regarded as seven years. In the seventh year, the people come back to the hill where they had started, and commence their operations over again. In January or February, the cultivator goes out to search for a good site, and, having found one which suits him, he picks up a clod of earth and puts it under his pillow. If his dreams are favourable, he sticks to the site which he has chosen; if unfavourable, he must renew his search till he finds a spot the earth of which brings a good omen to him in his sleep. He then goes out with his family and cuts down the trees on his patch, which is called a toungya. This is done by commencing at the bottom of the hillside, and making slight notches in the biggest trees and leaving the small trees untouched. Ascending gradually, the notches made in the larger trees increase in length and depth till the top of the hill is reached, where all the larger trees are completely cut down. These, falling on those below, push them downwards, and an impetus is created which increases as it moves steadily down the hill, until with one great crash the whole forest vegetation is prostrated. The fallen trees are left as they lie till April, when the mass is dry enough to burn. A house of bamboos is built in a sequestered spot near the toungya, the dry timber

is lighted, and soon the whole of the fallen forest is reduced to ashes. The heat of the fire splits up the soil, and the ashes enter the crevices and fertilize the land. In May or June, after the first downpour of rain, rice is sown, holes being dibbled in the ground and the seed dropped in. When the rice has come well up, cotton, capsicum, and maize are sown between the ridges. Near the house are planted sugar-cane, yams, and betel. A little hut is built up in the middle of the toungya, or cultivated patch, in which a boy or a girl is placed to frighten away the birds and wild hogs, and, after two or three weedings, the crop is reaped in October. The grain is threshed out by beating the ears against a beam of wood, or treading out the grains with their feet; for they have no cattle like their lowland neighbours. While the crops are still on the ground, the men and the women fish and hunt to supply the family with food, and gather all sorts of forest produce, till harvest-time. When the rice crops have been gathered, the little granary is stored with paddy, and the head of the family, accompanied by his wife, goes down to the plain, and sells his betel, fowls, wild honey, beeswax, and wild cardamoms, and thus obtains money for clothes and taxes. In some parts-notably the

hills of Shway Gyin-tobacco is extensively grown, and yields a good return in cash. Burmans and even Chinamen go up to the Karen settlements and make purchases.

The friendly divinity of the harvest, called Pee Bee Yaw, is invoked annually when the crops are sown. The story of Pee Bee Yaw, the Karen Ceres, is an amusing and characteristic one :—

There once lived a young pair of orphans, brother and sister, whose parents had left them only four annas in silver. In accordance with the ancestral custom of the Karens, they had been

driven from the long house or barrack in which the whole clan lives, lest the misfortune of orphanhood should prove contagious.

They maintained a precarious existence by the most laborious toil, living in a little hut at some distance from the clan to which they belonged.

A famine arose in the land, and the clansmen were obliged to go to a neighbouring country to replenish their slender stock of grain.

When Po Khai's (the orphan boy) paddy was exhausted, his sister brought out the cherished. piece of silver their parents had left them, and asked him to go and purchase grain with their fellow-clansmen.

In a despairing mood, he said, "What is the use? Four annas' worth of rice will prolong our miserable lives but a few hours. As starvation is inevitable,

let us meet our fate at once."

His sister pleaded that, unhappy as their lives were, they were still sweet to them. She showed him that as they had entered the world with great pain, trouble, and care to their parents, so they should not leave it till every means to prolong existence had been exhausted. To please his sister, Po Khai went, following the clan at a distance, as he would not be allowed to mix with their party. When the party returned, they saw in the depths of the jungle by the side of the road an old woman, her body up to her neck completely covered with creepers, which had wound themselves firmly around her body.

As the party approached, the old woman screamed, "Cut me loose, cut me loose."

The clansmen declined, as the old woman would want to go home with them, and would eat them out of house and home.

After the whole party had passed, Po Khai came along.

The old woman redoubled her cries, as there was but one left from whom she could hope for release.

Po Khai thought to himself, “I must die, and even if the old woman goes home with me it can make but a few hours' difference."

So he cut away the creepers, and the old lady skipped dancing out on the road, saying, Hurry up, grandson, for grandmother is perishing with hunger."

The old woman really was Pee Bee Yaw, which means "Grandmother with the bound waist."

When the sister saw her brother returning, she thought, "My brother must be mad to invite guests to dinner when four annas' worth of rice bought at famine prices are all our store."

Her brother, seeing her frowns, hastily ran up into the house and begged his sister not to refuse the hospitality universally shown by the Karen. He reminded her how their parents had never sent any one hungry away, and begged his sister to keep up the ancestral custom, even though they were in the very jaws of death.

The old woman at once skipped into the kitchen, and called the young girl to cook in haste, as she was very hungry.

With a heavy heart the young girl was just pouring all the rice her brother had brought home into the pot, when the old woman checked her