In the Land of Pagodas (Classic Reprint)

Book excerpt: Excerpt from In the Land of Pagodas A little party of eager missionaries, we lined the rail of the Lunka as she plowed her way through the yellow waters of the Gulf of Martaban. Beckoned to the Orient to answer insistent calls from newly opened fields, we were at last on the very threshold of the "silken East." Home ties had been strained, and were beginning to lose their pull, while our eyes were longing to catch the first glimpse of the land of our adoption. The view was not assuring - as to scenery. Our expectant gaze met low mud banks rising out of the delta flood, a closer look descrying them fringed with palm trees, whose spindling trunks crisscrossed on the horizon line and lifted wavy tufts into the shimmering heat waves of the late afternoon. Our steamer slowly swung in a gigantic arc up toward a broad opening in the interminable flats. The sea-gulls, welcomers to every coast, wheeled and screamed about our heads. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.