the beginning and New York which is the end, where all things are east
of the one and west of the other. To be precise, a forlorn landing on
the west bank of the muddy turbulent Irrawaddy, remembered by man only
so often as it was necessary for the flotilla boat to call for paddy, a
visiting commissioner anxious to get away, or a family homeward-bound.
Somewhere in the northeast was Mandalay, but lately known in romance,
verse and song; somewhere in the southeast lay Prome, known only in
guide-books and time-tables; and farther south, Rangoon, sister to
Singapore, the half-way house of the derelicts of the world. On the
east side of the river, over there, was a semblance of civilization.
That is to say, men wore white linen, avoided murder, and frequently
paid their gambling debts. But on this west side stood wilderness, not
the kind one reads about as being eventually conquered by white men;
no, the real grim desolation, where the ax cuts but leaves no blaze,
where the pioneer disappears and few or none follow. The pioneer has
always been a successful pugilist, but in this part of Burma fate, out
of pure admiration for the pygmy's gameness, decided to call the battle
a draw. It was not the wilderness of the desert, of the jungle; rather
the tragic hopeless state of a settlement that neither progressed,
retarded, nor stood still.

Between the landing and the settlement itself there stretched a winding
road, arid and treeless, perhaps two miles in length. It announced
definitely that its end was futility. All this day long heavy
bullock-carts had rumbled over it, rumbled toward the landing and
rattled emptily back to the settlement. The dust hung like a fog above
the road, not only for this day, but for all days between the big
rains. Each night, however, the cold heavy dews drew it down, cooling
but never congealing it. From under the first footfall the next day it
rose again. When the gods, or the elements, or Providence, arranged