The Soul of a People Part 15

CHAPTER XVIII

DRINK

'The ignorant commit sins in consequence of drunkenness, and also make others drunk.'--_Acceptance into the Monkhood._

The Buddhist religion forbids the use of all stimulants, including opium and other drugs; and in the times of the Burmese rule this law was stringently kept. No one was allowed to make, to sell, or to consume, liquors of any description. That this law was kept as firmly as it was was due, not to the vigilance of the officials, but to the general feeling of the people. It was a law springing from within, and therefore effectual; not imposed from without, and useless. That there were breaches and evasions of the law is only natural. The craving for some stimulant amongst all people is very great--so great as to have forced itself to be acknowledged and regulated by most states, and made a great source of revenue. Amongst the Burmans the craving is, I should say, as strong as amongst other people; and no mere legal prohibition would have had much effect in a country like this, full of jungle, where palms grow in profusion, and where little stills might be set up anywhere to distil their juice. But the feelings of the respectable people and the influence of the monks is very great, very strong; and the Burmans were, and in Upper Burma, where the old laws remain in force, are still, an absolutely teetotal people. No one who was in Upper Burma before and just after the war but knows how strictly the prohibition against liquor was enforced. The princ.i.p.al offenders against the law were the high officials, because they were above popular reach. No bribe was so gratefully accepted as some whisky. It was a sure step to safety in trouble.

A gentleman--not an Englishman--in the employ of a company who traded in Upper Burma in the king's time told me lately a story about this.

He lived in a town on the Irrawaddy, where was a local governor, and this governor had a head clerk. This head clerk had a wife, and she was, I am told, very beautiful. I cannot write scandal, and so will not repeat here what I have heard about this lady and the merchant; but one day his Burman servant rushed into his presence and told him breathlessly that the bailiff of the governor's court was just entering the garden with a warrant for his arrest, for, let us say, undue flirtation. The merchant, horrified at the prospect of being lodged in gaol and put in stocks, fled precipitately out of the back-gate and gained the governor's court. The governor was in session, seated on a little das, and the merchant ran in and knelt down, as is the custom, in front of the das. He began to hurriedly address the governor:

'My lord, my lord, an unjust complaint has been made against me. Someone has abused your justice and caused a warrant to be taken out against me.

I have just escaped the bailiff, and came to your honour for protection.

It is all a mistake. I will explain. I----'

But here the governor interposed. He bent forward till his head was close to the merchant's head, and whispered:

'Friend, have you any whisky?'

The merchant gave a sigh of relief.

'A case newly arrived is at your honour's disposal,' he answered quickly. 'I will give orders for it to be sent over at once. No, two cases--I have two. And this charge is all a mistake.'

The governor waved his hand as if all explanation were superfluous. Then he drew himself up, and, addressing the officials and crowd before him, said:

'This is my good friend. Let no one touch him.' And in an undertone to the merchant: 'Send it soon.'

So the merchant went home rejoicing, and sent the whisky. And the lady?

Well, my story ends there with the governor and the whisky. No doubt it was all a mistake about the lady, as the merchant said. All officials were not so bad as this, and many officials were as strongly against the use of liquor, as urgent in the maintenance of the rules of the religion, as the lowest peasant.

It was the same with opium: its use was absolutely prohibited. Of course, Chinese merchants managed to smuggle enough in for their own use, but they had to bribe heavily to be able to do so, and the people remained uncontaminated. 'Opium-eater,' 'gambler,' are the two great terms of reproach and contempt.

It used to be a custom in the war-time--it has died out now, I think--for officers of all kinds to offer to Burmans who came to see them--officials, I mean--a drink of whisky or beer on parting, just as you would to an Englishman. It was often accepted. Burmans are, as I have said, very fond of liquor, and an opportunity like this to indulge in a little forbidden drink, under the encouragement of the great English soldier or official, was too much for them. Besides, it would have been a discourtesy to refuse. And so it was generally accepted. I do not think it did much harm to anyone, or to anything, except, perhaps, to our reputation.

I remember in 1887 that I went up into a semi-independent state to see the prince. I travelled up with two of his officials, men whom I had seen a good deal of for some months before, as his messengers and spokesmen, about affairs on the border. We travelled for three days, and came at last to where he had pitched his camp in the forest. He had built me a house, too, next to his camp, where I put up. I had a long interview with him about official matters--I need not tell of that here--and after our business was over we talked of many things, and at last I got up to take my leave. I had seen towards the end that the prince had something on his mind, something he wanted to say, but was afraid, or too shy, to mention; and when I got up, instead of moving away, I laughed and said:

'Well, what is it? I think there is something the prince wants to say before I go.'

And the prince smiled back awkwardly, still desirous to have his say, still clearly afraid to do so, and at last it was his wife who spoke.

'It is about the whisky,' she said. 'We know that you drink it. That is your own business. We hear, too, that it is the custom in the part of the country you have taken for English officers to give whisky and beer to officials who come to see you--to _our_ officials,' and she looked at the men who had come up with me, and they blushed. 'The prince wishes to ask you not to do it here. Of course, in your own country you do what you like, but in the prince's country no one is allowed to drink or to smoke opium. It is against our faith. That is what the prince wanted to say. The thakin will not be offended if he is asked that here in our country he will not tempt any of us to break our religion.'

I almost wished I had not encouraged the prince to speak. I am afraid that the embarra.s.sment pa.s.sed over to my side. What could I say but that I would remember, that I was not offended, but would be careful? I had been lecturing the prince about his shortcomings; I had been warning him of trouble to come, unless he mended his ways; I had been telling him wonderful things of Europe and our power. I thought that I had produced an impression of superiority--I was young then--but when I left I had my doubts who it was that scored most in that interview. However, I have remembered ever since. I was not a frequent offender before--I have never offered a Burman liquor since.

CHAPTER XIX

MANNERS

'Not where others fail, or do, or leave undone--the wise should notice what himself has done, or left undone.'--_Dammapada._

A remarkable trait of the Burmese character is their unwillingness to interfere in other people's affairs. Whether it arises from their religion of self-culture or no, I cannot say, but it is in full keeping with it. Every man's acts and thoughts are his own affair, think the Burmans; each man is free to go his own way, to think his own thoughts, to act his own acts, as long as he does not too much annoy his neighbours. Each man is responsible for himself and for himself alone, and there is no need for him to try and be guardian also to his fellows.

And so the Burman likes to go his own way, to be a free man within certain limits; and the freedom that he demands for himself, he will extend also to his neighbours. He has a very great and wide tolerance towards all his neighbours, not thinking it necessary to disapprove of his neighbours' acts because they may not be the same as his own, never thinking it necessary to interfere with his neighbours as long as the laws are not broken. Our ideas that what habits are different to our habits must be wrong, and being wrong, require correction at our hands, is very far from his thoughts. He never desires to interfere with anyone. Certain as he is that his own ideas are best, he is contented with that knowledge, and is not ceaselessly desirous of proving it upon other people. And so a foreigner may go and live in a Burman village, may settle down there and live his own life and follow his own customs in perfect freedom, may dress and eat and drink and pray and die as he likes. No one will interfere. No one will try and correct him; no one will be for ever insisting to him that he is an outcast, either from civilization or from religion. The people will accept him for what he is, and leave the matter there. If he likes to change his ways and conform to Burmese habits and Buddhist forms, so much the better; but if not, never mind.

It is, I think, a great deal owing to this habit of mind that the manners of the Burmese are usually so good, children in civilization as they are. There is amongst them no rude inquisitiveness and no desire to in any way circ.u.mscribe your freedom, by either remark or act. Surely of all things that cause trouble, nothing is so common amongst us as the interference with each other's ways, as the needless giving of advice.

It seems to each of us that we are responsible, not only for ourselves, but also for everyone else near us; and so if we disapprove of any act, we are always in a hurry to express our disapproval and to try and persuade the actor to our way of thinking. We are for ever thinking of others and trying to improve them; as a nation we try to coerce weaker nations and to convert stronger ones, and as individuals we do the same.

We are sure that other people cannot but be better and happier for being brought into our ways of thinking, by force even, if necessary. We call it philanthropy.

But the Buddhist does not believe this at all. Each man, each nation, has, he thinks, enough to do managing his or its own affairs.

Interference, any sort of interference, he is sure can do nothing but harm. _You_ cannot save a man. He can save himself; you can do nothing for him. You may force or persuade him into an outer agreement with you, but what is the value of that? All dispositions that are good, that are of any value at all, must come spontaneously from the heart of man.

First, he must desire them, and then struggle to obtain them; by this means alone can any virtue be reached. This, which is the key of his religion, is the key also of his private life. Each man is a free man to do what he likes, in a way that we have never understood.

Even under the rule of the Burmese kings there was the very widest tolerance. You never heard of a foreigner being molested in any way, being forbidden to live as he liked, being forbidden to erect his own places of worship. He had the widest freedom, as long as he infringed no law. The Burmese rule may not have been a good one in many ways, but it was never guilty of persecution, of any attempt at forcible conversion, of any desire to make such an attempt.

This tolerance, this inclination to let each man go his own way, is conspicuous even down to the little events of life. It is very marked, even in conversation, how little criticism is indulged in towards each other, how there is an absolute absence of desire to proselytize each other in any way. 'It is his way,' they will say, with a laugh, of any peculiar act of any person; 'it is his way. What does it matter to us?'

Of all the lovable qualities of the Burmese, and they are many, there are none greater than these--their light-heartedness and their tolerance.

A Burman will always a.s.sume that you know your own business, and will leave you alone to do it. How great a boon this is I think we hardly can understand, for we have none of it. And he carries it to an extent that sometimes surprises us.

Suppose you are walking along a road and there is a broken bridge on the way, a bridge that you might fall through. No one will try and prevent you going. Any Burman who saw you go will, if he think at all about it, give you the credit for knowing what you are about. It will not enter into his head to go out of his way to give you advice about that bridge. If you ask him he will help you all he can, but he will not volunteer; and so if you depend on volunteered advice, you may fall through the bridge and break your neck, perhaps.

At first this sort of thing seems to us to spring from laziness or from discourtesy. It is just the reverse of this latter; it is excess of courtesy that a.s.sumes you to be aware of what you are about, and capable of judging properly.

You may get yourself into all sorts of trouble, and unless you call out no one will a.s.sist you. They will suppose that if you require help you will soon ask for it. You could drift all the way from Bhamo to Rangoon on a log, and I am sure no one would try to pick you up unless you shouted for help. Let anyone try to drift down from Oxford to Richmond, and he will be forcibly saved every mile of his journey, I am sure. The Burman boatmen you pa.s.sed would only laugh and ask how you were getting on. The English boatman would have you out of that in a jiffy, saving you despite yourself. You might commit suicide in Burma, and no one would stop you. 'It is your own look-out,' they would say; 'if you want to die why should we prevent you? What business is it of ours?'

Never believe for a moment that this is cold-heartedness. Nowhere is there any man so kind-hearted as a Burman, so ready to help you, so hospitable, so charitable both in act and thought.

It is only that he has another way of seeing these things to what we have. He would resent as the worst discourtesy that which we call having a friendly interest in each other's doings. Volunteered advice comes, so he thinks, from pure self-conceit, and is intolerable; help that he has not asked for conveys the a.s.sumption that he is a fool, and the helper ever so much wiser than he. It is in his eyes simply a form of self-a.s.sertion, an attempt at governing other people, an infringement of good manners not to be borne.

Each man is responsible for himself, each man is the maker of himself.

Only he can do himself good by good thought, by good acts; only he can hurt himself by evil intentions and deeds. Therefore in your intercourse with others remember always yourself, remember that no one can injure you but yourself; be careful, therefore, of your acts for your own sake.

For if you lose your temper, who is the sufferer? Yourself; no one but yourself. If you are guilty of disgraceful acts, of discourteous words, who suffers? Yourself. Remember that; remember that courtesy and good temper are due from you to everyone. What does it matter who the other person be? you should be courteous to him, not because he deserves it, but because you deserve it. Courtesy is measured by the giver, not by the receiver. We are apt sometimes to think that this continual care of self is selfishness; it is the very reverse. Self-reverence is the antipode of self-conceit, of selfishness. If you honour yourself, you will be careful that nothing dishonourable shall come from you.

'Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control;' we, too, have had a poet who taught this.

And so dignity of manner is very marked amongst this people. It is cultivated as a gift, as the outward sign of a good heart.

'A rough diamond;' no Burman would understand this saying. The value of a diamond is that it can be polished. As long as it remains in the rough, it has no more beauty than a lump of mud. If your heart be good, so, too, will be your manners. A good tree will bring forth good fruit.

If the fruit be rotten, can the tree be good? Not so. If your manners are bad, so, too, is your heart. To be courteous, even tempered, to be tolerant and full of sympathy, these are the proofs of an inward goodness. You cannot have one without the other. Outward appearances are not deceptive, but are true.

Therefore they strive after even temper. Hot-tempered as they are, easily aroused to wrath, easily awakened to pleasure, men with the pa.s.sions of a child, they have very great command over themselves. They are ashamed of losing their temper; they look upon it as a disgrace. We are often proud of it; we think sometimes we do well to be angry.

So they are very patient, very long-suffering, accepting with resignation the troubles of this world, the kicks and spurns of fortune, secure in this, that each man's self is in his own keeping. If there be trouble for to-day, what can it matter if you do but command yourself? If others be discourteous to you, that cannot hurt you, if you do not allow yourself to be discourteous in return. Take care of your own soul, sure that in the end you will win, either in this life or in some other, that which you deserve. What you have made your soul fit for, that you will obtain, sooner or later, whether it be evil or whether it be good. The law of righteousness is for ever this, that what a man deserves that he will obtain. And in the end, if you cultivate your soul with unwearying patience, striving always after what is good, purifying yourself from the l.u.s.t of life, you will come unto that lake where all desire shall be washed away.