Four Years in Upper Burma by W.R. Winston — Read

In Burma there are in all some forty different races and tribes. These may be grouped into two classes. First, there are the Buddhist races, consisting of the more civilised peoples, the Burmans, Talaings and Shans, the inhabitants of the best parts of the country, the rich and fertile plains and valleys of the great rivers, and the great plateau country to the east bordering on China. These races form the bulk of the population, have each a language and literature of their own, and far more of the arts and conveniences of life than their more barbarous neighbours. And secondly, we have the many spirit or demon-worshipping races, who have never yet become Buddhist-the wild, unlettered, uncivilised tribes scattered all along the mountains on Burma's frontiers, north, east and west. They have never got beyond that primitive form of religion which would appear to have been the earlier worship of all the races of that region; and, far removed from the pathways of commerce, their barbarous condition remains much as it was centuries ago.

These hill-races are very various. Bordering on Lower Burma are the Karens, now well known in the history of missions as a remarkable instance of the rapidly regenerating and uplifting power of the Gospel. Theirs is as cheering and striking a narrative as missionary annals afford. What Fiji has been to the Wesleyan Missionary Society the Karen mission in Burma has been to the American Baptist Mission.