a (oe 32 Spe ee Scie ns Sees seeeiee Us if ne ke? se ®: 22 m sees “fe + wire Sty on eae a os eat Peri Say ae i ey se Teg On) Wd . tLe * Caney ‘ ee elt + 3% **s-¢ yy iterate LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINCETON. N. J. PURCHASED BY THE HAMILL MISSIONARY FUND. —— “OA Division... awed -r ee CF Pram | my, ee 4 % 0 - a : f \ SCClION..2.. sheet Sreet chs obo HF Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/peacockspagodasO0edmo ity ins Ars wis ab’, q Pico 5 PEACOCKS AND PAGODAS PYATTHAT AND CHINTHES | Front. RY OF PAY > - - - > 56 BABIES - - - - rs . - x . . 5 59 HEAD OF CHINTHE AT PROME~ - - - - - - - 67 PLANK AND BAMBOO BRIDGE - - - - - - - 69 A BANYAN TREE - - - - e . ba e : 71 IN THE BAZAAR - - - - - - “ : . 73 YOUNG GIRL - - - - - - = « “ 2 75 HUT ON THE RIVER BANK - - - - > ~ - > 80 A TOP-KNOT - ~ - - - - ~ = te ‘ 81 A RIVERSIDE VILLAGE - - - ~ = = - . 87 CHINTHE AND PYATTHAT - - - - ° = “ 93 List of Illustrations PAGE A PYATTHAT - - - - = - - = : 3 To2 OIL RIGS AT YENANGYAUNG - - - ~ - - - 108 TODDY PALMS - - - - ° = . 2 ee CHAPTER HEADING - . - - - - - - - 139 ON THE IRRAWADDY - - - - - - - oh ee PADDY BOATS) - - - - - : - : - oa Se BOATS ON TNE IRRAWADDY - - - - - - eae i. ARTISTS DRAWING ON LACQUER WITH THE STYLUS) - - Pie SG PAGODAS . - - - - - - ~ - > 163 SANDBANKS - - - - - - - - - - 170 SHAN TAYOKS~ - - - - - - - - - mile) EE 7S A SHAN BOY - - - - - - - . - - 174 WAITING FOR THE FERRY - - - - . - - 195 POTTERY SELLERS AT MOGOK - - - - - - - 200 CHATTY SELLERS - - - - - - - - ~The SORTING STONES - - - - - - - - cian Ly IN THE OUTER BAZAAR AT MANDALAY - - - - - 224 CHIN-LON - - - ~ - - - - - = 231 A VILLAGE SHOP - : - - - - - - - 237 COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENCE - + > - - - a Bae CHEROOT MAKERS - - - - - - - - = i hoe IN A VILLAGE STREET ~ - - - - - - - 263 WASHERWOMEN - - - - . - - - - 267 PEACOCKS AND PAGODAS CHAPTER I I go to Burma—tThe Soul of a People—I arrive at Rangoon —A European Bungalow—The Pegu Jar—Papaya Fruit— Blake’s House. Tus book contains nothing whatever about peacocks and very little about pagodas. Yet the title is not inappropriate, since the peacock is the emblem of Burma and the pagoda one of the outward signs of a religion that has done much _ towards making the Burmese a happy people— perhaps the happiest and most contented people in the world. The Englishman believes that wealth is better than happiness, or at least synonymous with it. The Burman knows that happiness is better than wealth. That sums up roughly one of the main differences between them. The Burman does not share that fear of poverty which is the hell of so many English people, nor does the maxim of the West, “ Make money! honestly if possible—but make money!” find I Peacocks and Pagodas any place in his philosophy. The European will tell you that the Burman is lazy and thriftless; but just as thrift carried to excess may become a vice, so a reasonable thrift- lessness may often be a virtue, especially that thriftlessness which prefers spending money on others to hoarding it ina stocking. The Burman, when his harvest is good enough to enable him to repay his loan to the “ chetty ” and still have money over, distributes rice to those less fortunate than himself, or builds a pagoda, or gives a “ pwe,” or festival, to the village, or possibly, being a person with the sporting instinct strongly developed, will gamble away the whole lot on the races. At all events, in some manner, good or bad, he gets rid of his superfluous cash, and in consequence there is in Burma no such growing gulf between rich and poor, with all its resultant misery and discontent, as there is in England and America. This is a good thing ; let us hope it will continue! Contact with Europeans, however, and the assimilation of the civilisation upon which we unduly pride ourselves, seem likely eventually to break down the old traditions. Moreover, Buddhism, which is in the main, I believe, ethically sound, and well suited to an Eastern people, cannot continue to exist in a country which has once adopted Western democratic ideas ; and the priests of Burma, who are to-day preaching the doctrines of Communism in their temples and “ kyaungs”’ and spreading sedition in the rising generation, are un- wittingly compassing their own downfall and the destruction of their religion. Even a fine-weather tourist like myself— a The Soul of a People “fine-weather tourist ” being the half-contemptuous appellation given by British residents to the casual winter visitor—can hardly fail to remark the attitude of the young Burman of the town towards Europeans. It is “‘ Burma for the Burmese ”’ to-day, just as recently it was “ Ireland for the Irish,”’ though whether the Burmese are capable of governing the country themselves with a parliament chosen by popular vote is a very doubtful question. Educated Burmese with whom I have talked say that they can. The English residents, almost to a man, say that they cannot. Which of the two is right I do not know; but of one thing I am reasonably certain, namely that the Burmese are running a grave risk of losing that philosophic outlook which has made them hitherto such a happy and contented people. “What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? ”’ This quotation leads me very naturally to a book which was the origin of my desire to visit Burma—Fielding Hall’s “‘ The Soul of a People.’”” Those who know Burma well say that it is too idealistic and too exaggerated to be taken seriously. Perhaps they are right. But after all, books that have to be taken seriously are often dull; and who enjoys reading a dull book? “The Soul of a People ’”’ is the only book about Burma that I have so far read which succeeds in really conveying the outlook of the Burman. The average Englishman or American is slow to realise that an outlook different from his own is even possible ; to bring him to see life through Oriental eyes, 3 Peacocks and Pagodas though ever so dimly, is an achievement which fully justifies a certain amount of exaggeration. I had the desire, then, to visit Burma and see the country and its people for myself. But desire is one thing, opportunity another, and it was not until 1922 that my chance came. The wave of economy that swept official circles at that time caused me to find myself temporarily one of the unemployed. Co-incident with this came an invitation from a friend to stay with him in Rangoon. The finger of fate seemed to be pointing Eastwards and I decided to go. There are two lines running to Rangoon, the Bibby and the Henderson ; and in connection with the two I discovered later a remarkable phenomenon. It is customary, I found, for people who happen to have come out on a Henderson liner to volunteer the explanation that they have only done so because no accomodation was available on the Bibby. Why this explanation should be necessary I cannot imagine, unless it is due to the fact that passage by the Henderson line is slightly cheaper. I travelled by the Henderson myself and was quite comfortable, and the reason I did so was that it suited my pocket. I did uot apply to the Bibby first and find all the accomodation taken up. Doubtless a shocking confession. Having cleared the air by this candid exposition, I am able, without a blush, to say that I found myself one morning in early November passing up the Rangoon River on board the Henderson liner “‘ Amarapoora.”’ The paddy fields on either side were bright with vivid green, and the golden spire 4 I arrive at Rangoon of the Shwe Dagon pagoda glittered in the sunshine far ahead. The same afternoon [ was met by my friend Jones, who helped me to get my belongings through the Customs and drove me off in his car through the busy streets of Rangoon City. Driving a car in Rangoon needs care and no small amount of patience. In addition to rapidly-moving motor vehicles there are “ gharries ’’ drawn at six miles an hour by skinny ponies, rickshaws with coolies in the shafts trotting at a speed of, say, four miles an hour, bullock carts surging along in unwieldy fashion at two miles an hour, and pedestrians strolling about everywhere or standing still in the middle of the street engaged in oblivious and animated conversation. Steering a way through such varied traffic is no easy matter, and the life of a “‘ shover’”’ in Rangoon must be an agitating one. The city is not impressive. The buildings have no architectural distinction, and the streets, in common with the streets of all the towns in Asia that I have seen, have an untidy look. Squalor and litter are the two dominant notes even in the main streets. The side streets are worse— rabbit warrens of huddled native shops swarming with people, thick with smells, full of dirty children, pi-dogs, rubbish and general filth. But they are unquestionably picturesque. For some unexplained reason dirt is generally picturesque. Why is it? A _ well-dressed Englishman walking down Bond Street in creased trousers, morning coat, white spats, silk hat, and with a pearl pin in his immaculate tie, may be smart but cannot be called picturesque ; whereas 5 Peacocks and Pagodas the ragged beggar standing at the curb with matches for sale often is so. There is no end of this particular type of picturesqueness in Rangoon. “Rangoon,” however, “isnot Burma,’’ as every European is careful to explain to the visitor. In a sense perhaps it is not—in the sense, for example, that Limehouse is not London. At the same time it is the capital, the largest port, © and the seat of government ; therefore if it were populated with Esquimaux from the Arctic or Australian aborigines it would still be Burma, or part of Burma. It is a very cosmopolitan city. Of its quarter-million inhabitants, only about 2,000 are European. The rest are largely Indians— Madrasi and Bengali. The Burmese are in a minority except in certain outlying parts such as Kemmendine. John Chinaman with his thrifty business ways is almost as firmly established as the Indian. And there are representatives of many other nationalities,anda babel, Iam told, of no fewer than forty different tongues. But itis the Burman with his love for bright colours who contributes the distinctive accent. A Burmese crowd at a festival is a delightful sight and as different from, for example, an English crowd on Cup-tie day as light from darkness. No wonder the English take their pleasures sadly. If clothes do not actually make the man, they have unquestionably a big influence on his psychology. To see the happy Burman sporting his holiday ““pasoh’”’ of ruby silk, his head kerchief of orange (which somehow never seems to clash) and his brightly coloured paper umbrella, is to wish for a return of the good old times 6 A European Bungalow when we men, as well as women, were not afraid to go abroad in all the bravery of colour. But suggest it now and see what answer you get! Either, “‘ Well, you see, it isn’t done, my dear fellow ! ’—which is no real argument at all— or “‘ Too expensive ! ’’—which is an argument based on our habit of “‘ thinking commercially’’ and not much more valid than the other. The Burman never “ thinks commercially’; he can therefore go and squander a couple of hundred rupees on a “‘ pasoh,”’ if he happens to have the cash, without any heart-searching or qualms of conscience. Jones, I found, was living with his friend, Dr. Blake, in the doctor’s bungalow at Kandawglay. The bungalow adjoins the Chinese cemetery, and was at one time used as a school for young ladies. It happened, sad to say, that some of the pupils got, as the phrase goes, “‘ into trouble,’”’ and despite the scepticism of the authorities as to the plausible explanation put forward by the culprits—namely that spirits from the cemetery were the authors of the mischief !—the school was removed elsewhere. As the bungalow is typical, it may be of interest to describe it. To begin with, it differs from houses at home by having no front door. The entrance is into a hall open for its full width and sheltered by a porch and a trellis covered with creeper. A “‘ peon,’’ or messenger, is usually on duty there during the day, and a watchman at night. The hall is furnished with a goodly array of comfortable lounge chairs in basket-work, a table or two, a Burmese war-drum of metal 7 Peacocks and Pagodas several hundred years old, several plants on stands, some prints and some fine antlers and other sporting trophies. A rotary electric fan, or punkah, hangs from the ceiling, and can be set at slow, medium, or fast, as preferred. On either side of the hall are rooms, one used as dining-room, the other as a bedroom. A staircase, which can be closed by folding doors, and is always so closed at night, rises to the floor above. A spacious sitting room or lounge occupies the central portion of this floor and extends over the front porch. The outer walls are really a series of shutters which can be opened or closed at will. The windows are usually open, and are protected from the sun, when necessary, by outside blinds of bamboo matting. The roof has a wide overhang, in order to give still further protection from the sun as well as to keep away the vast streams of water that pour down in the rainy season. The room is provided with two electric punkahs, like the one in the hall below. On three sides there are doorways leading into bedrooms, dressing rooms and ante-rooms. These doors are seldom shut, a certain amount of privacy being obtained by curtains of some light material, through which the air can penetrate more or less freely. The partition walls do not go right up to the roof, but a generous amount of space is left for purposes of ventilation. Small green lizards, which assume, like chame- leons, a protective colouring according to their background, live in the crevices and come out and run at night over walls and ceiling, calling to one another with a bird-like chirrup. And sometimes you may see the big lizard called the tuk-too, 8 A European Bungalow a beast eight or nine inches long, and hear the monotonous cry from which he gets his name. The tuk-too bites, and I am told that there is a black species of tuk-too whose bite is dangerous. Nevertheless even Europeans who, in their superior way, despise the superstitions of the Burman, like to have tuk-toos in their houses because they are said to bring good luck. The lounge has a polished floor with tiger, leopard and other skins to take the place of a carpet and is furnished like any ordinary Western sitting-room. The bedrooms are large and airy. The beds are hung, of necessity, with mosquito curtains, since mosquitoes breed freely in the compound and without curtains sleep would be impossible. These pests always go for new blood and make the life of a newcomer a misery. Residents become to some extent immune after a time. These mosquitoes are, however, not malaria carriers and their bite causes no more serious harm than irritation and discomfort. The most un-English feature in a European house is the bathroom. Every bedroom has its own, but there is no full-length bath of white enamel, or porcelain, with hot and cold water-taps of shining brasswork, and no modern closet and drainage system. The usual furniture of the bathroom consists of a zinc tub, a tin mug with a handle which serves in place of a sponge, a washstand, a commode, and finally, when there is no water laid on—a luxury only possible in large towns like Rangoon—a great earthenware jar full of water. These jarsare called Pegu jars, from the place where 2 Peacocks and Pagodas they aremade. The bath and the Pegu jar both stand on a square of concrete, with a thick edge or rim all round and a hole in one corner through which the used water is drained off into the compound below. x Y, Xa Kx K . — 10H VO ee v/ \ee THE PEGU JAR / An amusing story, though a chestnut, is told of an English lady who was visiting Burma for the first time. Being quite unaccustomed to the ways of the country, and desiring a bath, she went into the bathroom and there found 10 The Pegu Jar the empty zinc tub and the Pegu jar full of water that I have described. Somewhat puzzled, she undressed, and then managed, with considerable difficulty, to immerse herself completely in the big jar. Soon afterwards cries for help were heard issuing from the poor lady’s bathroom, and when the host and hostess rushed to the rescue, they found their guest firmly fixed in the jar, and quite unable to extricate herself. The subsequent proceedings, which involved the use of a hammer, are perhaps better left to the imagination than described in detail. What she ought to have done on her first entry into the bathroom was to utter a loud shout of “‘ Boy!’ An Indian “ pani-wallah ’’ would then have arrived up the back stair- case leading from the compound with a kerosene oil tin full of hot water. He would have poured the contents into the zinc tub and tempered the heat of the water by additions from the Pegu jar, and finally departed, closing the door discreetly behind him. She might have remarked that her bath water had a strong odour of smoke, but otherwise all would have been well. My bedroom at Dr. Blake’s had a verandah at the back looking over the compound to a “ pongyi kyaung,’’ or monastery. This consisted of a heterogeneous cluster of buildings, old and new, surrounded by a high brick wall. The buildings were partly of plaster, partly of wood, and partly, in fact largely, of corrugated iron. The roofs, rising one above the other, rather in the Chinese fashion, would have been picturesque but for this horrible corrugated stuff. II Peacocks and Pagodas But it is convenient material for roofing, and, I suppose, cheap. Even the magnificent palace of King Mindon Min, at Mandalay, as I found later, is roofed with it. The garden of the “‘kyaung’”’ contained palms, mangoes, plantains and papaya, besides other plants and shrubs whose names I do not know. The four trees mentioned all bear fruit. The papaya is a gourd-shaped affair of the melon type. Europeans eat it, but rather from a sense of duty. It is not very nice, but it contains a lot of pepsin and is good for the digestion ; it, therefore, makes a direct appeal to that curious streak in our psychology which impels us to do things we dislike doing because they are said to be good for us. The wonderful fruits of the East that we hear so much about at home are, to use a slang term, “‘a wash-out.’ There are no Eastern fruits comparable to the fruit grown in England. The staple fruits of Burma, so far as I have had experience, are oranges and bananas. To these at certain times of the year, one can add mangoes, custard apples (a sickly fruit full of pips), and pines. Pineapples are both good and cheap, and in Burma you take half of one on your plate and dig out the contents with a spoon. It is much the best way of eating a pineapple, though it is not difficult to visualise the horrified face of a London hostess were she to see one of her guests attempt such an attack on the cherished piéce de résistance of her dessert. A bungalow, strictly speaking, is a building of one storey only. There are, therefore, few, if any, real bungalows in Burma. But the houses, especially those built some years IZ Blake’s House ago, are very much of the bungalow type and the term can therefore be allowed to pass. At the present day houses are being built more of stone and brick and are called, in the jargon of the European community, “ pukka ’”’ houses in contradistinction to those built of wood. There is nothing like a really thick stone wall for keeping out the heat, and it is a matter of some surprise to me that the residents have for so long been content to live in thinly-built houses of wood. These wooden bungalows must be veritable ovens during the hot season and cannot, I should imagine, compare for comfort with the sensible, heavily-built stone bungalows of the European cantonments in India. Dr. Blake’s bungalow, which I have been trying to describe, is built of teak and roofed with the flat slats of wood known in America as “‘shingles.”’ It is shaded by two fine almond trees with wide shiny leaves. There are plantains, mangoes, rain-trees, gold mohur, and other trees in the compound. Colour is provided by masses of purple bougainvillea, by tropical plants with great blossoms of red and crimson, and by flowering shrubs unknown to colder latitudes. At the back of the house are the buildings occupied by the servants and their families, some of whom are Burmese and others what are here called “ natives,’’ by which natives of India are always meant. The kitchen also is a separate building at the back, and here most wonderful cookery is done with nothing more elaborate than an open wood fire. An Indian cook can produce a meal of five or six courses piping hot, and serve it, moreover, on hot plates, with the aid of a tiny 13 Peacocks and Pagodas fire of sticks, a kettle, a frying-pan, and a pot or two. The head servant, a sort of major-domo, is called the butler. He is not, as might be at first imagined, a suave gentleman in evening dress with a marvellous command of the finer shades of deferential behaviour and the key of the wine cellar, but a Madrasi in a white tunic and with a white puggaree wound round his swarthy head, who waits at table and overlooks the affairs of the household generally. Such, in brief, was the house and domestic establishment in which I found myself on my first arrival in Burma. 14 CHAPTER II Impressions of Rangoon—A Burmese Band—The Street of the Umbrella Makers—Tinkly Temple Bells—Elephants—Pongyis—Mulligatawny Soup—Conventions of the British Community—A Tropical Rain- storm—Cinemas. No one who is in the least susceptible to impressions can possibly forget his first arrival in the East. The people are different, the clothes are different, the habits, customs and thoughts, the trees and foliage, the birds and animals, all are different from those to which he is accustomed. My first arrival in India, which occurred during the early part of the war, will always stand out as one of the most thrilling times of my life. Unfortunately custom stales, and the thrill passes, never to return with its original force. All the same, during my first day or so in Rangoon I was thoroughly absorbed in everything I saw—the movement, life and colour, the variety of races, the queer tumble-down shops overflowing on to the littered pavement, the coolies tugging at freight-carts, the half-naked laughing children, the bullocks, the lop-eared goats, the elephants (for I saw elephants on my first day), all the riotous and kaleidoscopic T5 A PONGYI Peacocks and Pagodas confusion of the East epitomised in the sunlit streets and byeways of the Burmese capital. I was aroused early in the morning by a terrific clamour outside in the compound. Cocks were crowing, hens clucking and crows chattering, to say nothing of cicadas, tree-crickets, frogs and a host of those small creatures that possess the enviable power of making a noise out of all proportion to their size. It was a deafening chorus, and it occurred regularly, as I discovered later, every morning and evening. But one gets used to anything, and I was soon able to sleep through it. On the first morning, however, I had no wish to sleep, but was anxious to be up and out. Fortified with tea and toast I started away with Blake. His car quickly took us to Kemmendine, a Burmese village on the outskirtsof Rangoon. Here I made my first acquaint- ance with the streets of thatched bamboo houses, shaded with trees that afterwards became familiar to me. The houses were mostly raised from the ground on posts. A curious superstition attaches to these posts. They are of three genders—masculine, feminine, and neuter. Male posts are of equal size at both ends; female posts are bigger at the foot ; neuter posts are thicker in the middle than at the ends. The female posts bring good luck and honour ; the male posts are harmless; the neuter posts bring bad luck ; while a fourth form of post, thicker at the top, brings death and disaster as it is a “ bilu’s,’”’ or ogre’s, post. In a house in a side street—which must surely have been built upon ogre’s posts—we found the dead body of a man 16 A Burmese Band laid out in full view, the house, like all the other. houses, being quite open in front. A Burmese band was playing cheerful music outside. On enquiry we learnt that the body was that of the headman of the village, who had just been murdered by his brother-in-law. I therefore got a rather striking glimpse of Burmese customs, and Burmese ways before I had been many hours in the country. Murder is, unfortunately, only too common in Burma. The Burmese are quick-tempered, and, when in drink, quarrelsome. They are also permitted, in certain circum- stances, to carry large knives called “‘ dahs.’’ So the means are often at hand. Moreover, they do not set the same store by human life as we doin the West. Neither, judging from what I have seen of them, do they fear death as wedo. Death is merely another step towards Nirvana. Therefore their funerals are not the lugubrious affairs to which we are accustomed in Europe. They employ a band, not to increase the gloom and depression, but to dispelit. The function of the band is to drive away sorrow, and instead of playing the dead marches and requiems which strike a chill into the heart of unfortunate mourners in the West, the Burmese rattle away at their happiest and most cheerful tunes. Sometimes, when a family can afford it, a European band is hired for the funeral, and it is then no uncommon thing for the strains of a waltz to accompany the corpse to its last resting-place ; even ‘‘ The Merry Widow ”’ (a peculiarly unfortunate choice where the departed is leaving a wife behind!) has been heard at Rangoon funerals. I cannot escape a lurking 17 Peacocks and Pagodas suspicion that the Burman in this matter shows more sense than we do, and though personally I shouldn’t choose the “ Merry Widow Waltz ’’ for my own final ceremony, I think I should prefer it to the Dead March in “Saul.” The band that was playing outside the murdered man’s house was composed of a circle of gongs, a circle of drums, an oboe, a big drum, cymbals, and a bamboo clapper. The sounds produced were perfectly unintelligible to me and seemed to consist of about ninety-nine per cent. noise and _ one per cent. music. But I shall have more to say on this subject in a later chapter. The umbrellas of transparent linen that are used by both Burmese men and Burmese women are made, amongst other places, at Kemmendine. In fact, the street where the corpse lay and the band was playing was named, picturesquely enough, “‘ The Street of the Umbrella-makers.’’ Womnien and girls and a few men were at work in the shops, which are also the living-rooms and sleeping-rooms. There is no privacy. The interiors of the houses lie open to the gaze ofthe passer-by and the domestic life of the people is carried on in the full glare of publicity. In one shop you will see, for instance, a couple of girls squatting on the floor making cheroots, a mother suckling her latest arrival, a woman powdering her face or washing a baby, while an ancient crone, probably the grandmother, sits stolidly on the bed at the back with a huge white cheroot sticking out of the corner of her wrinkled mouth. The father may or may not be present. If he is he will probably be lounging on the 18 The Street of the Umbrella Makers floor chewing betel-nut. The rest of the family, naked or half-naked urchins of both sexes, with shaven heads and queer little top-knots, will be playing in the dust outside. All will be laughing, chattering, and happy. We left the Street of the Umbrella-makers and went to a timber mill near by, and it was here that I saw the elephants. They were not, as I may have inadvertently suggested, tramping about in the main streets of Rangoon. Burma is full of elephants, wild and domesticated, but they are not very much in evidence. When I started away some days later on a trip up the Irrawaddy, I expected to see ‘ elephints a-pilin’ teak in the sludgy, squdgy creek ’”’ about every few hundred yards or so. During the whole trip of 900 miles from Rangoon to Bhamo I actually saw two, who were both occupied in an unsuccessful attempt to drink the Irrawaddy dry instead of being busy at the task sanctified and hallowed, as it were, by the world-famous couplet of our Imperialist poet. To tell the truth, the poem in which these lines occur is slightly misleading in other respects also. The old Moulmein pagoda is not “ lookin’ Eastward to the sea,’’ nor does the dawn come up “ outer China crost the Bay ”’ ; and as for the “ tinkly temple bells,”’ by which are meant the tiny bells or flat plates of metal that hang from the edge of the iron “hti’’ that crowns the pagoda spire, it was about two months before I discovered them, and then I had to listen hard before I could hear them tinkle. I am assured, however, by others, that in windy weather they are quite audible. 1g Peacocks and Pagodas The elephants in the timber mill were hauling logs and lifting them on to the saw carriers. They used trunks, tusks and feet. Some of the logs had a chain attached, and in this case the great beast would put his trunk through the loop of the chain, place the end of his trunk in his mouth, and then pull. When pushing a log with a forefoot, the elephant puts his trunk against the log and his foot against the trunk. The pressure on the trunk between foot and log must be enormous. The almost human intelligence displayed is remarkable, and it is not difficult to believe that the elephants have more sense, as some people say, than the Indian coolies or “‘ mahouts’’’ who are in charge of them. I was so fascinated in watching that I was quite sorry to come away. The elephant does not usually breed in captivity, and most of the domestic elephants are captured elephants brought in from the jungle and trained. A good trained elephant is worth about £500. It is a much more sensitive beast than its size would lead one to believe. It feels the heat, and is not, therefore, worked by its owners after the sun is high. And, what is stranger still, it suffers acute distress from the bite of the mosquito. As we drove home after leaving the timber yard, I noticed a great many yellow-robed Buddhist priests carrying shiny black bowls. They were pongyis returning to their “kyaungs’”’ with the daily offerings of food. The new arrival cannot help being struck by the number of these monks in yellow; quite a large proportion of the male population seem to belong to the priesthood ; one sees them 20 Pongyis everywhere, either with their begging-bowls, or striding along with a palm-leaf fan or a big red umbrella, and often attended by a small boy carrying their books and belongings. “ Pongyi’’ is a generic term used for convenience, but strictly speaking a “‘ pongyi”’ (literally “ great glory ”’) is one who has lived the religious life for not less than ten years ; the others are “ pyit-shins ’’ with a lesser term of service, or “‘ shins ”—novices—and those who are serving the short period which every male Buddhist is expected, at some time or other, to devote to the monastic life. The food collected every morning in the bowls is by no means always consumed by the priests. In some cases it is, but in others it is turned out at the roadside to be eaten by the pariah dogs that infest the whole country. The daily collection thus has for its object not so much the provision of sustenance for the monks as the provision of an opportunity for the lay portion of the community to perform a daily act of charity. Europeans are apt to sneer at this custom on the ground that it is inspired merely by a selfish desire to “acquire merit’’; but is it not to some extent analogous to the law of the British Boy Scout, which insists on the daily performance of at least one kind action? And is it not probable that the habit of giving thus inculcated, whether the motive is intrinsically a selfish one or not, must have an influence for good on the character of those who regularly adhere to it ? | When we arrived home to breakfast I met with another curious custom. This was an English custom, or rather a gr Peacocks and Pagodas custom of the English in Burma. We began our meal with mulligatawny soup. “It’s Sunday,” said Jones. The remark seemed irrelevant and at the time I failed to connect it with the soup. Later on I found that Sunday breakfast in Burma always begins with mulligatawny soup. Mulligatawny soup is sacred to the Sabbath, and to the Sabbath breakfast in particular. No one would dream of having it at any other time; in fact, to do so would disintegrate the calendar, and whenever you enter the breakfastroom of a European house in Burma, and the fragrant odour of mulligatawny assails your nostrils, youcan be quite sure, whether the church bells are ringing or not, that it is Sunday. Breakfast is a substantial meal. It needs to be as it has to carry you on until afternoon tea at four o’clock. There isnolunch. But the man who “ does like an egg to his tea ”’ is happy in Burma, for, as often as not, boiled eggs are then available. After tea it is the custom to play tennis for an hour and to repair to the club until eight or half-past. Then comes dinner, and almost as soon as it is over the household retires to bed. I soon got accustomed to the absence of lunch, but I never took kindly to the dinner hour, and I have suffered agonies in struggling to keep awake and to take an intelligent interest in the conversation when exceedingly sleepy after a big late meal provided by hospitable fellow-countrymen in Burma. One would have thought that people who rise with 22 Conventions of the British Community the lark would have preferred to dine earlier, especially as it gets dark soon after six o’clock. But, no! They get into dress clothes and play bridge on empty stomachs until nine p.m. and then dine and go to bed on full ones. Is there anyone in the world such a slave to the customs and habits of his class as the Englishman ? In Rangoon white people seldom, almost never, use the trams. Here is another convention. You may use the trams in Mandalay, as I found when I went there later on, but not in Rangoon. Neither do the white people use rickshaws ; they either take taxis, which are very expensive, or shut themselves up in a thing like a dog-kennel on wheels called a “ tikka-gharry.’’ When I asked the reason I was told that the rickshaws were dirty. Asa matter of fact they are no dirtier than the gharries, and they are comfortable and airy, whicha gharryisnot. Also they are half the price. In Shanghai and Singapore and other cities in the East Europeans always travel by rickshaw, but in Rangoon it simply ‘isn’t done,’’ and when a thing “isn’t done,” few Englishmen are brave enough to do it. No doubt a great many of the conventions of India and Burma, which now strike the observer as snobbish and unnecessary, had their origin in the early days of conquest, when it was a point of honour to keep the reputation of the white man at as high alevelas possible. The native had to be made to understand that his conquerors were a superior people. Most of the official class hold the same opinion to-day (I don’t say that they are wrong), and it is easy to realise the consternation 23 Peacocks and Pagodas in official circles caused by an advertisement which recently appeared in a Rangoon paper from the “‘ wife of a gazetted officer,’ offering to take charge of children on the voyage to England in return for her passage, and frankly giving strait- ness of means as the reason. I was so filled with admiration for this reckless advertiser that I was stimulated to emulation by driving in a rickshaw through the centre of Rangoon in full view of everybody ! After breakfast, Jones put his car at my disposal and I explored the neighbourhood. ‘There were pictures at every turn, and figure-studies innumerable. Burmese in brightly coloured lungyis and headgear; Indians lithe, long-haired and gay with silver ornaments; small boys flying kites ; priests in their yellow robes ; groups of half-naked Madrasis washing at the fountains; women carrying pots on their heads with the utmost grace and poise of carriage ; bullock- carts moving along in their own leisurely fashion ; Chinamen in wide conical hats with baskets slung from a bamboo pole ; laughing naked babies rolling happily about in the dust; and over everything the sun blazing down from the blue sky with never a hint of anything but the hottest and finest weather. But presently clouds began to gather. Then raindrops fell. And in a few minutes the streets were rivers. The rain was so thick that you could only see a yard or two ahead and to drive through the downpour was an impossi- bility. The chauffeur hurried to get up the hood of the car, but even when it was fixed the driving torrent penetrated every crevice and wetted me to the skin. It was a true 24 A Tropical Rainstorm tropical rain-storm, the precursor of the five wet days that I am told commonly occur in Rangoon early in November and are the last of the “ rains.”’ Later in the evening, when the storm was over, I found myself on the riverside. It was just aftersunset. Both sky FETCHING WATER and water were red as blood, and native craft, high in bow and stern, and of most exceedingly graceful lines, stood sharply out from the red background. A good subject for a simple coloured woodcut. The scene in the dusk as we returned home was delightful. All along the roadside were little fires, and stalls lit by lamps with naked flames. Figures moved about in the flickering light, and smooth brown limbs 29 Peacocks and Pagodas caught the gleam as the men busied themselves with cooking operations over the fires. Before dinner that evening, having bathed and changed, we sat on Blake’s lawn in the soft tropical darkness watching the fire-flies and listening to the Liebestod from “‘ Tristan ”’ on the gramophone. It was very pleasant after the heat of the day. A gentle breeze moved in the trees overhead, and the tinkle of ice in glasses, as the butler prepared long drinks, fell refreshingly on the ear. And just then I became conscious of an irritation, now on the ankles, then on the face, and next on the hands and wrists. The mosquitoes had found me out. The other members of the party, hardened by years in Burma, openly rejoiced in my affliction. As long as a newcomer was in their midst they knew that no mosquito would concern himself with them. To console me they told me the story of a Scotch engineer who said of mosquitoes: ‘‘ Nights I’m too drunk to notice ‘em, and by morning the mosquitoes are too drunk to bite.” But it was small consolation, and I was soon driven indoors to the ammonia bottle. After dinner we paid a visit to one of the cinemas with which Rangoon is plentifully provided. The story wasabout a black man and a white woman, and was totally unfitted for exhibition before a Burmese audience. Many of the Europeans here regret the introduction of the cinema, and one must agree with them that the presentation of sordid stories of crime and intrigue which portray the “‘ sahib ”’ at his very worst, are not calculated to increase the respect in which he 26 Cinemas has been hitherto held, or to maintain his prestige in a country in which revolutionary ideas are already spreading far too quickly. The cinema censorship both in India and Burma should be very much stricter. The cinema, like the Press, is an enormous power for either evil or good, and it is a thousand pities that both, as in almost every case they do, should place dividends before duty. It is only another manifestation of the worst side of that commercial spirit which if not checked will sooner or later infallibly bring us to ruin. The visit to the cinema concluded my first day in Burma, a long day from 6 a.m. till midnight, and almost every minute of it filled with novelty and interest. There was only one fly in the ointment—and that was a mosquito ! 27 OETA EE gebel European Dress—The Municipal Doctor Sahib—Shopping in Rangoon— A Burmese Family—Burmese Dress—A Misunderstanding—Dengue Fever. HE following morning I was astonished to encounter Jones arrayed in a black swallowtail coat, striped cloth trousers, high stick-up starched collar, and spats. “Good heavens,” I cried. ‘‘ What’sup? A wedding? ”’ Jones groaned. ‘“‘ No,” he said. ‘I’ve got to attend a council meeting, and this is de rigeur. Everybody has to wear it.” For a moment I stood aghast at such heroic devotion to appearance. A thick cloth morning-coat, a stick-up collar, and spats in a tropical climate like the climate of Rangoon ! Then I drew myself up to my full height and puffed out my chest, proud to think that J, even I, in a crumpled shirt and an old pair of khaki trousers, was also a Briton, one of that great race on whose Empire the sun never sets, and whose sons are ready to suffer to the last drop of their blood (or sweat) in order to do what custom ordains to be THE RicHT THING. Blake appeared soon after, dressed in shirt and shorts—a great contrast to the gorgeous victim of officialdom, Jones,— and took me off to show me his waste-dumps and slaughter- 28 The Municipal Doctor Sahib houses. He is veterinary officer to the municipality and proved to me that there is romance attached even to the killing of animals for the food of a community and to the collection and disposal of the community’s refuse. Some years ago the rapid growth of the city brought the municipality face to face with a serious difficulty. The refuse was accumulating so fast that it was becoming a menace to the public health. Experts who were called in advised the erection of large incinerators in which the waste products of the city, now amounting to about 1,000 tons per day, could be burnt. It was a big matter and likely to involve a total outlay of not far short of £1,000,0o00. The-city fathers were alarmed and consulted Blake, who had an alternative scheme, namely to spread the refuse over a large area of unused swampy land on the outskirts of Rangoon and convert the swamp into fields. The municipality, faced with a possible outlay of a million pounds, were only too glad to let him put his scheme to the trial. He did so, and it has turned out a triumphant success. The dumping-grounds, hundreds of acres in extent, are now well drained, and intersected by good roads shaded by avenues of rain-trees. No one would suspect how they were made. The refuse is sorted over by coolies, and such things as old iron, old tins, and old bottles are taken out and used, the tins for drains, the bottles to be sold for the manufacture of sulphuric acid. Stones and bricks go tomaking the roads. The residue is left to rot, and in a comparatively short time becomes good earth. For this Blake finds a ready market, as it is exceedingly valuable 29 Peacocks and Pagodas as garden soil. The work is thus largely self-supporting, and instead of an incinerator scheme, costly to instal and costly to run, the municipality of Rangoon is able to dispose of its huge accumulations of refuse at an almost nominal rate. Blake’s methods are often exceedingly ingenious. For example, each coolie has to bring every night and morning half a brick as his “‘tally.’’ Half-bricks are plentiful enough amongst the daily refuse. - There are 3,000 coolies. Blake, therefore, by this simple means and at no cost whatever, collects into one place 6,000 half-bricks per day. The refuse is spread about seven feet in depth, and gas that is generated by decomposition is carried off by pipes and burnt. It will be easily understood that the daily collection of 1,000 tons of rubbish involves the use of a large number of carts. These carts are made on Blake’s premises, and the spacious stables which house the bullocks that draw them are also under Blake’s supervision. The purchase of the bullocks is another part of Blake’s work, and, as he is the best judge of a bullock in Burma, there is no other man in the country who could do it as well or as economically. The bullock-stables are a revelation. Instead of the usual place smelling of manure and swarming with flies, you find a clean, sweet compound with rows of open buildings and stalls in which there is hardly a fly or a speck of dirt to be seen. Every bullock after work is washed in a large tank of water, and then taken to a second tank which contains a solution of disinfectant, and thoroughly swilled with it all over. In 30 The Municipal Doctor Sahib the second tank stands a special coolie whose duty it is to keep a vigilant eye on each bullock and rush with a bucket to catch any impending droppings. The disinfectant tank is thus kept quite clean and uncontaminated. The bulk of the food for the bullocks comes off the refuse dumps, which give several crops of good grass every year, and again the municipality is saved a lot of expense. As to the slaughter-houses, which are also in the charge of this exceedingly hard-worked man, it may be doubted if there are any better-kept slaughter-houses in the world. Even in cold climates such places could hardly be cleaner, or more free from fliesand smells. There are slaughter-houses for cattle, for sheep and goats, and for pigs, and all are so spotless that it is hardly an exaggeration to say that you could eat your dinner off the floor of anyone ofthem. Any pig, or ox, or sheep, or goat, might feel proud to beslaughtered in one! In Blake the Rangoon municipality has an invaluable servant. Whether they appreciate it is doubtful. If they do not, they will when his time is up and he finally returns to England. Heis called by those who know him and know what he has done, ‘“‘ The man who made Rangoon,” and there are probably few people in Burma to-day who have better justified existence by useful work than “‘ the moonicipal dahkter sahib,”’ Arthur Blake. The most picturesque side of Blake’s work from the point of view of an artist is provided by the Indian coolie women. These women work at the large sieves through which all the 31 Peacocks and Pagodas refuse is passed, and it is a fine sight to see a long string of them swinging past with baskets on their heads, flinging the contents against the upright sieve, and returning to the refuse pile for more. Their bracelets, ankle-rings and armlets, flash and jingle as they move along with a swing of the hips, their bodies upright, their draperies of red, brown and orange clinging around them in graceful folds. Most of the women are magnificently built, and I longed for an opportunity to draw one from the nude. But nude models, whether Indian or Burmese, are not to be hadin thiscountry, where, as throughout the East, the exposure of the body is regarded as insulting to the onlooker. I first met with this curious idea when I wasa prisonerin Turkey. A British Tommy had annoyed one of our Turkish guards. The incensed Turk thereupon proceeded to unfasten certain of his garments. The intended insult, however, no doubt to his intense astonishment and chagrin, fell quite flat, and merely provoked the Tommy to unrestrained mirth. In Burma, a gesture as though about to lift the lungyi, or skirt, is sufficient, and is a gesture commonly made by an angry Burmese woman. I have only heard of one British artist visiting the country who succeeded in securing a model—a girl of rather doubtful reputation ; but the experiment failed, for when the lady found she was expected to strip, she blushed a fiery red and fled incontinently. So the dislike of appearing in what Trilby called “‘ the altogether ”’ is evidently very deeply rooted, and artists in Burma must therefore study the figure through the clothes as best they can. 32 Shopping in Rangoon Rangoon is not a good place for shopping. Everything is very expensive and, as far as my experience goes, the exact thing you want is seldom obtainable. I wanted a sketch- book, an article for which one would have imagined there would always be a certain demand from the European community. But though I searched Rangoon through I couldn’t get one. I had eventually to choose between a child’s drawing-book with rough paper, and an ordinary letter-pad. When it came to finding some wood-cutting tools (I had unfortunately lost my own during the journey out), the situation was even worse. A prolonged search brought mein the end toashop where some Burmese wood- carvers were at work. I was at some difficulty to explain my wants, but at last a Burman who understood English came to the rescue. He said I should be able to buy the tools in the native bazaar, and as I didn’t know my way there, he kindly took me. It was some little distance, so, thinking that he would expect something in the nature of ‘“‘ backshish,”’ I offered him a rupee. Rather to my surprise he refused it. ‘“‘ All men are brothers,” he said. ‘“‘ It is my duty to help my brother.”’ But the bazaar proved as useless for my purpose as the European shops had done. Wood-cutting tools there were none, though every other imaginable thing from a pencil to a perambulator seemed to be onsale. The noise and chatter, the smells, the colour, the vast variety of goods, and the innumerable types of people and races that thronged the Si) Peacocks and Pagodas dusty corridors, made it most bewildering. I left it half stunned, and minus the tools I wanted. That afternoon we paid a visit to some Burmese friends of Blake’s. The ladies were all smoking great white cheroots, and gave me some of the biggest assamples. When I got home later, I measured them, and found that they were twelve inches long and nearly an inch and a quarter thick. No wonder that the Burmese women have rather pursy lips. The habit of smoking is universal throughout Burma, and quite small children smoke; sometimes in the bazaars I have even seen a baby given its mother’s cheroot while the mother was busy attending to a customer. But it is only fair to say that the particular cheroots which are smoked by women contain very little tobacco. The Burmese husband and householder must be a long- suffering person, for quite a number of his wife’s relatives find shelter beneath his roof. This household was no exception to the rule. I could not discover the exact relationships of everybody, but there appeared to be a mother-in-law and several sisters-in-law, besides a widowed sister of the husband’s, and a lot of children, all living together in the higgledy-piggledy, untidy way that is characteristic of the Burman. The furniture was mostly tawdry modern stuff, but included one or two good pieces as well as some fair specimens of Burmese carved work. Somehow or other the subject of hair came up during our conversation, and one of the ladies unfastened her own glossy black coil in order to show me that it reached to the 34 Burmese Dress ground. It was all her own, too, though most Burmese girls do not scruple to make extraneous additions, whichis a simpler matter in the East than it is in the West owing to the colour. I have never seen or heard of a fair-haired Burman. Coco-nut oil, which is exceedingly good for the hair, is freely used both by men and women. The men, except those who have it cropped in the Western style, tie their hair in a knot slightly to one side of the back of the head and cover it with a ‘‘ gaung-baung,” or scarf, of brightly coloured silk. The women usually arrange it in a smooth coil, and put a few flowers at the side. They never wear any head covering, and in a mixed gathering of Burmese and European ladies, it is the latter, strange to say, whosuffer by comparison. In fact, in Burma even the latest millinery creation from the Rue de la Paix somehow looks a monstrosity, and I no longer share the popular notion that a woman always looks her best ina hat. The whole kit of the high-class Burmese lady is delightful, and it is simplicity itself; just a close- fitting bodice of white with a short jacket of fine white linen over it, and a “ lungyi,” or skirt, of some bright-coloured silk reaching to the feet and fastened merely by being tucked in at the waist, just as one tucks in a bath towel. Embroidered sandals on the bare feet complete the costume, though a fine scarf of gauze silk is some- times added. In this simple attire the Burmese lady can challenge comparison with any European woman, however well turned out, and she has the additional advantage of being able to wear any amount of jewellery ae, Peacocks and Pagodas without appearing vulgar or overdressed. One can't explain why, but it is so. The man’s costume is practically the same as the woman’s with the exception of the “ gaung-baung,”’ or head scart ; but he fastens his “‘ lungyi’’ with a bunch in front instead of smoothly at the side as is the woman’s way. Also on special occasions he wears, instead of a “ lungyi,’’ a ‘‘ pasoh,” which is a similar garment, but very much ampler. The favourite and predominant colour for “‘ lungyis ”’ is rose pink ; but neither men nor women hesitate to appear in apple green, peacock blue, vivid orange or flame, purple or any other colour that strikes their fancy. The colours seldom clash, and I am inclined to think that the Burmese must have a natural instinct for colour, though some people put it down to the light. Many of the lungyis are in check patterns, and it is often possible to tell by the pattern of his lungyi from what district a man hails. Blue is not often met with except further north, where it is worn by Shans, Shan Tayoks, Lisaws, Kachins and other tribesfolk; but these are not true Burmese, and rose pink remains the distinctive sartorial colour of Burma. The Burmese have no form of salutation, no ‘‘ good-bye,” no “ good-day,”’ “‘ good-morning ”’ or ‘‘ good-night.”” They have no actual word for “no,’’ and no word for ‘“‘ yes,” though I presume, as Mark Twain said of Latin, they have some such formula as “‘ don’t mind ifI do!’ They do not ordinarily shake hands, but the more advanced will some- times do so with a European. The ladies I have been 36 ¢ ¢ A Misunderstanding speaking of, whose house we visited, did shake hands, but with an air of doing something rather naughty, for in Burma it is considered quite wrong for a man to touch a woman. Even during courtship he is constrained to sit respectfully at a decent distance, though there may be, one imagines, occasions when ardent spirits set this convention at defiance. One of my friends in Burma was once visited by his father, a professor at one of the English Universities, and a man advanced in age and of unimpeachable integrity. The father wanted to buy some silk and was taken down to the bazaar by the son, where, after some hard bargaining, a purchase was made from a woman in charge of one of the silk stalls. The old man, who was on his first visit to the East, apparently felt some scruples over the way in which the price had been beaten down, and just before leaving produced an English sovereign and offered it to the woman by way of a bonus. Misunderstanding her refusal to accept it, he pressed it into her hand, at the same time patting her gently on the shoulder as much as to say “ That’s all right ! Keep it, and welcome!” And immediately the fat was in the fire. With eyes blazing, the woman jumped to her feet, flung the sovereign to the ground, and began to pour fortha perfect torrent of vituperation and abuse. All the women within earshot crowded round and joined in, and the poor old professor, puzzled, hurt and utterly bewildered by the tumult, had to be hurried away to a place of safety. I was told of another curious case which also illustrates this idiosyncrasy. I am not quite sure of details, but in 37 Peacocks and Pagodas substance it was this: A certain doctor, to his intense indignation, was taken into court on the charge of insulting one of his patients—a Burmese woman. The accusation was that he had touched her unnecessarily. It was a trivial charge and utterly unfounded, but it entailed no end of trouble and expense and several actions in the courts before the case was quashed. The District Commissioner, however, in spite of the final verdict, demanded: the doctor’s removal to another station. The doctor refused to leave and laid the matter before the Lieutenant-Governor, who expressed annoyance at the whole affair, ordered the doctor to remain where he was, and reprimanded the D.C. for ever allowing the case to go into Court. Thus, though there is reason to suspect that the case was brought at the instigation of someone who had a grudge against the doctor, we here have the touching of a woman actually made the grounds for an action at law. A new kind of fever has made its appearance in Burma. The doctors, who admit that they do not at present know what it is or what causes it, call it “‘dengue’”’ fever. In Rangoon it has been so frequent as almost to amount to an epidemic, especially among new arrivals from Europe. I can speak of it with feeling and from bitter experience, for I went down with it before I had been four days in Rangoon. It had been very wet and the whole place was saturated with moisture. The walls were running with the damp, one’s clothes in the morning were clammy as sponges and one’s boots and shoes acquired in a single night a perfect forest of mildew. I was not, therefore, altogether surprised when 38 Dengue Fever I was seized with rheumatic pains and obliged to go to bed. I felt so ill that I feared rheumatic fever, and was only half consoled when my hosts assured me that I should be all right in three days, and that there was nothing to be alarmed about. It was easy for them to talk; they hadn’t gotit. Ihad! However, they proved to be right, though only inasense. For three nights and days I lay on my bed tossing from side to side, unable to sleep, unable to eat, unable to control my nightmare thoughts, and suffering indescribable tortures from a sense of smell sharpened about a hundredfold above normal. This symptom was the strangest and most unpleasant of all. The one blanket on the bed possessed for the time the combined smell of all the factories in Witney, an indescribable odour of damp mustiness emanated from the pillow, vibrations of every conceivable wave length smote my olfactory nerves from the cookhouse in the compound, the magnified scent of turpentine from the next room where a boy was polishing the furniture nearly made me sick, and even such a harmless and apparently scentless thing as a piece of dry toast which stood untouched on a table at my bedside, threw off a whiff so nasty that I had to call for help and have it taken away. Perhaps we have reason to be thankful that the human nose is ordinarily but an imperfect instrument. There are two well-known stages of sea-sickness, one when the victim is afraid he is going to die, and the next when he fears he isn’t. ‘‘ Dengue”’ fever quickly brought 39 Peacocks and Pagodas me to the latter stage, and kept me there for two days. On the third day I revived sufficiently to eat an orange and to take a tentative walk, with very tottery steps, across my bedroom. Soon after this the fever left me, but it was ten days or a fortnight more before I altogether recovered my strength. Such is ‘‘ dengue ”’ fever as I experienced it. There are few complaints that contrive to compress more pain, misery and discomfort, both physical and mental, into such a short space of time. Its worst feature, moreover, is its recurrence, so that all who have once had it will join with me in hoping that the medical faculty will soon find a remedy for it, or better still, a preventive. 40 CHAPTER IV Up the Irrawaddy—The Delta Country—Bathing Girls—At Myanoung— Ngapi—Irrawaddy Yarns—Customs at Child-birth. N November 28th I found myself, with typewriter, camera, drawing materials, kit, a supply of cheroots, and an Indian “ boy,” on board the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company’s steamer “‘ Nepaul.”’ A ticket, specially issued by the courtesy of the Company, permitted me to travel by any of the Company’s boats from Rangoon to Bhamo, and back to Mandalay, to break the journey anywhere, and to stop off as long as I liked. This ticket was a great convenience and saved me much trouble and expense. The Irrawaddy and its tributaries are the highways of Burma, for the country is at present very inadequately provided with roads and railways, and even to-day the major portion is only served by rough jungle paths and bullock tracks. The Irrawaddy, navigable by steamers for 900 miles of its length, bisects Burma from North to South. Its source, believed to be in the mountains of Tibet, is unknown. In the rainy season its volume is enormous, five thousand million tons of water being said to pass a given spot in twenty-four hours—more water than passes under London Bridge in twelve months. It is one of the biggest rivers in the world—even the Mississippi has to yield to it in 43 Peacocks and Pagodas size—and it dyes the Indian Ocean, for a hundred miles out from Rangoon, a curious brick red with the mud and silt washed down by its mighty flood. There were no other saloon passengers on the “‘ Nepaul”’ and I had the saloon to myself. Tourists have been scarce in Burma since the war, and residents going north usually travel by train to Prome and pick up the river steamer there. The boat was a big paddle steamer—so big that it was difficult to believe she drew only four and a half feet of water. Her width, already considerable, was nearly doubled by a barge, or float, attached to the starboard side, and her captain, who had been running boats on the Irrawaddy for forty years and might have been expected by the uninitiated to know his way blindfold, had in consequence more than one anxious moment when dodging a sandbank or taking an awkward corner. The channel is constantly shifting and, although there are always twelve launches at work on the river taking soundings and readjusting the line of buoys, it is seldom safe to steam ahead without a “secunnie’”’ on either side taking soundings with a pole. Their monotonous chant goes on interminably : Do barm Do barm Beelays kum do barm Sari ek barm. and always with a melancholy drop of a tone or a semitone on the last word. 44 Up the Irrawaddy The buoys that mark thechannel are big lengths of bamboo weighted at the bottom so that they float upright except for the tilt given to them by the current. They are red on one side of the channel and white and blue on the other, and the latter are further distinguished by a small disc of metal hung from the top by a string; this shines as it catches the sun and so makes it easier to pick up the buoy from a distance. As I had only just got over “ dengue,’’ I was not sorry to find the saloon untenanted. I did not pine for company, but was quite content to lie at full length in a lounge chair and watch the green banks slip silently by.. It was a relief, too, to escape from the mosquitoes that had worried me so much in Rangoon. Here on the river the breeze blew most of them away, for it was the North-East monsoon and we had the wind against us. There were still enough of them, however, to make a mosquito curtain advisable at night. The Delta country, through which we were passing, is flat, and to some people uninteresting. It has, nevertheless, a character and interest of its own. Anyone who cared to make a rough picture of it could do so somewhat on the following lines: Paint a wide expanse of blue sky lightening at the horizon to white, below this a narrow streak of blue for the distance, then a wider streak of extremely vivid green for the paddy (rice) fields, then a line of ruddy brown for the river bank, with a few stunted bushes on top, and finally a mixture of pink and brick red for the water of the Irrawaddy ; add one or two palm trees, put in a boat with a wide bellying 45 Peacocks and Pagodas white sail as a finishing touch, and you will have a very fair representation of the Delta country as seen from the deck of a steamer at mid-day. The essential and striking note is the intense green of the paddy, or was at the time of which I am speaking. Later on, with the approach of harvest, the green fades and gives place to yellow and brown. a ee ee \ \ tte MW vee Utatitignaee CETL a7 MORNING ON THE IRRAWADDY I found plenty to look at as we steamed along between the red banks; now a passing native boat, now a riverside village, now men fishing from a canoe, now a group of girls bathing at the water’s edge, or a party of children romping in the sand, here a cluster of pagodas, there a grove of toddy palms, or, maybe, a huge banyan tree with gnarled and fluted trunk—an endless panorama of pictures set like jewels in the wide expanse of river and sky. The bathing girls are quite a feature of Burma. It is 46 Bathing Girls very pretty to see them go into the water with lungyis fastened above the breasts and under the armpit. Their movements and attitudes are full of lithe grace, and the Tungyi, so worn, is a much more becoming garment for the purpose than the average British bathing dress. It does away with the necessity for shelter, and in Burma bathing A SAMPAN operations can thus be conducted in public with the utmost propriety. The girl has simply to lift her lungyi and fasten it across her breast, beneath her short white jacket. She then takes off the jacket and is ready for the water. On coming out she merely slips a dry lungyi over the wet one, which she then lets fall to the ground, steps out of, wrings 47 Peacocks and Pagodas out, and sets in the sun to dry. No Burman ever uses a towel, except sometimes in the cold weather, and then not to dry himself with, but as a head covering. When there is no river available, both men and women wash at the public fountains in the streets, or douse them- selves with water taken from a Pegu jar standing outside the house. The same procedure with the lungyi is adhered to as when bathing in the river. No one, as far as I am aware, ever washes indoors. Whether it is due to this habit of frequent bathing, or to the use of “ thanaka "’ powder, or to some other cause, I do not know; but it is certainly a fact that Burmese girls have very beautiful complexions, and a skin smooth and soft asa baby’s. In my diary under the date November 3oth, I find the following : “We have had two very pleasant days. Still quite cool with a N.E. breeze meeting the boat, which makes it possible to sit out on the forward deck without any fear of being bothered by mosquitoes. After dark we use a search-light ahead. The beam swinging from side to side of the river, with millions of insects in it all glittering like fire-flies is very pretty to watch. Now and then it picks up a passing native boat or a string of timber rafts, each with a little thatched hut in the middle. When we stop at a riverside village half a dozen lascars, Chittagonians, plunge overboard 48 a DDO, ) OVI %0¢ : Q%gdo a0: yH9 I 0906 da 2 A RIVERSIDE VILLAGE nat RY Mt nyinteo kenalog pune LS At Myanoung and swim ashore with the cable, and as soon as we are alongside, Burmese women come aboard with baskets on their heads containing fruit, sweetmeats, cheroots, and all sorts AT THE RIVERSIDE of things forsale. Sunset, when nature is most lavish of her colours, is a wonderful time. The sunset of the night before last was the most stupendous I have ever seen. To-night it SI Peacocks and Pagodas was less lurid, but still marvellously beautiful. I was standing on a high bund above the river, having gone ashore at a place called Myanoung. The sky was rose pink and © opal, dimming to a soft grey at the horizon. The further bank of the river was sand topped with elephant grass. The water glowed with reflected light. Pulled up on the beach at my feet were some big paddy boats with enormous high carved sterns. On either side stretched the bund which protects the village in flood time, with pagoda spires showing among the palms and Burmese going to and fro in their brightly coloured garments. Girls were bathing in the river, a fisherman in a canoe was working a seine net, whose line of corks bobbed about in the shimmering water, and close by,a party of children were playing some game with great noise and laughter. Previously I had been into the village and made some sketches, surrounded, as usual, by a solid crowd of interested spectators. The streets were extremely picturesque. Graceful palms, with every tall trunk curving differently, lined them on either side. The shops, built of bamboo framework and thatched with palm leaves, were open in front, giving a clear view of the living room at the back and the domestic concerns being carried on there. Little roughly-thatched stalls, whose owners were doing a good trade in cheroots, and betel-nuts for chewing, stood at the street corners. Eating-houses, at which I confess I should not feel much tempted to eat, appeared to be doing good business too. And on the green in front of the big pagoda a lot of young Burmese 52 Negapi were playing—of all things—hockey, with the regulation hockey sticks and ball! ”’ That evening I made my first acquaintance with the Burmese national odour—and a very nasty one at that! It came from some pots of “ ngapi”’ that had been recently taken on board. According to information furnished by the skipper, ngapi is made of fish that has been buried in the ground for some time. But Sir George Scott, whois probably a safer guide, gives the following account of the preparation of this evil-smelling comestible. (‘‘ The Burman: His Life and Notions ’”’ page 283.) ‘It is made almost exclusively from shrimps and the smaller kinds of fish. These are spread out as they are caught, without the addition of salt or any cleaning whatever, on matsin the sun. There they remain for two, or perhaps three days—by which time their condition is better imagined than closely investigated. They are then thrown into a huge wooden mortar and pounded together, with a liberal addition of salt. It does not take any very heavy work or length of time to reduce them to a state of mash, in which one fish is not to be distinguished from another. The whole is then heaped up in a great mound under a shed near the house, and several hollow bamboos, with little holes here and there in their sides, are thrust into it. Out of these a liquor, called nganpya ye, runs, and is carefully collected in jars set there for the purpose. This as well as some other fishy oils are greatly esteemed for culinary purposes, and fetch a. good price. When these juices cease to run freely, the 53 Peacocks and Pagodas fish-paste is ready for sale, and is dug and shovelled out in an unceremonious way, contrasting very markedly with the loving care taken of the ‘ whole fish ngapi.’ In the country boats it is usually carried in bulk, piled up as corn, or salt, or commodities of a like nature might be loaded; and therefore a boat which has once been used for this purpose is easily known again. In English steamers it is, of course, packed in jars, but the odours are none the less fragrant on that account. This is the true and only method of preparation, and the marvellous tales related by some foreigners of the burial of the fish in the earth for periods varying from a week to a year (!) are due either to a guileless nature or a too powerful imagination.”’ In spite of its offensive smell, no meal in a Burmese household is complete without ngapi, and though we hold our noses when passing through that part of a Burmese bazaar where the various kinds of ngapi are on sale and wonder how people can eat such nauseous stuff, it is probable that the Burman would turn away with at least equal horror from the high game of England or the Limburger cheese of Holland. Amongst the varied cargo on the steamer I noticed a large number of great jars or carboys wrapped round with coil after coil of straw rope. These contained, so the skipper told me, eggs from Chittagong, as many as 2,000 being packed in one jar. They are preserved in lime or salt. Other commodities carried were bags of rice and ground nuts, bales of cotton, iron pipes and machinery going to the oil fields of Yenangyoung, baskets of oranges, coconuts, bananas, and 24 Irrawaddy Yarns great packages of tea and tobacco leaf. The most interesting part of the steamer was the after-deck, with its crowd of Burmese passengers, each squatting on his own mat, and surrounded by his kit and belongings—an epitome of the riverside population. I spent many hours there watching the people and making sketches. Uf mM if Lan atte UET (CETTE an > i y } i) AH | ae i | aaa Ao ‘1 On the third day after leaving Rangoon the scenery began to alter. The river banks became steeper, the paddy fields less frequent. And to the West appeared a range of mountains, the Arakan Yoma, I believe. As I was at breakfast with the chief officer we passed close in to Gaudama 39 Peacocks and Pagodas Hill, on whose cliff sides a great number of Buddhas have at one time and another been carved by the pious. The figures are the conventional ones of the Buddha, some sitting, some standing, and some reclining. At one time the sea came up very much farther than it does at present, and there is a record of the building of a frigate at this spot only two hundred years ago. EVENING ON THE IRRAWADDY I found the skipper of the ‘‘ Nepaul ’’ a mine of informa- tion about Burma and the Burmese, and not quite so given to drawing the long bow as some of his confréres. The Irrawaddy Flotilla Company yarn is a byword in Burma, and if any enterprising person cares to travel up and down the Irrawaddy with a few cases of whisky in his kit, I have no doubt he could soon collect enough tall stories to filla good- sized book. A tourist with pencilin hand and aninexhaustible 56 Irrawaddy Yarns thirst for information, must prove a great temptation to a bored ship’s officer, though, to be fair, it is not only officers on the Irrawaddy steamers who give rein to their imagination when a tenderfoot comes along. More than one yarn has been published in all seriousness in books about Burma that was merely the invention of a resident driven almost to desperation by the questions of some insatiable visitor. A Bombay-Burma Company’s employee, in answer to the nine hundred and ninety-ninth query of a certain lady author, “‘ When food gives out in the jungle, what do you do ? ”’ replied : “Have you noticed holes in the trees that you cannot account for ? ”’ “Yes,’’ said the lady, wetting the point of her pencil. “Well, owls live in these holes. All you have to do is to put in your hand and pull out the owl. Then you pluck it and cook it and eat it. And it tastes very much like chicken.” Thus enlightened, the authoress returned to England, and in due course the book appeared, and in the book the story ; whereupon the Bombay-Burma man, delighted at finding his masterpiece told in print as true, bought up a large number of copies and distributed them amongst his friends with the story carefully marked in blue pencil. This is the yarn as I was told it, but it is, of course, quite possible that it, too, is an invention. It is said that two men talking together for an evening invariably arrive by midnight at one of two subjects—women 37 Peacocks and Pagodas or religion. My conversation with the skipper was no exception to the rule, but it was not religion that we arrived at. He told me that in the old days before the final annexation, King Theebaw, presumably anxious about the birth-rate, ordered every woman to wear a garnient called a “‘tamein,’”’ which was scantier than the lungyi, and open down one side, leaving the thigh exposed. The tamein had drawbacks. In windy weather it was liable not only to blow up, but to blow right off, an accident which cannot possibly happen with the lungyi, which is not only deeper, — but is made in one continuous piece, like a roller towel. The worst that can happen with a lungyi is for it to become unfastened, in which case the owner quickly squats down and adjusts it anew, or, for that matter, adjusts it without squatting down—a simple enough proceeding. In the old days it was quite usual for women to bathe in the river nude, and no one thought any more of it than the Japanese do of taking bathsin public. Then “ civilisation ”’ began to work, and the custom of bathing in a lungyi spread all over Lower Burma. It did not, however, reach Upper Burma until some time later, and the captain described to me how more than once he had had to rescue his female passengers from the police when travelling down from Bhamo. Ignorant of the new regulation, they went in for their evening dip sans clothing, and were promptly arrested, no doubt to their intense indignation, and marched to the lock-up. The captain had a tear in his eye as he told me this story— a tear for the good old days, now gone for ever, unless— 58 he > } \ p at en y ANTE Of av —% . t yt Ny i Customs at Child-birth horrible thought !—the tear was caused by suppressed laughter at the child-like way I was swallowing his yarns ! Burmese women, though illiterate, are a good deal more enterprising and energetic than the men. While their men-folk are lolling around smoking cheroots or gambling their money away on the races or anything else that serves as a pretext for betting, the women are busy at their stalls in street or bazaar. And in the intervals of business they have many children, for despite the narrow hips popularly supposed in the West to be prejudicial to child- bearing, the Burmese women are exceedingly prolific. The rate of infant mortality, however, is very high. The children never wear clothing—or at least used not to, for to-day, except in the remoter districts, civilisation ordains some sort of scanty garment for all the girls except the tiniest—and in the rainy season many of them get carried off by chills and pneumonia. The rearing of a small baby is on Spartan lines, for from the beginning of its little existence it is always washed in cold water. On the other hand, the mother is wrapped up in flannels and surrounded with hot bricks and braziers of burning charcoal and kept so for a week, after which time she is left to recover from the treatment as best she can. Sir George Scott gives the following more detailed account of this curious custom : “ Directly the child is born, the mother is rubbed all over with na-nwin (turmeric), and a big fire is lighted as near as the construction of the wooden or bamboo house permits, 61 Peacocks and Pagodas while rugs and blankets are heaped over her to the extent of the possessions of the family. As speedily as possible, the midwife prepares a draught called se sein (green medicine), the composition of which is a tradition with the Wun-swés, and is kept a secret from inquisitive males. This the victim in bed has to drink perpetually during seven days, and for the same period, irrespective of the blankets and the time of year, is heated up with 6k pu. These are big circular or lozenge-shaped bricks. They are heated blazing hot in the wood fire, dropped for a few seconds into a pot full of water, and then wrapped up in cloths and applied to the body of the mother. In addition to this, doses of turmeric are regularly administered, and every now and then she is made to smell samén-net, a plant (the Nigella sativa), which is put in an earthen pot, strongly heated, and then triturated into the shape of a ball. The odour is not exactly such as one would recognise as calculated to exhilarate anyone, but probably after the hot bricks and the se sein, everything else comes as a matter of detail. All this is done to drive out the noxious humours which are supposed to be generated by the birth of a child. On the seventh day the woman takes an elementary kind of Turkish bath. She sits over a large jar of boiling water, medicated with tamarind twigs and a few other kinds of leaves and grasses, with a blanket over her. After about an hour of this she has a cold bath, and is then free to do as she pleases. She usually goes to bed. “It might be supposed that under this treatment, death in child-bearing would be very frequent, but as far as 62 Customs at Child-birth imperfect statistics can show the percentage is not much higher than in othercountries. The result, however, appears in another way. A woman ages up ten or fifteen years for every child she has. It is satisfactory to notice that in all the larger towns in Lower Burma, the more unpleasant features are fading away before the example and influence of women of other nationalities. Inthe jungle,and in Upper Burma, however, ancient use and wont still prevail, and the young mother of fourteen or fifteen is shrivelled into thirty with her first baby.” From the latter paragraph it seems that civilisation does after all carry with it some power for good, and that the effect of forcing Western ideas on an Eastern nation is not so entirely disastrous as, to many thoughtful and observant people, it sometimes appears. 63 CHAPTEKORY Footwearing Prohibited—-At Prome—Miss Pilkington’s Cockroach— Writing Reports—Thare-kettara—A School, a Dentist, and a Joss- house—Wife Beating—Thayetmyo—Minla—The Story of Nga Myat E—A Snake Story. T the entrance to every big pagoda in Burma a A notice-board is placed with the words “‘ Foot- wearing prohibited ’’’ upon it. Anyone who wishes to enter, whether European or native, must remove both shoes and socks and walk barefoot over the dusty stones, and it is now impossible to visit either the Shwe Dagon pagoda at Rangoon, or the Arakan pagoda at Mandalay, or the almost equally famous shrines at Pegu, Prome, Moulmein and elsewhere without conforming to the new rule. The visitor’s first thought is ‘‘ Well, why not? A foreigner is expected to remove his hat in an English place of worship; a European does not enter a Mohammedan mosque without either covering his boots with slippers or taking them off altogether; what objection can there be, then, to complying with the demand of the pongyis in regard to footwear when visiting the temples of Burma ?” The answer is that the demand is made with the direct intention of humiliating the Englishman. Its motive is political and not religious. For years past English visitors 04 Footwearing ‘Prohibited have been welcome at pagodas and kyaungs, and no such compliance with custom was either asked or expected. The new regulation is in fact a straw which shows the direction of the political wind, and no self-respecting Englishman will consent to obey it, since in obeying he is doing exactly what the pongyis want him to do—namely lowering himself in the eyes of the majority of the native population. A certain well-known Member of Parliament who recently visited Burma, failed to understand this, and to the intense annoyance of the British residents proceeded to visit the big pagodas barefoot. No doubt he meant well. But well- meant actions are often so disastrous in effect that to say of a person ‘“‘he means well’’ has become tantamount to damning him out of hand. The result of this stupidity, however well-intentioned, was to deal British prestige a heavy blow at a particularly critical moment in the political history of Burma, for the pongyis at the great Arakan pagoda in Mandalay were cunning enough to photograph this misguided M.P. as he walked barefoot across the courtyard, and to hang an enlarged copy—a scalp in the political battle, anda stimulus to the growing unrest—in the main entrance of the pagoda. Prome, where I had now arrived, boasts a particularly fine pagoda, which I should have much liked to inspect. But out of deference to the feelings and opinions of the British community, I was obliged to content myself with looking at the outside, and gazing up the long entrance staircase between the pair of huge leogryphs (in Burmese, 05 5 Peacocks and Pagodas ‘“‘chinthes’’’) that stand at the foot on either side. This staircase, supported by massive teak pillars and covered with a rising series of roofs each elaborately carved and decorated in the Burmese style, was a thing of great beauty. Burmese architecture reaches nowhere else such a high level as in the roofing of temples, theins, and pyatthats. The pyatthat, with its three, five, or seven roofs, is by far the most beautiful building to be found in Burma, and, particularly as exemplified in the pyatthats of Mandalay fort, is comparable for grace and design with any of the world’s masterpieces of architecture. Unfortunately the Burmese do not realise this, and the modern religious building—a poor imitation of the worst style of Indian architecture—is nothing less than a monstrosity. The kyaung of to-day is a great square building of staring white stucco crudely decorated in all the primary colours. A brick factory with a slate roof is a thing of beauty in comparison, and it may be doubted whether the architectural mind, capable as it unfortunately is of producing buildings of exceeding ugliness, has ever conceived anything more horrible to look upon than the modern Burmese kyaung. If it is an outcome of civilisation, civilisation here has some- thing very definite to answer for, and the Burman will be well advised to let civilisation, so far as it affects his architecture, go by the board. Itisa wise nation that keeps to its own architectural forms—especially when they are as fine as the architectural forms of ancient Burma. We reached Prome on December Ist, three days after leaving Rangoon. I said good-bye to the skipper and 66 c Pi A eee % ip OAD ‘ oe Chet Wabi a saks YY Meg pe". ge d Pea nays Nat UF t ry 7 # oie f a ats iY ‘ ars a , by fyhir Miss Pilkington’s Cockroach went ashore with my “ boy” and the kit, and the same afternoon found myself comfortably installed as the guest of the agent of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company. Throughout Burma I met with great kindness and hospitality from my compatriots. Wherever I went I was made free of the club and if not put up by somebody, as I frequently was, was ie Bey TY 4 il (aE PLANK AND BAMBOO BRIDGE usually given all my meals, only sleeping at night in the “ dak bungalow.” I have every reason to be grateful to my fellow- countrymen in Burma. Also they provided me with many interesting stories. My host in Prome, being an ex-skipper of an Irrawaddy steamboat, had a fund of anecdotes. One of these comes to my mind. 69 Peacocks and Pagodas A certain lady, a Miss Pilkington, had travelled down to Rangoon on one of the Irrawaddy express boats. On arrival she wrote an indignant letter to the Company complaining that one morning she had found a cockroach in her bath. Cockroaches, enormous ones, are numerous enough . on the Irrawaddy boats, and such an accident might easily happen. However, the Company forwarded the complaint to the skipper, and in due course, the skipper being something of a humorist, received the following reply : Re Miss PILKINGTON’S COCKROACH. Your letter received and contents noted. I have given orders that cockroaches are not to be admitted to the ladies’ bath in future. A second story, also about a correspondence, concerns a certain young Deputy Commissioner who was in charge of a remote area in Upper Burma. Writing reports not being his strong point, months had passed without any news of his district being received by the authorities. At last they grew impatient and wrote threatening him with dire penalties if the report was not immediately forthcoming. The D.C., realising that something really had to be done, contrived to get a report written and sentin. It consisted of four words, “ Everything going on well.” The incensed authorities hereupon telegraphed “ The Lieut. Governor greatly pleased with your report.”’ To which the unperturbed D.C. replied, ‘‘ Much gratified that the L.G. is pleased.” 7O Writing Reports Finding their sarcasm had miscarried, the authorities then wired, “‘ for ‘ greatly pleased ’ read ‘ not greatly pleased.’ ”’ The last word, however, still rested with the D.C. With A BANYAN TREE his tongue in his cheek he promptly wired back, “ for ‘ much gratified ’ read ‘ wot much gratified.’ ” I found Prome a picturesque town bowered in trees of all kinds, some with most wonderful gnarled and twisted 71 Peacocks and Pagodas trunks and many of enormous thickness and girth, especially the banyans. The view on the bund at sunset, and just after, is most beautiful. The sun sinks behind a range of hills on the opposite side of the river which, as the light fades, turn every shade of violet, purple and deep velvety black. The rainbow sky is reflected in the water, and graceful native boats and canoes are sharply silhouetted against the glow. A picture to carry in the memory. Early one morning my host took me in a car to see what remains of Thare-kettara, a city built about 400 B.c. by Duttabaung, the King Arthur of Burmese history. The road runs along the top of what was once the wall of the town. Little still stands save some old pagodas built in the form of a woman’s breast—solid masses of brick coated with concrete, which, cracked and broken away in many places, gives foothold for all sorts of vegetation and even for trees. On the way back we stopped at a village and went into the bazaar, or market. Here are some of the things I saw for sale—cheroots of various kinds, sizes and shapes ; betel-nuts both in the raw and prepared with lime and green leaves for chewing; dried fish and ngapi of all sorts; prawns skewered on sticks; a small pancake hot and smoking off the pan; plantains and oranges; gram, dahl, and different kinds of grain, and of course rice; native-made chatties and other pottery ; sandals ; cotton and stuffs ; marbles for the children ; pencils and slate pencils and sticks of soapstone ; 72 Ry, a, f Oe : { "Ha neleand A YA, % he or Se ve wh ‘ ~v Ss jpn le ; ‘ ‘ vt Aw yh ; Wan at MAN fi : ; & yh kd ad i A School, a Dentist, and a Joss-house wooden combs and bone hairpins; “ thanaka”’ (which is used by the women as face powder to protect the skin from the sun and to prevent prickly heat), in powder, or in little balls, or in the raw form as sticks of the wood from which it is made ; umbrellas and sunshades ; Sunlight soap ; sewing YOUNG GIRL cotton, buttons and pins. Except for one covered building there were no stalls. The goods were displayed on the ground and the women squatted on their heels smoking great white cheroots. Some of the girls were very smart in their best clothes and with flowers in their hair; others 75 Peacocks and Pagodas were dirty and untidy in the extreme and looked as if a wash was several months overdue. We afterwards visited the bazaar in Prome; the same sort of thing on a far larger scale. They make silk in Prome ; also lacquer work, but the lacquer I saw for sale in the bazaar was shoddy stuff, crude in colour and design—cheap rubbish. Later in the day, whilst wandering about alone, sketch- book in hand, I passed a school and stood outside for a while to watch. The mistress was giving some little girls an arithmetic lesson at the blackboard, and when her back was turned the pupils peeped out and grinned at me from behind their exercise-books and slates—the same all the world over! Funny little beggars with the lower part of the head clean shaven, the hair at the top hanging down in a fringe all round from a “ bug-walk,” and a quaint little tuft or top-knot to crown everything. Just beyond the school I saw a notice which read : Maung San Bwin, Dentist. Late assistant to Dr. Moor. with what I take to have been a similar intimation in the curious round Burmese characters beneath. The surgery was open to the street on two sides, and I could see the dentist stooping over his victim and probing at a tooth. The victim’s motor-car waited in the street outside ready to carry him away as soon as his sufferings should be over. It seems funny to see motors in such 76 A School, a Dentist, and a Joss-house primitive surroundings, but they are fairly common in this part of Burma. Next I wandered into a Chinese temple, or joss-house, a building of the usual Chinese design—imitating the tent of Confucius—with much carving and elaborate ornamentation all over it. The interior was dirty and covered with dust. On an altar stood faded flowers, the remains of candles, and other offerings of the faithful, and in the place of honour, an ordinary English lodging-house bedroom mirror, with an inscription in Chinese characters painted on the glass and by way of additional ornament some gold tinsel on the top. East may be East, and West West, but with due respect to Mr. Kipling, the twain sometimes meet.. At all events, there was a piece of Tottenham Court Road staring me in the face from the altar of a Chinese Temple in the middle of Burma ! What other things did I see worth recording? I remember a rope-walk with the quaintest Heath Robinson appliances, and a turner’s shop with the most primitive sort of lathe—merely a wheel driven by coolie-power with a rope round it and round the piece of wood being worked on ; simple, but apparently quite effective. For the rest, the usual open shops and rickety stalls, the usual gaily-dressed crowd of Burmese, the usual troops of Indian coolies, the usual bullock-carts, rickshaws and gharries, the usual pot-bellied naked babies crawling about in the dust, and the usual snarling pariah dogs quarrelling over offal in the gutter. 77 Peacocks and Pagodas My host had to go up river on business and left by the ferry boat early on Sunday morning. Being in no hurry to continue my journey, I stayed until the next day, and wandered about as usual making sketches and taking photo- graphs. That evening about half-past eight my hostess came home in a state of agitation. On her way back from the club she had heard screams coming from the compound behind the Post Office, and had there found a “ durwan ” mercilessly beating his wife with a bamboo. She ran to two policemen who were standing near, but they did not show any interest. If a man was beating his wife, probably she deserved it, and anyhow it was no concern of theirs. So she ran back and ordered the man to stop, whereupon the fellow gave the woman a final whack and then picked her up by the shoulders and dragged her indoors, still shrieking. The Indian woman, even to-day, is regarded and treated as a mere domestic animal. I intended to catch the Monday morning ferry at 7 o’clock and gave my boy orders to call me and bring “chota hazri”’ at 6. To my horror he woke me at 6.40. I flew out of bed and “‘ flung on my clothes,” as the phrase goes, while the boy packed ; finally, with two coolies carrying my luggage on their heads and my boy bringing up the rear with the odds and ends that had been forgotten in the scramble, I arrived at the landing float just as the gangway planks were being unshipped. It was a near thing. The ferry boats are smaller than the express boats, but comfortable enough. And the food is quite good. That 78 Thayetmyo morning I was pretty hungry by 9.30, but the menu was too long for me even then. This was it: Fried fish. Sausages and fried eggs. Irish stew. Veal cutlets. Chicken curry. Fruit. Jam and marmalade. Tea and coffee. A fat Burman sitting next to me went solidly through the whole lot and never passed a dish. The Burmese are fond of meat, though it is contrary to their religion to take life. They say that if the butcher likes to risk his immortal soul in killing the beasts, that is his own affair ; and the fact that they eat the flesh afterwards does not involve them in any responsibility whatever. It is rather the same with fish. They say that it is the fish’s own fault if it is foolish enough to get into the net, and if it dies when thrown out on to the bank—well, how can they be blamed for that? And with such sophistries the Burman salves his conscience. At mid-day we reached Thayetmyo, where I went for a drive in a gharry to see the remains of the huge compound surrounded with barbed wire in which some of my friends, the Turks, were confined during the war. They were prisoners taken in Mesopotamia, and they had such a good time in the prison camp that when the war came to an end 79 Peacocks and Pagodas they had to be forcibly deported. They were a great deal better off as prisoners in Burma than we were as prisoners in Turkey. We returned to the ferry boat and continued the trip up stream. That evening we moored by a sand-bank which was stacked with wood fuel for supplying the Irrawaddy HUT ON THE RIVER BANE steamers. Burmese women and “ natives ”’ (by which, as I have already explained, the native of India is always meant, and not the native of Burma) brought our supply on board, carrying it on their heads. There was no end of chatter, laughter and noise. On the bank above stood half a dozen grass-thatched huts, all eating-houses patronised by the deck passengers of the passing boats. The village, I was told, was some little distance inland. I stated my intention of 80 Minla walking there for the sake of exercise, at which everyone laughed. I didn’t know it, but the road was simply loose sand more than ankle deep; I didn’t get far, so, instead, I amused myself by throwing coppers to a party of children who rolled after them on the sand, shrieking with laughter. They were the usual quaint objects with twisted top-knots A TOP KNOT and faces smeared with yellow streaks of thanaka—very dirty but apparently very happy. i At 9 a.m. the next morning we reached Minla, the place where the Burmese drums are made. A ruined fort of considerable antiquity stands on the river bank, and by it hangs a tale, for it was here that the British during the war stole a march on their opponents. The latter had, it seems, 81 Peacocks and Pagodas fixed all their guns pointing the same way, namely, in the direction of the expected attack. The British therefore attacked on the other flank where the Burmese guns could do no damage. Most people would regard this a normal action in the circumstances. Not so the Burmans, who were much aggrieved at what they considered an unfair and unsporting proceeding. Thereis everything in the point of view! Thayetmyo, the place mentioned in my diary as formerly the site of the Turkish prisoners’ camp, furnished me with two yarns, both true. One concerns a famous dacoit, the other is a snake story. The name of the dacoit was Nga Myat E, and an account of his capture appears in the Police Administration Reports of Burma. Nga Myat E was a man between thirty and forty, who lived by dacoity. He was the type of ruffian who with all his courage would not hesitate to rob a blind man or steal a child’s pennies. Many women suffered violence and robbery at his hands, their jewellery proving an irresistible attraction, and the holding up of villages became so frequent that the Thayetmyo district stood in terror of the fellow. What made it worse was that those who could have given intimation to the police of his whereabouts were too frightened to do so, so great was their fear of him, and even after three years with a price of Rs.500 upon his head, he was still at large. During an attack on a village in 1919 the occupant of one of the houses, awakened by the clamour and the noise 82 The Story of Nga Myat E of the dacoit guns, saw the hand of an intrudet come over the door sill. He reached for his “dah” and slashed at the hand, cutting off three fingers. It was the hand of Nga Myat E, who fled and escaped, but with a mark he could not henceforth disguise. This incident has no particular bearing on thestory, but it shows that evena chief of dacoitsis not invulnerable in spite of the numerous charms against bullet wound and sword cut which he always carries about him. At the beginning of the following year an armed police patrol was sent to the district to scour it thoroughly, and, if possible, obtain clues to his hiding-place. But though their search was exhaustive, they failed to discover anything or find their man, and even his accomplices in certain of the recent dacoities when run to earth refused to betray him or turn king’s evidence. Nga Myat E’s immunity seems to have been due, in some measure, to his friend Maung Min. This friend accompanied him everywhere, and, it is now known, sheltered him and found food for him when he was in hiding in the jungle—as he usually was. Now Maung Min had a pretty sister, and Myat E, being a man utterly unprincipled and regarding no laws either social or moral, abused Maung Min’s friendship by seducing her. This was the first false step. Soon after this Maung Min, ignorant of Myat E’s treachery, accompanied Myat E on a hurried flight from the district which had become too dangerous to remain in owing to the increasing activity of the police patrol. With the two men 83 Peacocks and Pagodas went a youth named Tun Hlaing, a nephew of Maung Min’s. All three travelled through the jungle in a south-westerly direction to a fastness in the rocks about twenty miles from a place called Mindon. Here they took shelter in a cave. The cave was commodious and comfortable, and as it could only be approached by a narrow path through the rocks, was almost impregnable. It could, at any rate, only be taken, if taken at all, with serious loss to the attacking party. So Ino doubt Myat E believed himself perfectly safe. But he had not reckoned with Maung Min’s sister. In the meantime Maung Min kept the party supplied with provisions bought from the villagers who lived in the locality. The villagers may or may not have known for whom the purchases were made, but if they knew they dared not say anything. They were satisfied to take the money and ask no questions. And then, somehow, news of Myat E’s relations with his sister came to Maung Min’s ears. Mad with rage he slipped away to Mindon, twenty miles distant, and made straight for the police station. Five minutes after Maung Min’s arrival the Sub-Inspector was in possession of the information so long wanted, and Myat E’s hiding place was nolongerasecret. Still hot on revenge, Maung Min travelled back to the cave, marking the way by scoring the tree trunks with his ‘‘ dah” so that the police could follow after him. Once there, he behaved as though nothing had happened, and Myat E, thinking he had been out on an expedition after food, had no suspicion of the true state of affairs. 84 A Snake Story Later in the day Myat E, who had been lying asleep in the cave with Tun Hlaing, was aroused by the sound of footsteps on the loose stones at the cave entrance. He looked up, saw the police, and reached for his revolver— but too late. A shot from the Sub-Inspector rendered him helpless, and an hour later he died of the wound. In addition to Myat E’s revolver, which contained only one cartridge, two home-made “‘ shomi”’ guns were found in the cave. Thanks to the courtesy of the Police Super- intendent I now have one of these guns in my possession. It is a roughly-made affair, rather like a crude old-fashioned horse pistol. The stock is of wood and the barrel a piece of old gas pipe, with the screw thread still round the muzzle end. The barrel is fastened to the stock with thick wire, and the gun was fired by means of a touch-hole, the burnt condition of the stock attesting to its having been much used. It was probably fired more to make a noise and inspire terror than with the idea of hitting anybody, and I should imagine that it was laid upon the ground at a safe distance and exploded by means of a time-fuse of cotton or some other material. It would have been as much as anyone’s life was worth to fire it from the shoulder. For the snake story I am indebted to the wife of the D.S.P. She was dining one Sunday evening at the doctor’s, her husband being out on tour. Half-way through the meal an agitated Burmese police constable came running to say that there was a cobra coiled up on the door of the house of 85 Peacocks and Pagodas the Sub-Inspector on the opposite side of the compound, just above the bed where a child lay asleep. The Sub- Inspector was away, and the child’s mother was in an agony of apprehension lest the child should move and attract the attention of the cobra. She implored the doctor to come to the rescue. It happened, most unfortunately, that the doctor had sent his gun to be repaired. A messenger was, however, despatched hot-foot to get it, while the doctor went to reconnoitre. He found the cobra, as the constable had described, coiled at the top of a half-open door, and the child asleep beneath. It was impossible to move the door without disturbing the beast and probably causing it to fall down on tothe bed. There was nothing to be done, therefore except to wait for the gun and trust that the child would continue to sleep in the meantime without moving. The poor Burmese mother was nearly distracted, and the two Englishwomen, the wife of the D.S.P. and the wife of the doctor, could do little to comfort her except counsel her to wait as quietly as possible. After twenty anxious minutes the messenger came back with the gun. It was not easy to fire without danger to the child from flying pellets, but by stooping as low as possible and aiming well up into the roof the danger was minimised. The first shot blew the reptile’s head off. The most amazing part of the story is that the child slept peacefully on, unconscious alike of the shot and of the danger through which it had passed. 86 CHAPTER VI At Minbu—The Myinmu Rebellion—The Footprints of Gaudama—I reach Magwe—and dine with the Commissioner—My “‘ Boy,” Valu—-The Oilfields of Yenangyaung. CARRIED with me an introduction to the Deputy Commissioner of Minbu, and at Minbu I therefore decided to make my next halt. The river was low, as it was the dry season, and the ferry boat had to land passengers and freight at a point several miles down stream, Minbu itself being temporarily inaccessible by water. On leaving the boat I climbed a high sandy bank, and at the top, in the shade of the trees, found a few pony carts waiting for fares. Coolie girls brought up my kit on their heads, making light of even my suitcase, heavy though it was with books and sketching gear, and a few minutes later we started off for Minbu, my boy and the kit in one cart, and I in another. These carts had no seat, so you either squatted, Burmese fashion, on the floor, or hung your legs out over the back. My driver rattled along at a good round pace, signalling to the slow-moving bullock carts which we kept overtaking by holding his whip-handle against the revolving spokes of one of the wheels. This made the same noise that a small boy makes by running a stick along a fence, and was usually effective enough to arouse the bullock-wallah, though 89 Peacocks and Pagodas gradually, to the necessity of drawing to one side. The brain of a Burman works slowly, and there was invariably a pause of some seconds between the driver’s rattle and the first motion of the bullock-wallah towards guiding his team out of the way. I noticed the same thing afterwards when motoring. This slowness of brain is common both to Indian and Burmese, and on this account it is customary to repeat every sentence when addressing a Burmese or Indian servant; the first statement arouses the servant’s brain to the fact that something is being said, the repetition enables him to grasp the import. The country was quite different in character from what I had previously seen, and it was evident that we were now in what is known as the “ dry zone.’’ Small scrub and cactus throve uncertainly in the arid soil. The trees were infrequent and stunted. Brown and yellow were the predominating colours except in the few patches of irrigated ground where paddy was growing. For here the rainfall is only 30 inches as against 120 in Rangoon. The road wound for several miles amongst small hills and nullahs and at last brought us through the village to the P,W.D. (Public Works Department) bungalow. This bungalow, in which I proceeded to establish myself, was pleasantly situated on an eminence, and with one exception I found it comfortable enough. The exception was a curious and objectionable odour from the bats that made their home in the roof. It had two large rooms and a wide balcony, and was raised from the ground on posts. Each room had go At Minbu its own bathroom attached, with the usual zinc tub, commode, and Pegu jar full of water. The walls were of bamboo matting, the posts, roof-beams and floor of teak. In fact, it was just such a bungalow as one finds all over Burma. The furniture consisted of plain chairs and tables and long lounge chairs. Each bedroom had a camp bed with poles to carry the mosquito curtain, and a dressing-table and mirror. In Burma, as in India, everyone takes his own bedding with him wherever he goes, as nothing of the kind is provided in the dak bungalows. The charge was the modest one of one rupee per day, and you could either take the meals provided by the “durwan”’ in charge, or let your boy get food from the bazaar and cook and serve it himself. As it happened, thanks to the kindness of the D.C., I did not need to take any meals at the bungalow with the exception of “ chota hazri.” That evening I was invited by my new friends to the club. Tennis was in full swing, the players being two Englishmen in the regulation white flannels, a Burman in pink silk lungyi and orange gaung-baung, another young Burman in European kit, and a Madrasi doctor. Ona seat watching the play sat a Burmese woman, a Eurasian girl, and the D.C.’s wife. It was fairly typical of the mixed society usually found at up-country stations in Burma. The tennis, played on a hard court, was good; in fact, the standard of tennis throughout the country is higher, I think, than the standard at home. On the next day the D.C. very kindly put himself and his Or Peacocks and Pagodas car at my disposal, and I was thus able to see a good deal of the country round Minbu. We first visited the mud volcanoes for which Minbu is famous. These volcanoes are conical heads of dried mud about twenty or thirty feet high. Each has a crater at the top which erupts liquid mud at intervals and splashes anyone who is unwise enough to stand too close. I discovered this quickly enough at the expense of a pair of clean white trousers. The volcanoes give off a strong odour of sulphur and other minerals and it is probable that their mud has valuable properties, though up to the present no tests have been made. The Burmese believe that “ nats,’’ Or spirits, inhabit them, and a small building like a little house on posts in which the villagers place propitiatory offerings of flowers and candles stands at the foot of the largest. In the course of our motor drive it was necessary twice to cross a stream. This was accomplished by means of a raft. Villagers placed two boards from the raft to the shore, the motor was driven up them on to the raft, and the raft then pushed across the stream by men wading waist high. At the opposite bank the two boards were again requisitioned and we reached terra firma without mishap. We passed many pagodas, some old and dilapidated and overgrown with vegetation, others shining with whitewash and gold leaf lately put on. But the finest I saw was at a kyaung called Kyaung Dawya. This kyaung, in addition to the pagoda, had several remarkably fine pyatthats, each decorated with elaborate carved work. The carving has been g2 93 4s Weal Vike 7 fret) ae hye ¥ ay ly te dati 144 8 odin ep Aes At Minbu recently done,and the carver, whether he knows it or not, is a true artist. His designs are strong and vigorous, his figures full of movement, and the whole conception well in keeping with the buildings for which the carving was planned. The village, in a grove of tamarinds, stands at a short distance from the kyaung. It is surrounded by a strong fence of interlaced bamboo, each bamboo sharpened to a point at the top, and called in Burmese a “ panji,’”’ to keep out dacoits. We went, in order to satisfy my curiosity, into one of the houses. It was built on posts, as Burmese dwellings usually are, and had a verandah or platform outside which was reached by a rickety bamboo ladder. The floor of both verandah and house was of bamboo, and springy to the tread. The single room contained nothing more than a couple of rush mats, a peacock feather fan, a drum, and a few cooking pots. In one corner of the bamboo flooring stood the fireplace—merely a circle of bricks. It looked exceedingly dangerous; but, outside, leaning against the platform, was the implement for putting out the fire should any accident happen—a long bamboo pole with a flat piece of tin at the end, and a hook. Fires are by no means uncommon, and when one really gets a start it often ends in the destruction of an entire village. But the Burman takes such a catastrophe very philosophically. He clears away the debris, proceeds to rebuild the village as quickly as possible, and thinks no more about it. There is not much opening for fire insurance business in Burma! 95 Peacocks and Pagodas I am indebted to the D.C. at Minbu for the following interesting account of what is known as the Myinmu rebellion, which occurred in the latter part of I910, and illustrates how, in a country like Burma, a small and apparently innocent thing can sometimes cause serious trouble. Myinmu is a small township in the Sagaing District, on the banks of the Irrawaddy some fifty miles below Mandalay. It is the headquarters of a Sub-division, and is a thriving little place, its chief exports being cotton and beans. In the early months of 1910 a villager eighteen years of age, by the name of Maung Than, was returning from his work in the fields to his village, Pegu, some fifteen miles from Myinmu. It was dusk and he was smoking a “ sebawleik,”’ the large Burmese cheroot. Apparently he must have dropped some red-hot ashes on to his sleeve, for some other villagers who were passing remarked that smoke was issuing from his arm. Being Burmans, they did nothing about it at the time, but calmly passed on. They mentioned it, however, when they got home, and the story, doubtless losing nothing in the telling, went the round of the village until it reached the ears of some of the elders. Now it happened that these elders were familiar with an old tradition according to which a former king of Burma, one Chanyeiktha, would be reincarnated in the shape of a youth who had the power of making smoke issue from his arms. The story at once took on grave import, and other signs and portents were looked for. Needless to say, they were soon 96 The Myinmu Rebellion forthcoming. The griffins at the foot of an old pagoda were seen to shake; gold showers fell on another pagoda ; and everywhere omens multiplied which pointed to young Maung Than as the long-foretold reincarnation of King Chanyeiktha. The neighbourhood began to hum with suppressed excite- ment, and the police began to take notice. Eventually they took Maung Than to the Deputy Commissioner, a young officer who was only temporarily stationed at Myinmu, and who had at that time had little experience. Not at all unnaturally he took the view that the matter was trifling and that it was wiser not to magnify it into something that called for police interference. The lad, Maung Than, appeared to be, and at that time probably was, perfectly harmless; therefore the D.C. sent him back to his village with a gift of a rupee or two as a small solatium for the trouble and expense to which he had been put. The kindness of the D.C. was, of course, misinterpreted by the youth and his friends. They took it as yet another sign of the rising power of the reincarnated king, and actually collected a small body of men in order to attack Shwebo—a fairly important military post with a garrison of half a British regiment and a number of police. Maung Than began to suffer from swelled head and gave out that he possessed the power of becoming invisible at will, though one wonders how he managed to substantiate his claim. He was also, according to his own account, invulnerable to bullet, arrow, spear or any other weapon. And he claimed 97 Peacocks and Pagodas to possess the power of causing, merely by knocking on the ground, the immediate appearance of a fine charger in full trappings. This transpired a year later, at his trial, when one of the witnesses stated in his evidence that Maung Than in attempting to enlist him in the little army that was about to attack Shwebo, had made this boast ; whereupon he (the witness) had asked for ocular proof of the miracle, and being disappointed had thought it wiser to return to his own homestead. The raid on Shwebo was, of course, an entire failure. But Maung Than managed to escape and make his way down to Lower Burma, where he remained hidden until the following October. In the meantime his friends and supporters had not been idle, and when Maung Than returned to Myinmu he found himself at the head of a following of 1,000 men, which included volunteers from the larger towns such as Sagaing and Mandalay. The police were aware of what was going on, and duly reported the state of affairs. But the whole thing seemed so fantastic and impossible that the reports fell on deaf ears and no preventive action was taken ; in fact, as sometimes happens in official circles, those reporting were reproved for their gullibility instead of being commended for their foresight. As a result of this inaction, on the early morning of October 30th, Maung Than and his army marched on Myinmu. They were armed with dahs and spears, the only firearm being an old horse pistol without any ammunition. 98 The Myinmu Rebellion Every man wore a white armlet as a magic protection against gunshot. In the Myinmu police-station—a double-storeyed, loop- holed building, of brick below and heavy teak planking above—were a few civil police and a detachment of military police armed with Martini-Henry rifles. Maung Than’s army advanced in “‘ fours ” or some similar mass formation, and when they arrived within 500 yards of their objective were met with a volley from the police-station, which laid out some of the leading files and killed two harmless and unoffending villagers 800 yards away. The shooting seems to have been wild, but it sufficed. The invulnerable, white-armleted army broke up and fled in confusion. Only Maung Than himself anda few courageous followers succeeded in getting anywhere near the police-station ; which, however, they did not attack, preferring to make a harmless demon- stration by dashing past it at full speed and then making good their escape. So ended the battle of Myinmu. Then began a hunt for Maung Than which lasted for some weeks. It is no easy matter to run an outlaw to ground in rough, wild country covered with scrub and jungle, and Maung Than successfully eluded capture. Eventually the police received information that a small party of men, amongst whom was Maung Than, had taken the train at Myingyan, thirty miles below Myinmu, whence a branch ‘line connects with the main line between Mandalay and Rangoon. The pursuing Assistant Superintendent of Police 99 Peacocks and Pagodas reached the railway station too late. He therefore took the numbers of all the tickets that had been issued for Rangoon and telegraphed them to Police Inspectors along theline. The train was searched and Maung Than was identified and seized. Had the attack on Myinmu proved successful, the attacking force would no doubt have been largely reinforced and have had no great difficulty in securing an ample supply of arms and ammunition. Hapless Europeans would have had to suffer nameless tortures, and much blood would have been shed before tranquillity could have beenrestored. Here was a lesson to be learnt: namely, that the workings of the Burman mind are a sealed book to the European, and in a country like Burma, a rumour, however fantastic it may appear, is worth probing to the bottom. In course of time Maung Than was brought to trial together with his father, two of his uncles, and about forty others. Maung Than and his near relatives and the principal leaders in the attack on Myinmu were hanged at Mandalay gaol. Others were sentenced to transportation for life or varying periods of imprisonment. The remainder were allowed to go free, but their villages were fined and made for several years to support a force of extra police by compulsory contributions. Had the trouble been dealt with on its first appearance this would have been a shorter and a pleasanter story. The D.C.’s house, a substantial building of stone and brick, with wide airy verandahs looking on to the river, 100 The Footprints of Gaudama stood on the top of a hill. The view was magnificent. On each side stretched the valley of the Irrawaddy, silver in the morning, golden in the evening. Islands that are submerged during the rains were now bright green with paddy crops, and here and there upon them stood thatched huts, the temporary homes of the cultivators. In the far distance towards the North-east the cone of Mount Popa rose out of the haze, and a bright streak showed the course of the Irrawaddy as it came winding down from its remote sources in far-away Tibet. Behind the house, on another hilltop, stood a pagoda and a pyatthat. The kyaung was reached by a long flight of moss-grown steps where lizards darted about or basked in the sunshine. Beneath the pyatthat was the impression of a huge foot in concrete. The footprint, said to be that of the Buddha, was protected by a low parapet on which stood the remains of candles placed there by the pious, for the Minbu pyatthat is a holy spot and, like the other pyatthats which cover Gaudama’s footprints in different parts of Burma, a place of pilgrimage. The footprint, about five feet long by three feet wide, was oblong in shape, and the toes were all exactly the same size andlength. According to a convention which expresses moral greatness in physical terms, the Buddha is represented as having been of gigantic stature. Hence these enormous footprints. I left Minbu on December 7th, my objective being Magwe, on the opposite side of the river. I had an agitating business getting there. I sent my boy on ahead from the bungalow | IOI Peacocks and Pagodas A PYATTHAT at Minbu at ro o’clock, with my kit on a cart, with instruc- tions to go to the jetty whence a small local ferry starts for Magwe, and wait for me there. I followed in the D.C.’s car. But at the ferry there was no sign of either my boy 102 I reach Magwe or my kit. So we went on further to the landing-place of the bigger steamers. No boy and no kit there either. The D.C. met a friend who had arrived by the down-boat and departed home. Isat down to wait. And in the meantime the Burman in charge of the landing-float sent a boy back to the other ferry-landing to make enquiries. But with no result. At about 1 o’clock the big up-river ferry boat arrived, but I was afraid to go on by her without my kit, so waited for the mail boat, hoping that my boy might turn up. As soon as the ferry boat had taken her departure, the Burman ferry agent found the driver of the cart that had taken along my belongings that morning and ascertained from him that my boy had gone to Magwe by one of the earlier small ferry boats. I was furious. If the man had found this out a minute or two sooner I could have gone on by the boat that had just left. As it was, I had to wait on the river bank nearly two hours longer for the mail boat, and didn’t arrive at Magwe until after four. A bright Burmese lad with a pony cart met me there on landing and somehow conveyed to me that he could take me to where my kit and servant were. So I trusted myself to him and hoped for the best. It was all right. They were at the dak bungalow. My boy explained that he had put all the kit on board the ferry boat, expecting me to follow immediately, and that the boat had started with little warning and he had had no time to take the kit off again. I had an invitation to dine with the Commissioner that night at a quarter to eight. When the time came I told my 103 Peacocks and Pagodas boy to order a gharry and to tell the gharry-wallah to take me to the Commissioner’s, and thinking that everyone would know where such an important person as the Com- missioner lived, I drove off without any qualms. The gharry took me by devious ways through the dark and landed me at a bungalow. I paid the driver, who drove away. Then a doubt assailed me. It looked too small a place to be the residence of the great man of the district. I knocked and shouted. Noone answered. The front door was unfastened, so I went in and explored. But there was not a soul to be found. It was no use waiting there, so I went out, intending to make a desperate attempt to find the right house, though I was utterly lost and had not the smallest notion which way to go. But it was so dark that I couldn’t find my way out of the compound, and only succeeded in falling into ditches and getting mixed up with the flower-beds. I was in despair. Time was passing, and I knew that my only hope of dinner was to locate the Commissioner. I went into the house and shouted again ; but there was no answer except the hissing of a petrol lamp that stood in the hall. I looked at the lamp. It had a handle and would be easy to carry. The call of dinner was urgent, and—well—what else could I do? Hunger triumphed. I stole the petrol lamp and marched away with it. Once out on the road I turned at hazard to the left and came to another house. It was empty and apparently untenanted. I tried the opposite direction. All I found was a road with palm trees. No sign of human habitation, only a few lights burning dimly in 104 And dine with the Commissioner the far distance. I walked on carrying the lamp for what seemed to be about half a mile and at last I found some Burmese sitting round a fire. An old woman with her hair hanging about her face came to see what I wanted. I made a gesture intended to convey interrogation and_ said “ Commissioner.’”” She appeared to understand and pointed down the road in the direction I had just come, talking in voluble Burmese, of which, of course, I didn’t understand a single word. There was nothing for it but to trust to her directions, so I retraced my steps and at a forked road bore by a sort of instinct to the left. Soon I saw a white gate with a board by it, and on the board, to my intense relief, the word ‘“‘ Commissioner.”’ I arrived half an hour late for dinner, carrying a lamp stolen from a house which I knew I could never find again by myself. The Commissioner, however, made a good guess at the owner from my descrip- tion, and the lamp was sent back by a servant, and all ended happily. Ishould have been a good deal more agitated than I was, though, if I had known what I was told after- wards—that the place where I groped about in the dark was teeming with snakes—cobra, krait and Russell’s viper, all deadly! I was sent home in charge of an Indian servant armed with a lantern and a big stick. I have several times mentioned my boy—though “boy”’ is rather a misnomer for a married man with a family of four children. He was a Madrasi called Valu, and as he turned out to be worth the money I paid him, he may be said to have justified his name. His wages were Ks.35 105 Peacocks and Pagodas (£2 6s. 8d.) a month while in Rangoon, and Rs.45 (£3) a month plus 8 annas a day “food money ”’ while away on tour. He was body-servant, cook, courier and general factotum, and as he spoke both English and Burmese in addition to his own lingo, could also act as interpreter on occasion. When travelling about the country and stopping at dak bungalows a servant is a necessity, but even in Mandalay and Rangoon and the larger towns it is customary for everyone to have his own “ bearer,’’ or “ boy,’’. who goes where his master goes and stays where his master stays, and waits at table and makes himself generally useful wherever his master receives hospitality. He carries his small personal belongings rolled up in the bamboo mat which constitutes his bedding, and he sleeps in his clothes on the floor. Valu, all the time I was travelling about Burma, managed to appear in garments of clean white cotton. How he did it is a mystery I have never been able to fathom. When we left Rangoon he wore on his head a small round cap, but when we went north and the weather grew colder, he purchased a thick knitted Balaclava cap of grey wool, from which he seemed to derive much comfort. For some reason the natives of hot countries, whose skulls defy any amount of sun, always smother the head in heavy wraps as soon as the weather becomes at all cool, though the body receives, and appears to need, little addi- tional clothing. The favourite Burmese headgear during the cold season up-country is, as I have already mentioned, a bath towel. My only trouble with Valu was due to his invincible belief in the inexhaustibility of my purse, which 106 The Oil Fields of Yenangyaung led him to disburse backshish to coolies and others with an almost royal liberality. Infact he ‘‘swanked’’ at my expense. But when a native who can live comfortably on eight annas a day, sees a “‘sahib’”’ paying out five or six rupees for a single meal, or disbursing what seem to him huge sums in railway and steamer fares, at every turn, he may be forgiven for imagining that ‘‘ master ’”’ has only to write a cheque and go with it to the bank in order to draw money whenever he wants it. Alas! if only it were true ! One of the most astonishing places in Burma is Yenang- yaung. Here one finds a bit of Texas—just about the last thing the visitor would expect to find—moved bodily over from the U.S.A. Oil rigs of American pattern disfigure the landscape and the nasal drawl of the Yankee driller is heard in the land. Fords and Overlands dash about the rough roads scaring the bullock-carts into the ditch with their raucous horn-blasts ; while poker goes on at the American Club from night to morning amid a knee-high litter of used playing-cards and the fragrant incense of rye whisky. In short, it is the place where the oil comes from. A cyclone in the Bay of Bengal had affected local weather conditions, and when I arrived at Nyoungla, the landing- place for Yenangyaung, it was raining. I had travelled up from Magwe in the company of an electrical engineer in the employ of the Burma Oil Co. He took me out to his bungalow at the edge of the oil field, and very kindly put me up during my stay. Yenangyaung (literally “‘ the place 107 Peacocks and Pagodas of the smelly water”’) is about three miles inland from Nynoungla, and the oil field is a mile or so further on. It is a solid mass of tall wooden rigs. They stand up on the skyline in a phalanx like a forest of skeleton trees with here and there a big circular reservoir bulking black amongst them. The noise of drilling and pumping, punctuated by F a Ww a 4 * A ' "@ = SP PN | ine = = ats if we, oS at OIL RIGS AT YENANGYAUNG the rhythmical explosions of the gas engines that drive the machinery, goeson night andday. The field fairly hums with industry, and a pipe-line 275 miles long carries the oil direct all the way to Rangoon. The companies pay big dividends, everyone employed seems to be rolling in money, and Mammon is the god that is worshipped. In fact, the whole 108 The Oil Fields of Yenangyaung spirit of Yenangyaung is as far removed from the true spirit of Buddhist Burma as the North pole is from the South. In consequence of the rain, a very unusual phenomenon at this period of the year, it was exceedingly difficult to get about. The roads, generally thick with dust, were perfect quagmires of slippery mud. It was hopeless to try to keep dry; the only thing was to plunge ahead through the slough as best one could. In spite of this I contrived to see the field fairly thoroughly. It is a strange mixture of East and West. Americans and British, dressed in topee and shirt and shorts, drive about in motor cars. Indian coolies, dressed in just a little more than nothing, are hauling enormous iron pipes along the road. Burmese clerks employed in the offices brighten the scene with their lungyis of rose, orange, purple and red. Bullock-carts struggle clumsily about loaded up with pipes, or coils of wire rope, or with the oil just collected from a native well, which splashes from the kerosene cans in which it is carried and leaves a trail of black grease in the roadway. The Burmese wells are worked by hand in the old-fashioned Burmese way just as if they were not hemmed in on every side by monstrous towering rigs and by steam engines, boilers, electric power stations, and all the paraphernalia of a modern oil outfit. The Burmese method is to let down a bucket at the end of a rope. As soon as it has reached the bottom of the well several workers, both men and women, seize the rope and run with it down an incline, thus bringing the oil-filled bucket to the surface. The bucket is then 109 Peacocks and Pagodas emptied into a reservoir cut in the ground, which allows the water to drain off, and the process is repeated. They have not yet arrived at using a windlass. Now and then it is necessary for somebody to go down the well to make small repairs, and in order to avoid asphyxiation by the fumes, a home-made diver’s helmet fashioned out of an old kerosene tin is then worn. A long indiarubber tube is fastened to the helmet in order to provide the diver with a modicum of fresh air, and in this primitive rig-out he does his dangerous work while someone at the top throws a reflected light down the well by means of a mirror. If I were a Burman I should feel very bitter at seeing the wealth of the oil fields being exploited by foreigners and the money going into the hands of British and American shareholders. And I should feel still more bitter if I happened to be one of those Burmans who, believing in the good faith of the Britisher and ignorant of the true value of my oil well, had sold it for a miserable 100 rupees or so to a “ business ** man who was betterin the know than myself. This happened often enough in the early days. Later on 50,000 rupees was asked and received for the rights in a well, and even at that price it wasa gift. Then the Burmans “ got wise’ and many refused to part except for a royalty on every barrel of oil marketed. These men became very wealthy and means had to be found to prevent them from getting any richer at the expense of the poor downtrodden British and American shareholder. So the Burman would be told some yarn about the well beginning to peter out. The IIo The Oil Fields of Yenangyaung pumps would be worked only a short time every day instead of day and night, and the royalties paid to the Burman would automatically decrease. Then the owners would make the Burman an apparently generous offer—to pay him a lump sum equal toall the back royalties (thus doubling the royalty) in consideration for the whole of the rights in future, which in view of the coming failure of the well could not possibly be worth much. This offer would be gratefully accepted by the Burman, and immediately the pumps would be put on full time and the oil begin to flow as fast as ever, greatly to the benefit of all concerned—except perhaps the Burman. Some people might think this immoral. Not at all! It is merely “‘ business.’’ All the same, let us hope that the days when such chicanery was considered justifiable are long past. After visiting Yenangyaung and seeing for oneself what is being done there it is rather amusing to read the following extract from a book published in 1888. It is called ‘‘ The Coming of the Great Queen” and is by Major Edmond Charles Browne. This night we drew up and anchored at Yenangyaung, near which town are a number of earth-oil wells, which have been worked steadily for many years without any very marked success. The trade in earth-oil, it is said, has been damaged by the importation of kerosene, which is far superior. The former is now principally used for preserving wood from the combined effects of weather and white ants. Were the gallant major to see Yenangyaung to-day he would no doubt be the first to admit that he was not gifted with the spirit of prophecy when writing this paragraph. III CHAPTER VII Burmese Music. T is sometimes said by musicians to-day that the diatonic scale is played out or nearly played out; and that the time is imminent, since the permutations and combinations possible from a scale of twelve semitones are limited, when no new tunes can be written. And indeed when one listens to certain works of the moderns, particularly those of the younger school of Russian composers, one really begins to wonder if the statement may not be true. Both melody and harmony seem to have gone by the board. Masses of sound, sometimes exhilarating, often excruciating, obeying no known laws, have taken their place. The pessimists assert that there is only one remedy for this state of affairs, namely to adopt the Eastern scale with its quarter-tones, three- quarter-tones, and other sub-divisions of the octave. The permutations and combinations will then have a chance to get going again and melodic music will once more come into its own. So when I came to Burma I felt that I must seize the opportunity of enquiring into the Eastern scale in the hope of bringing back information of value to our composers of the future. I was to be a pioneer leading the way to heights hitherto undreamed of, and by my humble agency 112 SAAN a) cma as. TODDY PALMS 7 ae, “« be’ ah t ioe a) oe, < Se Mei se ps ig Ube OF Mobos) OTM Me oP, , Me iv Burmese Music might even start the worn-out music of the West on a new lease of life. It was a stimulating idea ! A story is told of a well-known musician who left the Queen’s Hall, after sitting through an _ ultra-modern symphony, almost in a state of collapse. When he got home he sank into a chair and exclaimed, ‘‘ For God’s sake, some- body, bring me a whisky and soda and play me the chord of C major!” I felt much the same after listening to the Burmese band which I mentioned in the first chapter. My brain reeled at the thought of attempting to write down the sounds on paper, and although there seemed to be a profusion of quarter-tones and three-quarter-tones, and all sorts of other queer divisions of the tone and semitone, it failed to convey to my mind anything tangible. There was absolutely nothing to catch hold of. I gave it up in despair and went to the music shop in Rangoon and bought some Burmese gramophone records, hoping that by playing them over and over I should at last get a glimmer of light on the problem. It was a good idea, but unfortunately my nerves gave way under the strain and I got no further. And then at last I arrived at a place called Sale (pronounced Salay, with the accent, as is usual in Burmese, on the last syllable), and here I found the solution. It was my next stopping-place after leaving Yenangyaung, and I travelled there comfortably in a launch belonging to the Burma Oil Company, which had been put at my disposal II5 Peacocks and Pagodas by the courtesy of the manager. Having a letter of intro- duction from the Commissioner at Magwe to the Township Officer, a Burman called Hla Tin, I sent my boy along with it on arrival, and soon afterwards found myself at Hla Tin’s house being hospitably entertained and made welcome. He spoke good English and proved to bea very intelligent and well-read man. He lives in the Burmese style, but instead of squatting on the floor, sits in a chair—or did so when I was there—in European fashion, and uses a “ Corona ”’ typewriter. The house is built on posts, but the lower part is closed in and made use of. The living and sleeping-rooms are partitioned off with bamboo matting, and the floor (in this case of boards) is covered with highly-polished mats made of woven cane—a kind of mat much valued in Burma for its wearing qualities, lasting as long as 150 years and being handed down as an heirloom from father to son. The Burmese, of course, never wear shoes indoors; the mats would not last nearly as long otherwise. This being the “cold weather’’ and the temperature being the comparatively Arctic one of about 75° Fahrenheit, a log was burning, on the morning of my call, in a brazier in the middle of the room, and Hla Tin himself was well wrapped up in a thick khaki coat of either British or German, probably German, origin, and further protected from the bitter cold by a woollen comforter and a knitted Balaclava cap. I had glimpses of his family from time to time, and made the acquaintance of a little girl rejoicing in the name of 116 Burmese Music Tin Mah Mah who, however, proved very shy and reserved. She had the usual shaven head, except for a fringe hanging down all round from a little twisted top-knot out of which stuck a rakish-looking tail of hair about six inches long. I could not tell her sex until her father explained that she was wearing a lungyi with a band of a different material at the top, a feature which does not appear in the male garment ; and also that the lungyi was fastened in the woman’s way, namely tucked in flat instead of being bunched up at the centre of the waist like a man’s. As I had been told that Hla Tin was an accomplished musician, I broached the subject of music and told him of my desire to learn something about the art as practised in Burma. He called his little daughter, Tin Mah Mah, who came in from the next room, sank down on the floor, shikoed politely as all well-brought-up Burmese children are expected to do, and departed in search of her father’s mandoline. A further edifying exhibition followed when she returned with the instrument. She took it out of its case, again sank down on the floor, and then held it out to her father from a polite and respectful distance. There was no sign of the easy familiarity with which the Western child of to-day treats its indulgent parents. But little Tin Mah Mah, being descended from the kings of Burma, had royal blood in her veins and in other circumstances might have been living as a princess in the great palace at Mandalay. That she would have sustained the réle with credit I have not a shadow of doubt. II7 Peacocks and Pagodas Hla Tin, having fixed up his mandoline, proceeded to play meatune. The tune, he said, was the introduction to the ‘‘ baw le,” and the “ baw le” is the tune to which all songs of a sad and plaintive character are commonly sung— though there is nothing about the tune that sounds sad to Western ears. The short introduction was in two parts, the lower being a kind of rough counterpoint. It is played at the beginning, between every verse, and at the end. I wrote it down.on paper in Western notation after several repetitions, and upon examining the upper part, or tune, was interested to find that it was, appar- ently, in the pentatonic scale. I then successfully trans- cribed the “‘ baw le’’ tune proper, but this was, I found, approximately in our ordinary major scale, and it was difficult to say for certain whether or not the tune had originally been pentatonic. The pentatonic scale, as all musicians know, is one of the earliest and most primitive scales. It dates back to the time when human ears were unable to ‘appreciate, or possibly could not endure, the interval of a semitone. The black notes on the piano give it. In the key of C the notes are C D E—G A—C. It therefore consists of three whole tones, and two intervals of a tone and a half where ordinarily we should find the notes F and B. The interval of a semitone is thus avoided altogether. I give below the “ baw le”’ tune and its introduction, as played to me by Hla Tin. 118 Burmese Music (} ntroduction) The ;words of the first verse, written by Princess Htaikkhaungdin are ’ Seinchu kyar nyaung kyar naung Shway la young lin par lo Hman shwe pyadin ye ka Mekhu hmyaw Thone chet see daw see daw Yike saw nhyin de lay Lin hlu paw naw. 11g Peacocks and Pagodas And the translation, by U Po Than, runs The moonlight sleeps on the bright cot Of dragon leg and lotus spot. Through window glazed I see my dear, The drum strikes three, the morn draws near. Being a little perplexed by the “‘ baw le” tune itself, I asked for another tune, and was played, and contrived to write down, the Burmese national tune, the tune that is used, I understand, for the National Anthem and all songs of a national character. This had no very apparent traces of pentatonic origin either, and I began to think I was on a false scent. National Song (The literal translation of the National Anthem as given me by Hla Tin runs: “ May success attend! To bring success we will pour cool water over the Thabye flowers.”’) At this stage in the proceedings several local musicians arrived, word having been sent out into the village by Hla 120 Burmese Music Tin that an English “ thakin ”’ interested in music was paying him a visit. One of the men brought with him a “ pattala.”’ The pattala is a sort of zylophone made from slats of bamboo strung over a boat-shaped sounding-box. It is played with two knobbed sticks and has a pleasant mellow tone. The owner of the pattala, who was evidently an accomplished performer, played several tunes, but they were so interlarded and loaded up with ornamental runs, trills, appogiaturas, and grace notes that it was exceedingly hard to get down to bed rock. With his permission I squatted on the floor and took the sticks and played the introduction to the “ baw le ”’ that Hla Tin had taught me. It was easy enough to do when once you had fixed in your mind the positions of tonic and dominant, but the company, in their polite Burmese way, pretended to be overwhelmed with astonishment at the ability of a ‘‘ thakin ”’ to play a Burmese tune on a Burmese instrument without any previous rehearsal. The pattala, which seemed to be in the key of C, had an eight-note scale; but at first I was puzzled to classify it, since in the upper octave the note B was nearer to B flat than to B natural, whereas in the lower octave it was the other way about. How to account for an approximate B flat in one octave and an approximate B natural in the other octave of the same instrument was a problem. The note F in both octaves was indeterminate. It seemed to be about midway between F and F sharp. This first suggested to me what I now believe to be the true explanation, which is that the pentatonic scale is the foundation and that notes Lea Peacocks and Pagodas have been roughly inserted in the two gaps between E and G and between A and Cin order to make the scale approximate to the Western major scale. I was not sure of this at the time, but subsequent investigations confirmed it. A very old Burman now came in and squatted on Hla Tin’s polished mats. This was Saya Tu, eighty-two years of age, at one time master of a thousand songs, though now, as he sadly admitted, only about three hundred remain in his memory. Nevertheless, a repertoire of three hundred songs is not to be despised, and if only I had been Mr. Cecil Sharp I should have produced pencil and paper instanter and set to work to note down the lot. But really hard work has never been one of my vices, and I let the opportunity slip. Also, to tell the truth, the tunes I had already made a note of were hardly of sufficient merit to tempt me further afield. Saya Tu was a charming old man. Love of music, he said, had kept him young. What a difference to the urgent West, where only too often love of music, especially when combined with the necessity of earning a living by it, makes a man prematurely old! He and Hla Tin promised to arrange for a full Burmese band to come up to the dak bungalow that evening and play to me as long as [ liked, and with that I made my adieux and departed. Having now arrived at what appeared to be a working theory as to the genesis of Burmese music, I awaited the band with some impatience. At about five o’clock in the afternoon they came, with their drums, and gongs, and other instru- ments in a bullock-cart. Under the shade of a tamarind t22 Burmese Music tree they set themselves out, the drummer in the middle of his drum circle, the gong player among his gongs, the oboe, the bamboo percussion instrument, the cymbals both large and small, at the back, and at one side the big drum and four smaller drums tuned “ tonic, dominant ’”’ in octaves some- thing like our own orchestral drums at home. A crowd of onlookers, including old Saya Tu, lined up behind. Before they began to play I examined both the gong circle (“‘ kyi-waing ’’) and the circle of drums (“ saing-waing ’’) The tuning of the gongs, as I rather anticipated, was similar to the tuning of the pattala I had examined that morning at Hla Tin’s. The key was approximately C major, with an indeterminate F and an indeterminate B. The drum circle, however, was tuned, I was excited to find, in the pentatonic scale; there was no F and no B, with the one exception of an F in the top octave of all. The actual notes of the drum circle were The tuning was done by placing a small piece of clay on the middle of the drum-head, and spreading it out and adding to it or reducing it until the required note was reached. 123 Peacocks and Pagodas If the consistency of the clay was too stiff, the drummer merely spat into it, more or less copiously as the occasion seemed to demand, and rubbed it up afresh. My discovery of the pentatonic tuning of the drum circle fairly convinced me that the pentatonic scale is, as ] had begun to suspect, the foundation of Burmese music. And when I came to re-examine the two tunes which I had thought showed no signs of pentatonic origin, I found one significant point which I had previously overlooked—all the cadences were pentatonic, and there was no cadence in which the leading-note B appeared as the penultimate note. The oboe, a tiny little pipe with open finger-holes and a brass “ bell’? hung loosely on the end, was fitted, I found, with a mouthpiece containing six reeds, three on each side. Its note was piercing in the extreme and quite capable of penetrating the best sound-proof chamber ever constructed. The cymbals need no description. The remaining instrument was merely a bit of thick bamboo about three feet long which was struck with two sticks. As soon as the tuning was over and everything in order, I asked for the ‘‘ baw le,” and stood with my pencilled notes in my hand ready to follow. I recognised the introduction, but after that all was chaos. Only the merest phantom of the tune emerged from the riot of extra notes and ornament put in at the fancy of each individual player. The gong man hammered away at his gongs and the oboe squeaked more or lessin unison. The drum circle, being pentatonic, 124 Burmese Music could not, of course, play exactly what was being played by the instruments which boasted a full scale of eight notes, but the drummer, striking his drums with fingers only, did his best. The old fellow whose instrument was the bamboo clapper appeared to be the conductor, and indicated what we should call the bars by hitting his bamboo a resounding whack with both sticks at once. The cymbals, bass and treble, chimed in whenever they felt like it, and the big drummer kept a steady “‘ tonic dominant ’’ accompaniment going nearly all the time. The result was a cheerful, but to my unaccustomed ear, exceedingly monotonous noise. By this time there was no doubt in my mind that the quarter-tones and other strange intervals were merely the result of accident, and that my theory was the right one, namely that the present scale of Burma is nothing more or less than a rough approximation to the Western major diatonic scale made by inserting two extra notes in the original pentatonic scale at the gaps between the third and fifth notes and between the sixth note and the octave. Therefore it turns out that, so far from being able to perceive such a delicate interval as a quarter of a tone, the Burman is only now growing used to the semitone, and even yet the very narrow semitone that occurs in the Western scale between the seventh and eighth notes (otherwise leading-note and tonic) is too fine for the Burman ear. The insertion of the indeterminate notes would easily lead the casual observer to imagine quarter and three- quarter tones. The occurrence of such tones, however, or 125 Peacocks and Pagodas of what appear to be such tones, is, as I say, purely accidental and due to these indeterminate notes alone. The Burmese band, owing to the fixed scale of the gong circle, always plays in one key. The band which | have been describing was in C major—approximately. The absence of semitones or accidentals makes modulation into other keysim possible, consequently monotony is unavoidable. The only variations available are those of time, rhythm, and accent, and those obtained by grace-notes, appogiaturas, and runs, added at the discretion of the individual performer. The licence allowed to the individual and the fact that the drums with their limited pentatonic tuning cannot play exactly what is being played by the other instruments, make Burmese music a characteristically happy-go-lucky affair. It is sometimes pleasant to listen to, 1 admit—for a short time ; but the Western musician can learn nothing from it. Nor, if it comes to that, can he learn anything from the Burman about making a really good noise. This is an art in which our ultra-modern composers have nothing to learn from anybody ! 126 CHAPTER VIII Politics in Burma—The Upright Judge—Bribery and Corruption. AFTER a dull chapter about Burmese music it is a little hard on the reader to have to follow on with such a dry subject as Burmese politics. But as, it cropped up in my conversations with Hla Tin at Sale, and as moreover it must be touched upon somewhere in a book that professes to deal with modern Burma, the present moment seems fitting. At all events, the reader has this advantage over the writer—he can at least skip it if _he feels so inclined. The Burmese are divided into two main classes : (a) those who are interested to a greater or lesser extent in politics, and (6) those who take no interest in politics whatsoever. The Burman, by nature indolent, easy-going, and unambitious, able to live by a minimum amount of work in his paddy patch, and to provide a home for himself with a few posts, some bamboo poles, and a thatch of palm leaves, feels no great stimulus towards revolt. He is too contented with existence. He has his cheroots, his betel nut, and an 127 Peacocks and Pagodas , occasional ‘‘ pwe’’ as an excuse for merrymaking, and he wants little more. It is discontent with existing conditions that makes for political strife, and discontent—at least in the country districts of Burma—is, or was until recently, non- existent. Consequently, the class which takes no interest in politics is a large one. It is the Burman of the town who is the politician. He is more in touch with the ideas of the West. He has been taught to his lasting loss, to sit on a chair where previously he was content to squat on his heels. The chair has brought with it the need for a table. In fact, non-essentials, of which we may take chair and table as symbols, have become essentials, and Western civilisation is rapidly succeeding in making a large part of a contented people discontented, thereby creating a Frankenstein’s monster which may some day turn and rend it. However, we have to deal with things as they are and not as they might have been. The political section of Burma can be roughly divided thus : (1) The non-co-operators, who want complete independ- dence. (2) Those who think that the time for independence is not yet ripe, but whose ultimate aim is independence. (3) Those who want self-government within the British Empire. (4) Those who prefer British rule, provided that they are allowed to share in the government themselves. 128 Politics in Burma With regard to the non-co-operators. Without the support of the priests they would be negligible, but with the support of the priests they are becoming the most formidable political party in Burma. Why the priests in particular should have assumed an attitude of rebellion it is difficult to understand. In the first place, for a priest to take any active part in politics is entirely contrary to the laws of the Buddha; and in the second place, a democratic form of government, at which they are supposedly aiming, would be inimical both to their religion and to themselves as a class. The Burman Buddhist believes, more strongly than anyone in the world, in the divine right of kings. A king is a being who has attained his position only after a series of existences well spent. Heis far advanced on the path towards Nirvana— a super-superman and, as such, to be obeyed without question. Whereas a parliament elected by the people from the people, and composed of men no better than the common run, would possess no such equivalent authority. Moreover, almost its first action would be directed against the pongyis, since priest rule and democratic government could not well continue to exist together. The pongyis, therefore, whether they realise it or not, will ultimately, if their present political desires ever come to fruition, bring about their own downfall. In the meantime, however, they are in a strong position, since the great majority of Burmese boys attend the schools conducted by the pongyis in their kyaungs, and later on assume the yellow robe and become, according to the universal custom of the country, inmates of a kyaung for some period, 129 Peacocks and Pagodas either short or long. The priests have thus an unrivalled opportunity for inculcating and spreading their political views. The non-co-operators have adopted the methods of the Indian revolutionary, Gandhi, and the boycott is their principal weapon. So far as it has been directed against British products, it has been a failure. Manchester cotton, the chief target, holds its own, and will continue to hold its own, since the native substitute is neither as good nor as cheap. Iwas passing one day with a friend through a native bazaar and stopped at a stall where cotton goods of all kinds, both native and imported, were exposed for sale. My friend said to the Burmese girl in charge, “‘ Supposing you wanted to make a good impression on some young man, would you go to him wearing a jacket of this ’—(pointing to a coarse, muddy-coloured native linen)—“or this ’’— (indicating a good quality Manchester cotton)? The girl’s laughter was quite sufficient answer. The boycott of the individual, however, is sometimes effective. The non-co-operators have started local courts in order to settle disputes for themselves. These courts are something like the Sinn Fein courts set up in Ireland, though, as far as I am aware, they do not arrogate to themselves the right of administering punishment as the Sinn Fein courts did; and inasmuch as they relieve pressure from the regular civil courts they serve a useful purpose and are, for the time being therefore, winked at by the Government. These courts are an offshoot of the “Wun tha nu,’ a society 130 Politics in Burma started by the pongyis ostensibly for the suppression of vice, but in reality quite as much for the furtherance of their political aspirations. It is difficult for any villager to refuse to join this society, since refusal involves boycott and practical excommunication—the latter a penalty greatly feared by the devout Buddhist. It will, therefore, be seen that the pongyis have great power—a power comparable with the power of the Roman Catholic priests over the Irish peasantry—and that asa political body they will sooner or later have to be reckoned with. Priests, of whatever religion, have much less scruple, it would seem, than the layman in doing evil that good may follow. To this broad generalisation the Buddhist priest is no exception. A case in point is that of the headman of a certain Burmese village who, believing it contrary to his duty as a government official to do so, had strenuously refused to become a member of the local “ Wun tha nu.” A charge, no doubt false, was then brought against him of appropriating money or committing some other irregularity in the exercise of his office. The case was tried, and on the evidence, which seemed complete and conclusive, he was suspended for six months. He thus not only lost six months salary, but, what was worse, his future position of authority in the village—as the local pongyis had calculated—was seriously undermined. One of the latest sufferers from the boycott is the recently-appointed Burmese Minister for Education in the ~ new Legislative Council. Previous to his appointment he 131 Peacocks and Pagodas had been one of the most active supporters of the demands from a certain political section for Government aid for the so-called “‘ National’’ schools. The Government, however, could hardly be expected to support schools in which the doctrines of non-co-operation would be, or might be, disseminated, and they, of course, refused. When the appointment of the new minister was made, the hopes of the nationalists ran high. But the point of view of a malcontent outside and the point of view of a minister who knows the government position, financial as well as other, from within, are naturally widely separated. When the new minister, on first question day, was asked whether he intended to support the demand for government aid for the national schools, he found himself in a predicament, and his reply, “For obvious reasons impossible,’’ so incensed his late supporters that they boycotted him at once. Boycott in this case means that Burmese tradespeople are forbidden to supply him with goods, but it defeats its own object, since it merely diverts his custom to the shops and stores run by the British. As for the second division of the political section of the Burmese population—those who think that the time for independence is not yet ripe, but whose ultimate aim is independence—whether they are numerous or not I do not know. They are merely non-co-operators of a more cautious habit of mind. The third division—those who want self-government within the British Empire—hold views with which it is much 132 Politics in Burma easier to sympathise. Their particular grievance is the fact that Burma is counted as a province of India and thus comes under the jurisdiction of the Indian Government, whereas, as they rightly claim, Burma is a separate country whose original inhabitants have no affinity whatever with the people who live on the other side of the Bay of Bengal. Hla Tin, my Burman acquaintance at Sale, held this view. He also held, what is disputed by the majority of British in Burma, that the Burmese are capable of governing the country without British assistance. But he was equally decided upon the advantages accruing from remaining a part of the British Empire, and had no leanings towards complete separation. The last division—those who prefer British rule provided that they are allowed to share it—have now got what they want. In fact their part in the task of government is so large that it is giving rise to a great deal of uneasiness amongst those British officials who have been accustomed for years to the old régime. But it is useless for the I.C.S. official to complain ; he must accept things as they are, or take his proportionate pension and retire. The old order changeth, yielding place to the new—it always has done and it always will. At the same time, it seems a pity that so many good men, men who know the Burman well and sympathise with his problems, should be driven away. I happened to be in Rangoon when the elections for the first Legislative Council took place. There was little, if 133 Peacocks and Pagodas any, excitement; and the figures afterwards showed that only a very small proportion of the electorate had exercised their right to vote. In the country districts the proportion was even smaller ; in some cases, indeed, so small that it was evident that the member elected had only beaten his opponent because his personal friends and adherents were numerically stronger. No one else had troubled to go to the poll. The country Burman, though by reason of his education at the pongyi school he is classed as “literate,” is really exceedingly ignorant. It may be doubted whether he knows what a vote is, or what is meant by a Legislative Council. In fact, the rank and file of Burma are not in the least qualified to receive the franchise, and it will be many years before the Council can really be considered a representative body. It may be argued that, for that matter, our own Parliament, until proportional representation is adopted, cannot be so considered. This is true. It is also true that our system is open to the grave objection that what is called the “popular vote”’ includes the vote of a vast number of individuals who possess the minimum of education and the minimum of intelligence. But notwith- standing these, and other, drawbacks, it remains probably the best form of government for a Western nation such as ourselves. That, however, by no means proves it suitable for the Burmese. To begin with, there is the difference between the psychology of an Eastern and a Western people to be con- 134 The Upright Judge sidered. Few people at home realise how great this difference is. Yet the difference is there, and will always be there. It is an insurmountable barrier. The Oriental mind, to mention one instance, is utterly incapable of understanding generosity or clemency. Any attempt to meet the Oriental half-way is considered an exhibition of weakness and is immediately taken advantage of—hence one of the main difficulties in arriving at a settlement with the Turks recently. And just so long as politicians at home fail to realise this elementary fact, so long will Oriental diplomatists continue to get the better of those British representatives who, from a broad standpoint and with the best motives, are trying to arrive at a working compromise. The Oriental understands neither broadmindedness nor compromise. Another difference arises from the fact that to bribe is the Oriental’s first instinct. Without a bribe he neither does anything for anyone else nor expects other people todo anything forhim. ‘“‘ Backshish ”’ is one of the primary factors of his life, and bribery is a perfectly normal proceeding. A certain Burmese judge, so the story goes, was in the habit, before trying a case, of accepting bribes from both plaintiff and defendant. But he was an upright judge. He did not keep both bribes. Having heard the evidence and given an honest judgment, he returned the bribe to the loser, and everyone was perfectly satisfied. This is an apt illustration of the Oriental viewpoint, and shows very 135 Peacocks and Pagodas clearly the gulf that yawns between Eastern and Western mentality. Further illustrations of the attitude of the Burman towards bribery were vouchsafed me when staying, a little later on, with the D.S.P. of a town in Upper Burma. One morning as we were standing on the front verandah a Burman came into view walking towards the house and carrying a small basket. My host said, “ See that fellow? I will bet any money he is coming to me with some request and bringing a present with him. It happens over and over again. They will never understand that with us bribery counts for nothing.” My host was right. The basket contained offerings of flowers and eggs—the only things a British official is allowed to accept—and the present was followed in due course, as foretold, by some request, the import of which I have forgotten. Later in the same day, after the D.S.P. had gone to his office, another Burman came to the house and asked to see the mem-sahib. This individual had, as transpired later, a stall in the bazaar at which certain games of chance were played. The police, believing that the man was contra- vening the gaming act, had been instituting enquiries, and he had thought it politic in the circumstances to enlist the sympathy of the District Superintendent’s wife. Hence the visit. After a short interval, however, he went sadly away, wondering no doubt at the mem-sahib’s refusal to accept such a simple offering as a few roses for herself and some toys 136 Bribery and Corruption for the children, and still as incapable as ever of under- standing that the wife of an English D.S.P. does not take bribes to interfere in her husband’s official affairs. A further difference between East and West arises in the fact that the Oriental puts duty to his family before duty to the State. Thus the first action of a Burman who has been appointed to some official position is exceedingly likely to be the provision of minor posts which can be filled by his relations without regard either to their abilities or their experience. An Englishman, on the contrary, scruples to take advantage of an official position, and relations are the last people he chooses as his subordinates. He has an inbred feeling that to push relations at other people’s expense is not what is called “ the thing.” Itis an attitude of mind which the native of the East can never either appreciate or under- stand. But itis an attitude of mind such as this, far more than any material advantage his civilisation may happen to possess, which definitely places the Englishman on a higher plane than the Oriental. The political future of Burma, then, for reasons I have indicated, is uncertain. One fact alone remains clear, namely, that in a topsy-turvy country where toleration is a weakness, where generosity defeats itself, where virtues prove failings, where bribery is rife, and where force and firmness are the only arguments understood or understand- able, it is going to be a difficult matter to establish any satisfactory form of democratic self-government on liberal lines. Whether it can be done or not time will show. 137 Peacocks and Pagodas Those statesmen whose task it is to guide the political fortunes of this race have a heavy responsibility, and without a thorough and first-hand knowledge of the mentality of the Burman are in danger, however well-intentioned, of making a sorry failure. But with honesty of purpose, wisdom, tact, and an understanding of the people, they can, and no doubt will, win through. 138 CHAPTER IX Superstitions of the Burmese—Hla Tin in Trouble—The Library of U Ponnya—Sketching a Pongyi—Violent Crime—An Extraordinary Case—Murder—A Sidelight on Burman Psychology—With the Jungle Folk—Old-time Methods—-Rarity of Murder by Women. HE Burman from infancy onwards is steeped in superstition. Every child has its horoscope cast by an astrologer and written out on palm-leaf witha stylus. This is called his ‘‘ sadah.’’ He believes in “nats,” or spirits, and places great faith in charms. Quite recently some villagers, Irrawaddy fishermen, became possessed of certain charms against drowning. They wanted to test them, so they drew lots for victims to be experimented upon. Two men were chosen and tied together, the charms were placed upon them, and they were taken out into the middle of the river and thrown in to sink or swim as the case might prove. They sank. The other men were arrested and tried for murder, and ultimately hanged, their plea that something had gone wrong with the charms not standing, in British law, as an adequate defence. A Burmese court would have acquitted them, and it is by no means certain that an acquittal, or at worst a short sentence for manslaughter, might not have met the case more fairly. But however opinions may vary as to the justice of the sentence, the case serves to show the hold that these, and similar, superstitions still have 139 Peacocks and Pagodas upon the Burman, and consequently how very difficult it is to deal with him according to British methods. When I was discussing similar questions with Hla Tin, my Burman friend at Sale, he told me that he was then suffering from a series of misfortunes which had been foretold by his horoscope. He was forewarned, but being unaware what form the anticipated bad luck would take, unarmed. The trouble began at a “ pwe”’ (festival) in the village. The Burman Police Inspector, Hla Tin’s fellow official, got drunk and began ordering people about and threatening them and making a general disturbance. Hla Tin, according to his own story, remonstrated without effect. Then he went further and in his capacity as Township Officer, tried to arrest the Police Inspector. The Police Inspector retaliated by trying to arrest Hla Tin, and there was a mix-up in which personal feelings got the upper hand and the dignity of office was lost sight of. The Burmese havea keen sense of humour, and the situation must have greatly tickled the onlookers, but it was extremely unedifying from the official viewpoint, and when the news reached official ears Hla Tin was sent for by the Commissioner at Magwe to explain matters. The Commissioner proved sceptical about Hla Tin’s horoscope, and on the grounds that the dignity of the Government must at all costs be maintained, decided to remove him elsewhere. On Hla Tin’s return to Sale, he found his wife down with cholera and one of his children dead, thus confirming still further his belief in his ‘“‘ sadah,’’ but whether this terminated his period of ill-luck I do not know, as he left Sale to take up 140 Hla Tin in Trouble a new job elsewhere, while I left at the same time to continue my tour up the Irrawaddy. He told me further, when we were on the subject of beliefs and superstitions, that it is quite true, as has been stated, that Burmese children are occasionally found who remember their previous incarnation. As an illustration of this, he mentioned the case of a boy now living in Upper Burma, who says he is, and is believed to be, the reincarnation of a king who lived in Burma in the ninth century A.D. The local people are so convinced of the truth of his statement that a request has actually been made to the Government for permission to search for treasure in places pointed out by the boy. The Burmese firmly believe in the magic of numbers, and no Burman will start on a journey or embark on any important undertaking unless the day is “‘ propitious.” He has certain good days and certain bad days throughout the week, and it is considered extremely inadvisable to work on a bad day—hence one reason why the Burman does so little work. But to give anything resembling a complete account of Burmese superstitions and beliefs would take more patience, more knowledge, and more space than I possess. The reader who is interested in the subject will find Sir George Scott's “ The Burman, his Life and Notions,” a mine of information on this and all other matters connected with Burma and the Burmese. It covers the ground more thoroughly than any other book at present written. I4I Peacocks and Pagodas On my second day in Sale I went, by Hla Tin’s invitation, to the local kyaung to see the library of U Ponnya. U Ponnya, according to Hla Tin, is the Burmese Shakespeare, though his works are only now coming into the prominence they deserve. The library, so-called, built in 1840, is a square edifice of plaster and stucco with ornamental doors facing North, South, East and West, and surmounted with a spire after the style of a pagoda. It is only relieved from ugliness by the graceful palm trees that surround it and by the vegetation that grows from the cracks in the masonry. What U Ponnya’s poetry is like I have no means of judging, but his taste in architecture is not to be commended. The interior of the building is a vault-like chamber, dark and dusty and filled with miscellaneous lumber. By the light of candles it was possible to make out writing on the walls which Hla Tin regarded with as much veneration as we should regard, for example, a first folio copy of “‘ A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”” U Ponnya’s script on the walls of his library merely gave instructions, however, as to the arrange- ment of his books, and its only merit was the fact that it was written by the hand of the master himself. I fear I was hardly as thrilled as I ought to have been. After leaving the kyaung and U Ponnya’s library, I wandered alone through the village. The national pastime, which I prefer not to particularise with too much detail, was in full swing, and hands were very busy in heads. On the platform outside one house a very old woman crouched, supporting herself on a claw-like hand, while a girl— 142 The Library of U Ponnya apparently a great-granddaughter—did the usual good offices amongst her snow-white locks. A touching domestic scene ! In the hottest part of the day I retired to the shelter of the dak bungalow, a large building on the top of a hill surrounded with pagodas and commanding a fine view of the river. It was built on posts in the usual style and the walls were of matting made of split bamboo woven into a twill pattern. It contained the usual furniture and necessaries, and punkahs for use in the hot weather. Cooking- pots were available and my boy was able to serve me with meals to which Hla Tin contributed a welcome gift of fish. It did not occur to me at the time, though in the light of later knowledge it seems probable, that this present of fish may not have been an entirely disinterested one. Hla Tin was aware that I knew the Commissioner at Magwe, and was about to meet him again! In spite of the fact that they come from fresh water, the Irrawaddy fish are most excellent eating. They are quite as good as any fish that ever came out of the sea, and one of the best foods obtainable in Burma. I was astonished to find people in Rangoon paying huge prices for miserable little British kippers when most delicious fresh fish could be had almost for nothing. The kipper, however, is a rarity, and smacks, in the nostrils of the exile, like bacon and eggs and porridge and marmalade and sausages, of home ; hence, I suppose, its popularity. On the evening of my second day at Sale, as I was strolling on the hilltop at sunset, I met an old pongyi walking slowly 143 Peacocks and Pagodas along with the aid of a bamboo stick. He stopped and pointed with a frown at the sketch-book I was carrying. I thought for the moment that he must be a non-co-operator, that he hated me as an Englishman, and that he resented my intrusion with a sketchbook on what was perhaps holy ground. But I was wrong. The frown meant nothing. ‘The old fellow was perfectly harmless and merely wanted to jy a an : = a Sat a y, het; ON THE IRRAWADDY. look at my sketches. (I never found the Burmese shy about making this particular request. It was really a wonder that my sketchbook survived the constant thumbings it received.) That morning, as it happened, I had made a drawing of the old singer of a thousand songs. The pongyi soon came across it. He exclaimed “‘Saya Tu!” and immediately indicated his desire to be drawn also. The light was rapidly going, but to humour him I did my best. When I showed him the result his delight was unbounded. 144 Sketching a Pongyi He was like a pleased child. Some villagers who happened to be passing had to come and admire, also the ‘‘ durwan ”’ and his family from the dak bungalow. And in between times he stared and stared and stared at his own rough presentment asif he had never seen anything so fine. Finally he wanted me to come to the pongyi kyaung and draw all the other pongyis, but this was an honour I had to decline. I thanked him, through my boy Valu, who had just then come out from the bungalow, and we parted with mutual goodwill. Later the same evening, when I was wandering along the foreshore in the moonlight I heard a commotion in the village behind. Curious to know what it might mean, I went in the direction of the noise, and presently found a crowd of people round a bullock-cart. In the cart was the body of a man whose head had been cut open with a dah in a drunken brawl. He was dead. So before I had been in Burma a month I had twice had ocular proof of the prevalence of murder. Murders are not uncommonly the result of drink, which in Burma, as in other countries, has much to answer for. Two men get excited and quarrel, and one hits the other with his dah, probably without murderous intent, and the blow proves fatal, as a blow from such a formidable weapon must often do. During 1921 there were 683 cases of murder and attempted murder. This is a high figure in a population of ten anda half millions, and is very much higher than in any other 145 10 Peacocks and Pagodas part of the Indian Empire. The Police Reports give interesting, though depressing, details and show that crime of every sort, not only murder, has increased under British rule, and is still increasing. The non-co-operators here have an argument which is somewhat difficult to answer. This increase is accounted for in various ways. The D.C. of Myaungmya, in the course of a statement on the matter, makes certain remarks which seem to me pertinent. He says: The fault in Burma is that the Burmans lack discipline and self-restraint in all directions. This may be seen in its records in the military and police departments—the unwillingness of the Burmans to enlist in disciplined forces, the abnormal proportion of desertions and offences against discipline after enlistment, the fondness for gambling, racing, pwes and such excitements. Again, note the deterioration of a considerable section of the Burmese priesthood. . . . Many of the priesthood occupy the jails, whereas fifteen years ago none dare even appear in a Civil Court, and the priesthood was a model to that of all nationalities. As against the chetty and European the Burman fails in under- standing the finance and power of organisation, and cannot build up a big business. . . . The foreigner accumulates fortunes whilst he (the Burman) gets poorer in his own land, though it flows with milk and honey. All this contributes to a sense of resentment and dissatisfaction, and a growing need for more money. The Commissioner of Magwe writes : Another of the keynotes is the undeniable deterioration in the character of the people. Premeditated crime is increasing and indiscipline is growing. The decay of the wholesome influences of the past, the influence of parents and elders, the influence of headmen, » the influence of pongyis, the influence of government officers, have helped to cause this deterioration of character. ‘ 146 An Extraordinary Case Other reasons for the increase of crime are advanced by various officials, and many suggestions are made with a view to correcting a state of affairs which reflects so gravely upon the British administration of Burma. But not one of them gets down to the root of the matter. No one doubts that the officials are zealous, earnest men. They are not to blame. The departmental administration is not to blame. It is the system itself which is at fault—the attempt to apply Western methods to an Eastern people. Western civilisation comes to Burma, and we find “ decay of the wholesome influences of the past,’’ “‘ deterioration of the Burmese character,’’ and “‘a growing need for more money.” And here, I believe, in the last sentence, we have the whole cause of the trouble summed up in half-a-dozen words. ‘“‘ The growing need for more money.” It is this worship of money for its own sake—the cornerstone of modern material civilisation !—which is ruining Burma, making a criminal class, and destroying the happiness of aonce contented people. The Burman, it seems, must, like the foreigner, make money his god or go to the wall. Can one wonder, therefore, that a large section of the Burman population wish to drive the foreigner out of the country ? The Police Administration Reports are full of interesting, if rather sensational, stories. The 1921 Report includes the following : A somewhat extraordinary case is reported from the Toungoo District. In the estate known as the Zeyawaddi Grant during recent years two factions have been formed among the tenants with regard to the payment of rent. The story reported to the police by the 147 Peacocks and Pagodas complainant was that his wife rose during the night and left the house to visit the latrine. He followed her and when they were just outside the house they were seized by a number of men who bound them and took them to a neighbouring temple. Here the com- plainant’s wife was placed on one side of the temple, the complainant being placed on the other. After the recitation of various prayers the complainant stated that his wife was decapitated by one of their captors with one stroke of a dah. He himself was rendered un- conscious by a blowover the neckwith a dah. He stated that hewas unconscious until daybreak next morning, when he saw that his wife had been murdered. Some of her jewellery was missing and his house was burnt down. The deceased was found at the temple with her head almost decapitated. The-only injuries which the complainant could show were eight parallel lines running transversely across the throat one-eighth of an inch apart. These were held by the medical authorities to be self-inflicted. A longand careful investiga- tion was held, both by the District Police and the Criminal Investiga- tion Department, but the mystery remained unsolved. It was practically established that the woman had been murdered in her husband’s house, which thereafter had been burnt down to destroy any incriminating evidence. The corpse was then placed in the temple and charges of murder were brought against the members of the faction opposed to that supported by the complainant. Whether the deceased was murdered for other motives and was then used to get the enemies of the complainant into trouble, or whether the murder was an act of human sacrifice, has not been established. A bad case of murder happened in Thindawgyi Village, near Kawkadut in the Thatén District. The case arose out of a previous case of abduction and rape. A youth took a fancy to an adopted daughter of a man in Thindawgyi village. This adopted daughter was really the household drudge ; hence the old man and his sons did not want to lose her. Maung Hpyu, her suitor, then abducted her and had his way with the maid until the family, whose chattel she was, turned out in force and rescued her. This was the second time they had got her back from her lover. They pressed a case of abduction and rape against her lover and his friends; but the case failed in Court. The lover, however, was persistent and the Court 148 =" ~~ Murder had no sooner released him than he again appeared at her house and demanded her. His brother and a friend backed him up, but the home forces routed them and chased them out of the house. Two of them followed up Maung Hpyi and murdered him with a large number of people watching them. The police were quickly on the scene and ample evidence was on record before the wealth of the family concerned could be brought into play. On this ample evidence of several eye witnesses the two accused were sent up for trial. The Law’s tardiness, however, gave the family purse time to talk and in the committal court each witness in turn smilingly went back on her statement. The Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Kyaikto, committed the case, but after consultation with the Government Prosecutor the case had to be withdrawn. The seven resiling witnesses are being prosecuted. A local pongyi is alleged to have been very active in destroying the evidence in this case. An unfortunate affair happened in a robbery case at Yandoon. The victim ran out of the house, and his son who lived close by, hearing the disturbance, rushed up, and mistaking his father for a robber, attacked him with a dah, almost severing his head. A brutal murder was committed in Mergui, where a man, losing his temper over a trivial matter with his daughter, cut down his wife with a dah and murdered his sixteen days’ old baby. The man finally committed suicide by hanging himself in the jungle. But for poignant tragedy compressed into three lines nothing will easily beat the following terse entry : In Pakokku a man was compelled to divorce his wife as she was suffering from leprosy. One day both of them went to the jungle, where the man murdered his wife and then committed suicide by hanging. In the Pantanaw Town of the Ma-ubin District a man ran amok, and after assaulting a number of people with a dah, murdered a friend and his wife in particularly brutal fashion. A Sub-Inspector of Police, who happened to be on the spot, finally succeeded in shooting him. It is reported that a crowd of 7oo persons had 149 Peacocks and Pagodas | collected and was calmly watching the proceedings and made no appreciable efforts to overpower the murderer. This last entry exhibits a curious trait of Burman psychology. The Burman, either from apathy or a disregard of the value of human life, can calmly watch a man being done to death without making any attempt whatever to save or protect him. It looks at first sight like cowardice, but probably cowardice has little or nothing to do with it. In this connection an extract from a book called “‘ With the Jungle Folk,” by E. D. Cuming, is worth quoting. This book, which is now out of print, throws much interesting light on the habits and mentality of the Burman, and, though fiction, is fiction founded on a close and accurate observation of Burmese village life. The extract in question concerns an incident which is supposed to happen at the end of the voyage of a paddy-boat. The boat has arrived near the rice mill, where her cargo is to be unloaded. Round the last gentle curve in the river, and the mills with smoking chimneys, the ships waiting for rice, and the pagoda which overlooks the town, all came in sight together. ‘‘In another betel chew we are there,’’ remarked Moung Byoo, contentedly. “It is the quickest journey I remember.”’ They ran past two or three godowns, before he said, pointing with his cheroot, ‘‘ Thaw’ thekin’s,’’ and gave the word to let down the mast. The tide was just on the turn now, so the men waited till the boat was abreast of the godown and half astone’s throw from the bank, before they let fall mast and sail together. The sail flapped and bubbled, and it was while they were trying to keep it from blowing over the side, that the accident happened to Hpo Chit. Nobody saw exactly how it came about, but there was a cry a bump, and asplash, and Hpo Chit’s feet were seen disappearing into 150 PADDY BOATS. I51 hs ‘ \ ‘ ; oe aren eG j wie ante sy Wi x RTA adh Sy, UAL eh Wa, be t 4h : ey Rem ERIS ERY With the Jungle Folk the water. Hecame up at once, a bamboo’s length astern, but went down again. Then everyone, saying ‘‘ He is hurt; he will drown,”’ squatted to watch. “T think he struck his head falling,’ said Moung Byoo, leaning from the steering chair to look round the high stern-piece. ‘“ He will certainly drown. His mother will be very sorry.” The black kullahs on the bank shouted and ran to the water’s edge when they saw the accident, and their voices brought from the godown a white man in white clothes with a little ship-dog at his heels. He smoked a cheroot, and strolled out with his hands behind him ; but when he heard what the coolies were saying he dropped his cheroot and ran out upon the jetty where the ships lay to load, shouting to Moung Byoo’s men. “Back! back your boat quickly ; very quickly back her! ”’ “ That is Thaw’ thekin,”’ said Moung Byoo, shikoing. “What does he say ?’”’ asked Mah Heyn. “He says to row back. What is the use? Hpo Chit will certainly drown.” Mr. Thorpe seemed very angry about something. He stamped with his foot and roared, “‘ Back her, you fools! Back three strokes hard, and you save him! Back! Will you ?”’ “Row back a little,’’ said Moung Byoo, slowly. ‘“ It is Thaw’ thekin’s order.” The men got up and freed two oars, but both on the same side; all laughed at this mistake, and Pho Lone, ever anxious to please, went to make ready one on the other thwart. “One oar, your honour?” he asked, crouching respectfully, ‘Or more ? ”’ Mr. Thorpe did not answer ; he spun round on his heel, ran back, and sprang from the jetty on to the stone-strewn bank, and in three steps was in the river, his dog behind him. “Why does he swim ? ” inquired Man Pan. “TI expect he swims to catch Hpo Chit,’ answered Moung Byoo, sucking at his cheroot which had nearly gone out. Seeing what the gentleman did, the rowers let go their oars and squatted again to look on. 153 Peacocks and Pagodas ‘““ Where is he?” shouted Mr. Thorpe, swimming hard, hand over hand down stream. “TI cannot see him now, your honour,” replied Moung Byoo, “T think he has sunk.” Mr. Thorpe stopped swimming and trod water for several minutes to look about, letting the tide carry him down. Then he turned, swam slowly ashore, and dripped up the bank. “He does look very funny,’ said Zah Nee. ‘‘ And hear the water in his boots! How the little ship-dog shakes himself! ”’ as meee \) — —— — ‘ a ‘ PSS a sf a j see 7 Aes nS eee BOATS ON THE IRRAWADDY. The men laughed much at the way Mr. Thorpe’s skin showed through his wet clothes; but they laughed quietly, for they had dropped down to within the gentleman’s hearing, and they did not wish to appear rude. ‘““Hpo Chit’s father and mother will be very sorry when they hear heis drowned. Itis very unfortunate indeed. Pull away there ! We must go alongside the godown. I am very sorry about Hpo Chit,” 154 Old Time Methods Before finally leaving the subject of crime in Burma it may be worth while to hark back to the time when Burma was a separate country ruled by an absolute monarch. Justice was rough and ready in those days, and punishment summary. The offender had little chance of escaping the consequences of his act, and according to the Captain of the “ Nepaul,”’ whose experience of the country dates back to pre-British Times, it was no uncommon sight to see the bodies of criminals floating down the river crucified on pieces of bamboo. To-day, with our notions of fair-play for every accused person, it only too frequently happens that although there is no real doubt as to the culprit, he escapes either on some point of law, or with the help of well-paid false swearing, as in one of the cases quoted above from the Police Report. This makes it more and more difficult to obtain evidence, since, if the charge breaks down, the accused man will, in all likelihood, make it exceedingly unpleasant for the witnesses who gave evidence against him. It is therefore conceivable that the old Burmese system, even though it might occasionally happen that an innocent person had to suffer, was better suited to the country than our present system with its clemency and consequent loop-holes for the criminal. Certainly it was a greater deterrent in the case of premeditated violent crimes, a class of crime now more prevalent than formerly. Nowadays if a man has a grudge against another man he does not hesitate to go to his house in the night and stab him, as he sleeps, either through the 155 Peacocks and Pagodas flooring, or through the matting wall of his house. It is easy and safe. A less serious offence, more comic than tragic, may be carried out in the same way, as the following story shows : A young Burman had made advances to a certain girl, only to be repulsed with scorn and ignominy. In revenge, having found out the exact spot on the flooring where it was the lady’s custom to sleep, he went in the night and prodded her through the floor with a stick in all the tender places he could find. The lady’s outraged feelings could only be soothed by an action in the police court, and in the end the embittered lover had to pay damages. He may have felt that it was worth it—but on this point history does not enlighten us. A further point worth noting is the rarity in Burma of murder by women. In India there are frequent cases. This difference is accountable to the marriage laws. In India the woman has no choice when it comes to matrimony ; She seldom sees her bridegroom until the wedding day ; hence domestic friction and a long list of poisoning cases in which the offender is the wife and the victim the husband. In Burma the woman has entire freedom of choice and the marital relations of the Burmese are, in consequence, seldom unhappy. 156 CHAPTER X At Nyoungoo—Making Lacquer-work—The Assistant Goal-keeper—The Ferry-Boat—-At Myingyan—The Golden City—In the Second Defile— A Monkey Story—Bhamo at Night. \ X YHILE at Sale I received a message from the Com- missioner at Magwe to say that he was on his way up river in his launch and could, if I wished, call for me and take me on with him as faras Mandalay. I therefore waited and availed myself of this kind offer, though as I wanted to visit Pagan I got him to put me ashore at Nyoung-oo instead of accompanying him the whole distance. In my diary I find : “At 4.30 the Commissioner’s launch put me ashore. It was too shallow for the “ Bandit’ to go right in, so I was rowed offina boat. Even then I had a job to get to land dry- shod, but the men put the oars together and made a rickety gangway along which I crept gingerly, supported by Burmans wading on each side. Coolies tucked up their lungyis, waded out to the boat, and carted away my luggage on their heads to the dak bungalow, a gloomy spider-haunted building on the river bank surrounded by tamarind trees and a wire fence. Here with the help of Valu I made myself as comfortable as I could. It was about sunset and the scene along the foreshore was delightful. 157 Peacocks and Pagodas ‘‘A bamboo and palm-leaf hut stood under a banyan, quite dwarfed by the enormous bulk of the trunk. A little further along was a row of similar huts erected in the loose sand. Women squatted on the ground cooking the evening meal over little fires. A few bedraggled fowls wandered in and out, and a party of merry naked children romped and played inthe sand. At the edge of the water lay a row of big country boats at anchor, with their double bamboo masts lowered and the openwork carving on their high sterns clear against the glowing light. “Two Burmans were repairing an overturned boat further up the bank, and just beyond them the stems of a group of palms stood out black from the red sky. In the other direction a sandstone cliff topped by a pagoda towered above the water. Beyond it the Irrawaddy stretched far away to the North West and the distant Chin Hills. ‘In the morning I explored Nyoung-oo and found plenty to interest me, but nothing particularly worth recording. I had some idea of going over to Pagan, four or five miles away, but finally decided to postpone this until the next day and make an early start. I asked about transport and was offered a bullock-cart. But the bullock-cart is a slow affair—the trip there would have taken two hours—and I said I must havea pony-cart. In the end one was found and ordered to come to the bungalow at eight o’clock the next day. Iwas rather sorry afterwards that I had not accepted the original offer. The pony proved to be a half-starved, miserable looking little beast, and had I known the state of 158 Making Lacquer-work the road we had to travel I should have hesitated before trusting to it. However, with tea-basket, sketch-books and stool, and Valu sharing the driver’s seat in front, we started off for Pagan. I walked a good deal of the way, partly for exercise and partly to save the unfortunate pony, and eventually we arrived, in spite of heavy going through loose sand which taxed the pony’s strength to the uttermost. We ought to have had the bullocks. They forge slowly ahead inexorably as fate through anything and everything, and if they are slow at least they are sure. At the Circuit House (a sort of glorified dak bungalow) I found the D.C. from Myingyan, who had been helping to entertain a Siamese prince and princess who are on tour through Burma. He said I ought to have come over the previous day, as I should have then seen a ‘pwe’ with dancing girls, and also the snake charmers from Mount Popa with their hamadryads. I was awfully vexed that I had missed them. He and his wife gave me breakfast, and then I took my sketchbook and started to draw some of Pagan’s five thousand pagodas. I also found time to visit the village and see the manufacture of lacquer for which Pagan is famous. The establishment I patronised had the following notice stuck up outside : SAYA SEIN, General Lacqure shop. If wish of lacqure furniture I can supplies everything. Who could resist this? The Siamese prince had been there 1601 11 Peacocks and Pagodas the previous day and all the most precious specimens of jacquer work had been set out for his inspection. But they failed to tempt him and, much to the disappointment of the exhibitors, his total purchases only reached the insignificant total of twenty-five rupees. The original Burmese lacquer-work is coloured a crude red and a sort of bluish-green—not, in my opinion, a pleasing combination. I therefore contented myself with acquiring some examples of the more modern black and gold, and had my purchases packed in a strong box and sent down to Rangoon. It was interesting to see the work in its various stages, but it would be tedious to describe it. The basis is fine basket work of thin strips of bamboo, and the lacquer is made of gum from some tree mixed with cow-dung. | “Our return journey was even slower than our journey out. I walked most of the way. In the end the pony got stuck in a bed of loose sand and refused to budge an inch further. The poor beast was absolutely done. We left it and the driver there and walked on until overtaken by another cart which made room for us and brought us into Nyoung-oo just as it was getting dark. “While I was in Nyoung-oo I paid a visit to the local gaol. I had been accosted by a young Burman who was riding a particularly good little pony, but as I knew no Burmese I didn’t grasp what he wanted. He dismounted and shook me by the hand, by which I took him to mean that his intentions were friendly. He then motioned to me to wait, and fetched another young man froma house nearby. The 162 PAGODAS. 163 an gre Mae ie lide el, aay pis ‘i Z e Pacer i 1d bea? oe The Assistant Goal-keeper second man, in English, told me that he was the ‘ assistant goal keeper.’ As I once took a course in Pelmanism it was easy for me to unravel the apparent mystery. The Burmese don’t play football, and this, coupled with the fact that he was wearing a long khaki uniform coat from beneath which a pink silk lungyi protruded incongruously, caused me to surmise, as proved correct, that he meant he was the assistant gaoler. Hethen asked meif I should like to see the * goal.’ So I went. It was just after sunset and the prisoners had gone to bed—if you can call lying down on the floor on a mat going to bed. They were inside a sort of large wooden build- ing like a cage. All wore irons. There were 104 prisoners serving sentences up to five years—all lepers. The gaoler said they had no serious objection to being in there ; in fact, most of them were glad to be housed and, for them, well and sufficiently fed. So again the British system appears to fail as a deterrent. During the day the prisoners work in gangs making roads or doing agricultural labour. There is a large garden attached to the prison. “‘T had decided to go on by the ferry-boat the day after my visit to Pagan and its numerous pagodas (Pagan, by the way, is the most interesting place archeologically in Burma and the pagodas are of all types and date back to the tenth century, the early ones of course being now in ruins), so next morning I walked on about a mile above Nyoung-oo to where the ferry-boat stops. Valu followed with my kit in a bullock-cart. The road went for some distance through a deep cutting in the sandy limestone and then emerged on 165 Peacocks and Pagodas the river bank, where I found a crowd of Burmese busy cooking dainties to sell to the passengers on the ferry-boat. It was an animated scene. On the bank at the back stood a few hutsin which earthenware ‘ chatties’ were being made. Rows of the chatties stood baking in the sun. And on the top of a cliff at the Southern end of the beach was a ruined pagoda of warm brown-red brick. The old pagodas are much prettier than the newer ones. Thestucco and concrete have mostly fallen off and there is a pleasant absence of the white paint and gold leaf that make the modern pagodas so staring and ugly. “ The ferry-boat is an uncertain quantity. Iwas told that it might arrive at ten o’clock, or it might not turn up until twelve. On this occasion it came at half-past eleven, by which time I was rather tired of waiting in the hot sun. I found the D.C. and his wife on the boat and travelled with them as far as Myingyan. They had previously telegraphed to the wife of the D.S.P. there (whom I had met on the Amarapoora) to say that they were bringing me to dinner that evening. I was asleep in my cabin when the boat reached Myingyan, and when I realised that we had arrived, my friends had disappeared, the arrangement being that they were to go on and dress while I was to make my way to the D.S.P.’s independently of them. I got into evening kit, and having given Valu instructions to take all my belongings on board the Mandalay ferry which was leaving early the next morning, | went ashore. It was quitedark. I found myself confronted by a high bank of loose sand. I scrambled to 166 At Myingyan the top, where there were crowds of chattering Burmese, a few stalls and booths, anda good many bullock-carts waiting for fares or freight. A young Burman policeman accosted me and in broken English conveyed to me that he had been told off as my guide. He put me into a bullock-cart, which started off across a wilderness of sand. The river is very low at this season. After half a mile or so of this we reached the town and plodded along through streets of the familiar type, feebly illuminated by oil lamps at wide intervals apart. Three-quarters of an hour’s uncomfortable ride landed me at my destination. I have never before arrived at a dinner- party in evening dress in a bullock-cart. “At about midnight the D.C. drove me back in his motor as far as the edge of the sand. I was then told that I had only to bear to the left and keep in the bullock-cart tracks and I should see the lights of the Mandalay steamer ahead. ‘You can’t possibly miss it,’ were the D.C.’s last words as he drove away. But it was all very well to say ‘ keep to the bullock track’! The sand was ali tracks, and they seemed to run in every direction. I started off across the desert full of misgivings. It seemed on the cards that I should wander about for hours trying to locate the steamer. Then I saw a light behind me and found it came from a lantern carried by a Burman. I said ‘ Mandalay steamer,’ and the Burman appeared to understand and motioned to me to follow him. He was accompanied by a boy. We trudged on for some time through the sand, and then the Burman left me in charge of the boy, who eventually brought me to 167 Peacocks and Pagodas the steamer. Owing to the high bank no lights were visible. Also the boat was moored the other side of two big floats, or “‘ flats ’ as they call them here, both of which were loaded up with bales and sacks and ali sorts of freight, and both in complete darkness. Without the boy and his lantern I should never have arrived. I sent him away with a parting present of eight annas, with which he seemed quite pleased. I never grudged backshish less. “We reached Mandalay at four o’clock the next afternoon. I had arranged to look up the “ Bandit’ on my arrival, so, leaving my kit on board the ferry steamer, I set out along the riverside to find her. The Commissioner and his wife had arrived that morning and were having tea when I discovered them. On their invitation I sent along for my kit and took up my residence on theirlaunch. It was lucky for me they were so hospitable, as I found afterwards that every place in Mandalay was full and there was absolutely no accommodation to be had. Everyone who could had come there for the Christmas festivities. ‘““Mandalay is called ‘the golden city.’ But there was not much gold about it so faras I could see. It appeared to be a straggling town of squalid streets with shops built of stucco painted white and crudely ornamented in blue and ‘red. In between the stucco buildings are tumble-down wooden buildings roofed with corrugated iron. The roads are inches deep in dust and littered with rubbish. The arrangement of the town is rectangular, with streets numbered in the American style. It was laid out by the British after 168 The Golden City they had destroyed the old city that stood inside the walls of the great fort. The whole place seemed to breathe a sort of squalid commercialism that made it most unattractive. But I am told that it is in reality a most interesting town and I intend to make a longer stay there on my way back. I paid a visit to the shop of a maker of musical instruments who had previously been warned of my arrival and told to try to get mea Burmese harp.. I found hima very amiable old Burman. He had secured a harp which he said was fifty years old and had belonged to the husband of a very famous Burmese singer. This lady had an exceptionally high voice and no other harp would stand the strain of being tuned up to her pitch. The harp was small and of rather a quaint shape. It had thirteen strings and I was told that there are three different ways of tuning it, including the pentatonic, which I suspect was the original method. The tone was light, but very pretty. On the whole the first real musical instrument I have come across in Burma. The shop was an untidy litter of drums, gongs, and other instruments in various stages of construction ; and two old women, both smoking enormous cheroots, squatted in the doorway that led to the living-room at the back. “AsI write I am on my way upriver on one of the mail steamers. Wooded hills run down to the water on either side, and there are occasional ‘glimpses of mountains farther off. Quite different scenery from that of the lower reaches, but equally picturesque. This morning, a beautiful morning of grey and silver, we stopped at a village to take on wood 169 Peacocks and Pagodas fuel. The captain took me for a walk in the jungle, which, he asserted, is full of game—snipe, duck, jungle-fowl and other birds, besides tiger, leopard, panther and bear. I saw nothing but two or three wood-pigeons and a squirrel ! But it was very beautiful with the early sun shining through the leaves, and the dewdrops sparkling everywhere. it ‘ ANAEMIA SANDBANKS. “December 24th, Bhamo. I have arrived as far north as the Irrawaddy Flotilla Co. can take me. We tied up last night at Katha, and left there at about eight this morning. Atsunrise there wasa thick fog, which delayed us, as navigation of the Irrawaddy is almost impossible in foggy weather. But the sun soon drove the mist away, and when I went on deck nothing was left of it but a rolling bank of cloud hanging about the mountains to the West. A glorious morning and the river a sheet of glass. During breakfast we were called out by the captain to see 170 In the Second Defile a wild elephant on the bank. No more of particular interest until we entered that part of the river known as the “second defile.’ Here the river narrows to 150 yards or so, and in the rains comes rushing through in a mighty current. Rocks covered with forest run down to the water very steeply on either side, and a cliff goo ft. high with a sheer drop into the river is the outstanding feature. The political prisoners in the old days used to be thrown down from the top of this cliff into the Irrawaddy below. A miniature pagoda built on a rock at the base commemorates the miraculous escape of a certain prince who was thrown by his enemies from the cliff, but was saved by a large fish which rose from the water and caught him gently on its back and so broke his fall! A little way beyond this point we saw a party of monkeys playing on the beach. When they heard the steamer coming they scrambled up the bank and ran to safety amongst the tree-tops. A larger monkey is found further inland, a black one, presumably a gibbon. I have it on the captain’s authority that the black monkey is so kind-hearted that if you sit under a tree and pretend to be overcome with grief, it will cautiously approach you, sniff round you, and at last, if you keep up the pretence of sobbing bitterly, put its arm round you to comfort you. The captain didn’t add, as I half expected, that it then proceeded to wipe your eyes with its own pocket handker- chief. With all humility I suggest this as an improvement. “On leaving the defile a range of mountains became visible to the East—the mountains of China. But the new 171 Peacocks and Pagodas types on the after-deck, some of whom I have been trying to sketch, have already quite sufficiently shown our proximity to the Celestial country. The Shan Tayoks in their high black hats or turbans are noticeably picturesque. These people inhabit the northern part of the Shan States on the SHAN TAYOKS. Chinese border. Their curious headgear fits tight on the head and widens out towards the top and is at least nine or ten inches in height. Soon after sunset I walked through the crowd aft and saw two of these little women in bed. They were lying side by side on their backs under a carefully 172 Bhamo at Night spread blanket, everthing about them neatly arranged and their tall hats standing behind them on their respective pillows. Very quaint and prim they looked. There were also some true Chinese aboard, the women in tight-fitting trousers and long tunics and with feet so cramped and tiny that they could only hobble about with the greatest difficulty. Some of them had babies slung at their backs. They had a Stall in full swing with all sorts of things for sale, from baskets of Shan oranges to Manchester cotton. “Shortly before sunset we saw some more elephants, but this time of the domestic variety, coming down to the river for a drink. And on the opposite bank a peacock appeared, whereupon the chief engineer got his rifle and had a couple of shots without result. If he had hit the bird, he explained, the steamer would have stopped while he went in a boat and retrieved it. Travelling on the Irrawaddy is a leisurely matter and a half-hour either way is of no great consequence. “We reached Bhamo after dark. I went ashore for a walk and found an interesting street full of open Chinese shops with perpendicular notices outside, each in Chinese characters. Oil lamps and open fires in braziers shed an uncertain light, and the effect was Rembrandtesque. In one shop I found a crowd of people sitting round trays eating rice, while at the back, on a bed draped with pink and white hangings, lay the corpse of a young girl. She looked so pretty laid out, all dressed in her best, with flowers in her hair. There were no apparent signs of mourning. Plague, I ascertained, was the cause of death.” 173 CHAPTER XI Christmas Day—Shan Workmen—A Cold Night—Through the Jungle— A Kachin Village—About the Kachins—Morality, Courtship and Marriage—Kachin Folk-lore—The Wild Kachin. My diary continued : “Christmas Day. It is hard to realise it. The morning started with white fog and when I went ashore it was still hanging about. Everything looked charming. The giant treesand the bamboo clumps, the rickety houses on poles, the picturesque figures of Burmese, Shans and Chinese, and the road, with its slow-moving builock- waggons and pack-mules, fading away into the mist. Bhamo is everything that I expected, and more. It is the most fascinating place that my wandering steps have brought me to. The Chinese street down which I strolled last night was even more inter- esting by daylight. The poor little dead girl in all her finery still lay on the gaily-decked bed at the back of the shop. Her brothers and sisters were playing in the gutter as usual and the rest of the family were unconcernedly taking their morning meal. Gharries drove down the street with much 174 A SHAN BOY. Christmas Day clanging of gongs and shouting of ‘He! He!’ Groups ot people warmed themselves round fires. Chinese women, with their babies slung behind them, hobbled across the road to exchange gossip with the neighbour opposite. Hefty coolie men with heavy loads at each end of a bamboo pole swung along in the direction of the steamer landing. Pi-dogs curled themselves up for warmth in the ashes of abandoned fires, or snarled from a safe distance at any passing European. At one shop a group of queer little Kachin girls, with black bobbed hair, black eyes and snub noses, were disputing prices with an old Chinese shopkeeper, while at another a couple of Shan Tayoks, dressed in black and dark blue, wagged their tall head-gear over some bargain. Commerce was in full swing. “T had sent Valu on with my kit to the Circuit House and there I found him when I arrived. The durwan supplied meals, so at ten o’clock I had breakfast. After breakfast two Kachins,a man and a girl, came for me to draw. They had been sent by a Burman I met the previous evening on the boat. It is usually difficult to persuade a Kachin girl to allow herself to be drawn or photographed. But this girl seemed to have no particular objection, though she seemed shy at first. She was pretty in a barbaric way. Her black hair curled round her face and neck. She wore a kind of tunic, black with a red edging, and ornamented with rows of silver bosses. Her skirt was of some heavy material covered with embroidery in red and orange with a fringe of little tassels. She was bare-footed, but what was visible of her 175 Peacocks and Pagodas legs was clad in a sort of cloth gaiter of the same material as the skirt. The principle feature of her costume, however, was a girdle made of innumerable rings of thick wire enamelled black with a few rings of brass among them. Strings of beads encircled her neck, and on one wrist, she wore a heavy silver bangle or bracelet about three inches wide. She was short and rather stumpy in figure, quite a different build from a Burmese woman, and from the twinkle in her eye I should guess that she had a fair spice of devil in her. The man seemed tall in comparison. He was very grandly dressed in a black silk coat and wide trousers of white linen. A coloured belt round his waist showed under the open coat, and from his right shoulder hung a long-handled dah and a Kachin bag of brightly-embroidered cloth with a scarlet fringe. ““ January Ist, 1923. Dined at the club on Christmas night with a party of seventeen, and got back to the Circuit House about I a.m. Everyone wanted me to stay on in Bhamo and go out early in the new year to the ‘ frontier meeting.’ It would be an exceptional opportunity, they said, for seeing the country; the Chinese officials would be there in full ceremonial dress ; there would be sports and games of unusual interest ; and at the end of the meeting a Chinese dinner with birds-nest soup and all kinds of queer dishes. I should find heaps of things to sketch and material for several articles, and altogether it was something that I ought not to miss. I therefore wired down to Mandalay to postpone a lecture 176 Christmas Day I had promised to give there on my return, and began to make preparations. And then a young Police officer turned up at the Circuit House. He was distinctly cold over the project from the first. I went round to the club and found that the chill had affected everyone else. They told me that the country through which we should have to travel was dull; that it would be very difficult to get accommodation ; that I should be obliged to hire a tent and full camp equipment; that I should need more servants ; that five or six mules would be required to carry my kit; that the meetings themselves would be long and dreary discussions over boundaries, and of no possible interest to me; that the games were nothing much from the spectacular point of view; and finally that the Chinese dinner would be sure to make me ill. It needed no great discernment to grasp the fact that my presence was not wanted, though the reason for this volte-face was not immediately apparent. “T found out afterwards that there had been a scrap up on the frontier a year previously, in which twenty-five Lashis (transfrontier Kachins) had been killed. The Lashis there- upon swore a blood feud against the British. If I had gone with the party and wandered off on my own to sketch, I might have been waylaid and murdered, and though it wouldn’t have been of much consequence as far as I was concerned personally (except perhaps to me !) it would have meant another punitive expedition and further trouble, an eventuality that the authorities preferred not torisk. Hence the deluge of cold water. 177 12 Peacocks and Pagodas “When my young friend was sure that I had given up the idea of coming, he breathed more freely and became quite helpful. On his advice I tooka short two days’ trip into the mountains to visit a Kachin village. Valu and I and the kit drove nine milesin a gharry to a place called Momauk, along a good metalled road through the jungle. Small clearings and huts here and there. At about half-way we were stopped by an obstruction. Some Shans were felling trees and had contrived to drop two right across the road. We had to wait while the logs were sawn through and levered far enough to one side to allow us a passage. We were delayed about an hour, but I was able to get some sketches and a photograph of the men at work. Their belongings were thrown down under a tree, and I had the curiosity to see of what they consisted : some ordinary grey wooilen cardigans (probably relics of the war or of service in the Police) ; Shan bags of hand-woven cloth containing tobacco, betel boxes and so forth ; some long sword-like dahs in wooden sheaths ; a big piece of bamboo enamelled red, with a tin mug attached—evidently containing the water supply; and finally some bows, but though I looked everywhere I could find no arrows. This puzzled me until I discovered later that they do not use arrows, but shoot a little pellet of hard-baked clay—in fact, the bow isa kind of catapult, and there is a small pouch in the middle of the bowstring which holds the pellet until it is shot. In order to avoid injury to the bow-hand they give the wrist a quick turn at the moment of releasing the string. The pellet then clears 178 A Cold Night both the bow and the hand. They shoot birds with this weapon. “ There is a dak bungalow at Momauk where we stayed the night. Built on posts, with two bedrooms containing camp beds (no bedding), washing apparatus, etc., bathrooms of the local type with zinc tubs, and so forth, a wide verandah outside with table and long lounge chairs with foot- rests, and a cupboard with all the necessary crockery. ““As soon as we had arrived and established ourselves there, I sent my boy for the headman, from whom I was to get coolies to carry the kit on the next day. He proved to be a fine-looking old Shan. Owing to his energy and resource Momauk is a flourishing village with many acres of cleared and cultivated land reclaimed from the jungle. He promised to arrange for the necessary coolies at two rupees eight annas each for the double journey to Palaungkataung, a village nine miles beyond Momauk. My boy provided me with a very decent dinner—soup, fish and joint—and I went early to bed. But the bungalow bedroom proved very cold, and I shivered most of the night. The temperature seemed arctic. The floor-boards had wide gaps between them, through which you could see the ground below. The windows did not fit, and the draughts were appalling. I was not at all sorry when my boy, himself half-frozen after a night on a cane mat in the passage, brought me my tea in the morning. At half-past seven the coolies turned up, three of them. I left them to follow with Valu and the kit, and strode off through the morning mist at a good round pace. I was wearing shorts 179 Peacocks and Pagodas and found it distinctly chilly about theknees. Theroad for the first couple of miles ran through the plain by a stream. Mist lay everywhere, but the sun soon began to break through and ricks and trees and little thatched huts became visible one by one. By the time I reached the foot of the hills the fog had cleared away and given place to bright sunshine. The forest and jungle growths had an unfamiliar look owing to the prevalence of the bamboo. It growsin thick bunches, and ata short distance the mountainside appears to be covered with gigantic ferns. I passed through a village and began the ascent by a rough mule-track. It was warm work and my coat was very soon off, and my topee would have followed but for the fear of sunstroke. It was absolutely silent and still. I saw no signs of animal life. Occasionally a big butterfly fluttered across the path, but that was all. Once I heard a curious barking noise that was probably the cry of the barking-deer, called the ‘gyi’ by the Burmese; and once I became conscious of a strong cat-like smell that might have been due to a tiger or leopard—there are plenty of tigers in the jungle, but as they are nocturnal animals they are seldom seen. I had only had tea and toast that morning, and began to feel hungry, but there was no prospect of breakfast until the coolies reached Palaungkataung, so there was nothing for it but to push on. At one place I met a party of sturdy Kachin girls striding down the path in Indian file with baskets on their backs, and further on I met a mule caravan coming from China. The Kachin girls looked very picturesque with their masses of glossy black hair and the 180 A Kachin Village lacquered rings round their hips. I think I understated the number of these rings ; I have seen some girls who must have been wearing a hundred. The rings are made of lacquered cane and not wire, as I originally thought—so that disposes of a story I was told about Kachins stealing telegraph wire to make them with! Sometimes a silver or a brass ring is worn amongst the black, and the rings were devised originally as a protection against rape—or so it is supposed—though now they have become so much a conventional part of the costume that even little girls of four or five wear them. “ Palaungkataung lies 3,000 feet up, so I was not sorry when [ arrived. It was then eleven o’clock. The climb had taken me three hours and a half. It was cool up there and I was glad enough to sit in the sunshine. The old Kachin who was in charge brought me outa chair and a glass of water and I settled down to await the arrival of the coolies and the materialisation of breakfast with the best patience I could. The bungalow is magnificently situated on the top of a hill. The view is extensive and you can see plainly what land is under cultivation—and a very small proportion of it is, just a strip along both sides of a stream here and there, and by the Irrawaddy ; all the rest is jungle. “ At 12.30 Valu and the coolies turned up, but it was an hour more before breakfast was ready. Valu is a good cook, but he likes to take his time. After breakfast I got the old Kachin caretaker to show me the village, which consists of some half-dozen long low huts half-hidden amongst the jungle greenery. His own hut was, I imagine, typical of the 181 Peacocks and Pagodas rest. At one end the overhanging roof forms a stable or shelter for cattle in bad weather. You pass through this and climb up on to a platform three feet above the ground, where there is a door in the matting wall on the left leading to the living room or kitchen, and another on the right leading to the rooms set apart for married members of the family, the room dedicated to the use of the young girls, and another room containing a sacrificial altar. These rooms I was not invited to inspect. The living-room ran the whole length of the hut. The floor was of bamboo and springy. There were no windows, and light could only come through the door or through the interstices of the bamboo flooring or roof. Half- way down was a fireplace consisting of a square of bricks and nothing more. There was no furniture whatever except a dirty mat or two and a small platform of bamboo that may have done duty as a bed. An old Kachin woman was squatting on the floor picking over green-stuff and throwing it into a cooking-pot. She was very dirty and tousled and her appearance was not bettered by an enormous goitre. Another woman, still dirtier, and if possible uglier, sat on a mat in the sunshine repairing a filthy rag of a garment, and a couple of children fairly caked with muck were playing with a mangy puppy. On the whole I feel glad I was not born a Kachin. ““T photographed the family and then continued my tour of inspection. The next house would have made a good picture if I could have induced a girl who was at work husking paddy to come outside. But she wouldn’t. She had the 182 A Kachin Village most astonishing mass of bobbed hair and a vast number of hip rings, and she was working like a Trojan with a Brobdingnagian pestle and mortar—the pestle a bit of timber five or six feet long and six inches thick, the mortar a heavy log of wood stood on end and hollowed out. She lifted the great pestle with both hands and drove it down with a grunt—indeed, it was enough to make anybody grunt— and kept at it steadily as long as I watched her. Unfortun- ately she was working under cover of the projecting roof and a photograph was impossible. “Thad been told that there was another village worth a visit a mile and a half farther on, so I got the old Kachin to take me there. It was much the same as Palaungkataung only more so. Long thatched huts, jungle all round, a sandy track through the middle, plantain trees with big shining leaves, dirty old hags and dirty children, and dirty old men with a dozen scraggy hairs representing a beard, and four or five scraggy hairs representing a moustache. Very poor specimens of ‘beavers.’ But everything extremely picturesque notwithstanding the squalor. “That night was even colder than the night at Momauk. I slept in my clothes with every available covering, and my boy slept in the cookhouse with a fire going all night. We started back at half-past seven the next morning, had breakfast at the bungalow at Momauk and reached Bhamo by gharry at about two o’clock that afternoon.” The Kachins (otherwise “‘Chingpawin’’) are found all 183 Peacocks and Pagodas over the hill-country of North-East Burma. They are supposed to have come down from the sources of the Irrawaddy, and, being a war-like people, have gradually driven the Palaungs, the Chins, and the Shans southwards and westwards, and occupied their territory. They are short in stature, the men averaging only 5 feet 4 inches in height, and the women 4 feet 114 inches. But they are sturdy and strong, particularly the women, who do the larger part of the labour and are accustomed to climbing up and down the mountain paths with heavily-loaded baskets on their backs. The features of the Kachin betray Tartar origin, with oblique eyes, high cheekbones, and squat nose. The forehead is low and the whole face broad and square. Eyes and hair are black, or a very deep shade of brown. Most of the women I saw wore their hair bobbed. It hung like a thick mop, covering the ears, and reaching at the back almost to the collar. Some of the younger ones, in spite of the dark colour of their skins and the need of a good wash, were quite attractive in appearance. Hospitality to strangers is universal amongst the Kachins as with many other uncivilised and semi-civilised peoples. A stranger must remove his arms before entering a house, keep away from the private apartments, and be careful to observe certain other rules of etiquette; he can then stay and share the family meals for as longas he likes. In fact,he can claim hospitality as a right, and breaches of the law of hospitality, or refusal to entertain a stranger, involve the offender in a “ debt.”’ 184 About the Kachins H. F. Hertz, to whose handbook on the Kachin language I am indebted for much of my information about this tribe, states that the Kachins never forgive an injury. They will wait for years to revenge themselves and, failing success, will pass the duty on to children and grandchildren. As an illustration of Kachin revenge the case is quoted of a Kachin called Hparaw Sau Lai, who was killed at Kamaing in a fight between British and Kachins in 1889. Ten years later, when one would have thought the incident forgotten, a Gurkha family, consisting of a man and his wife and a child, were murdered by the son and relatives of Hparaw Sau Lai. Although the Gurkhas were not British, they were “ foreigners,” and consequently their blood sufficed to wipe out the feud. The brother of the murdered man, who was a child at the time of the murder, is now a Subadar (platoon commander) in the Kachin Regiment. He served in the war and has the I.D.S.M. and I.0.M. to his credit, the latter, curiously enough, for disarming a Gurkha who had run amok. The Kachins’ bad points are personal uncleanliness, an addiction to getting drunk on rice-beer, and a fondness for the opium pipe. The use of opium, which has increased rapidly during the last twenty or thirty years, has resulted, according to Hertz, in both moral and physical deterioration. The Kachin, it is said, will do more to obtain a little opium than he will for anything else. Amongst his good points are faithfulness to those to whom he is attached, a dislike of foul conversation and abuse, and a morality in domestic life which is something of an 185 Peacocks and Pagodas object-lesson to the West. This last is doubtless due to the perfectly natural relations which exist between the sexes. In this connection these further extracts from the book I have mentioned may be found of interest : Great freedom is permitted to young people before marriage, and, outside the forbidden degrees of consanguinity, they may consort as they please. This custom has not resulted, as is popularly believed, in promiscuous intercourse and a general condition of immorality. The Kachin maiden, like most girls, takes some wooing before she is won, but having fixed her affections on a man, she may live with him without shame, and is usually faithful to the person she has chosen. If they do not care for each other, they part, and it is no one else’s business, each party being free to take up with anyone else. If they care for each other sufficiently, they marry. The result is stated to be that unchastity after marriage is practically unknown. To give greater facilities for courtship and for what might be called probationary matrimony, most houses have the “nla dap,” maiden’s apartment, which is intended for the use of young people only. Young men courting Kachin girls are perfectly aware of the risks they run and the penalties they are liable to under certain circumstances. If a child is the result of the temporary union, it is usual to arrange for the accouchment to take place in the man’s house, and the man hasto killa bullock and pigs to appease the “‘nats’”’ of the damsel’s house. In addition he has to pay a fine to the parents of a spear, a gong, a dah, and some pieces of cloth (and sometimes a bullock or a buffalo), or else marry her; otherwise, the parents have a debt against him. On payment of the fine the man can take or leave the child just as he prefers. Subsequent marriage, however, legitimises the bastard. In either case there is no blot on the character of the woman. Polyandry does not exist, but polygamy is permissible. For a man, however, to take more than two wives is rare; sometimes, however, hecannot help himself. Successive brothers are supposed to take unto themselves deceased elder brothers’ widows. Occasionally, 186 Morality, Courtship and Marriage when the working of this rule would be a hardship from giving one man a plethora of females, it is permissible to make an arrange- ment for a still younger brother or even a stranger to take the widow. The widow has to be taken care of and fed by her husband’s family, even if none of them will act the part of husband by her. If they do not she returns to her own household, and then this constitutes a “debt ”’ which has to be liquidated in blood or money. It seems that Kachin parents often favour a marriage of convenience for their daughter, as parents sometimes do in more civilised communities. When such a catastrophe threatens a Kachin girl, the only escape possible is abduction by her lover. Hence presumably the popular form of marriage, of which the following description is given : The Tumsa’s verdict being favourable (the Tumsa is a seer), the bridegroom sends some of his friends to the house of a “ lugyi’ or respectable man in the village where his intended resides. This lugyi is termed ‘Chang Tung.’’ The emissaries inform the Chang Tung whom they wish to carry off and display the presents which the intending husband has sent. There is a more or less recognised scale of presents due according to the social standing of the damsel, and the Chang Tung goes by it. If he considers the present insufficient, he mentions what is still required. The matter is discussed and the exact presents are finally fixed, agreements being made to make up deficiencies at the first opportunity. By the Chang Tung’s connivance the girl is decoyed to his house and seized and carried off. This usually occurs at night. Next morning the Chang Tung goes over to the parents and informs them of what has happened and displays the presents. As a rule they, being on the recognised scale, are accepted. Occasionally, however, the parents go in pursuit, and so long as the religious marriage ceremony has not been performed and the parties are not man and wife they can take the girl back. If, however, the religious ceremonies have been gone through, they are too late and must acquiesce. The religious and other ceremonies performed in case the girl is not recaptured 187 Peacocks and Pagodas are similar to those used in the more regular or elaborate form of marriage aS common among people of high respectability. The regular form of marriage, which is too long to describe in full, consists of sacrifices to the nats in addition to other ceremonial, and concludes with a great marriage feast at which there is drunkenness, disorder, and often a free fight. Presents on the recognised scale are also given by the bridegroom to the parents of the bride. The customs on the birth of a child are curious. All the friends and neighbours are assembled and regaled on Kachin beer. The midwife has to give the child its name at the instant of birth and so prevent any malignant nat from stepping in and naming it first, in which case it will pine away and die. The naming of the child is according to rule; the first male child is always called Kam, and the first female child, Kaw ; the second boy Nawng, and the second girl Lu ; and so on. If there is much labour it is believed that hostile nats are at work and a Tumsa is fetched to discover, with the aid of pieces of bamboo, whether the nats are the house-nats or nats from the jungle. The jungle nats are supposed to be the spirits of those who have died either in child-bed or from violence, and, as they want companions, they try to seize the woman and child. If the divinations ofthe Tumsa reveal the presence of jungle nats, guns are fired offall round the house and along the path leading to the village, arrows are shot under the house, dahs and torches are brandished over the mother’s body, and finally old rags and anything else likely to produce a noisome smell are burnt 188 Kachin Folk-lore under the floor. If, on the other hand, the bamboos point to the house-nats as the authors of the trouble, they are propitiated by offerings and sacrifices in the usual way. For three days after the birth the mother keeps to the house. Very early on the morning of the fourth day she goes with an old woman of the village to the well. The old woman brings a spear and throws it in the direction of the well, calling as she does so on all evil spirits to depart. The mother then bathes and washes her clothes, and thereafter is free to do as she likes. A woman who has died in child-birth is not buried, but burnt, and until recently it was usual to throw the child into the fire also, but this latter custom is fortunately dying out. The Kachins to this day are animists, or spirit-worshippers, just as were the Burmese many hundreds of yearsago. Every house has its nat shrine, and it is acommon sight to see the heads of bullocks and other animals that have been sacrificed to the nats stuck on posts at the entrance to a Kachin house. Missionaries, however, particularly Roman Catholics and American Baptists, have of late years been active amongst them, and a certain number of Kachins have become Christians. Here, at least, is a field where missionary work can do nothing but good. Another civilising influence is the recruitment of Kachins into the Police and into the Kachin Regiment now stationed at Meiktila. According to Kachin tradition things visible and invisible evolved from mist or vapour, passing through various stages until the first spirits, Hkrip Hkrawp and Sik Sawp, came into 189 Peacocks and Pagodas being. Sik Sawp was female, and represented the heaven. Hkrip Hkrawp was male and represented the earth. The union of Hkrip Hkrawp and Sik Sawp brought into existence Janun and Woishun, who in their turn married and gave birth to all things in heaven and earth, including a being, half- spirit and half-man, called N’gawn wa Magam. N’gawn wa Magam with a big hammer gave shape and beauty to the earth and made it habitable for human beings. Long ago, says Kachin folk-lore, N’gawn wa Magam summoned all mankind and all beasts to come tohim. When they were gathered together he gave to the foreigners and Manipuris books, to the hornbills lymph with which to dress their feathers, to the Burmans, Shans and Chinese, writing on paper, and to the Kachins writing on parchment. All the races except the Kachins returned home, and were careful to preserve the writings which N’gawn wa Magam had given them. The Kachins, however, ran short of food on the way, and in order to appease the pangs of hunger, roasted and ate the parchment. That is why they have remained illiterate up to this day. Presently N’gawn wa Magam again summoned all men. The Burmans, Shans, Chinese and foreigners consulted the writings previously given to them and _ thus discovered that it was the time for the distribution of riches. They took to the meeting the largest baskets they could carry. The Kachins, having eaten their parchment, had nothing to consult. They therefore went to N’gawn wa Magam provided only with small bags or haversacks of cloth. 190 The Wild Kachin When the assembly was complete N’gawn wa Magam opened chests and boxes containing treasures of gold and silver and distributed the contents. The Burmans, Shans, Chinese and foreigners were able to fill their great baskets to the brim, but the Kachins could only take as much as their bags would hold. That is the reason they are so poor. A third time came a summons from N’gawn wa Magam. Once more the Burmans, Shans, Chinese and Kalas (foreigners), consulted their writings. They discovered that it was time for the distribution of nats. They, therefore, took with them flowers as offerings. The Kachins, however, anticipating, in their ignorance, a further distribution of riches, and determined, this time, to make no mistake, took with them the largest baskets they could carry. When all were assembled N’gawn wa Magam told the Burmans, Shans, Chinese and Kalas to offer their flowers to the nats. But, seeing the Kachins without flowers, he filled their baskets with nats and sent them away. That is the reason the Kachins to this day have so many nats. THE WILD KACHIN. (From ‘‘The Incomplete Guide to Burma,’’ by R. Swinhoe and T. Martin Jones.) Where the Irrawaddy flows From the everlasting snows, Where the fisher binds the hackle To his very stoutest tackle ; Where the bison fierce and black Prods you slyly in the back. IQI Peacocks and Pagodas There you'll find the wild Kachin, What a horrid mess he’s in! What a mass of grease and dirt ; Can you call that rag a shirt ? See that clout around his head ! Why are all his teeth so red ? Do you think he understands How to wash his face and hands ? Let us scrub him if we can, He’s a pukka savage man ! Catch him when he’s barely twenty, Scrub him daily, good and plenty, Change the water when it’s black, Peel the clothes from off his back, All the clothes he’s ever worn Since the day that he was born ; Thus by slow degrees you can Come upon the inner man. Labour on in faith and hope (Mind he doesn’t eat the soap !) Bye and bye you'll get him clean, What a transformation scene ! Now when all the scrubbing’s done, Dry him quickly in the sun, Then to keep him nice and warm Dress him up in uniform. Wind a turban long and red Fifty times around his head. Tunic, breeches, belt complete, Hob-nailed boots upon his feet, Putties, rifle, bag and “ dah,’’ Stand him up and there you are! What becomes of those who state Miracles are out of date ? No Kachin before was seen So preposterously clean, 192 The Wild Kachin Turned from such a state of grease Into Military P’lice! Surely those who changed him so Earn at least a D.S.O. Many an officer, I guess, Gets a K.C.B. for less! 193 13 CHAPTER XII Departure from Bhamo—Thabeitkyin—The Drive to the Ruby Mines— Mogok—The Ruby Mines—Snake Stories—The Dangers of Hair- washing—‘‘ Just Sitting’’—Spirit Worship—A Nightmare—A Chest of Rubies. ONSTANT farewells are one of the penalties of travelling. The traveller meets pleasant people, makes friends, and in a few days says good-bye and departs to repeat the process elsewhere. It is inevitable. But there is something sad in the thought that friends even of a few days—for friendship amongst those who make friends easily is not a question of time—must be left behind and lost, or at best survive only in the memory. In the hurry and confusion of the struggle for existence, now multiplied a hundredfold by the complications of civilisation, we have little time to spare for matters which, however vital to happiness, do not help us forward towards the competency for which most of us are striving. It makes one wonder whether the Burman, contented with a paddy patch, a couple of bullocks, and a wife to do most of the work, isn’t, after all, a good deal better off than we are. At least he has leisure to keep in touch with his friends if he wants to do so. I left Bhamo, as I left every place in Burma, with regret. It was New Year’s morning. I had been entertained by the 194 “AUUGA AHI AOA ONILIVM iN 3 eae PF ILL LLL @ 2 eS tyr ee ee net Fente velit prety SUSE aga Te S Nigh a ral ‘ ya f ae, ly i oat 4 5 a 4 “hi ‘ : | ; af 7: 4 ops i < j ‘« yids actu Ve 1 M4 v ¥ ~ fa ANG Werear verry. lear Sar — : | a eR, Departure from Bhamo hospitable European community at the club, where we had seen the Old Year out and the New Year in with the usual ceremonies. The ferry-boat which was to take me back down river was tied up at the landing float, and my boy had already gone aboard with the kit. I made my adieus and walked away from the club and through the sleeping town. There was not a soul to be seen until I reached the river bank where the caravans from China foregather. Here in the moonlight parties of muleteers lay asleep under their blankets surrounded by tethered mules and all the para- phernalia of mule travel ; some watchmen sat round a fire, stolidly smoking and chewing; and the river, a sheet of burnished silver, stretched at my feet. The ferry-boat was nearly in darkness. A single oil lamp lit the great main-deck. As I made my way forward amongst the sleeping passengers, Valu, who was on the look-out, got up from his mat, and, having lit a candle, showed me to my cabin inthesaloon. A few minutes later, like everybody else, I was sound asleep. So began the year of grace 1923. The next morning a light mist enveloped us. But never- theless soon after daybreak the ferry-boat pushed off and, picking her way carefully between the lines of buoys, began the trip southwards. That evening we reached Katha. I had introductions to several people there, but found a dance in progress at the club, and not feeling disposed for a second late night, returned to the boat without having called on anyone. I slept on board, and continued the trip down 197 Peacocks and Pagodas river the next day. My immediate objective was that part of Burma with the romantic name “‘ The Ruby Mines,” of which the town of Mogok (accent on last syllable, as usual) is thecentre. A river village called Thabeitkyin connects with Mogok, sixty miles inland, by means of a service of motor lorries. The ferry-boat reached Thabeitkyin at about half- past four in the afternoon. At the top of the bank I found a dak bungalow, and some motor garages, besides a few native shops, and on enquiry was told that a lorry would be starting for Mogok at eleven the next day. I therefore settled into the bungalow for the night. As I had plenty of time I did not hurry to turn out in the morning. But to my annoyance, just as I was enjoying those precious last few minutes in bed, a man came up from the garage to say that the lorry was about to start. I hada sort of wash, a sort of shave, and hurried into my clothes while Valu packed the kit. And in record time I was down at the lorry. I had forgotten that “ starting immedi- ately ’’ in Burma means any time within the next half-hour or so. After considerable delay the lorry was loaded up with passengers and with goods of various kinds. Valu was put in the back with some Indians, Burmese and Chinese, I was given the seat in front next to the driver, and eventually, at about 8.30, we started. The drive from Thabeitkyin to Mogok takes six hours. But the scenery is so fine, and the excitements of the journey are so thrilling, that it does not seem long. The road, which passes now through jungle, now through the open, twists and 198 The Drive to the Ruby Mines twines in the most bewildering fashion. Hardly anywhere else will you find such corkscrew turns and such hairpin bends. At one moment you are facing East, and the next moment West. The lorry slowly pants up an incline of about one in five, and almost before you know it you are tearing down hill with the engine shut off. Many of the corners are blind, and there is often a drop of several hundred feet at one side of the road. Several times during the journey I clutched the seat, thinking we were over, and every few minutes I dug my feet into an imaginary brake as we took a sharp curve without concerning ougselves with the possibility of meeting anything on the other side—though to be quite fair to the driver, I ought to say that he did sound his horn about once in every five miles. At half-way we stopped to give the passengers an opportunity of stretching their legs and of getting some food from a roadside stall. Although I had come away breakfast- less, the dainties displayed did not tempt me, but I was glad to walk up and down in the sun and restore circulation. We were by this time several thousand feet up and the air was getting chilly. I couldn’t help envying an old Chinaman, who was one of the passengers, the great padded coat he was wearing. I gathered from the driver that wild animals—sambur, gyi, and bear—are often encountered on the road. Also that they saw a tiger during one of their journeys in the previous week. But I saw nothing, either on this trip or on the return journey, except a few monkeys. 199 Peacocks and Pagodas The road became more interesting the further we went and the higher we climbed. The views from the highest point, about 5,000 feet, were magnificent, and reminded me of the views in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas. We passed through one or two isolated villages, then through a POTTERY SELLERS AT MOGOK. “ small mining town, and at last, at about 2.30, we arrived at Mogok. I was not sorry, as, although the driver’s seat boasted a cushion, which the back seats did not, six hours in a motor lorry on an empty stomach, and with inadequate clothing, is not altogether a joy-ride. 200 Mogok The two features of Mogok which first struck me were corrugated iron and wild cherry in blossom. The town, which consists chiefly of tumble-down tin houses, might easily be a raw mining town in Alaska. It was anything but picturesque. But the magnificent cherry trees in which it has its setting at this season of the year, are most beautiful. CHATTY SELLERS. Such masses of pink blossom must be seen to be believed. In addition to the wild cherry there are several species of pine (this was the first time I had seen pines in Burma), and many magnificent clumps of giant bamboo. The town lies in a basin surrounded by mountains. This basin was at one time a lake, but the water was drawn off by means of a tunnel a mile in length. It is in this old lake bed that the 201 Peacocks and Pagodas rubies are found. The main part of the town straggles along the edge of the old mine workings---a heterogeneous mixture of pagodas, wooden buildings, and corrugated iron. We are told that everything that serves a useful purpose has a beauty of its own, but surely corrugated iron must be an exception. Even when disguised with red paint it is depressing and sordid, and few of the Mogok buildings even rise to that. The inhabitants, though, are picturesque enough. There are Burmese, Indians, Chinese, Shans, Shan-Tayoks, Lisaws, besides members of other local tribes, each with something distinctive in their costume, whose names I do not know. Most of them, except the Indian, who clings to his puggaree, wear the big mushroom sun-hats that are a feature of this locality. The dak bungalow was full. I was, therefore, obliged to take up my quarters in the Circuit House. It was formerly the residence of the District Commissioner, and is conse- quently better built and more commodious than Circuit Houses usually are. It stands in its own grounds, which command an extensive view of the town and the surrounding mountains. But the point about it which I particularly appreciated was the fireplace in my bedroom. At this altitude, 4,000 feet, there is a great difference between the temperature during the daytime and after the sun has set. As I was exceedingly short of bedding I was thankful, not only for the fire, but also for the mattress on the bed—an unusual feature in Circuit Houses and dak bungalows, where the beds are generally camp cots. The whole of the 202 The Ruby Mines furnishings were on modern lines and included carpets, curtains, upholstered armchairs, and clean white linen for the table. In fact, it was a palatial Circuit House, and the charges, as I anticipated and afterwards discovered, were on a scale quite commensurate. Even with the fire and the mattress, I found it very cold at night, and had to have recourse to my mosquito curtain as an extra covering. A mosquito curtain, if it is not needed to keep away mosquitoes, is a very useful standby in such a situation. It holds the heat like a cellular undergarment, and is consequently much warmer than might at first sight be imagined. As soon as possible after my installation in the Circuit House I had tea in solitary state in the great dining-room. The table was covered with a gleaming table-cloth, a luxury to which I was unaccustomed, and flowers stood in a vase— nasturtiums, petunias, and roses, cut from the garden outside. There is nothing like the scent of a rose to carry the imagina- tion of the wanderer back to England, even if he happens to be in a country where the rose is indigenous—which in Britain it is not. I began to feel conscious of a slight depression. After tea I made my way to the house of the manager of the ruby mines, to whom I had an introduction. The opening part of our conversation did not serve to cheer me. Myself: ‘‘ Is there anything particular to see here ? ’ The Mines Manager: “ No.” Myself: ‘‘ Is there anywhere to go?” 203 Peacocks and Pagodas The Mines Manager: “ No.” Myself: ‘‘Is there anything to do?” The Mines Manager: “ No.” Myself: ““ What about the mines?” The Mines Manager : ‘‘ You can go over them if you want to, but there is nothing to see.” There is a great difference, however, between the point of view of a bored resident, and that of a newly-arrived visitor. I gladly availed myself of the permission to visit the mines, and went to the mines office by appointment on the following morning. I found the manager sorting stones. He had spread them out on a large dish of burnished copper. They were uncut rubies, spinels, and sapphires and, seen in the mass with the sunlight reflected through them from the polished copper, were a magnificent sight. The chief market for rubies is, I was told, India. Comparatively few go to England. The largest stone ever found at Mogok was sold for £20,000. One found in October, 1922, is said to be worth half that sum. The latter has been named “‘ The Lady Craddock,”’ after the wife of the last Lieut.-Governor of Burma. At the time of my visit it was unsold. But it is not everyone who is prepared to pay such huge sums. Five per cent. interest on {10,000 is £500, and on £20,000 is £1,000. £1,000 a year, or even £500, is a lot to pay for the privilege of owning a large ruby, and the fact that it is possible to find people ready to pay it makes one sympathise with the point of view of those who favour a capital levy, for, at least on the face of it, 204 Snake Stories the locking up of capital in this way does not appear to serve any useful purpose. I was subsequently taken over the mines and shown the various operations. Chinese coolies in blue overalls and great mushroom hats were digging with mattocks into the red and yellow cliffs. The earth was taken in trolleys to the mill, where it was passed through large tanks full of water and churned up by machinery. The muddy water was then drained off and the residue of pebbles, amongst which were the rubies, carefully sorted through. Some of the sorters were coolies, and these wore enormous masks entirely covering the head and making it impossible for stones to be disposed of by swallowing or otherwise. I dined that evening with the mines manager, and as | happened to mention that I had just seen a snake in the Circuit House garden, the conversation turned on snakes. He told me that recently, when out shooting, he had come across a couple of hamadryads, each seven or eight feet long. A hamadryad is said to sometimes attack a man on sight, but in this instance neither reptile showed any such inclina- tion. Instead of attacking, they both glided away into the undergrowth as any other kind of snake would have done. A hamadryad (otherwise ‘“ King Cobra’’) can travel as fast as a man can run, and I am told—though I accept the information with reserve—that it progresses by forming its body into a series of vertical loops instead of wriggling horizontally and laterally as other snakes do. It is a big beast growing to twelve or thirteen feet in length, and by 205 Peacocks and Pagodas reason of its poison fangs, is far more dangerous than the python, though the python is often very much larger and more formidable in appearance. The snake charmers who live at Mount Popa work with wild hamadryads caught in the jungle, and not with snakes which have been kept for any period and trained. They do not extract the poison fangs, but are so quick in avoiding the reptile’s strike that they seldom get bitten. They profess to have a specific which cures snakebite, but it doesn’t always work. The daughter of one of the snake charmers of Popa died recently from snakebite, despite the remedy, so I was told by the D.C. of Myingyan, in whose district Mount Popa lies. On the other hand, there appear to have been authentic cases where the remedy was successful. Some time ago, before the days of motor lorries, the mines manager was riding up from Thabeitkyin to Mogok in the company of a general who was visiting Burma. The general asked if it was true, as he had been told, that in Burma snakes hang by the tail from tree branches and attack unwary passers-by, The mines manager laughed the notion to scorn. He had heard such stories but they were utter nonsense. No snake, he asserted, ever hung from a tree by its tail, He had lived for many years in Burma and had never seen such a thing nor ever would. It is hardly necessary to continue the story. As will be anticipated, the two men had not ridden on for more than a quarter of a mile when the general exclaimed with a note of triumph: “ Then, what about that? ”’’ The mines manager followed the 206 The Dangers of Hair-Washing direction of the general’s finger, and there, sure enough, was a snake hanging from a branch by its tail and swaying its body to and fro as if in search of a victim. As I was wandering rather aimlessly the next morning SORTING STONES. in the neighbourhood of the mines, I came across women and girls busy in a nullah sorting stones. These stones were the waste from the mill which contains enough small rubies to make it worth the while of a contractor to purchase. The girls were all either wearing their big hats, or had them 207 Peacocks and Pagodas propped up on sticks to shelter them from the sun. They were well worth sketching, so I sat down on the bank above and took out my book. Immediately there was a rush to hide, and all that was left to draw was a maximum of hat and a minimum of girl. But their work had to be done, whether there was a “ thakin ’’ up on the bank with a sketchbook or not, and in the end I got the pictures I wanted. When their shyness had quite worn off they came up to see the result, and there was much excited laughter and chaff and thumbing of my unfortunate sketchbook. Burmese girls, though they are a little coy about it at first, rather like being sketched. I had had an amusing half-hour at Bhamo on the previous Sunday morning, drawing the women-folk on the foreshore washing themselves, their clothes, and their babies. The babies howled vigorously when the water was poured over them. But the more they howled the more their Spartan mothers soused them. At Bhamo, as at Mogok, curiosity conquered shyness, and they all came and peeped over my shoulder, and laughed and chaffed and chattered and dropped water down my neck from their wet lungyis. At Mogok, where there is no river except a muddy stream from the mine workings, everyone washes at the street fountains. Both men and women are often to be seen washing their long hair there, and this hair-washing recently led toa tragedy. A man was standing at a fountain with his head bent down and neck exposed while he rubbed his wet locks with both hands. Another man passed by, saw the neck 208 ee See ee ee ee ee “ Just Sitting” stretched out invitingly, and immediately drew his dah and cut the man’s head off. The wielder of the dah, who was afterwards tried and hanged, explained that he had always hated the other man and all his relations, that in fact he couldn’t bear the sight of him, and that when such an oppor- tunity presented itself—well, what else could anyone expect ? He seemed to think this quite a sufficient defence. The judge, however, did not agree. A recent visitor to a Burmese gaol saw a miserable figure sitting at the door ofa cell. “What is this man here for ? ” he asked. “ For murder.”’ “What does he do all day?” “Nothing. He is a leper and both his hands are gone. There is nothing he can do. He just sits there.” “What is his sentence ? ”’ “Twenty years.” Twenty years sitting at the door of acell! Who wouldn’t rather be hanged ? Near the spot where the women were sorting stones was a grove of trees. Amongst the trees stood three little shrines. These were nat shrines, and they contained flowers and candles which had been placed there as offerings to the spirits which are believed by the Burmese to inhabit the grove. The Westerner, who refuses to sit down thirteen to table, who never walks under a ladder without crossing the fingers, who bows to the new moon and turns his money, who throws spilt salt over his left shoulder, and does many other childish 209 14 Peacocks and Pagodas things in order to avert bad luck, will naturally laugh at this superstition of the Burmese. Nevertheless, as I stood in the grove I was conscious of an eerie feeling. And after all, it is at least as difficult to disprove the existence of tree spirits as to prove it, while in support of the Burman’s view there are cases on record of disaster following spoliation of these sacred trees, as was admitted to me by one of the English residents. So the Burman would appear to have the better of the argument. The Buddhist religion, strictly speaking, does not countenance the belief in nats, and forbids anything at all in the nature of spirit worship. Yet all over Burma nat shrines are found by the pagodas and sacred buildings. Often the shrine takes the form of an umbrella made in an elaborate design of metal-work. Beneath the umbrella is a little altar on which offerings are placed. At some of the poorer villages I have seen, not an imitation umbrella, but an ordinary umbrella of oiled linen set up by a pagoda for the same purpose. Even at the great Shwe Dagon pagoda in Rangoon thereisanat shrine. So that animism, the old form of religion, still persists alongside the new—if one can calla religion new that dates back several centuries B.C. The depression at which I have hinted seemed to grow worse the longer I remained in Mogok. It took the curious form of a distaste for meeting anybody. Several times I went to the club with the intention of looking in, knowing that I should be sure of a welcome. But each time a feeling of shyness kept me back and in the end I never went at all. 210 a ew SP Se ee ee ee A Nightmare To make matters worse, I was obliged to stay on several days longer than I had meant to do, as there was no boat from Thabeitkyin to Mandalay. I am at a loss to account for the mood that I was in. Perhaps the corrugated iron had entered into my soul. Or perhaps it was the knowledge of the miles of impenetrable forest which hem Mogok on every side—a form of claustrophobia with which all who have to live for long periods in the jungle are acquainted. But whatever the cause, the depression gained on me, until it culminated on my last night in a horribly vivid dream. I thought I was on a jury and had to view a body. The body was that of a man who had been decapitated. It lay all scarred and bloody on a table. The severed head was rolling on the floor. As I looked at the head it moved, and the eyelids began to flicker. Then it mysteriously acquired an amorphous body, and staggering to its feet lurched towards me, gasping in a strangled voice, “I’m not dead yet, old chap!” At which point, mercifully, I awoke. But the dream was followed by a waking nightmare of depres- sion that was even worse. It is hard to believe how inconceivably miserable I felt, and how thankful I was when the tardy dawn came to bring a little relief. The lorry was coming to pick me up at 7.30. So I had breakfast at seven, and then asked the durwan for my bill. It was Rs. 50 for four days, but as the fellow produced a paper showing the prices he was authorised to charge, I had to pay it with the best grace Icould. Anyone contemplating a visit to Mogok had better give the Circuit House a miss, 211 Peacocks and Pagodas unless expense is no object. The food supplied was exceedingly poor, and I left in a bad temper feeling certain that I had been “ done.”’ As soon as the lorry had gone too far to turn back, I remembered to my intense disgust that I had paid the old thief of a durwan four rupees for a dinner that I never had. This didn’t mend matters. And finally, by way of a last straw, came an enforced wait of over an hour at the garage while some trifling repair was made to the belt that drives the fan. It took half-a-dozen people all this time to do a job that an English mechanic would have finished in ten minutes. At a small mining town a few miles out of Mogok we stopped to pick up some freight. This consisted of a packing- case covered with canvas and Chinese hieroglyphics. I asked what it contained and was told rubies, which, judging by the great weight, must have been secured ina steel safe. It was a problem how to get the package upon to the lorry. But about half the population of the place came to help, and finally the difficulty was overcome by roping the case and putting a stout length of the ever-useful bamboo through the rope. Two men then stooped down and took the ends of the bamboo upon their shoulders and, with much straining and effort and plenty of vocal encouragement from the onlookers, managed to reach an upright position. Then willing hands shoved and pushed and lifted until at last the case was manceuvred safely on to the floor of the lorry. It was hard work, but instead of scratching their heads and pulling long faces over it, as one can imagine a British workman doing, these Burmese laughed 212 A Chest of Rubies and chattered, and treated the whole affair as a huge joke. It was an object lesson in cheerfulness, and incidentally showed the great strength of the bamboo; anything else would have snapped under the strain; the elasticity of the bamboo saved it. The run back to Thabeitkyin was without other incident, and wild animals were again conspicuous by their absence. The driver stated that if I had done the trip either in the early morning or late evening, I should have seen sambur by the hundred. I was reminded of the many occasions when I have gone fishing, only to be told by the keeper, “What a pity you weren’t here last week, sir! The fish were rising grand. But now the stream’s too fine. If we get a bit of rain and so on and so forth. I was unfeignedly glad to get back to the river again. The broad open stretches, the fresh breeze, the sense of space, freedom and air, were a tonic to the spirits. My depression had completely vanished long before the boat reached Mandalay. >) 213 CHAPTER XIII King Mindon Min’s Church—The Mandalay Massacres—A Burmese Service—Pi-dogs—The Palace of Mindon Min—Mosquitoes—The ~ Arakan Pagoda—Leper Asylums—Chin-lon—Tattooing. CHURCH building which is the gift of a monarch A of one faith to missionaries of another faith working to establish their religion in his own country, must surely be unique. Christ Church, Mandalay, can claim this remarkable distinction, and as I was the guest of the hospitable padre during my stay, and consequently able to ascertain the facts at first hand, I give the story here. In 1867, Dr. Marks, the $.P.G. missionary in Rangoon, heard from Major Sladen, the British Political Agent, at the Court of King Mindon Min, that the time was favourable for the establishment of a Christian Mission in Mandalay. The King, he said, had not only given permission for a Christian Church and school, but had promised every possible assistance. The following year Dr. Marks went to Mandalay to see the King and to begin the work, and in his diary he thus chronicles his adventures : I left on August 28th, 1868, accompanied by six of my best first- class boys from Rangoon, and reached the capital city of Mandalay on October 8th, where we were most hospitably received by Major Sladen, who had but recently returned from his expedition. On 214 eS A ee ee a ee ee ee eee ae King Mindon Min’s Church the following day the Kulla Woon (foreign minister) came to tell me that the king had been very impatient about my coming; was very glad to hear of my arrival, and would appoint an early day for an audience. On Saturday I went out to see the city. It is large and well laid out, the streets wide and at right angles, but the houses mean and irregular. There are in Mandalay more than 20,000 yellow-robed Buddhist priests. On Sunday we had English service at the Residency, and on Monday, October 11th, I went to the palace (which seems to occupy about one-eighth of the city, and is itself fortified by a stockade all round) with Major Sladen and the Kulla Woon. On reaching the steps we all had to take off our shoes, and then walk a considerable distance, to the apartment in the garden where the king was receiving. We entered the room, in which were very many of the Burmese high officials and ministers seated on the floor. We, too, seated, or rather squatted, ourselves down. In a few minutes the king came in, attended by a little boy, one of his sons. The king is a tall, stout, thoroughly Burmese-looking man, about fifty-five years of age. He had on only one garment, the putso, or beautiful silk cloth covering from his waist to his feet. He reclined on a velvet carpet, near which the little prince placed the golden betel-box and water-cup, and then reverentially retired. As the king entered every Burmese bowed his head to the ground and kept it there. His majesty, according to his usual custom, took up a pair of binocular glasses, and had a good stare at us. He then asked if I was the English hpoongyee, when did I arrive, how old was I, etc. Hethen asked me what requests I had to make to him, assuring me that all were granted before I spoke. I said that I had four requests to make: (1) Permission to labour as a missionary in Mandalay; (2) To build a church for Christian worship according to the use of the Churchof England; (3) To geta piece of land for a cemetery; (4) To build with his majesty’s help, a Christian school for Burmese boys. With regard to the first, the king said very courteously that he welcomed me to the royal city and that he had impatiently awaited my arrival. I was to choose, with Major Sladen’s advice, a piece ofland foracemetery. That with 215 Peacocks and Pagodas regard to the church and school, his majesty would butld them entirely at his own cost. I told him that the Bishop of Calcutta had most liberally offered £100 towards the church. The king replied, “‘ It is unnecessary, I will do all myself.’ He directed me to prepare the plans, adding that the school was to be built for 3,000 boys. The king said that it was his wish to place someof his own sons under our care, and he sent for nine of the young princes, fine, intelligent-looking lads from about ten years of age, and formally handed them over to me. He handed me a hundred gold pieces (worth £50) to buy books, etc., for the school. The king talked about his high regard for Major Sladen, whose word he could implicitly trust ; of his desire to do all the good in his power, and especially to be friendly to the English. . . . The interview having lasted over two hours, his majesty concluded by inviting my boys and self to breakfast in the palace on the following day. He kindly accepted the present of beautifully-bound books which the Calcutta Committee had been good enough to forward to me for him. Tuesday, 13th.—Major Sladen being too poorly to accompany us, my five boys (Moung Gyee, Moung Hpo Too, Moung Bah Ohn, Moung Tsan Hlah Oiung, and Moung Hpo Ming) went with me to the palace at nine o’clock. We travelled in covered bullock-carts, as it is considered very wrong for a hpoongyee to ride on horseback. We found the king in the Hman Nan Dor (or glass palace), attended by several of his queens and daughters. My boys prostrated themselves, as did the other Burmans, whilst I squatted down in a cramped position, being obliged to keep my feet out of sight. The king was seated on the highest of a flight of six steps. He began by asking if I was comfortably housed and cared for. He reiterated his promises of yesterday and expressed his hope that all would not be in vain. He made me tell him about each boy, and he addressed some kind words to them. I presented him with a telescope, and the boys gave a lot of English toys to the young princes. In return the king gave two putsoes (silk cloths) valued at £3, to each boy. I also presented to the queen, through his majesty, a box of beautiful needle and crochet work made and presented by the Burmese girls in Miss Cook’s school. The king 216 - - a King Mindon Min’s Church pulled out two or three pieces of work, but did not seem to know much about them. He tossed them to the ladies behind him, who evi- dently valued them highly. The king began to talk to the boys about religion. He told them they should not lightly forsake their ancestors’ creed. I interposed, when he laughingly said, ‘“‘O Pone-dor-gyee”’ (‘‘ high hpoongyee,” the name he always gives me), “I and you will talk about these matters alone by ourselves.” I replied that I should be delighted to converse with his majesty on those subjects, which were of the highest moment to all mankind. The king said he only wanted to guard the boys against being rash and foolish, or changing their religion to please men ; that he was perfectly tolerant ; that he had never invited a Mussulman, Hindu, or Christian to become a Buddhist, but that he wished all to worship according to their own way. We were then conducted to another apartment, where a sumptuous breakfast was served to us in English style. My boys and I sat down to table, the Burman attendants wondering to see my lads freely using knives and forks instead of the orthodox fingers in eating. Suddenly my boys all slipped off their chairs on to the ground, and when I looked up to see the cause I found that one of the elder princes, a lad of about seventeen, had entered, having been deputed by his father to see that all was right. I went again to the palace by appointment, with my boys, yesterday morning, to take the plans for the school and teachers’ residence. He approved of the plan with one exception, viz., that the school must not have a triple roof, such being only for princes and hpoongyees. My house is to be so honoured. The king’s Minister for Public Works was called into the presence and ordered at once to commence the work, and to use all expedition in its completion. The king gave me {100 towards school furniture, I told him that I would procure a plan in Rangoon for the church. He repeated that it would trouble him very much if no English hpoongyee came to Mandalay. I assured him that his liberality would not be so despised, but that I really would return myself and open the school. After some further general conversation the king spoke to the boys, and especially to one Aracanese boy whom I adopted in 1863. 217 Peacocks and Pagodas He repeated what he had said before about not forgetting the religion of his ancestors. I said that the boy’s ancestors had not heard the good news which I taught him. The king took no notice of what I said, but continued to the boy, ‘‘ Always remember the Yittanah thon bah (the three objects of devotion), the Payah (deity), Tayah (law), and Thingah (clergy).”’ I said, ‘‘ Christianity teaches us to worship the everlasting God, to obey His laws, and to receive instruction from the clergy.” The king seemed annoyed for a time and then repeated, in his usual good-humoured manner, “I cannot talk with you about religion in public; we will talk about it privately on your return.” He added, ‘ Do not think me an enemy of your religion. If I had been, I should not have called you to my royal city. If, when you have taught people, they enter into your belief, they have my full permission ’’ ; and then, speaking very earnestly, ‘if my own sons, under your instruction, wish to become Christians, I will let them doso. I will not be angry with them. ” The king, it seems, was anxious to obtain for his people educational facilities upon Western lines, and it was probably to this desire that his friendliness to the English missionaries was due, though it may also have been in his mind, as will appear later, to propitiate the British and so regain possession of either Bassein or Rangoon, both of which seaports had been lost in the Burmese wars. That he was broadminded in the matter of religion but had at the same time no leanings towards Christianity seems also clear, and those parts of his speeches which refer to the subject of religion are something of a lesson to us Britishers who are so certain of the superiority of our own institutions that we must needs force them on everybody. In spite of spasmodic efforts on the part of King Mindon Min to raise recruits, the number of pupils at the school 218 King Mindon Min’s Church which Dr. Marks established does not appear at any time to have been large. The attendance of the young princes is related in some old diaries and school records to which I had access, and entries appear recording their having been “kept in ”’ for arriving late. Thibaw, the future king, was one of the students, and his subsequent successful attempt to seize the throne is responsible for notes of more tragic import which conclude certain columns in the school records, such as “‘ assassinated by order of his brother Thibaw.”’ King Mindon seems to have required a good deal of prompting to keep him to his promise to build a church. But in the end the church was built, and in 1873 was consecrated by Bishop Milman, of Calcutta. Queen Victoria interested herself in the venture and presented a marble font which is still in use. In addition to building the church the King appears to have financed the school. But by degrees a breach opened between the King and Dr. Marks, as thus described by the latter in Forty Years in Burma: There gradually came a coolness on the part of the king. Little difficulties had often arisen from the first, too trivial perhaps for record, but as time went on they gradually increased. The king sent more boys, boarders and day pupils, but the monthly payments became more and more irregular. Once when arrears amounted to Rs. 500, the king sent meonly Rs. 200. Isent this back, that I might bring to his personal notice that the work was not being conducted for my private benefit, and that I had none but his funds to maintain the school. For a few days the king was angry and did not call me. Then he sent for me and was as pleasant as usual, But he said, ‘‘ You did 219 Peacocks and Pagodas wrong to send back royal money. If my highest minister had done so he would have been dragged out of the palace by the hair of his head.”’ I assured his majesty that I had no wish to offend him, and that as to the penalty, my baldness would render its infliction in my case an impossibility! The king laughed heartily and called the queens to enjoy the joke, and at once paid up the arrears. But he hated to pay regularly, and I was compelled to ask him to do so. Then he persistently asked me to get him some guns and rifled cannon which, of course, I neither could nor would. At last, one day, in a private room, he unfolded a plan by which I could, as he thought, be of great service to him. I was to go to England in his sea-going steamer, the Tsitkai-yin byan, taking with me two or three of the princes, and when I got to London I was to tell Queen Victoria how good he had been, and ask her to give back to his Government Bassein or Rangoon, that he might have a seaport of hisown. Of course I pointed out the impossibility of my under- taking anything of the kind. He got very angry, and said hastily, ‘“Then you are of no use to me.”” But he soon recovered his good temper and talked pleasantly as others came into the room. But I never saw him again. The outcome of this was that Dr. Marks left Mandalay in 1875. But the school and church were carried on by his successors until the death of Mindon Min, and through the terrible time of the massacres which accompanied the seizing of the throne by Thibaw, at the instigation of his ambitious and unscrupulous queen. The name of this notorious woman was Supayalat ; she was nicknamed by the British Tommies “ Queen Soup-plate.’’ At this time the mission was under the charge of the Rev. J. A. Colbeck, and the following extract from a letter of his dated September 18th, 1878, throws an interesting light on the events of that troubled period. 220 The Mandalay Massacres ‘““ When I last wrote,”’ says Mr. Colbeck, ‘‘ I was expecting and watching for the arrival of refugee princes escaping from an expected massacre ; we did not know whether the king was alive or dead, and expected to hear a wild outburst of confusion every moment. I stayed up till the next morning at 3, and then turned in till 6 o’clock —nothing happened. Next day, according to secret information received, a ‘‘ Lady of the Palace’’ came dressed as a bazaar woman, and shortly afterwards came about a dozen others ; they were more than Ihad bargained for, but Ihad to take them in and secrete them as well as possible. A few minutes after them came in a common coolie, as I thought. I got up and said, ‘Who are you ?’ He said, “Iam Prince Nyoung Yan; save me!’ He was terribly agitated, had escaped from a house in which he was confined, and his uncle had been cut down—not killed—in opening a way for the prince to escape. This made me a party of twelve: the prince and his wife, two daughters (princesses), one son (prince), foster-mother and her daughter and attendants. . . . We knew search was being made for the fugitives, and so as soon as dusk came we dressed up our prince, Nyoung Yan, as a Tamil servant, and as it fortunately came on to rain, I smuggled him into the Residency Compound, right under the noses of the Burmese guard at the gate. Hecarried a lamp and held an umbrella over me, as it was raining, and I treated him in character, i.e., spoke to him as a servant, etc., until the coast was clear. We did it capitally, and even cheated the Indian servants of the Doctor, into whose house we first went. Prince Nyoung Yan, alias Ramasawmy, did his part well, and we could afford to laugh at it were it not that he is still in some danger. He might be pro- claimed king to-morrow, or if one of his half brothers was proclaimed he would know that Upper Burma is no longer safe for him. “Next evening I went to dinner with the British Resident. This was a bona fide engagement. As it was dark, of course, I needed a light, so one of the Prince’s servants became my servant, and a sweet but sad little Princess of ten years, dressed as a boy, followed me, carrying books for me. This is just in Burmese style. Priests get boys to carry books, etc., for them, so we got through the guard again; I thought they were going to stop us long before we 221 Peacocks and Pagodas got to the gate, but walked boldly on and the guard cleared out of my way. So Princess Tay Tain Lat got in safely to her father. Shortly after I got home, at about 11 o’clock, two of the guard strolled into our compound with drawn swords. I heard their footsteps but did not know who they were, so I challenged them. ‘“Who’s there?’ Answer, ‘Guard.’ ‘What do you want?’ Answer, ‘ Things are very unquiet, we have come to see that allis quiet here.’ I replied, ‘ Very good, the best place to watch is at the gate.’ Then went, and then I breathed freely again; I thought they must have got some idea of my little family. Next morning I sent Princess Tay Tain Gyee to the Post Office, which is inside the Residency Compound, dressed up asa boy. Oneof my own Christian boys from Kemmendine went with her and brought back a note from Mr. Shaw, the British Resident, saying she had got in safely. The Postmaster came to breakfast with me, and as he was going back to office I said he might as well take a boy with a box of books, etc. He said ‘ All right,’ and got in by another gate, also guarded. This ‘boy,’ dressed as such, was the foster sister of the Prince, and a brave little woman she was. It was she who had come first of all to prepare the way for the whole family. Ifshe had been apprehended, she would have been beaten to death very likely.” About seventy more royal refugees were subsequently hidden and got away by the Mission. On October 7th, 1879, the British Resident had to leave Mandalay. He was accompanied by the staff of the Mission and other British residents, and the Church was left deserted. In 1885, directly after the deportation of King Thibaw, Mr. Colbeck returned, found both church and_ school buildings little damaged, and re-started the Mission work, which has continued up to the present time. The church presents a curious mixture of East and West. It is built of teak, and has been ornamented by Burmese carvers in the local style. But in design it is Gothic, and the 222 A Burmese Service tower is square. It is, in fact, a reproduction of an average medieval English church in wood instead of stone. In spite of some incongruity—and the most incongruous feature is Queen Victoria’s marble font—the interior is not at all unpleasing. I attended the Sunday service there, and found a similar curious mixture. It was conducted by two Burmese Christian priests as well as the English padre. They looked very quaint with silk handkerchiefs round their heads in Burmese fashion, and with their bare legs and feet showing below their surplices. The congregation consisted of Burmese and Anglo-Indians (Eurasians). Some sat in pewsin European style, others squatted on mats on the floor. The men sat on the left of the church, the women on the right. The choir wore little white jackets and pink lungyis, and the music consisted of Burmese tunes something like plainsong, mixed up with some of the horribly commonplace tunes of our “Hymns Ancient and Modern.’”” The whole service was in Burmese, including, of course, the sermon ; and the singing was nothing if not hearty. ‘‘ Hymns A. and M.” evidently make a strong appeal to the Burman! The congregation departing after the service amongst the tamarind trees in the compound, made a perfectly delightful picture. Their transparent umbrellas threw soft shades of colour on to their white jackets, and their silk lungyis and pasohs glowed in the sunshine. They were all decked out in their best. The city of Mandalay, though, as I have already stated, it did not impress me at first sight, is nevertheless exceedingly picturesque and very Burmese. But the picturesqueness is 223 Peacocks and Pagodas the picturesqueness of dirt and disorder. Even the main streets are littered with paper and rubbish, and the shops and stalls overflow confusedly on to the pavements. The lesser streets are inches deep in dust, the roadway is full of IN THE OUTER BAZAAR AT MANDALAY. holes, and seems to be used as a general depository for filth and garbage. In many parts the houses and shops are half hidden by big trees, and here the streets are really very much like the streets of any country village. There are many Indians, and also Chinese, but they do not overshadow the Burmese as they do in Rangoon, though the Indian, in 224 The Palace of Mindon Min particular, is quite considerably in evidence. Children swarm everywhere—happy laughing little creatures—and the pi-dog seems to flourish, despite periodic raids on the part of the municipal authorities. My host told me that the bag of the last raid in the Mission compound was no less than twenty- five. He returned from a walk and at the compound gate met the cart, out of which protruded a hundred pathetic canine legs. The dogs are destroyed with poisoned meat, and I heard of one gruesome case in which a decrepit pet dog that had to be “ got rid of,’”’ brought the bit of poisoned meat into the house, sat up and begged, and then proceeded to eat it under the table at which his mistress was having tea ! Every visitor to Mandalay is expected to admire the views on the moat at sunset. And this is quite easy to do. The moat surrounds the Fort in the centre of which stands the palace of Mindon Min. The walls are of red-brown brick, each side a mile and a quarter long. Atintervals, pyatthats of exceedingly graceful pattern rise above the battlements. The moat reflects in its still water the walls, the pyatthats and the sky, and the colouring is certainly wonderfully fine. The palace, which witnessed terrible scenes at the time of the massacres, is of very beautiful design. But it is garish and tawdry on a close view. The queens’ quarters—a vast hall supported by great pillars of teak covered with gold leaf, and with walls of gold decorated with a mosaic of silvered glass—are about the most comfortless kind of apartment imaginable. A room in a Kachin hut is homelike and cosy in comparison, 225 15 Peacocks and Pagodas Up at Bhamo and Mogok, and on the river above Mandalay we had been almost free from mosquitoes, but in Mandalay they began to make themselves a nuisance again. The short “‘ cold ’’ weather was nearly over, and mosquito curtains at night were once more a necessity. People in England who never go abroad fail to realise the advantage of living in a country where there are few mosquitoes. It is a distinct set-off against the much-abused British climate. In Burma if one gives a dinner-party, a Japanese ‘‘ smudge ”’ must be kept burning under the table, and pillow-cases provided for the protection of the legs and ankles of the ladies. Their bare arms, however, are unprotected, and it is quite a common thing to see a pretty European girl with arms disfigured by a mass of red spots. “Il faut souffrir pour étre belle.”’ It is also necessary, it would appear, to suffer in order to be in the fashion. The Burmese lady with her sleeved jacket seems, to the mere man, wiser than her European sister. Would she too, one wonders, suffer in order to be beautiful if Burmese fashion decreed that arms should be bare ? One of the great sights of Mandalay, the Arakan Pagoda, was closed to me because of the regulation about footwear, but I saw, and was duly humiliated by, the photograph to which I have referred elsewhere. The pagoda contains the famous image of the Buddha that was brought from Akyab in 1874, as spoil of a raid by the Burmese. It is of brass, and twelve feet high. “ According to the inscription,” says Sir George Scott, in The Burman : His Life and Notions, “‘ the 220 | The Arakan Pagoda king drew this Arakan Gautama to the shrine by the charm | of his piety, but the historical books speak only of rough force of arms. However that may be, it is a mystery how the huge masses of metal—the figure was cast in three sections— were brought over the steep pathless mountain sides.” In regard to this problem one can only suppose that such feats were made possible by reason of the large number of men available. Probably the great figure was transported by slaves captured in the raid. A somewhat similar feat was performed by the Burmese in recent times, when they raised the great bell of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda, which had been dropped by the British into the Rangoon River in a futile attempt to get it aboard a vessel and bring it to England. We, with all our modern resources, had failed to raise it. The Burmese asked permission to make the attempt them- selves, and succeeded where we had failed. How they did it we do not know, but they did, and the bell is now back at the Pagoda in its original position. Beyond the Arakan Pagoda the road runs out to Amara- poora, one of the old capitals of Burma. My host drove me there in his car to see the weavers at work, as Amarapoora is the seat of the silk weaving industry. Almost every house seemed to have its loom, with either a man or a woman at it, while outside, squatting on the ground, old cronesand children busied themselves winding the silk on to the bobbins for use in the shuttle. It is the busiest place I have yet seen in Burma. There were shops also in which masons were working on stone images of the Buddha, and others where 227 Peacocks and Pagodas they were making the “‘htis,”’ or umbrellas of fancy ironwork, which are always used to crown the spires of pagodas. Iwas surprised to find such a large industry of this kind. Evidently the building of pagodas goes merrily on. The road from Mandalay to Amarapoora is very picturesque, with shady tamarind trees on either side, and huts and houses half hidden amongst them. But it is deep in dust, as are all the Mandalay roads, and a sort of permanent fog is maintained by passings vehicles. There are two leper asylums in Mandalay, both of which I was able to visit. Leprosy, thanks to modern discoveries and modern methods of treatment, can, they say, be con- siderably checked, if not actually cured, and there seems to be.no reason why it should not be ultimately stamped out in the East as it has been stamped out in the West. This desirable consummation is at present, however, a long way from achievement, and the percentage of lepers in the popula- tion of Burma is still high. One of the drugs used in com- bating the disease comes from Burma and is derived froma tree—the chaulmoogra—which grows in large quantities in the Chindwin district, and it is rather interesting to note that it has been used for some time past as a specific in the treatment of leprosy by the native doctors themselves, though the native practitioner, from our point of view, is more of a necromancer than a physician, and still depends largely upon charms for his cures. The first patient we called upon was an Anglo-Indian (Eurasian) who had been in the home for seventeen years. 228 Leper Asylums He was fortunate in having a little room all to himself with a separate door opening into the compound. He was thus separated from the wards which housed the Burmese and Indian patients. His hands, what remained of them, were stiff and distorted, yet his principal occupation was painting. He displayed with pride a number of oil paintings of sacred subjects, all of which had been copied from other pictures. They were pathetically crude. On the back of each he had put the title, date of execution, and a Bible text relevant to the subject—all in most careful and accurate lettering. The pictures themselves were carefully stowed away in a wooden chest of his own manufacture. The doctor, he told us, had suggested that he might like to make a bit of garden in front of his room, and amuse himself by working in it, but he was “‘ much too busy to attend to a garden’! Every afternoon he went out for a walk along certain prescribed roads, and once, as he told us with shining eyes, he saw a leopard. This was evidently the one great incident of all those weary years. At the other establishment, which was built and is run by Roman Catholics, we visited another Anglo-Indian, a young man of twenty-eight, who is gradually losing both feet and hands. This poor creature was living in a large ward full of native patients. He had no privacy whatever, no companionship, and was always surrounded by the horrible sights inseparable from such an institution. His relations seldom wrote to him. His sister, he said, was married to a man of some position in Rangoon, but she was ashamed of 229 Peacocks and Pagodas her leper brother, and had kept his existence a secret, consequently the financial help that the brother-in-law could well have afforded was not forthcoming. Yet in spite of everything, the poor fellow was optimistic and spoke hope- fully of the time when he would be cured and able to leave the asylum. Lepers, by what we call a merciful dispensation of providence are, like consumptives, always “ getting better: Things have improved since Father Damien’s time, and with proper precautions it is possible to live amongst lepers without contracting the disease. Nevertheless it is difficult to speak too highly of the self-sacrifice and devotion of those who spend their lives in the service of these poor outcasts ; and the fact that such institutions as I have been describing should be handicapped for want of funds is a bitter reproach to our modern money-grubbing ideals. In the course of my random wanderings about the native streets of Mandalay, | saw many groups of young Burmans playing the national game of “‘chin-lon,” in which a light basketwork ball is kept in the air with the foot, knee, thigh and head. As soon as the players saw they were watched, they redoubled their efforts and tried to show off. The more accomplished performers let the ball fall behind them and then caught it with a well-timed and dexterous back stroke of the foot. One particularly “swanky ”’ player was able to do a half-somersault at the same moment and still strike the ball with accuracy. The players fasten up that useful garment, the lungyi, so as to leave leg and thigh free, and I remarked 230 Tattooing the absence of tattooing, which used to be customary through- out Burma. I mentioned this afterwards to the schoolmaster at the Mission. He said that the practice of tattooing is dying out, and stated that out of 120 boys under his care, only CHIN-LON one, a jungle boy, was tattooed. This boy, moreover, gets so mercilessly chaffed by the others that he never fastens up his lungyi unless he can helpit. A few years ago the absence 231 al Peacocks and Pagodas of tattooing stamped a boy as a coward who had funked the pain incidental to the operation. Up country I saw a good many men with the tattooing, but they were all adults. The origin of the custom is unknown. Some say that it was designed as a preventive of a particular form of vice. This I doubt, and prefer the explanation suggested by a Burman, who said that it was originally intended as camouflage when hunting or fighting in the jungle, where the natural skin, light in colour where protected from the sun by the lungyi, might lead to betrayal. Although the custom of tattooing on a large scale is not so prevalent as it was, it is still usual for young Burmans so have charms tattooed upon them in various parts of the body. The dacoit has a cat tattooed upon one leg as though climbing up it; this is to enable him to enter a house stealthily ; and another on the other leg climbing downwards, to give him the power of making a noiseless exit. Sir George Scott, writing in 1882, gives the following account of tattooing, which he then stated seemed unlikely ever to die out. | Whatever his parents may think, the Burman youth considers the tattooing of his thighs quite as important a matter as his entry into a monastry. If he attains to the full dignity of humanity by becoming a “‘shin’’ (a novice in a kyaung), it is no less settled in his own mind that till he is tattooed in proper fashion, there may be doubts as to his thorough manhood. Accordingly, very often at a tender age, varying with the spiritedness of his character, he begins to get figures tattooed on various parts of his thighs. When the operation is finished, the whole body from the waist, in a line with the navel, downwards to just beyond the kneecap, is completely covered, 232 Tattooing the effect to the eye being not so much of a marking of the cuticle as of a skin-tight pair of calecons fitting better than the best glove ever made. ; The operation is not by any means pleasant. In fact, in places such as the tender inside parts of the thigh and at the joints of the knee it needs more stoicism than most youths can command to endure it without relieving the mind in speech. Therefore it is common to put the boy under the influence of opium while it is being done, though some parents will not allow this, for cases have occurred where the youth has died of an overdose. For the same reason it is very seldom that more than three or four figures are done ata time. The part swells up a good deal, and there is danger of fever; besides that, a few days afterwards the itchiness which supervenes is almost as intolerable as the first tattooing, while if the skin is broken by scratching, there is not only a nasty sore, but the figure is spoilt. You not uncommonly hear of cases where the whole surface was finished at one sitting, but you only hear of them because it is unusual, and because the youth is proud of it. The instrument used is a pricker about two feet long, weighted at the top with a brass figure, sometimes plain, but in the case of good sayas, always carved more or less elaborately in the figure of a bird, a nat, or a bilu (ogre) The tattooer catches the pricker with his right hand, and guides the point with a rest formed by the forefinger and thumb of his left, the hand resting firmly on the person’s body. The dye used is lamp-black, the best being that obtained by the burning of sessamun oil, and this is mixed with water as it is wanted. Good sayas always sketch the outline of the figure roughly on the skin with an ordinary camel’s hair brush, and then the pattern is executed with a series of punctures close together, forming what afterwards fades into a rough line ‘ The figures tattooed are those of all kinds of animals—tigers, cats, monkeys, and elephants being the commonest, while nats, bilus and compound animals called tiger bilus are also frequent. Each representation is surrounded by a rough oval tracery of a variety of letters of the alphabet, which forma curious and remarkably effective frame.” 233 Peacocks and Pagodas In addition to the regular tattooing from waist to knee, figures are tattooed on other parts of the body. These are usually charms. Most Burmans even to-day have this kind of tattooing upon them, whether they have the thigh tattooing ornot. A case is recorded where a youth was tattooed with a charm against drowning, and to test its efficiency was bound hand and foot and thrown into the Irrawaddy. He was never seen again. The tattooer and his assistant were arrested and tried and condemned for manslaughter, and, as in the case of the Irrawaddy fishermen previously mentioned, the majority of the Burmese considered they were hardly dealt with. Women are seldom tattooed, and then only with love charms. To quote Sir George Scott again: “ The patient is usually a lovesick maiden who is afraid the object of her affection will escape from her, or a girl whom rolling years warn that she must be quick if she would not be condemned to remain an ‘a-pyo heing,’ an old maid. Except in very desperate cases, however, they always manage to persuade the operator to place the charm on some part of the body where it will not be visible. If it is not effectual, there is always open to them the signal afforded by kindly national custom to maidens longing for a mate. They cut off the lappets of hair hanging over the ears, and the significance is the same as the white heather of the language of flowers, ‘ heart for sale.’ In Rangoon the tattooing of a woman has a special signification, not recognised elsewhere. It means that she wants an Englishman for a husband.”’ 234 CHAPTER XIV The Myingyan Bazaar—Killing a Leopard—A Pipe of Opium—A Curious Case—-Cheroot-making—Cotton and Pea-nuts—Shooting Snipe—A Buddhistic Law. ROM my diary : “January 18th, 1923. Myingyan. On my last night at Mandalay I gave a lecture at the Club and afterwards went on board the ferry-boat which was due to sail at daybreak. We reached Myingyan at about 7.30 the following evening, and were met at the ferry-landing by a Burmese police constable, who conducted us partly by bullock-cart and partly by gharry to the house of the D.S.P., my host while I am in Myingyan. “The next morning I was taken into the town and shown the bazaar and the police station. The bazaar is one of the most interesting I have seen. Although not nearly as large as the bazaar at Mandalay, which is said to be the largest covered bazaar in the East, and lacking the riotous confusion which makes the Mandalay bazaar so picturesque, the Myingyan bazaar is exceedingly fascinating. The variety of goods for sale was astonishing. The silk stalls were a blaze of colour. So were the shoe and sandal stalls, and the stalls which displayed umbrellas. Native- made cloth of various colours and patterns was much in 235 Peacocks and Pagodas evidence in one particular part of the bazaar, also the native-made linen by the use of which the non-co-operators hoped to kill the trade in Manchester cotton. “ At the Police station we found an old jungle Burman who had come in from a village fifteen miles away to claim the Government reward for killing a leopard. He produced the animal’s skin as evidence and told the following story. The old man’s son had been aroused in the night by the squawking of fowls in the compound, and on looking out, saw a leopard making off with a chicken in its mouth. He shouted to his father and then pursued the leopard unarmed. When the father arrived on the scene of action, the son had the leopard on its back. The father then rushed in and cut the animal’s throat with his dah. The son, as might have been expected, was badly mauled and had to be taken to the hospital. We measured the skin and found it to be 7-{t. 6-in. long. The old man departed very happy with notes for Rs. 50 in the fold of hislungyi. It was an amazing story, but on the evidence appears to have been true. The son must either have been very plucky or very foolish, but such a feat is not uncommon amongst Burmans, as another story told me by an eye-witness shows. It is this: “ The narrator, an Englishman, was visiting a jungle village which had lately been suffering from the depredations of a tiger. Some of the villagers came to the Englishman and asked him to shoot the beast. However, as he had only a shot gun with him and No. 7 cartridges, he felt himself unequal to the task and saidso. A little later he saw a crowd 236 237 A VILLAGE SHOP ' Pe ht ae ai tay te Vapi, af —_ is. P| a ) ie SEY, Ave Bt aed Bee eins A Pi LN hee ¢ bats } ’ 29 A Pipe of Opium in the street following a cart. The cart contained the body of the tiger, two villagers dead, and another very badly mauled. Six men had gone out armed only with their dahs, and had succeeded at this heavy cost in despatching the brute. “From the police station we went to the opium shop. Opium smokers are licensed to buy a certain quantity of opium daily, varying from four annas’ worth to twelve annas’ worth. They bring with them a little book in which the amount issued is entered. But, in spite of all efforts to regulate the consumption, a large quantity of illicit opium is grown and sold. It is not at all a difficult matter to grow the poppies in some inaccessible corner without the knowledge of the excise officers, and the opium can be very easily concealed and brought into the towns amongst the vegetables and other produce that comes to the market. I thought I should like to try a pipe, so word was passed along to one of the opium dens in the town that we should make an “unofficial visit’ the next evening. It was made quite clear that the visit was merely one of curiosity, even though one of the visitors was to be the D.S.P. So the next day the Burmese excise officer took us along. In an ill-lighted hut we found several Chinese sitting and lying on a bamboo platform about a foot above the earthen floor. The old proprietor received us politely and invited us to sit down. A sleepy-looking Chinaman prepared the opium pipe and signed to me to lie down on the platform. I did so, put my head on a rather dirty pillow, and had a few whiffs of the 239 Peacocks and Pagodas pipe. It was rather pleasant, but quite unexciting. I had several more pipes (each pipe only provides about half a dozen pulls), but nothing whatever happened. I didn’t go off into a balmy slumber and dream about hourisin paradise —in fact my chief preoccupation was wondering what mouth had used the pipe before mine—nor was I affected in any way whatever. But the taste and smell of the opium remained with me for the rest of the evening. “January 19th. To-day I have been to the Court where a big case is being tried before the D.C. A Buddhist monk called U Weponla was arrested on December 2nd by the Myingyan police and charged with cheating. He had been living in a disused rice mill at a place called Singu, and by pretending to have magical powers had deceived and robbed a large number of credulous people, mostly women. He claimed that he could cure internal diseases, wounds, blindness and deafness. He further stated that he was collecting funds in order to build a pagoda, and on this ground extracted from his numerous patients payment in various forms—cash, jewellery, and goods of all descriptions —whether the cures were successful or not. It is quite probable that in some cases, by ‘faith’ on the patient’s part and ‘ suggestion ’ on the part of the pongyi, cures were actually effected. Anyhow, whether or not, his fame seems to have spread so rapidly that boatloads of people began to arrive from places even as far away as Pakokku, and in the course of six weeks he amassed money and goods to the value of Rs.60,000. He employed two silversmiths in 240 A Curious Case making ‘ peacock rupees,’ and exacted homage in the form of one of these coins from each person. Every patient was further required to bring candles—one candle for each year of. their age—and with these candles he illuminated his quarters in regal fashion. The peacock coins were sold at the price of Rs.3. apiece. I heard the evidence of an old carpenter of Singu who stated that he was nearly blind, and went to the pongyi to be cured. He was made to kiss the pongyi’s foot, and water was dropped in his eyes. The pongyi then asked how much he was earning and what sum he was prepared to give towards the building of the proposed pagoda. The carpenter suggested Rs.25, but the pongyi said it was a bad number and should be made an even amount, either more or less. The old carpenter then offered Rs.30. The pongyi said it was not enough, but eventually accepted it. The carpenter brought the money the next day and received further treatment. But his eyes got no better. Four days later the pongyi was arrested. “Much of the evidence shows that the monk was an ingenious fellow. He sometimes gave back a part of the cash that was brought him, saying that he did not want the money for, himself and that a smaller sum than that offered was sufficient as a contribution towards the building of the pagoda. He knew well enough that this ‘ generosity ’ would. be noised abroad and redound to his ultimate advantage. ‘“ But there is much more behind all this than appears on the surface, or than is even suggested by the prosecution. 241 16 Peacocks and Pagodas The pongyi, it is stated, had relations with many of the young women who came to see him, and to certain of them he promised that he would make them his queens. He is said, too, to have been wearing royal garments beneath the COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENCE yellow robes of the priesthood. He was also found in posses- sion of royal white umbrellas and clothes of royal velvet. Fans of peacock feathers—an emblem of royalty—were amongst the offerings given him by his adherents, as well as handkerchiefs and other articles embroidered with the same design. 242 A Curious Case “Twas shown the ‘ exhibits ’ in the case—a heterogeneous collection comprising robes, cushions, lacquer-work boxes containing tresses of women’s hair, each tress carefully labelled with the owner’s name and some of the names marked off as future queens or concubines, boxes full of scented soap, thanaka powder (used by women only), tins of sardines and tins of fruit, sticks coated with female hair, a pair of field- glasses, an aneroid barometer, bottles of scent with which he soaked himself and his bedding, and other things too numerous to mention. Perhaps the most interesting items of this curious collection were some love-charms, and two charms to render the wearer immune from any kind of weapon. The latter consisted of human teeth, not ordinary teeth, but freak or extra teeth, such as sometimes grow at the side of the gums. These were enclosed in a casing of some closely-woven material with a loop by which to hang them round the neck. The D.S.P. told me he had asked the pongyi to wear one and then let him have a shot with his revolver, but the invitation was declined. Iwas taken into the treasury and there shown the more valuable of the stuff seized. There were two small dahs, each enclosed in a belt of green velvet such as is worn across the shoulder by a king. One was of silver and the other of gold. Each had a number of loose stones—rubies, sapphires, emeralds, diamonds and pearls—concealed in the handle. There were also a number of valuable rings and ear-rings, gifts of his female dupes. The pongyi had evidently made hay whilst the sun was shining. His downfall was due to the action of a Burman from Myingyan, who was 243 Peacocks and Pagodas sceptical of the wonderful cures attributed to the pongyi, and who deprecated the monk’s alleged relations with women. This man went to Singu to investigate, and afterwards publicly denounced the pongyi as a charlatan and a seducer. The Police thereupon took action. “The case will be a long one, and unless the accused can prove that his cures were genuine, and that the building of a pagoda was really intended, he is liable to a sentence of seven years on each of three counts, or twenty-one years in all. : “ There is a pagoda here which was recently reported to throw out supernatural flames, and every night numbers of credulous people flocked to witness the miracle. The pongyi turned even this to his advantage. He said that - everyone must make offerings of gold-leaf to the pagoda. His own agents, needless to say, sold the gold-leaf. The explanation of the phenomenon seems to be that the flat plates that hang from the bottom of the ‘hti’ (Kipling’s ‘tinkly temple bells’) get wet with dew and reflect the moonlight in such a way as to resemble flames. “January 24th. As I wanted to see something of the process of cheroot making, the D.S.P. sent me into the town with one of his Deputy Inspectors as a guide. At the first establishment we visited, large cheroots smoked by women were being made. These cheroots contain other things besides tobacco, though I am not sure what. The first procedure is to make a tube out of a large leaf and fasten with paste. In one end is placed a roll of some white- 24.4 Cheroot Making coloured vegetable substance, which acts as mouthpiece and filter. The tube is then filled with chips of tobacco-stalk and the other ingredients, whatever they are, and the end tucked in. That is the whole process. The girls squat on the floor CHEROOT MAKERS and work at a little table about six or eight inches high, on which are set out the various materials required. “ At a second shop we found women making the ordinary cheroots of pure tobacco. It is a common belief that cigar and cheroot makers roll the cigar on the naked thigh, and I 245 Peacocks and Pagodas had hopes of seeing this operation being performed. But my hopes were unfulfilled. The girls (to use a euphemism for some untidy females of indeterminate age) were rolling the cheroots on the surface of a table, and thighs were in no way conspicuous. So another cherished illusion went West. “From the cheroot makers I was taken to the factory of Steel Bros., on the outskirts of the town. I had often wondered what became of the ground-nuts which form such a large proportion of the freight carried by the Irrawaddy steamers. These nuts are the same as those called in America ‘ pea-nuts,’ and in England ‘ monkey-nuts,’ and they are grown largely in certain districts of Burma. At Steel’s mill I saw them being made into oil—or, rather, saw the oil being extracted from the nuts. One would never suspect what a large amount of oil these hard dry nuts contain. The oil itself is used for cooking, the residue being made into cattle food. “In the same factory, in other buildings, cotton is sorted and picked and made into bales for transport to England. Here Burmese coolies work a twelve-hour day in an atmosphere full of flying dust, while strings of bullock-carts keep arriving from the jungle loaded with the raw produce of the cotton fields. Long hours of regular and monotonous work would appear to be the last thing to attract a Burman, and consequently I was rather surprised to find so many Burmese employed here. The march of civilisation again, I suppose. 246 Shooting Snipe “Last Sunday, on the invitation of the D.C., I joined a party of four to go out after snipe. We started off at seven a.m., and drove to a lake a few miles away. It was a most beautiful spot. The water shone like silver. Palms stood out against a background of misty hills. The spires of pagodas rose above the nearer tree-tops, and groups of thatched huts ran down to the water’s edge. At a well by the village a group of girls and children played and laughed and splashed happily about. Away out on the lake men were fishing from graceful native canoes, while nearer inshore some water buffaloes were enjoying their morning dip. The lake edge was spangled with the white flowers of the lotus, and green honey-birds flashed to and fro in the sunshine. “Canoes and men having been secured, we crossed the lake to a paddy swamp opposite. Our party then split up, each going off on his own with a Burman in attendance. Villagers were at work in the swamp and ploughing operations were in progress, though how it is possible to plough a field that is a foot under water remains to me something of a mystery. We made our way along the narrow bunds that intersected the swamp, keeping a sharp look-out for snipe, and before long I had bagged a couple. Two birds with the first two shots was not bad for an amateur, and I began to think that snipe shooting was an easy matter. In the course of a long morning I became undeceived, for though I expended a good deal of ammunition, I did not hit another bird. The snipe were quick as lightning, and out of range almost before my slow brain had begun to work. Try as I would, I couldn’t 247 Peacocks and Pagodas get within a mile of them. Walking along the slippery bunds was not so easy either. Sometimes the mud was sun- dried and hard, but more often it was greasy and soft and exceedingly treacherous. At one place in trying to cross a particularly tricky spot, I sank in the mud over my knees. In my struggles to extricate myself one of my shoes got sucked off and I fell face downwards in the slime. My Burman attendant hauled me to dry ground, rescued my lost shoe, and helped me to scrape the worst of the mud off, and we resumed our murderous way. “One of the principal tenets of the Buddhist faith is, of course, never to take life. Of the two snipe I accidentally shot, one was not killed outright. My Burman attendant did not attempt to finish it off, but carried it along still struggling feebly, until I realised what was the matter and despatched the unfortunate bird myself. In essentials the Buddhist idea is good, but when carried to an extreme, it sometimes leads to terrible suffering. For instance, a Buddhist will turn an old and useless horse into the jungle to shift for itself rather than despatch it by a merciful bullet. The wretched animal wanders about too weak to find food, the crows peck out its eyes, and vultures begin to feed upon it before the life has left its feeble body. Can one imagine any fate more horrible? Even the greatest sup- porters of Buddhism must sometimes find it difficult to reconcile themselves to a literal acceptance of this law of the Buddha’s. On our way back from our shooting we had another example of what one might call the miscarriage of 248 A Buddhistic Law this Buddhistic law, though in a different direction. We met a party of three Burmans, one of whom was holding a snake at arm’s length. It was a live Russell’s viper, four feet long. Its evil-looking mouth, stretched wide by the pressure of the man’s fingers, disclosed the needle-like fangs. A recent meal had swollen its decorated body to ungainly proportions, the torpidity resulting from the meal having no doubt contributed to its capture. One would have expected a Burman—who, by reason of his bare legs and feet, is particularly vulnerable—to seize every opportunity of destroying a brute whose bite is almost invariably fatal ; to find him carrying one away in order to return it to the jungle alive is a fairly convincing proof of the hold which his religion has upon him.”’ 249 CHAPTER XV Rounding-up Counterfeiters. HEN I got back from the shooting expedition, I found the D.S.P. closeted in his office with three Burmans. All four were squatting on the floor deeply absorbed in a map. I went upstairs and had a bath. Then, being tired after my strenuous morning, I lay down for a short rest. About an hour later the D.S.P.camein. He had just received information, he said, of the whereabouts of a gang of counter- feiters. The Mandalay and Myingyan districts had been suffering greatly from a deluge of forged notes, of which 40,000 rupees’ worth were believed to be in circulation, and the Police had long been wanting to trace these notes to their source and to lay by the heels those responsible. The apparatus was now said by informants to be at a village about twenty-five miles from Myingyan. A Police raid was to be made that night and would I care to come? “Tt will mean an all-night journey in bullock-carts,” said the D.S.P., ‘‘and we shall have to travel light. It won't be a luxurious trip.” But the chance of such an experience was too good to be missed. So I expressed my full willingness to join the raiding party, and proceeded to make what simple prepara- tions were necessary. 250 Rounding up Counterfeiters At half-past four that afternoon we started. Our party consisted of the D.S.P., an Indian Inspector, and myself. The remainder, sub-inspectors and constables, were to follow immediately. Each of us had his own cart—the ordinary Burmese bullock-cart with an improvised tilt of matting. On the floor of my cart a thick layer of kaing grass had been spread. This was covered with a coarse mat. My kit consisted of great-coat, camera, sketch-book, a haversack with shaving things, comb and toothbrush, and a valise containing two blankets and a pillow. On the D.S.P.’s cart was a luncheon basket with provisions, and a modest armoury of one double- barrelled shot-gun and a revolver. The utmost secrecy had been observed, as the counter- feiters had accomplices in Myingyan, and if any inkling of the intentions of the police had been allowed to leak out a speedy messenger would no doubt have gone on ahead of us with a warning. Some country carts that tried to pass us were stopped and made to follow owing to the same fear. But on our arrival at a village at about eight o’clock that evening, this being apparently their destination, they were released. This village was surrounded by a great hedge of thorn and cactus for protection against dacoits. Such a hedge would appear to be impassable. But it is not so impassable as it appears, for on a recent occasion dacoits succeeded in getting through a similar hedge by putting down at the weakest spot a bridge of maize-sheaves and boards torn 251 Peacocks and Pagodas down from the zayat outside. The entrance to the village was guarded by big gates, which were opened by the watch- man after we had stated who we were. The headman was interviewed and a guide provided to take us on to the next village, and after a halt of a quarter of an hour, we proceeded on our way. At about 9.30 the D.S.P., who had been preoccupied with the various arrangements and with the excitement of the coming capture, suddenly awoke to the fact that we had not yet dined. A halt was called, and we ate a hurried meal at the tail-board of his cart. We were soon on our way again, and travelling by the light of the moon, nowin the first quarter, we reached another village at midnight. Here the usual cactus hedge and big gate barred our way, and it took some time and a good deal of lusty shouting to arouse the watchman within. At last the gates were opened and we entered. In the middle of the village we were met by the headman and several sleepy villagers. The faint moonlight and our flickering lanterns showed us a few huts of thatch and matting. Pi-dogs barked from some invisible hiding- place, and behind one of the matting walls a baby, resenting the interruption of its slumbers, cried peevishly. Two women carefully wrapped against the cold, brought dried leaves and sticks and lit a fire at which our bullock-wallahs squatted to warm themselves, their hands spread to the blaze. In the meantime parleys were being conducted between the D.5.P. and the headman for the provision of fresh carts and oxen, and after some delay new carts were brought. 252 Rounding up Counterfeiters The space was narrow, and a good deal of pushing and manceuvering were necessary before our kit could be transferred and a start made. But eventually we got under weigh again with the new transport. The other three carts were left to return to Myingyan at their leisure. It was then one o'clock. I unrolled my bedding and wrapped myself in the blankets. The new carts had no covering or tilt, and I found it very pleasant to lie there looking up at the star-lit sky as the bullock-cart swayed and lurched and bumped over the rough track. Every now and then the cart dropped into a hole with a bang that nearly shook my teeth out, and all the time the axle squeaked and squawked and groaned with a noise not only certain to drive away every nat within earshot, but to drive away sleep as well. As far as I could make out we were passing through country covered with low scrub and cactus. Here and there a stunted tree showed black against the sky, at rare intervals a palm, and at still rarer intervals the spire of a pagoda. The stars wheeled round. The moon set. Orion set. The Pleiades set. The great bear stood on its head. And then the Southern Cross rose, soon followed by Venus. We were now passing through undulating country broken by small hills and I saw the D.S.P. get down from his cart and walk with his gun in his hands. It was near here, he explained, that the old man and his son had had the adventure with the leopard ; it was “‘leopard-y ’’ country, and one might cross our path at any moment. Almost needless to say, one didn't ! 253 Peacocks and Pagodas _ At about 3.30 we arrived at another stockaded village. The headman—a privileged person, armed with a gun,—and three or four villagers, came out to us. The D.S.P. was growing anxious about our slow progress. It was essential that we should arrive at our objective before dawn. The night was passing and he was uncertain how much further we had to go. But the Burman has only the vaguest notions of time and distance. He generally reckons by some such unit as a betel chew, or the time it takes for a man walking to become tired. A mile means nothing to him. An hour, half-hour, or minute mean nothing to him. Consequently it was very difficult to discover from these men how far we were from the village for which we were bound. Eventually after fruitless questions, it was decided to proceed on foot, leaving the carts to follow. The headman and the other villagers were pressed into the service and told to come along, whereupon one of them attempted to return home. He was promptly stopped by the D.S.P., who was afraid the man might intend to escape from the village by another gate and run like the wind to warn the counterfeiters of our coming. However, he only wanted to fetch his overcoat, and this, as the headman vouched for his bona-fides, he was allowed to do. We set off in single file along the rough cart-track. It was then 4a.m. I had an optimistic idea that we had not far to go, and so I plunged along happily enough in the wake of the rest. No one who has not tried to walk along a bullock-road in the dark can have any notion of the 254 Rounding up Counterfeiters difficulty. The cart-wheels cut deep ruts; the bullocks, being widely separated by the pole and the driver’s seat, walk in the ruts themselves and make them still deeper. Between the ruts is a mound of rough dried mud. If you try to walk on this mound you keep slipping first on one side and then on the other, whereas if you try to walk in one of the ruts you stumble against the steep sides. Itisachoice of evils. The Police Inspector is stated, in describing this part of the proceedings afterwards, to have said, “ the strange gentleman fell down the most.” Probably he did! But perhaps he had had less practice than the rest. We ploughed along in this fashion, with occasional falls and stumbles, for the best part of an hour. I was beginning to feel tired, having been practically on the move ever since seven o'clock on the previous morning. But still no village loomed in the darkness. We left the bullock-track and took to a side path. On and on we went. Through nullahs, across fields, under cactus hedges, over dry stream beds. The D.S.P., who was walking immediately in front of me, was almost invisible owing to his khaki uniform. To lag behind was to lose touch. Thoughts of snakes crossed my mind, but as I was almost the last man of our little column, the risk as far as I was concerned, was small. The leaders had the post of danger. At last, nearly exhausted by fatigue, we reached the outskirts of a village. A few minutes later we saw figures round a fire by a zayat. We had no wish to be prematurely discovered, therefore we made a detour. The village 255 Peacocks and Pagodas folk were already stirring, and we had to pass several houses in which lights and fires and shadowy moving forms were visible. Cocks began to crow and the Eastern sky began to lighten. It was nearly six o’clock. We hurried on faster than ever, and at a pagoda which showed darkly ahead of us, our party divided. The D.S.P. and the headman and two villagers went to the left, the Police Inspector, myself and the two remaining villagers went to the right. Soon we came to a gap in a hedge through which ran a narrow path. We took the path and eventually gained the bed of a dry river. On our left the ground rose slightly, and at the top of the rise stood a cottage of palm leaves. We approached and found a woman crouching over a cooking-pot at a small fire, The Inspector spoke to the woman, who pointed along the path to another similar cottage just visible in the faint twilight. Rays of light streamed from beneath the low eaves of the second cottage, and stooping down, we saw several people inside squatting ata fire. The Inspector entered and I followed, carrying the shot-gun. On a rough bed at the end of the hut a man lay asleep. The Inspector roused him. He sat up muttering sleepily, then he joined the group at the fire. There was no excitement. No one showed fight. So far it was a tame business. After asking me to keep guard the Inspector went back to the first cottage to fetch the woman we had seen there. I sat down on a corner of the bed with the gun across my knees. One of the men got up and tried to go out. I called him back. Then a little girl who was one of the group went 256 Rounding up Counterfeiters to the door with the intention of leaving. Ata motion from me she returned to her place by the fire. Nobody spoke a word. They just sat stolidly round the fire drinking tea from a great black kettle and smoking their home-made cheroots of white maize-leaf. It seemed incredible that this could be a den of forgers. As the light strengthened I could better see my surround- ings. The hut was built on the bare ground. Twisted tree- stems served for supports. The roof, black and rough, and sloping steeply to within a couple of feet of the earthen floor, was made of bamboo framework with palm-leaf thatching. The two end walls were similarly made, but with less of a slope. The furniture consisted of two wooden beds, a few dirty pillows, some bedding, a spear or two, and the blackened stones on the floor in the middle which served for a fireplace. There was nothing else in the place, and a more poverty-stricken habitation for human beings could hardly be imagined. At one end of the hut accumula- tions of manure made it evident that it also served as a stable, though there were no beasts there at the time. The D.S.P. and his party had now joined up with us, and the woman from the other hut had been added to the group over which I was mounting guard. I had now five prisoners, an old man, his wife, his son, and another man, as well as the little girl. The poor child watched me with wide-open frightened black eyes. I wouldn’t have hurt her for the world—though she didn’t know this. And my gun was not loaded. 257 17 Peacocks and Pagodas About an hour later three men came through a gap in the hedge. When they caught sight of the Police, who were searching the garden, they attempted flight. But the D.S.P. went after them, revolver in hand, and soon brought them back. There was a good deal of commotion, as I could see by stooping down and looking out from beneath the low roof, but what it was all about I did not know until the D.S.P. came into the hut triumphantly brandishing a packet of forged notes. These had been found on one of the three men, after an unsuccessful attempt on his part to get rid of the notes by throwing his cloak on to the ground and the packet withit. There were ninety counterfeit five-rupee notes in the packet. The man was apparently one of those engaged in passing the notes and, in coming to visit the other members of the gang had walked right into the arms of the Police. My prisoners now began to show unmistakable signs of agitation. The old man, in particular, could hardly hold his cheroot because of the trembling of his hands. The two younger men exchanged meaning glances, and one went to the edge of the hut better to watch the progress of the search. The woman was the only one to keep perfect control of herself. She sat by the fire with a sardonic smile playing about her squat features, and smoked on steadily and imperturbably. The girl, still eyeing me with fear, wrapped her cloak about her and snuggled up closer to her mother. At this point I thought a little ‘“‘ demonstration ” advisable. Things were getting serious and the men might 258 Rounding up Counterfeiters try to run away. SolI tooka couple of cartridges from my pocket and loaded the gun before their faces. They should see that I meant business. The searchers meanwhile continued to tramp round the garden, looking under heaps of leaves, in thickets, and everywhere it seemed likely that apparatus might be hidden. But the only thing they found was an empty egg-shell con- taining a torn and crumpled counterfeit note. The note, however, bore the same series-number as the notes in the captured packet; and, as white of egg was known to have been used by the forgers to make the watermark, the find was not altogether negligible. At nine o’clock the D.S.P. came to me rather despondently. He had learnt that another batch of local police had been beforehand and had searched the place only the preceding day, though without success. It seemed probable that nothing more would be discovered. I told him that the demeanour of my prisoners had made it quite clear to me that the things were actually hidden in the garden, despite the fact that the search had so far failed to unearth them. Also, as the D.S.P. remarked, nothing was easier than to dig a hole in the ground and conceal anything incriminating. He therefore conceived the idea of sending for 150 villagers, announcing that rewards would be given for anything that might be found, and setting them to work en masse. Half- an-hour later they arrived, carrying spears and dahs, and began prodding the ground around the cottages and hunting here, there and everywhere. For a while nothing happened. 259 Peacocks and Pagodas But presently a find was made. Then another. And then still another. And so the search went on, until by mid-day the whole apparatus—printing press, dies, ink, rollers, paper and bundles of notes—was in the hands of the police. The raid had been a triumphant success. We were now all very exhausted. We therefore made our way to the village, and at the P.W.D. bungalow found the bullock-carts with our kit. A well-earned breakfast followed, and then a couple of hours’ sleep. Finally the three prisoners, handcuffed and chained together, were sent off in charge of some Burman Police constables and a sub- inspector, and the D.S.P. proceeded to write up his report. This occupied him until nearly eight o’clock that night. We then had a meal consisting of rice and various curries and condiments prepared in the Burmese style—and at 9.30 got into our bullock-carts to travel to Sameikkon in order to catch the river ferry on the next day back to Myingyan. I was so tired that I slept in the cart, notwith- standing the jolting and noise, until we reached the bungalow at Sameikkon, four hours later. There, half-asleep, I watched my kit being transferred from the bullock-cart; then I rolled myself in my bedding on the floor and slept like a log until morning. 260 CHAPTER XVI Initiation to the Priesthood—Ear-boring—At Sameikkon— The Missing Wife—Opium Smuggling—A Railway Journey—Back in Rangoon—A Pwe—Pitfalls in the Burmese Language—Home again. AMEIKKON proved to be a large village—or a small GS town—of one long, wide street, shaded with tamarind trees and palms, and swarming with pi-dogs in every state of manginess and decrepitude. I found it advisable to provide myself with a stick to keep the snarling brutes away, for rabies is common in Burma, and I had no desire to become one of the numerous patients undergoing the Pasteur treatment at Rangoon hospital. Halfway down the village a wooden platform was in course of erection, of such width as to block the street completely to all but pedestrian traffic. This platform, which had a light bamboo framework above, evidently designed to carry some sort of roofing, was large enough to accommodate a hundred or more people. Enquiries elicited the informa- tion that a double ceremonial was shortly to take place upon it—the initiation of a youth into the priesthood, and the ear-boring of a girl. As both ceremonies are important and usual events in the life of young Burma, a short account of each, from The Burman, His Life and Notions, may be of interest. 261 Peacocks and Pagodas “On the appointed day,’ says Sir George Scott, “the young neophyte dresses in his finest clothes, and loads himself with all the family gold chains and jewellery, and as much more as he can borrow for the occasion. He then mounts a pony or gets into a richly decorated car. Shaded by gold umbrellas, allowed formerly on this occasion only in Upper Burma, except to those who had got a special patent for them from the sovereign, he passes at a footpace through the village. A band of music goes before ; all his friends and relatives crowd round him decked in their gayest ; the young men dancing and singing vociferously ; the girls laughing and smiling, with powdered faces and brilliant dresses. Thus he goes in succession to the houses of his relations and of all the local officials, to do them the obeisance due from a younger member of the family, and to bid them farewell. They in turn contribute money towards the expense of the band, and the solace of the supernumeraries. : ““When the round of visits has been duly carried out, the pro- cession turns back to the parents’ house, where in the meantime the final preparations for the induction and subsequent feast have been concluded. The head of the kyaung to which the young postulates are to be admitted, together with several ofhis brother monks, are seated at the back of the room on a raised dais, in front of which are ranged the presents intended for the mendicants—heaps of fruit, cooked food, mats, yellow cloth, and so on. The ‘ Talapoins,’ seated in a row, carefully hold up the large lotus-leaf-shaped fans before their faces to shut out from view the female portion of the assemblage. Never is the command to the holy community not to look on woman more necessary and more arduous to observe than at a shin-pyu pwe. Burma’s fairest daughters are assembled, bright in rainbow skirts and neckerchiefs, drowsy-scented flowers in the jetty tresses, jewellery flashing on the bosom, the fingers and ears, the fragrance of thanaka lingering over the smiling faces. Terrible trial it is for the young monk, if any such there be in the gaing ok’s following, and more imperative the concentration of the mind on the Payeit Gyi and other portions of the sacred writ which are loudly chanted as the postulates return, and the assembly shikhoes to the pongyis, and settles down to observe the proceedings. The boy throws off all his fine clothes and jewellery, and binds a piece of white 262 bese CCAS ‘> a = IN A VILLAGE STREET 263 Be j K * Ye Peg h , ani 3 Fr Peat: Shr Aas \ AMEE iy Le i yt PA Bigeye , ; 5 es oe iy , } , Initiation to the Priesthood cloth round his loins. Then his long hair is cut off close to the head. Often the locks are as much as three or four feet long, and are carefully preserved by the mother or sister, the latter often making them up into ta-su, the tails of hair twisted in with her own to increase the size of her sa-d6n—the knot of hair she wears at the back of her head. When the hair has been cut the head is carefully shaved, the boy hold- ing it over acloth held by some of his relations. After this the head is washed in the usual way with a decoction of the seeds and bark of the kin-b6n thi, and rubbed well with saffron. A bath is then taken, and once more he puts on the bright paso, and repairs to the presence of the monks. Near at hand the parents have set ready the thingan, belt, ko-wut, and other yellow robes, the begging-pot, and other requisites of the shin. The boy comes forward, prostrates himself three times, raises his hands joined in reverence, and begs, in a Pali formula got up by heart, to be admitted to the holy assembly asa neophyte, that he may walk steadily in the path of perfecticn, enjoy the advantages which result therefrom, and finally attain to the blessed state of Ne’ban. The kyaung po-go with his own hands gives him the garments ; heis duly robed ; the thabeit is hung round his neck by the strap, and then itis announced formally that he is a member of the monastery. He falls in among the other novices who have come with the mendicants. The abbot perhaps exhorts the assembly for a short time, and then rising while all the people do obeisance, walks off slowly to the monastery, whither the newly- appointed ko-yins follow him, not unlikely helping to carry the presents which have been given at their induction.” Of the ear-boring ceremony Sir George Scott gives the following account : “The first great event ina Burmese girl’s life is the na-twin mingala, the boring of the ears. She is not out of the doll stage till that happens. She may have toddled after her mother to the market with a basket of fruit on her head, long before the ear-boring, but that ceremony is as much an epoch to her as putting on the yellow robe isto her brother. . . . Thena-twin mingala transforms the girl into a woman, just as such an admission to the monastery makes the bbyaman. .. . 265 Peacocks and Pagodas “The ceremony takes place at the age of twelve or thirteen, just when the girl has attained puberty in fact. Her sada, is sub- mitted to a soothsayer, that a fortunate day and hour may be chosen, and that being fixed, a great feast is prepared, and all the friends of the family and the relations are invited. An invitation to an ear-boring feast is a very urgent matter. No one can refuse without a very good excuse, and serious business is often postponed to the demands of such a ceremony. Everybody comes early, and sits down in any place he can find round about the front part and sides of the room, the girl, with all her female relatives about her, reclining on a mat at the back. The bedin saya stalks about gazing at a mysterious strip of palm-leaf; or apparently wrapped in deep thought. Beside him is the professional ear-borer. He carries the needles, which are almost always pure gold, and in even the case of the poorest, never of any baser metal than silver. Rich people very often have them set at the ends with precious stones. At last the soothsayer gives the sign that the favourable moment has arrived. The ear-borer moves up immediately and passes the needles through the lobe of the ears, sometimes using a cork as they do in England, but more often letting them pass between two of his fingers. The girl, who has been worked up into a high state of excitement and terror by all the preparations, usually struggles and shrieks as hard as she can, but the women round about hold her down, and the band of music in the street outside strikes up a rapid movement and drowns her lamentations, while all the visitors burst into a flood of talk and reminiscences of other ceremonies of the kind that they have witnessed. Usually the gold needle is bent round and left in the wound, but poor people sometimes pass a string through and tie it.” At the other end of the village on the river bank near the steamer landing I found the major part of the female popu- lation hard at work washing clothes and babies, and taking an occasional dip themselves. Statuesque young girls went to and from the river with water chatties on their heads. Children, as innocent of clothing as on the day they were born, played in the sand or paddled at the river’s edge. Wooden 266 At Sameikkon beaters in the hands of energetic washerwomen flashed in the sun and punctuated the laughter and chatter with rhythmic blows. The Irrawaddy glittered under the wide expanse of blue sky. The palms and tamarinds that hid the village swayed gently in the breeze. I sat down on the bank WASHERWOMEN absorbing the warmth, the colour, the movement, the sense of space and freedom. No wonder, I thought, the Burmese are a happy people! Who could be otherwise in such surroundings ? And my mind travelled back to England with its slums, its sordid mean streets, its barrack-like 267 Peacocks and Pagodas tenements, its unlovely suburbs, its hordes of poor children whose sole playground is the gutter, its public-houses, its gin-palaces, its thousands of unemployed, its grinding poverty, its vulgar wealth, and its invincible pride in the achievements of civilisation. What a contrast ! On the bank above the steamer landing stood a banyan tree, its roots, exposed by the action of the water in the rainy season, spreading in a tangled network for yards around the base of the trunk. Here I settled down to await the arrival of the ferry-boat. A kindly Burman, seeing me sitting there, brought from his hut a real European chair, which he offered me with an engaging mixture of pride and deference. Later the D.S.P. and the Sub-Inspector arrived from the dak bungalow with our kit and the printing-press and other fruits of the raid. The ferry-boat, however, was two hours late, and it was 8.30, and of course quite dark, before we eventually reached Myingyan. Bullock-carts brought us across the wide stretch of sand and through the town. Three quarters of an hour later we were approaching the D.S.P.’s house. He got down from the cart and waved a lantern. “My wife will be looking out for us,” he said. ‘‘ You'll see her signal back in a minute.”’ But no answering signal came. The D.S.P. waved the lantern again. Still no reply. “I can’t make it. out,” said the D.S.P., waving the lantern harder than ever. 268 The Missing Wife The bullock-carts continued their slow way. We passed through the gate into the grounds. Still no answering light showed ahead. The house was dark. | “ Most extraordinary !’”’ grumbled the D.S.P. “ What- ever can my wife be thinking of ? ”’ We reached the entrance. No lights! No servants! No wife! A cold welcome indeed for a D.S.P. returning in triumph with the spoils of victory ! “Most disappointing,’ muttered the D.S.P. Then he shouted. A faint answering cry came from the servants’ compound at the back. But still no sign of the welcoming wife, and, what to me seemed worse, no sign whatever of dinner. Eventually, however, dinner materialised, and finally the erring but unrepentant wife was run to earth at the Deputy Commissioner’s, where she had gone to dine after receiving a telegram from her husband which said “ Returning to-morrow.” This telegram, which should have come the previous day, had been delayed, and consequently the immediate arrival of the hero was unexpected. Explana- tion made everything clear, and the cloud on the domestic horizon melted away to nothing. Once more smiling and happy, the D.S.P., despite the lateness of the hour, went off with his trophies to the D.C.’s. I went to bed. The three prisoners whom we had brought back with us— I had seen then squatting in chains on the after-deck of the ferry-steamer—were subsequently tried and given the stiff sentence of fourteen years’ penal servitude. Counterfeiting 269 Peacocks and Pagodas notes as a means of livelihood appears to have its drawbacks. Probably it is wiser to swindle one’s fellows by one of the simpler and more customary methods sanctioned by the law and by the conscience of a law-abiding people. But, for those who still prefer the illicit, a safer and surer way of making money—safer, I mean, than counterfeiting bank- notes—is offered by opium smuggling. Opium is valuable in proportion to its bulk, and is consequently very portable and easy to conceal. In defiance of all the efforts of the excise officers, illicit opium continues to be grown and sold in considerable quantitiesin Burma, and many ingenious devices are employed by the Burmese smugglers for transporting it and hiding it from the revenue officials. At one time, not long ago, a certain boat came frequently into Rangoon harbour and cleared cargoes of opium under the very noses of the excisemen. Though she was searched time and again from stem to stern, on trace of opium could be found. At last one of the officials had a brain-wave. He noticed, as he went aboard the revenue launch, after the usual fruitless search, a long fender hanging from the side of the suspected craft. He probed it with his pocket-knife, and at once the secret was out. The fender was full of opium. A still more subtle method was employed by a certain Chinaman about whom the excise officials at Mandalay had received what they believed to be reliable information. The Chinaman was said to be about to travel from Mandalay to Rangoon by the ferry-steamer, with a large quantity of 270 Opium Smuggling opium concealed in his kit. An excise officer went aboard the boat and there he found the Chinaman squatting on the after-deck. When the search warrant was produced, the suspect smiled the bland smile of the Celestial and waved his hand towards his belongings, which lay on the deck near by, covered with a tarpaulin. The exciseman removed the tarpaulin and went through everything with great care. There was no opium there. He examined the kit a second time, searching in every corner and crevice. He took measurements in case there might be a false bottom to the Chinaman’s box. The measurements disclosed nothing suspicious. Much puzzled, he replaced the tarpaulin. The face of the Chinaman still wore a bland and inscrutable smile. The smile annoyed him. He knew that the information was sound. And yet where on earth was the stuff hidden ? He raised his hand and gave his moustache a thoughtful tug. Then he jumped. His hand smelt strongly of opium. For some time he hesitated in bewilderment. It was obvious that somehow and somewhere his hand had come into contact with the object of his search. Then an idea struck him. He examined the tarpaulin and found the solution of the problem. The tarpaulin itself was made of opium. The pay of the excise officer is very small and this handicaps him. One whom I met in Rangoon told me that when he first came out to Burma as a young man he was sent to a district where opium smuggling was rife. His pay was only Rs.150 a month, which is, if anything, rather less 271 Peacocks and Pagodas than the minimum upon which a European can subsist. His predecessor in office had been a Burman who appeared to be, and no doubt was, quite well-to-do. The local smugglers, it transpired, had found it worth their while to pay this man Rs. 300 a month to be elsewhere when the ferry-boat called, and being a Burman, he naturally accepted the bribe. The same men approached the new excise officer with a similar offer, which was, no doubt to their great astonishment, peremptorily declined, and only had the effect of increasing the determination of the new exciseman to put a stop to the smugglers’ game. In order to do so it would be necessary, he knew, to gain a hold somehow upon the local folk. And as an appeal to their credulity and belief in magic seemed the most likely method of obtaining it, he devised and carried out the follow- ing ingenious plan. He let it be known that he possessed a power which rendered him immune from bullets, and offered to prove it by allowing himself to be shot at. For some time no one could be persuaded to fire the testing shot. Eventually an old villager consented. The exciseman in the meantime had made his preparations. Having extracted the bullet from a revolver cartridge, he inserted in its place an imitation bullet made of flour and water and coloured with black-lead. He reckoned that it would disintegrate when fired and at a reasonable range could do him no harm. When the time for the test arrived he loaded the revolver before the assembled villagers, handed it to the old man, and removed himself to a safe distance. 272 A Railway Journey As the old Burman fired, the exciseman jumped to the left, and, producing the real bullet from his mouth, proceeded to abuse the old man vigorously for not shooting straighter. He had only just managed to catch the bullet, he said, and the experiment had by this carelessness been very nearly spoilt. The old Burman and all the onlookers were, of course, duly impressed, and no doubt as to the genuineness of the experiment ever entered their simple heads. The excise- man’s prestige was firmly established. To aman who could catch a bullet, to catch smugglers was an easy matter. A month or so later he had them all by the heels, and their domicile for the next few years was the convict settlement in the Andaman Islands. It was now time for me to return to Rangoon. I said good-bye tomy Myingyan friends with reluctance, and left by train for Thazi Junction, in order to catch the night mail there. If there is a worse bit of line in the world than that between Myingyan and Thazi I have no desire to travel by it. The carriage rocked so badly that it was quite impossible even to read. I went second-class; contrary to accepted custom, for the Europeans, careful of their prestige, usually travel first. But I thought that the mixed company of the second class was more likely to prove interesting than the more exclusive company I should encounter in the first class. Perhaps the third class would have been more interesting still ; but the mass of perspiring humanity that crowded the thirds was more than even I could stomach. The second class 273 18 Peacocks and Pagodas turned out to be quite comfortable and not at all crowded. .The greater part of the way to Thazi my only companion was an Indian gentleman whose luggage consisted of an earthenware chatty full of water and an enamelled mug. The stations were busy places. Sellers of sweetmeats and various eatables paraded up and down the platform with their wares in flat baskets on their heads. A noisy crowd carrying boxes, bundles, and all sorts of gear, jostled one another and talked and shouted at the top of their voices. A railway station in the East is pandemonium itself, and an astonishing contrast to the dignified and orderly quiet of the average railway station in England. I had telegraphed to the stationmaster at Thazi for a reserved berth, and as soon as the express arrived from Mandalay I was put into a compartment already occupied bya Burmanand his wife, anda vast amount of kit—rugs, carpets, cushions, baskets, and a great branch of bananas to help support the rigours of the journey. They were quiet, unassuming folk, and soon settled down for the night at opposite ends of the berth on the other side of the carriage tomyown. At about 6.30 the next morning my boy brought me tea and biscuits, and at 8 o’clock we reached Rangoon. The journey was perfectly comfortable, and, prestige apart, there is little objection to second-class travel in Burma. In fact, some Englishmen in a first-class compartment next to my second, with whom I got into conversation, when they found how comfortable I was, expressed regret at having unnecessarily wasted their money on first-class fares. 274 Back in Rangoon Rangoon seemed hot and stuffy after the drier air of Upper Burma. Even now, though only the end of January, the short “‘cold”’ weather was coming to an end, and the heat becoming oppressive. The sun blazed down on the dusty streets and glaring white buildings, until one longed for coloured glasses to relieve the eyes—an amenity for which personally I never felt the need elsewhere, even on the Irrawaddy. The social life of the European population was in full swing, with dinner-parties, dances, and other functions almost every night. The Englishman as usual was doing his best to mitigate the drawbacks of exile. Tennis tournaments, polo, racing, motoring, boating and bathing helped to fill the leisure daylight hours. Racing in particular seemed exceedingly popular with all classes and all nationalities. The Rangoon race-course on a racing Saturday is a wonderful sight, owing to the brightly-coloured clothes of the Burmese. The totalisator does a roaring trade, while backers who prefer the personal touch transact their business at the bookmaker’s booths. The races are very well managed and the evil reputation of Rangoon racing is not borne out by appearance. The handicapping is remarkable, or was on the day I was present, when in eight races no more than two lengths separated the first horse from the last. I doubt whether nowadays there is any more chicanery in Rangoon racing than there is in racing at home, whatever irregularities may have been customary in the past. In pursuit of amusement the Burman does not by any 275 Peacocks and Pagodas means lag behind the European, though the Burmese and European idea of what constitutes amusement does not always, as in racing, coincide. The ‘“ pwe”’ so dear to the heart of the Burman seems to the Englishman an enter- tainment dreary and boring to the last degree. I found one of these festivals in full swing a short distance from Blake’s house. A stage had been erected on some vacant land at the side of the main road. Powerful petrol lamps lit it. The whole of the space in front was occupied by Burmese women sitting, squatting, and lying on mats. Many had babies with them. The male portion of the audience stood or squatted in a wide semi-circle in the rear. On the outskirts of the crowd were numerous stalls and booths, whose proprietors sold comestibles of various kinds made on the spot—ice cream, oranges and bananas, and “soft” drinks of every kind, colour and flavour. Cheroots for the smokers and betel nut for the chewers were also available. When I arrived two dancing girls occupied the stage. They appeared to be about twelve or thirteen years old. To music supplied by a Burmese band, such as I have described elsewhere, these children, for they were no more, swayed, postured and pirouetted within the narrow limits imposed by their clothing. They wore the traditional costume of the Burmese dancing-girl with lungyis so tightly wrapped round their legs that their knees appeared to be fastened firmly together—the very antithesis of the Western ballet skirt. This dancing performance, such as it was, continued for what seemed an interminable time. Meanwhile I stood in the 276 A Pwe crowd waiting with such patience as I could command. Surely, I thought, something will happen soon! I was not yet aware that in a Burmese theatrical performance nothing ever happens. At last, after about an hour, the dance came to an end and the curtain fell. A buzz of chatter ensued. Food was produced, cheroots were re-lit, mats were re-arranged, babies soothed and fed, and a few minutes later the audience settled down to another act. The curtain rose, disclosing four men seated on a form in a stiff row. Then followed at lengthy conversation on the part of two of the four, the remaining couple staying totally passive and totally uninterested save for an occasional casual remark thrown in at long intervals. As the dialogue was worse than Greek to me and there was no action whatever, I had not an inkling of what it was all about. That it had some point, however, for the audience was evidenced by their exclamations and laughter. Again I waited for something to happen, and again nothing happened. I grew more and more bored, and more and more tired, until at last I could bear it no longer, and went home to bed. The show would go on, I was assured, until four o’clock the next morning, and be continued every night for a week. An actor must surely be the hardest-worked individual in Burma. Whether his pay is at all adequate I have no notion, but as there is no charge for admission, and the whole entertainment is provided out of one generous and philanthropic pocket, it is not likely to be anything consider- able. Probably the combined wages of every actor and 277 Peacocks and Pagodas dancer in Burma would not amount to a fraction of the salary of one popular American film-star. Another, and a larger, pwe was in progress, I was told, in the centre of the city. Hoping it might prove more enter- taining than the last, I went down one evening to see it. A big stage had been erected almost opposite the Sule Pagoda. The whole street, at this point of considerable width, was a solid mass of people, sitting, squatting, standing, and lying on mats. The crowd even extended for some distance down the street on either side, though those on the outskirts can hardly have obtained more than a sidelong glimpse of the stage, if they could seeitatall. Thisdidn’tseemto matter. There they were, at the pwe, and there they were prepared to stay for hours, even though they could hear very little and see nothing. Pongyis occupied the parapet of the pagoda, which, to my surprise, was also shared by a number of Burmese girls. The rules of the priesthood have evidently been relaxed. In the old days such an arrangement would have been out of the question, for then no pongyi was allowed to look at a woman, while anti-feminism was carried to such lengths that even hens were barred from the monastery precincts. For some time I stood with my back to the pagoda wall watching the performance from a distance. It was too far for the actors’ voices to carry, and even the penetrating nasal tones of a female singer were only just audible, though this was partly due to the hum of conversation in the audience, - for everyone talked, at all events on the outer edge of the crowd where I was. A troup of male dancers first occupied 278 Pitfalls in the Burmese Language the stage. The performers were not dressed in Burmese costume, but wore short jackets and trunk-hose over tights, and resembled the chorus of a third-rate pantomime at home. The pants of one member of the troup kept slipping down and appearing beneath his trunk hose, and his unavailing efforts to tuck them out of sight and to keep on dancing at the same time brought the only glimmer of fun into the otherwise extremely dull proceedings. The dancers were succeeed by a female singer and two clowns—a recognised and familiar feature of a pwe. I watched their performance with the uncomprehending eyes of the Britisher and found it very tedious. Eventually, as it showed no immediate sign of coming to an end, I struggled out of the crowd and, envying the Burmese their evident capacity for being easily amused, went home. The Burmese language, as I have already mentioned, contains no ‘ ce >) “yes ’”’ or “no,” no “ good-morning, good- night,”’ or “‘ good-bye,” or any form of either greeting or valediction. The weather, moreover, being constant, is valueless as a small-talk topic and provides none of the tentative openings which are found so useful in less favoured climates. This lack of conversational commonplaces proves difficult to the European who is so thoroughly accustomed to making several false casts before finally dropping his fly on the conversational water. On being introduced to a Burman for the first time, however, it is permissible to pave the way by some remark equivalent to the ‘‘ pleased to meet you ”’ of America, but, since Burmese words possess several different 279 PRE E Peacocks and Pagodas significations according to inflection and pronunciation, the beginner will be well-advised to tread warily. An Englishwoman of my acquaintance who had only recently arrived in Burma was about to call on a Burmese lady upon whom she was particularly anxious to make a good impression. She mustered her scanty stock of Burmese and composed a sentence which she believed to mean “ Iam greatly honoured to make your acquaintance.’ She practised it beforehand until she had, as she imagined, got it quite pat. The call was made and the sentence duly fired off. At once a half-suppressed ‘titter went round the assembled company, making it only too clear that something had gone wrong. When the poor lady returned home she discovered to her horror, that a slight mispronunciation had converted her apparently harmless remark into “I see you are about to have a baby.” My time in Burma was now drawing to a close, but I had one more experience which is worth chronicling. This was a visit to the Parliament Buildings where the newly- elected Legislative Council was sitting. The President, or speaker, sat beneath a canopy at the top of the hall. The members—mostly Burmese, but including British, Anglo- Indian, and (I think I am correct in stating) Indian—sat at desks on each side and at the bottom. I sat amongst the visitors in the gallery, whence we had a good view of the proceedings. The scene was a bright one, owing to the cheerful colours of the Burmese costumes and the rows of yellow and orange gaung-baungs on the heads of the Burmese 280 Home Again members. It was the second session of the newly-consti- tuted Parliament and the proceedings opened with questions. Everything was conducted in accordance with Western Parliamentary traditions, and all the customary routine was observed. I found it tedious and almost began to imagine myself at home in the dull West, until a member put a question which brought me back with a start to the East again. He asked whether it might not be advisable to pass legislation to control, or forbid, the tattooing of charms on the body. The suggestion, however, was not received with favour—probably, I imagine, because there was not a Burman in the assemblage whose cuticle had escaped the tattooer’s needle. One Burmese member to whom I after- wards spoke confessed to having a bird tattooed upon him. This was a charm to make him swift. He was a portly gentleman, and no doubt needed something of the kind. On February 6th I sailed for home, and early one morning, about a month later, found myself in Southampton Water. The spell of the East was still upon me, and it was hard to realise that I was back again. A tender came alongside and a paper boy came aboard. We had had no news for some time, so I bought and opened one of the great journals that control the destinies of the British race, help it, mother it, educate it, and guide it to higher things. A headline caught my eye. - Across a column in big black capitals ran an arresting sentence. It thrilled me through and through. Yes, there could be no doubt about it, I was really at home! 281 Peacocks and Pagodas The glamour of the East was dissipated in a flash. I might almost never have been there at all. I hurried to the saloon with my paper and devoured with throbbing pulses a column of print, instinct with the fire and imagination of journalistic genius, describing nothing less than “ The Royal Baby’s First Train Ride.’ So ended my trip to Burma ; land of sunshine; land of ignorance—the ignorance that is bliss; land of childish superstition and simple faith; land of the yellow robe; land of silk; land of the primitive passions; lotus-land where time is not money but far more precious ; where money has little intrinsic value and misers are not ; land of laughing children ; land of colour; and, above all, land of happiness —the happiness that is born of content. Civilisation in its ruthless march is knocking at the door—has, in fact, its foot well over the threshold. Whether it will advance further, whether its advantages will outweigh its disadvantages, whether it will ultimately improve the Burman or spoil him, are questions that Time must answer. Only one thing is certain—however much it may increase his material comfort it will never add one iota to his happiness. 282 Wee At, Wyte eae a) ore e vay ale Soh e.3 er ee hers aie peer te * r Wee tat a5 Pa esti ates edt at LL? } errs insets : : : 1 44 Es * r eat ateks _) paras bl ree Ply sitet plategte