desire to see English writing, they asked Dr. Vinton to sign his name, and took it off to the end of the verandah, where they carefully compared it with what seemed to be a piece of dirty crumpled paper. Each line was studiously examined, till they were convinced that the two were identical.

They then flung down their swords and daggers, rushed to the doctor, and wrung his hands and arms with a true Karen welcome. The little bit of crumpled paper with Dr. Vinton's signature had been jealously guarded by them all the long way from the Cambodia. When they found the man whose name it bore, their suspicions were completely disarmed, and they in an instant felt as much at home with him as if they had known him for years.

The regular hill Karen will obey but one man, whom he regards as his head. A European PoliceSuperintendent once told me that one of his Karen guard had refused to obey some trifling order given him by the Inspector-General of Police. The Superintendent said to the Karen, pointing to the Inspector-General, "That's my master." "Obey him, then," answered the Karen, “as I obey you, who are my master." The Karen-nees (Red Karen) will take no transmitted orders. They have been known insolently to refuse to obey their employer's wife (and it must be remembered the wife is by far the better half in Burma), although perfectly submissive to the employer himself. A case came to my notice of a Karen-nee, who, while working in a fruit-garden, knocked down one of his master's

cousins who came to take some fruit. The master had at last to go to the garden himself. Of course, this unmanageable sort of fidelity becomes toned down with education; but it shows how the Karen looks to his head, and him only, for direction and advice.

Glance at a party of

Cut adrift from his clan, the Karen is a dangerous fellow. Some wild spirits there are among them who have separated themselves from their own people and taken to a roving, lawless life. The Karen dacoit is far more dangerous than the Burman dacoit, from his perfect knowledge of woodcraft, which enables him to live for months in the jungle without any supplies, and to shift the scene of his crimes as the fancy suits him. Luckily Karen dacoits are very rare. Karen villagers starting off in pursuit of a gang of raiders. Each man has a long sausage of rice from six to eight feet in length, and some four inches in diameter, round his shoulder, crossed at the left side, and the ends tied together at the waist. His musket is slung to his back, with some salt, red pepper, and dried fish. As he stands before you without any other baggage, he is equipped and ready for a month in the jungle without going near a house or a village. He cooks his food in green

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