Burma Part 5

Some of these creeks are very lovely, fringed as they are by flowering gra.s.ses, behind which the forest rises tier on tier above the shimmering water and gleaming sand-banks.

On the banks are the footprints of many wild animals who have come down to water during the night. In the water are fish and water-snakes, which alert herons constantly hara.s.s, and, strange as it may seem, in the river-bed itself are the marks of cart-wheels, for the Burmans often make a highway of these forest streams, which in the dry season are generally easier to travel than the roads.

The forest itself is never monotonous, its growths varying according to the levels of the hills. Sometimes the enormous trees and heavy foliage I have already described produce a depth of gloom which might well excuse the superst.i.tious fear of the Burmans, and often recalls to me the pictures in our fairy-books, where some bold knight is depicted entering the depths of an enchanted wood, in search of the dragon that well might dwell there. Descending the hill-side with a suddenness which is almost startling, you may find yourself in a bamboo forest, which is a veritable fairyland for beauty. From a carpet of sand, on which lilies grow, these giant bamboos spring, fern-like, in enormous clumps, spreading their arms and feathery crests in all directions, and, meeting overhead, form avenues and lanes, which remind one of some beautiful cathedral aisle.

Different in many ways from the forests I have described are those of the cooler plateaus and mountain ranges of Northern Burma. On the higher levels oak and pines are found among the other trees, and bracken grows around the wild plums on the more open slopes. Sparkling rivulets spring from the mountain-side, and, overhung by ferns and mosses, flow gurgling over their pebbly beds to the deep valley below, there to join the swiftly-flowing river, which, by many waterfalls and rapids, eventually reaches the level of the plains.

From the river's edge, where reeds and wild bananas grow, the purple wistaria spreads itself over the ma.s.s of vegetation which covers the precipitous hills from base to summit.

Bamboos of many kinds wave among the trees or grow in ma.s.ses by themselves, and climbing geranium and ferns mount from one foothold to another over tree-trunks or rocks, rooting as they go.

Nests of wasps and weaver birds hang from the canes. Jungle-fowl and pheasant, snipe and partridge, are there to provide the traveller with food, and often, flying heavily from tree to tree, a peac.o.c.k offers a welcome addition to your larder.

The forest is dense, and in places almost impenetrable, and as you ride or cut your way through the thick undergrowth, monkeys of large size follow you through the tree-tops, scolding and chattering at your intrusion; and lemurs, fear overcome by curiosity, approach you closely, as though to see what kind of creature is this that penetrates these wilds.

Wildness best describes these leafy solitudes in which roads are almost unknown, and which the larger beasts as well as men appear to shun.

Along the river-bank, however, are many little hamlets, where in dug-out canoes the natives fish the rivers, using many ingenious nets and traps, or weirs which stretch from bank to bank.

Carts are never used here, and such traffic as is carried on must be done by means of pack-ponies, whose loads are so contrived that, should they stumble on their rugged path, they can easily free themselves of their burden.

We are now near to the Chinese frontier, and many straggling groups of Chinese, Shans, and Shan-tilok (which is a mixture of the two) may be met bearing bales or baskets of produce on their backs to some distant settlement; or occasionally a family party, bent upon some pilgrimage or journey, carry their household goods and young children in baskets slung from bamboo poles, which cross their shoulders.

On the lower levels, where paths are more frequent, little bridges of picturesque design cross the streams, from which rise warm miasmic mists. In the early morning dense fogs fill the valleys, often accompanied by frost; but as the sun gains power and the mists are sucked up, the heat is intense; and these extremes of heat and cold, combined with the smell of rotting vegetation and exhalations from the ground, render this region a perfect fever-den, in which no white man can safely live.

Though the general character of the country consists of lofty mountains and deep valleys, through which wide rivers flow, there are at intervals considerable stretches of flat land, which are under partial cultivation. Here villages of some size are found, and among the people which inhabit them are strange types we have not previously seen in Burma, and customs which are curious. The Shans, for instance, have the habit of tattooing their faces and legs and centre of their chests, while, their scanty clothing not permitting the use of pockets, they carry upon their backs little baskets of wicker-work, in which are placed their knives, tobacco, and such other articles as a pocket might have accommodated. The Yunnanese, wearing huge plaited hats of straw and curious slippers of the same material, but whose other garments are so thin and baggy as to mark them indifferent to the cold, are in marked contrast to the Kachins, who wear an elaborate costume of heavy woollen material of many colours. The men, whose hair is long and tied in a knot on the top of the head, after the manner of the Burmese, wear a simple scarf tied round the head in place of a hat, while the women, who wear a costume much like the men, have as their head-covering a handkerchief or scarf folded flat upon the head.

All have their ears bored, the lobes being so large as not only to enable them to wear ear ornaments of unusual size, but often to serve as a handy receptacle for a cigar! When travelling the Kachins usually carry in their hands double-ended spears, whose shafts are covered with a kind of red plush from which large fringes hang; but these are only ceremonial weapons, and show that their intentions are pacific.

Like the Shans, they dispense with pockets in their clothing, but instead wear suspended under their arm a cloth bag, which is often prettily embroidered.

Though, as I have mentioned, the forests of Mid-Burma--and, indeed, generally throughout the country--abound in game, which ranges from elephant and rhinoceros down to the smallest deer, and while every tree and thicket is a home for birds, all forms of animal life appear to avoid the fever-infested highlands of North-East Burma. In some places, however, strange freaks of Nature occur. On the high plateau through which the Myit-nge River flows, though the forest and jungle is more or less deserted, scattered over the plain are conical limestone crags, which are alive with monkeys; and while the innumerable species of insects which infest the warmer forests are absent, nowhere in all Burma have I seen b.u.t.terflies more numerous or more beautiful than here. It is singular, also, to notice how human habitations will attract certain forms of animal life, and in some mysterious manner, though the surrounding forest may be otherwise deserted, pigeons and doves and the various kinds of crow quickly install themselves in the neighbourhood of a newly-established settlement or camp.

It is impossible in two short chapters to describe the infinite variety and charm of these Burmese forests--the rushing mountain torrents, the sweeping rivers, and n.o.ble waterfalls; the sluggish streams, which reflect the glories of the surrounding forest; its teeming life, its solitude, and the wonderful effects of light and colour; but perhaps I have said enough to convey to you some idea of that wealth of exuberant beauty which has forced upon me the conclusion that nothing in all the world is quite so beautiful as a tropical forest.

So far I have not given you any example of the many adventures which may befall a traveller in such wilds, but they are naturally of frequent occurrence.

Often while painting, and quite unarmed, I have found myself in unpleasantly close proximity to wild beasts of many kinds, and on more than one occasion I have narrowly escaped the fatal bite of some deadly snake which I have killed. Every one has a natural horror of poisonous snakes, but sometimes an adventure with them has its element of amus.e.m.e.nt. I remember an instance where one of my companions, having come into camp from his work in the forest, lay down outside his tent to rest, and, the better to enjoy it, took off his riding-boots and loosened his breeches at the knee. While his "tiffin"

was being prepared he went to sleep, but presently awoke with a horrible sensation of something lying cold against his thigh. To his alarm, he discovered this to be a large cobra, which had sought shelter from the sun. Remaining quite still, he called his native servant, and explained the position, and the snake was soon secured and dispatched, while my friend suffered nothing worse than a fright.

Though so docile as a rule when tamed, elephants in their wild state are most dangerous, and I have heard of many narrow escapes from them in Burma. Panthers, also, though shy of human beings, are fierce when at bay, and I have been told that a scratch from their claws nearly always results in fatal blood-poisoning.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE QUEEN'S GOLDEN MONASTERY, MANDALAY. _Page 79._]

It is the tiger, however, which is most to be feared. General throughout the country, a traveller through jungle or forest must be ever alert, so stealthy are its movements, and so audacious is it in its depredations. Its great strength, however, which is not so generally recognized, the following will serve to show. Close beside our lonely camp on the Nan-Tu River a tiger killed a sambur, upon which the natives saw him feeding. Being unarmed themselves, they ran for the "Sahib" to come and shoot him; but, on regaining the spot, they found that the tiger had gone, carrying the huge carca.s.s with him. Following the trail, they came up with their quarry at the river's bank; but the tiger, still retaining its hold upon its prey, took to the water, and, although impeded by its heavy burden, succeeded in reaching the opposite sh.o.r.e. The sad part of the story is that a native, armed with a "dah," who had followed the tiger into the river, though an extremely powerful swimmer, was swept away by the current, and drowned in the rapids below.

CHAPTER XI

TEMPLES AND RELIGION

Burma has been called the "Land of PaG.o.das," and nothing could be more true, for from Syriam, below Rangoon, to Myitkyina, in the far north, is one long succession of these beautiful temples. Not only on the river-banks do these paG.o.das crown the hills, but in every town and village throughout the country; and in many remote districts, far from present habitations, some shrine, however simple, has been raised.

We have seen something of the great Shwe Dagon paG.o.da in Rangoon, but there are many others almost equally beautiful, if not so large: the exquisite Shwe Tsan Daw at Prome, the Arracan near Mandalay, while in old Pagan, Pegu, Moulmein, and a host of other places, are temples which one might well think could not be surpa.s.sed for beauty. I have told you that these paG.o.das are usually bell-shaped--a delicate and most elegant form of design, which gains very much in effect from the habit the Burmese have of building their temples on a hill, so that the gradually ascending ground, on the different levels of which the pinnacles of the "kyoungs" are visible above the trees, leads gradually upward from one point to another until the temple itself is reached, towering gracefully above the other forms of beauty with which the hill is sometimes covered. Another pretty effect is gained by building them close to the water, either on the river-bank or beside some artificial pool or "tank," in which they are reflected.

Nothing could be more beautiful than the effect of these golden piles glittering in the sunshine among the deep green of the trees, especially when repeated in some placid sheet of water, dotted over perhaps with pink and purple lotus.

And, then, the little bells which hang from every "ti"--how they tinkle as they swing in the breeze, in their numbers forming one general harmonious note, most musical, and with a strange sensation of joy and contentment in its sound.

These little bells are not the only ones in the temples, however, for in all of them are others of very large size, which, raised a foot or more from the ground, hang between two posts set in the platform which surrounds the "zedi," as the bell-shaped temple is called.

These are used by the worshippers, who, with a stag's horn, strike the bell after praying, to call the attention of the "nats" of the upper and lower worlds to the fact that they have done so. You will see these bells in one of the pictures, but there are some others of immense size, that at Mingun weighing eighty tons; but, as a rule, the tone of the very large bells is poor, and not to be compared with that of those of more moderate size.

There are one or two places in Burma particularly rich in paG.o.das--Pagan, Sagaing, and Mandalay. I want to tell you just a little about each.

Let us go to Mandalay first, for I have no doubt that you have been wondering why I have not already told you something about the capital of Burma.

As a matter of fact, Mandalay is little better than an enlarged village, and is built much in the same way as the towns I have already described, and has really only two points of great interest--its religious buildings and the "fort."

I am referring, of course, to the _Burmese_ town, for surrounding the fort are a large number of well-built bungalows, and streets of shops built of stone or brick; but these are for the use of Europeans and Indian or Chinese traders, the Burmans here, as elsewhere, contenting themselves with their thatched houses of timber. It may appear surprising that a people who could erect their marvellous temples should be satisfied with such poor dwellings. The reason is to be found in their custom of removing their capital on each change of dynasty, and since A.D. 1740 the capital of Burma has been moved no less than eight times! Mandalay itself is only fifty years old, so that it hardly appeared to them worth their while to build more substantial dwellings, which might so soon have to be deserted; and in this way they came to regard their homes as temporary, expending their energies and wealth in the building of temples and monasteries instead.

The streets of Mandalay are wide, and laid out in rectangles, as in Rangoon, and, like all towns in Burma, the roads are heavily shaded by trees. Foreign types are common in Mandalay, but the Burmese life here is very pretty. Nowhere else are the people better dressed, and the ladies rival the silk bazaar in the variety and beautiful colour of their clothing. Until recently this was a royal city, and the ladies pay great attention to the demands of fashion, whether it is in their delicately-tinted garments, their embroidered sunshades or fan, or the lace handkerchief with which they love to toy; and nothing in the way of crowd could be nicer than these daintily-dressed and usually prepossessing men and women. Fashion, however, has always _some_ drawback. The ladies in many cases smear their faces with a paste called "thannakah," which has the effect of whitening the skin. The result is very unfortunate, for it is not always put on evenly, and only serves to make the ugly more forbidding, while it destroys the soft warmth of colour and skin texture which so often makes these women beautiful. Another unfortunate custom is their habit of smoking such huge cheroots, which no mouth of ordinary size could possibly hold without distortion.

All roads in Mandalay lead to the fort, lately the residence of the Court. This consists of a huge square, 1-1/4 miles each way, entirely surrounded by battlemented walls, and further protected by a wide and deep moat. Quaint bridges cross the moat, and lead to gateways, each surmounted by a "pyathat." Within the walls are the palace of the King, and many other buildings of highly ornate and purely Burmese character. Many of them have lately been destroyed by fire; but what will interest us most is the rambling but most picturesque palace, the lofty "pyathat" which is erected over Thebaw's throne being the finest in the country, and so much admired by the Burmans as to be called "the centre of the universe."

All these buildings are of timber, only the finest teak being used, and the many columns which support the roofs of the halls of audience consist of single tree-trunks of unusual size and great value.

The moat serves to supply Mandalay with its drinking-water, and is fed by a conduit from the hills. I am afraid the water is not very clean, but it is a very pretty sight to see the people coming to fill their jars from the little stages which jut from the banks, while the whole surface is at some seasons of the year a ma.s.s of purple lotus and white water-lily, and, although in the middle of the city, paddy-birds and other ibis wade about its margins.

Mandalay is a station for our troops, who are quartered inside the fort, which was only captured after severe fighting. The stockade, which offered so great an obstacle to our men, has been swept away, and "Tommy Atkins," as well as Indian troops, now inhabit the palaces of King Thebaw's time! But it is an unhealthy station, and nowhere in Burma have I seen such crowds of mosquitoes, the common cause of fever in Europeans.

The most beautiful of Mandalay's paG.o.das, "the Incomparable," has been destroyed by fire; but a large number remain, one of which is very interesting. This is the "Kuthodaw," a temple built by Mindon Min, King Thebaw's father. The central dome is not remarkable, but on each side of the large flagged s.p.a.ce which surrounds it are rows and rows of miniature temples, each with an ornamental cupola, supported upon pillars. Each of these 729 cupolas contains a slab of alabaster, on which is inscribed a chapter of the Pali Bible. The entrance-gates, also, are large, and unusually ornate in design.

Each quarter of the town has one or more large paG.o.das, and others surround its outskirts from the river-bank to the top of Mandalay Hill; but these differ from the others we have noticed in one respect, being covered by carved plaster-work, each stage of which is beautified by some elaborate or striking pattern, so that the dome of pure white, broken by sharp contrast of light and shade, is quite as rich in effect as the gilded temples of Rangoon or Prome.

Most remarkable of all the buildings in Mandalay, however, are the monasteries, of which there are a large number, many of great interest, the princ.i.p.al one being the "Queen's Golden Monastery," for beauty of design and elaborate embellishment unquestionably the finest structure of its kind in Burma.

Across the river from Mandalay is a very pretty scene. Low conical hills rise from the banks of the river, each crowned by a paG.o.da, around which are many "kyoungs" and "zeyats." Scattered over the hill-sides are many others, gleaming white against the warm earth tints and the foliage which surround them. This is old Sagaing, once a capital of Burma; but the city has gone, and only its temples now remain. Crossing the river in sampans painted red, blue, and yellow, or landing on the pearly shingle of the beach, are crowds of well-dressed Burmans from Mandalay and Ava, bent on a pilgrimage to one or other of the many shrines, which are reached by long flights of steps, whose entrance is guarded by enormous leogryphs.

A pretty legend gives the origin of these monsters, which, often of enormous size, invariably guard the entrance to a temple. Long ago in the dim past a Princess was stolen by "nats," and hidden away in the dark recesses of the forest. The King made every effort to find the hiding-place of his daughter, but without success, until one day a lioness rescued the Princess, and restored her to her home. Ever since then the lion, which in the course of centuries has gradually become changed into the leogryph (or half-lion, half-griffin), has been accepted by the people as the emblem of protecting watchfulness.

Close to Mandalay on the south is Amarapura, another of Burma's many capitals, and though we cannot hope to see all the many interesting monuments that remain, it has one paG.o.da in particular which well repays us for our long and dusty journey.

This is the Arracan paG.o.da, one of the most famous shrines in Burma, and the one most frequented by the Shans and other hill tribes, whose time of pilgrimage occurs "between the reaping and the sowing."

There is no ascent to this temple, which, through a series of ornamented doorways, is approached by a long flat corridor, which, as usual, serves the purpose of a bazaar. Here perhaps the best Burmese gongs may be purchased, and the stalls for cut flowers display a rich profusion of blooms, whose scent fills the whole temple precincts. The temple itself is different in design from any others we have seen, being built in the form of a square tower, above which rises a series of diminishing terraces, each beautified by carved battlements and corner pinnacles, the whole being richly gilt.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SHWE ZIGON PAG.o.dA, PAGAN. _Page 82._]