From Edinburgh to India & Burmah Part 18

At the next village every one seemed jolly and busy, men and women humping parcels, sacks, and boxes ash.o.r.e, up the soft, hot sands into bullock-carts. Now, after our lunch and their day's work, the men are coming down the banks to bathe--social, cheery fellows, they all go in together, wading with nothing on but their kilts tucked round their hips, showing the tattooed designs, that all grown Burmans have over their thighs. They give a plunge or two, and soap down, and gleam like copper. Then they put on the dry kilt they have taken out with them, slipping it on as they came out, modestly and neatly. The women pa.s.s close by and exchange the day's news, and walk in with their skirts on too, and also change into their dry garments as they come out with equal propriety. No towelling is needed, for the air is so hot and still--but the water is pretty cold--I know!

Another entertainment we have at lunch; on a sandbank a little to our right, a long net; some 200 fathoms, is being drawn ash.o.r.e, and people in canoes are splashing the water outside and at the ends to keep in the fish. There must be twenty men, boys, and women, working at it; beyond them, there is a rolling distance of woodland, and with solitary Popa in the distance--this mountain begins to grow on one, it is so constantly the view from so many places.

Two new pa.s.sengers, a Captain in R. A., I think, and his wife, came on board here--came riding out of the greenery and along the sh.o.r.e on two pretty arabs, through the bustling crowd of Burmans and natives.

He tells me he got with another gun, 60 couple of snipe yesterday, which is a little unsettling for me. However, my gun is in Rangoon, and I will leave it there, and hang on to my pencil! I find our fellow pa.s.senger, who is somewhat deaf, is an artist, studied in Paris, and draws little character figures in most excellent style; so he and G. and I draw all day! one encourages the other.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

At Myingyan we tie up for the night, and we all go ash.o.r.e together, that is, Captain Terndrup, G., and I and the artist and his friend and walk on the flat on the top of the sandy banks, and here is the view down the river from where we landed, a yellow and violet sunset. Bullock carts go slowly creaking past us; the dust they raise hangs in yellow clouds in the sunset light. There are crops here, a little like potatoes, which suggest partridges. I am told there are quail; some day I must come back to see for myself.[28] There are deer about, for two heads came on board, like our red deer, but with only a brow antler, and a well-curved single switch above that--some fellow sending them to be set up for home? I begin to feel awfully sorry I did not bring up gun and rifles and fishing tackle, especially as there's any amount of s.p.a.ce on board for stowing luggage.

[28] Since return have seen Messrs Colonel Pollock and Thorn's book on Sport in Burmah, Upper and Lower, and wish I had read it before going out.

28th January.--The air gets more and more exhilarating as we get North,--there's a Strathspey in the air now in the morning when you waken; but what poor rags we felt only a few days ago down at Rangoon!

It is said that men in the Woods and Forests with fever come from the jungle to the river, get on board a Flotilla steamer, and recover immediately.

This is our last day's journey on this boat, but we are to stay on board her to-night at Mandalay, and perhaps to-morrow night, till we get on board the upper river cargo boat, which is slightly smaller than this mail boat. The cargo boats go slower than the mails, for they stop oftener, and tow _two_ flats or barges, one on each side. After Mandalay, Bhamo will be our objective; it is the most northerly British cantonment in Burmah, and is near the Chinese frontier. All the way there trade is carried on at the stopping places between the traders'

booths on the flats and the riverside villagers. We expect to find this trade mightily interesting, as we shall see men and women of the wild mountain tribes. I hope to see the Shan sword-makers particularly; they make splendid blades by the light of the moon, for secrecy, I am told, like Ferrara, and also because they can then see the fluctuating colour of the tempering better than in daylight--and perhaps because it is cooler at night!

CHAPTER XXVIII

Seven hundred and eight miles we have come to-day from the sea, a regular Argo trip, yet we are far from wearied, and, allowed a day to stop here and there, would willingly proceed in the same manner to the Arctic circle. The farther we go, the more are we impressed with the apparent wealth of this country; the soil is fertile to a degree, the climate is better than Egypt; there's coal, oil, minerals, precious stones, gold, marble, alabaster, and such a magnificent waterway. Had I a hundred years to live I'd sc.r.a.pe capital together to put into this recently "acquired" land; as it is perhaps it would be cheaper and better to stay here now, and learn Burmese philosophy, and make capital out of the flowers that blow.

... That settles the matter--I get my gun sent up from Rangoon, or go down for it myself--over 200 splendid geese along a sandbank! Within 200 yards! I could count their feathers with my gla.s.s. The Captain tells me you just need to drift down in a native canoe and make a bag with ease.

Rather a shame, you say; for the Burmans are not supposed to take life, so the geese are not afraid of a dug-out canoe. But a Burman is delighted to eat what others kill, and besides, I have been so often outwitted by geese at home, that I'd just like to have one chance, to retrieve past misfortunes. Between Mandalay and Bhamo, the Captain says, they are even more numerous than here. Beyond Bhamo, he describes the river water as so clear you can count the pebbles thirty feet below its surface, and describes the whacking big Mahseer, the gold dredging, and the game alongside--peac.o.c.ks--leopards--buffaloes!

As we were talking, the Rock pilot came alongside in a launch and handed aboard a bunch of geese, the same as those we had seen;[29] he is out of shot and powder, and I believe we have no cartridges on board. The geese weighed five and a half pounds each, but they put on some three pounds before the end of the season, before they go north, possibly to some lake in the Himilayas or Western China, to breed.

[29] Barhead and grey lag geese are the two kinds commonly seen.

At Saigang we fairly draw a breath with astonishment at the beauty of the panorama that opens before us. The river widens to two miles, and comes to us in a grand curve from the north and east. Mandalay is at the bend, some nine miles up. It is like a beautiful lake edged with a thread of sand--a lake that Turner might have dreamed of. Above Saigang on our left are green woods, capped with white and gold minarets, with white stairs and terraces leading up to them. To the north one or two canoes, with bright sails, and distant mountains with purple corries, and fleecy clouds, are mirrored on the tranquil river: these distant hills are of very delicate warm violet tints, on their shoulders we can just make out the forms of forests, and heavy white c.u.muli hang above them in a hazy blue. The white Saigang paG.o.das on our left in the distance look like Scottish-baronial or French chateaux, embowered in foliage. Across the swelling river ("swelling" is the right word, I am sure, for the river's surface _seems_ to be convex) and to our right the country is flat, and in the green woods are the overgrown ruins of the once splendid city of Ava. Certainly, of my most pleasant recollections, this wide landscape, and all its light tints of mother-of-pearl, will remain one of the most delightful.

Mandalay is at the upper end of this lake-like part of the Irrawaddy; it lies back and behind the river bank or _bunda_, so it is not visible from the river.

Our steamer pulls up against a flat that lies against the sandy sh.o.r.e, exposed, at this time of year, by the lowness of the river. There are no wharfs as I had expected, only two or three floating sheds, and two or three steamers like our own. The sandy sh.o.r.e slopes up some thirty feet to the bundar, and over that we see palms and trees.

Up and along the sandy sh.o.r.e we drove in a gharry, a man on either side to prevent it upsetting in the ruts, and if it had not been for the honour of the thing I would as soon have walked! On the top of the bundar we struck a macadamised road and rattled gaily along to see the town. It is almost pure Burmah here, and the native of India is beautifully scarce; but Chinese abound, and are uncommonly nice-looking people. We drive a mile or so with rather dingy teak and matting houses on trestle legs on either side of the road, overhung with palms and trees, and see the domestic arrangements through open verandahs--women and children winding yellow silk in skeins and cooking, the vivid colours of the silks in sudden contrast to the sombre dusty red and brown wood of the houses.

We stop at a wooden building with gilded pillars in a clear s.p.a.ce of dry foot-trodden mud, surrounded with tall palms and some teak trees with grey-green leaves big as plates. The short lower wooden pillars support a gallery, and this again has other gilded pillars supporting one roof above another in most fantastic complication; green gla.s.s bal.u.s.trades and seven-roofed spires wrought with marvellous intricacies of gilded teak-wood carving. Indian red underlies the gilding, and the weather has left some parts gold and some half gold and red, and other bits weather-worn silvery teak. The pillars and doors from the gallery into the interior shrines were all gold of varying colours of weather stain.

Shaven priests, with cotton robes of many shades of orange, draped like Roman senators, moved about quietly; they had just stopped teaching a cla.s.s of boys to read from long papyrus leaves--the boys were still there, and seemed to have half possession of the place. Overhead green paroquets screamed, flying to and fro between carved teak foliage and the green palm tops. The interior of the building was all gilded wood--a marvel of carpentry; there were lofty golden teak tree pillars and gilded door panels with gilded figures in relief, and yellow buff cane mats on the floor. Light only came in through doorways and c.h.i.n.ks in the woodwork in long shafts, but such light! golden afternoon sun into a temple of gold, you can imagine the effect when it struck gilding--how it flamed, burned, and lit up remote corners of the shadowy interior with subdued yellows! As we looked in, a kneeling priest near us waved to us to enter, and went on with his devotions, his old wrinkled, kindly, brown face and neck and close cropped head, and deep orange drapery all in half tone against a placque of vivid lemon yellow gold in sunlight. These priests, or phungyis, in their old gold cotton robes form one of the most distinctive features of Burmese life in town and country. They are greatly respected by the people for their simplicity of life. They teach all the boys in the country reading, writing, and simple arithmetic, and how to try to follow the example of the life of their great Gautama. Theoretically they do this for love alone, or to "earn merit." What alms they receive is not in payment--gifts are accepted but not asked for. The people do not pay taxes for their clergy, nor do these literally free kirk ministers perambulate the country, and ask children for their Sat.u.r.day pennies for a Sustentation Fund. One of the most interesting sights here is to see their young novitiate priests in the morning going round the bazaars and the boats and the stalls on the strand in their yellow robes, bowl in hand, silently waiting for a dole of boiled rice or fruit, and pa.s.sing on if it is not quite ready, to come another day.

All Burmese men are priests for a certain time, even though it be but for a few months; for that time they must wear the simple yellow dress and renounce all worldly desires[30]. So it was in the earliest Scottish Church; the Culdee clergy were teachers as well as preachers, and taught arts and crafts as well as their faith.

[30] For exhaustive and interesting accounts of life and education in the Monastery, _see_ "Picturesque Burmah," by Mrs Ernest Hart.

The observances of the phungyis are almost austere, but the teaching that Gautama Buddha pa.s.sed to the laity was less so. The Burman says, "Life is a vale of tears, so be happy as possible and make others happy and you will be good"--the religion of the actor and the artist--the rose and to-morrow fade, and "loves sweet ma.n.u.script must close," but do what you may, as beautifully as you can--be it a pastel or a matinee.

This monastery is called the Queen's golden Kyoung; it was erected by Thebaw's queen, Supayalat, in the early eighties--and now king Thebaw and his queen are in durance near Bombay.

Though it was getting late we drove on to another place, the Arrakan PaG.o.da. We had heard of it pretty much as a Burman coming to Europe might hear of a place called St Peter's.

It was a long, fatiguing, jolting drive in the rattling gharry, fatiguing physically and mentally, for along both sides of the road were such interesting things, Chinese cafes lighting up, huge paper lanterns outside, and stalls of every kind, makers of golden umbrellas and Burmese harness-makers, almost every stall showing some pretty colour and Rembrandtesque lamplight effect.

The entrance was like that of other paG.o.das, two white griffins looking up at the sky, with busy modern life at their feet. There was a long approach of shallow steps between double rows of red pillars with much wood-carving overhead, and panels of poor fresco; but it was rather dark to see details, and the stall-holders from either side were departing, and we could see little but the flare of these ladies cheroots. As we got up towards the centre of the temple, a light or two appeared, and worshippers came in from the shadowy outside. As the candle light increased it showed that we were under gilded Italian renaissance arches, and in the centre, where the four arcades met, were lofty elaborate ornate iron gates round a centre of great light.

Before the gates were curious umbrellas of pink and white silk, and pendant chrystals and ornate vases of china and lacquer with peac.o.c.ks feathers in them; and a golden chest and huge silver bowl (full of flower-petals) were in shadow to one side.

More and more candles and hanging gla.s.s lamps from green-coloured beams were lit, and gradually worshippers collected and knelt before the great gates facing the strong light with the blue evening shadows behind them.

They brought with them strange tokens in shapes like marriage cakes but in brilliant colours, gold, emerald, pink, and vermilion; these they placed on the pavement in front of them. There were dark-robed people, men and women from somewhere towards China, some of them old and tottering, and Chinese, Burmese, Shans, Kachins, Karens, and people of Asia that I could not place, all kneeling, sitting, and bowing in the warm glow of light that comes from the great golden Buddha behind the gates. Amongst them were golden and red lacquered boxes and bowls and a melee of effects and things, that suggested a curiosity shop, yet withal a _bigness_ in the golden arches and a simplicity of worship that was simply grand. Ghost of Rembrandt!--could you have but seen this and depicted it in your most reverend and inspired moment! Or Rubens--he would have caught the grandeur of effect, but would he also have caught the meekness and the piety of the old women's and men's faces.

There was a dog and a Chinese boy beside the peac.o.c.k feathers, in a blue silk shirt and trousers edged with black; a Burmese woman sweeping; two little brown half naked children--a boy and girl playing on the stone pavement with the guttering wax of candles at the side of the arches; and the kneeling youths and seniors bowing and repeating their sonorous prayers, all within a few yards of each other, without one disturbing or apparently distracting the other. Only I felt out of place, a long standing Western figure from the Western world in topee and flannels with a sketch book, scribbling: but a boy kindly held half of some worshipper's candle to light my sketch book; priests in yellow robes stood behind looking on, and made no remark.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

I fear an Occidental must look uncouth in such an Oriental setting; you feel you ought at least not to stand up in a place like that; I mean for aesthetic reasons--you overbalance the composition.

How great and unexpected was the change from the morning on the river in the sun and clear air to the evening and the glow of lamps and colour and the chanted, prayers in this centre of Buddhism, the Mecca of this far East!

We came out and caught a tram-car home, _i.e._ to the "Java"--an electric car made in London--Ye G.o.ds--the short circuit of ideas!

24th January.--This morning I have to try to paint the groups in the Arrakan PaG.o.da, but in the bright daylight it is difficult to take one's attention from these Phrynes, who come down to bathe beside our steamer--Phrynes, as to figure I mean. One of the two nearest has a little white jacket and a tight hunting green cloth skirt and black velvet sandals; her movements are deliberate, almost languid, and she is fairly tall, very well proportioned, and when her white jacket comes off, the colour of her shoulders is very pretty in contrast to the jet black hair and undergarment of blue. This garment, with its white band tight across her bust, remains on when the green kirtle drops to her feet. Her friend is dressed in the same way in different colours. They walk in and swim a few strokes--if you may call it swimming--with other women already in the water. Then they wash themselves very carefully with soap, and when the first comes out in her blue tight garment, she slips the green kirtle over her head and the blue dress drops off underneath it. There is no drying--the sun does that, and they are hardy. A yard or two on this side of them, two men tuck their waist clothes round their hips and go in with their oxen; both the yellowy-brown men and the oxen seem to enjoy it, and come out with the sun in high lights on their tautened muscles.

Immediately at hand a native (Indian) woman, a Madra.s.see, with her bra.s.s chatty, wades into the water all standing--dirty white canopies and all--and futilely washes, without soap, and rubs her teeth with a finger, spits and makes ugly noises and faces, looking now and then critically at the Burmese women farther up the bank, as if she would fain copy their more graceful ways and movements. Then she polishes her bra.s.s chatty religiously with mud, and fills it with water where she has been dabbling, and goes ash.o.r.e and up the sand, a bedraggled-looking creature, and conceited at that! Next comes a Burmese mother and her two young daughters, their bathing dress a smile and a Christmas orchid in the hair. The eldest is a thing of beauty, with lines to delight a Phidias. Alas! why must we hide all beauty of form except that of animals--hide fearfully G.o.d's image? Men, women, and children here all seem fit and fairly well shaped; you rarely see a deformity, except at show places such as the big temples. It would be the same with us were we to pay more attention to form, and proportion, than to dress.

I intended to paint at the Arrakan PaG.o.da to-day, but a pleasant looking man came on board with a chitsaya harp; I had to try and make a jotting of him. G. and Captain Turndrup brought him. He sat and played tunes for hours--epic tunes, which I'd have given anything to remember. His boat-shaped harp of thirteen strings was tuned in minor thirds, so you could readily pick out Celtic tunes on it. I am told Sir Arthur Sullivan came here and listened to his music and made many notes. The harp belonged to Prince Dabai, Thebaw's step-brother, and I confess I bought it; but I will restore it if it is required for any National Burmese Museum or Palace.

Whilst I painted him, the phungyi boys in yellow robes came along the sh.o.r.e to collect food from the people on the river boats alongside the sand, and from one or two stalls on the sh.o.r.e. They stood silently with the big black lacquer bowls in their arms against their waists, looking humbly down, and a stall holder placed large handfuls of the rice she was cooking into a bowl. Then the close-cropped bare-headed lad came to the fifty foot dug-out canoe beside us, but the food there was only being cooked so he moved on without a word.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Burmese Harpist]

Half an hour's gharry to the paG.o.da, an hour there sketching and trying to remember things, and half an hour's rattle back in the dark, wound up my day's study.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The Mandalay gharry, a "dog kennel on wheels," is a frightfully ramshackle thing; doesn't the very name suggest a rickety, rattling sort of a machine? They are of hard wood, loosely built, with wooden seats, iron tyres, loose wooden blinds, and springs of iron--I doubt if there are any! and it is hauled by a tiny Burmese pony, licked by a native of India.

... 25th.--A faint mist lifting off the sh.o.r.e. The sun is hardly risen, but already the bullock carts with heavy wooden wheels are squeaking and groaning along the sand. There is just enough mercantile life to be comprehensible and picturesque; some four or five Irrawaddy Flotilla steamers are fast to the bank, and between them are some sixty native canoes with round mat houses on them. The cargoes of the steamers are piled on the sand in bales, so you see the whole process of its being discharged and loaded on the carts and taken away. As the sun rises the dust does the same, and so do the voices of the people, old and young, and the geese and the children join in, but the babel is not unpleasant, it is not too loud; there are pleasant low notes and laughter all the time. The general tone of the voices is not unlike that of a French crowd in good humour.

We have received a kind invitation to go and stay with people on sh.o.r.e, but we resisted the temptation for the meantime. For here on the "Java,"

we see such interesting scenes; and our up-river boat ought to be here immediately, and to shift our belongings along the sh.o.r.e some thirty yards on to her, will be much less trouble than flitting to our friends'

bungalow; so we go on drawing here.

The Phryne in hunting green is down again, languorously dropping her green kirtle. It has an orange vermilion band round the top that clips the green above her breast. She isn't a swell swimmer; all the women do in that way is with their hands and they raise their heels out of the water, and smack down their shins and toes together and just get along, this possibly on account of the tightness of the lungye or tamien. The men have various strokes, mostly sort of dog strokes, and get along but slowly. I have not seen either a man or woman dive.

We have gone up the bank now a few yards to the cargo boat and installed ourselves in it with our luggage--a very easy "flitting"--and we find the cargo steamer just as perfectly comfortable as the mail boat we have left--cabins, mess table, promenade on the upper deck in the bows.