From Edinburgh to India & Burmah Part 19

There are curtains round the bows to drop if there is too much draught, and thick handsome carpets on deck. To compare price, comfort, and beauty of scenery with a Nile trip would be hard luck on Old Nile and its steamers. I should say this is a third cheaper and six times more comfortable, and many times more interesting. With regard to mosquitoes there are more at this present moment of writing than I have had the misfortune of meeting elsewhere, but it isn't so all the road. I still think, however, that those mosquitoes of the Ba.s.sein Creek are incomparable.

We (that is merely "I" this time) went to-day with a very European party of Mandalay residents up and across the river to Mingun in a sort of large picnic on a Government launch. We went to see the second biggest bell in the world and a paG.o.da that would have been one of the biggest buildings, if it had ever been finished! Both are great _draws_, and neither is of any account. The view of the winding river from the top of the ruins of the paG.o.da is certainly exquisite, and for ever to be remembered. But it's a pretty stiff climb to get there, and you should let your enemy go behind, for the loose bricks sometimes go down through the shrubs like bolting rabbits.

The trees too are splendid, and the distant ruby mountains are very exquisite, but as for dancing on a Government boat's deck, and tea and small talk--such things may be had at home, and bra.s.s bands too--_mo thruaigh_!

The big bell weighs about ninety tons; it is hung on modern girders, far enough off the ground to let you crawl inside, and it has a poor tone.

The diameter of the lip is sixteen feet. The masonry, otherwise the base for the proposed paG.o.da, contains 8,000,000 cubic feet, is 165 feet high and 230 feet square, and is cracked through the middle and tumbling to pieces owing, some say, to an earthquake and thunderbolts--I think from bad building and the natural inclination of loose bricks to find their angle of repose.

To-night we gharried to the Grahams to dinner, over the ups and downs and deep sand and ruts of the sh.o.r.e, over cables and round timber heads and teak logs till we got to the hard, a man on each side holding up the conveyance, and two men with lanterns.

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There were splendid roses on the dinner-table and strawberries down from the Shan Highlands, as fine as any I have seen. Then after dinner we saw collections of the most recherche Burmese and Chinese art, in which Mr Graham evidently has a very critical taste. There was exquisite silver work and bra.s.s, gold, and amber carvings, dahs or swords in silver and velvet sheaths with ivory handles, long shaped books of papyrus with the heavy black print on lacquered gilded leaves, and Buddhas in gold and marble, and a little Chinese box carved in root amber, which I coveted--it suggested a picture by Monticelli--besides wonders of Burmese carvings in wood and ivory: then music, and good voices, and the piano sounding so well in the large teak drawing-room--and home again, rattling in the gharry over the hard macadam and the soft ups and downs and ruts along the sand, as here depicted in black and white, to our new quarters on the sh.o.r.es of Mandalay where the big mosquitoes play and sing us to sleep--"only a temporary plague," they say here, and we hope so! G. invented a plan of slaying them. When you are under the net, you can't bang them against the swaying muslin--this plan obviated that difficulty, and is effective, only it needs a candle and matches inside the net, and might, at any moment, set the ship and Mandalay in a blaze: I mentioned this dire possibility, and G. said she would not do it if I were not near!

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26th, Friday.--Still aboard the S.S. "Mandalay," turned out bright and early--a delicious morning, dew lying on the short gra.s.s above the sh.o.r.e. Went to the bazaar with my native boy--wish I had a Burmese servant, as neither of us can speak a word of Burmese. I'd advise any tourist to try and get a Burmese servant for guide and councillor. It is horrid being tongue-tied amongst such kindly-looking people. There does not seem to be much love lost between the Burmans and the natives of India, and I think the foolish Indian natives actually fancy themselves superior!

I have never seen, no, not in India, so much paintable "stuff" in so small a s.p.a.ce. The stalls were sheltered by tall umbrellas made of sun-bleached sacks, over them the blue sky, and under them ma.s.ses of colour in light and shade, heaps of oranges, green bananas, red chillies, and the girls and women sitting selling them, puffing blue smoke from white cheroots big as Roman candles, or moving about from shade to light like the brightest of flowers, no hurry, no bustle; a chatter of happy voices, nothing raucous in sound or colour, and all the faces good and kind to look at, except when a foxy Indian came across the scene. There is also near this open-air bazaar an immense market under cover. The light is not so picturesque in it, but the women are of a better cla.s.s. There's much colour at the stalls where they sell silks, and talk to the pa.s.ser-by, and brush their black hair, and powder their faces between times. If you could talk to them it would be fun, for they are as jolly and witty as can be. I understand Burmese girls of almost all families keep stalls at the bazaars when they "come out," which accounts for the Burmese women's great intelligence in business affairs.

Then to the Arrakan PaG.o.da, and felt inclined to stay all day listening to the sonorous recitations of the kneeling people.

Back in a tram-car, an excellent place to sketch faces, your topee over your eyes, and sketch book behind a newspaper--no one knows you are drawing. The following tram-car notes are of Burmese faces, except the face behind, with a look of cankered care on it; he is some kind of an Indian.

After lunch to the palace--a longish drive inland from the river. Thebaw not at home, and Supayalat out too, so we called on the Britishers, resting on long deck chairs in the golden rooms now used as a club. What a rude contrast Western chairs and tables and newspapers were to the surroundings! I believe Lord Curzon has arranged that this aesthetic immorality shall be put right, and a proper place appointed for the Club, and Divine service.

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I'd like to have been here at the looting of this particular palace, you hear such fascinating descriptions of Thebaw's barrels of jewels--emeralds and rubies to be had by the handful. How angry the soldier man is when you speak of it. He will explain to you, with the deepest feeling, that military men were put on their parole not to bag anything, and they did not; but the men in the Civils came on ponies, and went away with carts.

The palace grounds are surrounded by four crenellated walls, each a mile long; each wall has three seven-roofed gates in it, and each gate has a bridge across the wide moat. The palace rooms are nearly splendid; they are supported on many teak pillars, low at the sides of the rooms, and up to sixty feet in the middle. These are all gilt, and show "architectural refinements," for the teak trees they are made of are not absolutely straight, and they have an entasis that is quite natural where they taper away into the golden gloom of the sloping timber roofs.

The rooms are lofty, and all on one floor, because the Burmese do not like to live in rooms with people above. There are infinite intricacies of gilded teak carving, and some rooms glitter like herring shoals with silvery gla.s.s mosaics and mirrors and crystals. How delightful it must have been to see these courts, and gardens, and palaces, and throne-rooms in their full brilliancy before our "occupation," but I suppose one would have had to crawl on all fours or lose one's head at the nod of Supayalat. She and Thebaw and their parents were very much in-bred, and, though she was otherwise particularly charming, she had a strongly-developed homicidal mania. However, the people wept when they saw their king and queen being so unexpectedly hurried away in a gharry to go "Doon the Water" in Denny's steamer, in November 1885. They had far more fun, they say, before we came; a rupee went farther, and so on; and I quite believe it--we did not grab the country to amuse them!

27th.--Painted till 2 from 8 in half-hearted way. To the Grahams, then to the Arrakan PaG.o.da again, too tired and mosquito-bitten to do much after getting there--a nostalgia of colour these last few days--but saw the golden Buddha. The florid iron gates were open, and an immense light shone on the seated and kneeling worshippers in front. It is the most effective scene in the world for the amount of staging. A glare of golden light from unseen lamps--electric, I believe--gleams all over the calm golden figure. It is raised so that the arch in front just allows you to see up to the top of the statue; it is over twelve feet high, and the base is about six feet off the ground.

I must come back; on this journey I have already seen so much on the way here--some day I will come out direct and paint this one scene, and perhaps one or two in the Shwey Dagon PaG.o.da--"if I'm spaired," as they say in the lowlands, instead of knocking under the table.

... On board to-night; Burmans and natives are making up their booths and stalls on the flats alongside, and on the after-decks of this boat, so there is a good deal of hammering during dinner-time. Afterwards we sit round the table on the fore-deck and tolerate the mosquitoes, and tell yarns, and I turn in with a picture in my mind, from a story of the captain's, of an East African coast, and a tramp steamer on a bar, the surf coming over her stern, and the sh.o.r.e lined with drunk n.i.g.g.e.rs, and green boxes of square-faced Dutch gin--at four shillings and sixpence the dozen, box included.

CHAPTER XXIX

"Away to Bhamo, Then fare ye well You Mandalay girl We're away---- To the Bhamo Strand."

_New verse to old Chantie_.

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Sunday, 28th.--The steamer blows a second time, and the friends and relations of our traders, sisters, cousins, and aunts get ash.o.r.e across the flat or barge alongside, and the crowd of gharries, ox-carts, and fruit and food sellers begins to disperse up the sandbank. I see the tall beauty in green kirtle get a friend to raise her flat basket of oranges on plaintain leaves on to her head, a slow elegant movement she may have learned in dancing. Here, when the women dance, there is little movement of the feet, but the angular movements of the body, arms, and hands and fingers are very subtle and studied, and are done very slowly; they have time!--in fact, they have to look forward to so many re-incarnations before they even become men, that they must feel entirely superior to Time!

We had a quieter night, leastwise quieter than we expected. A child cried, and a Burman built his booth a little aft of our cabin, with box lids and French nails, and the hammering went on till about two. Then all was quiet, and traders and pa.s.sengers and their families were asleep, stretched round the deck aft of our portion--Burmans, Phunghis, Shans, Karens, Chinese, Sikhs, wrapped in various coloured sheets, in lines fore and aft and from side to side, dimly lit from above by lamps--the same in the two decks of the flat which we are to take up the river with us alongside.

These cargo steamers usually take up two flats,[31] one on each side, and the amount of trade done on these each voyage up and down, I am told, is considerable, and must annually give great profit to the countries whose goods we carry; two-thirds of these goods are Continental--German, Swiss, Austrian, Italian, and some are j.a.panese.

The deduction to be drawn from this will be equally clear to Protectionist or Free Trader.

[31] I am told this steamer is 250 feet, beam 48, flats 96, beam 24, and the mail steamer was 325, beam 62.

We made a false start; the mail steamer from the south we had been waiting for appeared just as we had cleared off the sh.o.r.e. She had been delayed by fog, so we anch.o.r.ed for an hour or so to tranship the mails and Burmese pa.s.sengers. Meantime I took a spell of painting, then Krishna and I hunted up a bamboo, got out snake-rings, fishing book, and reel, and had a rod fixed up in no time. What with gun, cartridges,[32]

and painting things, my cabin looks quite interesting--to my mind. We have but one other pa.s.senger, so we may utilise two cabins, one as sleeping-room, the other as sitting-room, gun-room, and studio combined.

As such it might be even bigger with advantage, but for situation it would be impossible to beat--for changing views from the window or swirling tide and pa.s.sing boats with people in them, like bunches of flowers flaring in the sun, and then all soft and delicate as they float past in our shadow. The priests in these boats, with their yellow robes and round palm leaf fans have a decorative effect of repet.i.tion, and we are told these fans keep their thoughts from wandering from righteousness to pretty girls. Palm leaves, robes, and their bare right shoulders and arms are all in harmonious browns and yellows; the water is bluish mother-of-pearl. The men row their boats as all Southerners do, Italians, and the rest, standing and backing them like gondolas; only the Burman uses two oars.

[32] Telegraphed to Cook, Rangoon, who sent them to Mandalay by train.

But to the fishing rod and line; we started with bait and did underhand casting from lower deck up and down the ship's side. The rod was excellent, a split new cane, if not exactly the "Hardy split," and it did not lie wholly between two points--it meandered a little, but I've got salmon on worse. We got nothing, and yet I saw a Burman in a dug-out log, with a no whit better rod, pull up a beauty like a sea trout of two pounds, as he drifted past; so next stopping place I hope you will hear of fish "gra.s.sed" or "creeled," as they say in the papers.

We pa.s.s Mingun, half-an-hour up the river from Mandalay. I've mentioned this place before and its bell. The bell is big, so the traveller is expected to make every effort to see it. To me, the size of a bell is not very interesting, and one heap of stone (pyramids included) seems as interesting as another. It's the design that counts.

The Flotilla steamer does not always stop at Mingun; we went steaming past it on our left. The reflections of the trees and ruin in the smoothly running stream were crossed by rippling bands of lavender, where a breeze touched the water: and sea swallows poised and dipped, screaming and flashing after each other. On the far side of the river were level white sands, green sward, and distant blue mountains.

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There's a pleasant sense of swelling fullness about the river; it may be an optical delusion, but I am inclined to believe it is a fact that the surface is slightly convex, like an old-fashioned mirror, perhaps an inch or two higher in the middle than at the sides. There is not much depth to spare, already we have touched bottom. It was a curious and almost incredible statement made to me that we draw four and a half feet, and can go over sand bars only covered four feet. It is true, however; the steamer after touching is backed astern a yard or two, and when her own following swell comes up to her, she goes ahead over the bar, on the swell.

At lunch we pa.s.s a great number of geese on the edge of a sandbank--our table is right in the bows, and we have a clear view of the banks on either side as we go along, even at meal times we have the field-gla.s.ses handy to pry into the scenes of animal life on river side--the captain, who generally has his gun handy, said, "Yes, certainly we must have a shot at them," and for a moment I hoped he would drop anchor, and that we would go off in a boat and stalk them, but I gathered sadly the "shot" was to be underway at 150 yards--and I'd rather not--another lost opportunity!

Now we pa.s.s a regular regiment of birds I do not know--cranes, I think--some four feet high, the colour of oyster catchers, long red bills and legs, and black and white plumage.

The Irrawaddy valley is here a little like the valley of the Forth.

There is a centre hill for a Wallace monument, and the distant hills are like those in Perthshire, but both the valley and the river are wider; and the delicious summery sun and air are too ideal--we only had such summer weather when we were children.

Painted all afternoon, pa.s.sing scenes. G. did a broad daylight effect of blue sky and distance, and the blue Ruby mountains and flecks of white c.u.muli and calm water, an effect in much too high a key for me to attempt; and I did a Punghis' bathing pool, in lower tones, a more getatable effect for my brush....

We have to drop anchor at sunset in mid-stream, somewhere below Kyonkmyoung, to wait for the mail, and because we have no searchlight we cannot go on at night. The mountains are closer now, and towards evening they are reflected in voilet and rose in the wide river.

... The lights go on, and I a.s.sure you our open air saloon, with its table set for dinner with silver, white waxy champak flowers, and white roses in silver bowls are delightful against the blue night outside. The scent of the champak would be too heavy, but for a pleasant air from up-stream, which we hope will help to clear out the piratical longsh.o.r.e crew of Mandalay mosquitoes which we brought with us. We are only a few miles short of our proper destination for the night, but no matter, _we_ are not in a hurry; the Burmans up-stream, waiting for their market, are not either, they will just have to camp out for the night.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mid-day on the Irrawaddy, distant Ruby Mountains]

Before bedtime, G. and I and Miss Blunt, the only other pa.s.senger, go round the booths and make small purchases, and try to make ourselves understood by the jolly Burmese shopkeepers: the Indian shopkeepers speak English. A little later the family groups go to sleep in their stalls, their merchandise round them. A father and mother and child I saw, in pretty colours under a lamp, curled up in the s.p.a.ce a European could barely sit on. And near our cabins there is a couple asleep on the deck, a dainty Burmese woman, her figure so neat, with narrow waist and rounded hip, and her hand and cheek on a dainty pillow, her husband lies opposite, and between them, also asleep, on the deck their mite of a child. Almost touching them is a priest still sitting up, his thoughts his company--possibly they are of Paternity. They all keep pretty quiet, they are not like those beasts on the B.I. boat; I daresay the quiet here is also due to better management. Now as I write the electric light goes out, and we light our candles--the ship is quiet fore and aft, the only sound the rippling of the Irrawaddy against our anchor chain and plates.

29th.--Second day from Mandalay. We have stopped three times at the river-side to-day. At each place a cascade of elegant people in heavenly colours came smiling down to our gangway planks, and when these were fixed, trooped on board; to buy purple velvet sandals, strips of silk, seeds, German hardware, American cigarettes, and goodness knows what else. I suppose I shall forget all these groups--and, colours, and expressions, in time--that is the gall and the wormwood of seeing beauty; I'd fain remember them longer and more vividly than I do.

At the first place we stopped two hours, so I went on sh.o.r.e, got a Burman as guide, and in a half-hour's run, got seven snipe and twelve pigeon. Pigeons, I was told, would help the larder; they were very tame, otherwise I'd hardly have cared to have let off at them.

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