Part 15

Their destination was Kyauktan, a Burman name that means a "ridge of rock." As you go up the river to Rangoon a low ridge is visible, inland, on the right, almost parallel to the muddy bank, and not very far from it. It is a ridge of rock; but, in that benignant land, there seems to be something indecent, or at least savouring of skeletons, in bare rocks like those of more desolate countries; and in this instance, as usual there, you may know the rock is below, but you see only the elevated greenery. Towards the seaward end of the ridge is Kyauktan, a little country town on a tidal creek, invisible from the ocean steamers. There was the new home of our happy heroine. There she lived in her master's house, amid abundance infinite to her, because she could not measure it. Milk and rice she tolerated, as other children do; but even of these she took only what she wanted; and she had an embarrassing choice of riches of other kinds, enough to make any honey-bear quite happy.

The deep black of her fine fur was relieved by beautiful white lines on her bosom, meeting in the middle, like a necklace with a pendant on the breast. As she squatted on her haunches her nose was little above the edge of the table; but when she stood up to help herself, as she was continually doing, the natural decoration on her bosom was conspicuous, and she almost seemed as if quite nicely dressed.

Table manners she had none. How could she have manners when she had no hands? The word "manners" comes from the word for hand (main, manus). Manners mean a dexterity that hands make possible for men and monkeys, but not for bears. If they had had the hands and we their paws, the evolution of species would have taken a different turn, and the course of the world's history changed indeed! Our heroine had to adapt herself, and did it with great dexterity, but she could not grow hands. Her method at table was to reach forth both her paws, and scoop in towards herself whatever she wanted; and then she would lift things to her lips with both paws, using her nails almost as the Chinese do their chopsticks. It was not her fault that she had to break glasses and upset dishes and make many a mess.

Her master could deny her nothing. It was therefore lucky for him that her tastes were not expensive. She liked fruits best, and the fresh kinds too, which are cheap, not the tinned things. But she was not bigoted. Her appetite was eclectic. Sweet jam was appreciated, and honey in a high degree; but she did not altogether refuse marmalade if she saw nothing better.

Occasionally she was utterly unreasonable, and became troublesome, not by pulling the tablecloth, as did another Burman bear of my acquaintance, but by a peculiarity equally characteristic of a pet that was spoiled. Or it might be attributed to her temperament. It consisted in being so absorbed in what she saw that she forgot everything else, just like the ordinary doctrinaire or idealist or athlete or any other kind of common person, able to see only one thing at a time. For example, if she saw plantains on the table, and wanted them, but did not then want any of the milk or sugar or other things intervening, she ignored what she did not want, and leaned over far enough to include the plantains in her magnificent embrace, and pulled the plantains to her, unheeding all the rest.

No man is perfect. Her master has confessed that he once or twice was so provoked at such a performance as to give her a tap on the nose, whereupon she went and "sulked in a corner," as he expressed it; but how could he tell what she was thinking?

Some said she whimpered for her mother on such occasions. The Burmans say, "When the child trips, it cries for its mother"; but it is not certain that she remembered her early days, for she was but a young thing when she was caught and taken to a man's house. Her master may well have been an indifferent substitute for an indulgent parent; but he was all she had, and his jam was very good.

He was not allowed to monopolise her young affections. She had not been long in Kyauktan before she had explored the town and even found her way to the bazaar or market, where the stall-holders, male and female, welcomed her with open arms.

To tell Europeans of a bear running about loose and being welcomed with open arms in the markets may seem a fairy tale; and though in a narrative of fact it is permissible to tell what is stranger than fiction, still it may be as well to explain a few things that Europeans cannot easily know. The Kyauktan bazaar was a _retail_ market, where people were never in a hurry, quite different from Covent Garden; and the bears of Burma have different habits from those of Europe. They are smaller too; but that is the least of the difference.

In Europe, if we mean to be rude and impute rudeness, we call a man a bear. To torture bears was a familiar sport, not long ago--bear-baiting. We still use the word; and big bears ignominiously led captive may still be seen, bemocked to make a foolish holiday. All this implies a hostile attitude which is never seen in Burma.

Perhaps a grim passage in Gibbon's _History_ may be quoted to show the contrast. It is in chapter xxv, and concerns the great Emperor Valentinian (A.D. 364–375). He had put his brother Valens on the throne at Constantinople, and taken charge of the rowdier end of the world himself.

"In the government of his household, or of his empire, slight, or even imaginary offences, a hasty word, a casual omission, an involuntary delay, were chastised by a sentence of immediate death. The expressions which issued the most readily from the mouth of the emperor of the West were, 'Strike off his head'; 'Burn him alive'; 'Let him be beaten with clubs till he expires'; and his most favoured ministers soon understood that, by a rash attempt to dispute or suspend the execution of his sanguinary commands, they might involve themselves in the guilt and punishment of disobedience. The repeated gratification of this savage justice hardened the mind of Valentinian against pity and remorse; and the sallies of passion were confirmed by the habits of cruelty. He could behold with calm satisfaction the convulsive agonies of torture and death: he reserved his friendship for those faithful servants whose temper was the most congenial to his own. The merit of Maximin, who had slaughtered the noblest families of Rome, was rewarded with the royal approbation and the prefecture of Gaul. Two fierce and enormous bears, distinguished by the appellations of _Innocence_ and Mica Aurea, could alone deserve to share the favour of Maximin. The cages of those trusty guards were always placed near the bedchamber of Valentinian, who frequently amused his eyes with the grateful spectacle of seeing them tear and devour the bleeding limbs of the malefactors who were abandoned to their rage. Their diet and exercises were carefully inspected by the Roman emperor; and, when _Innocence_ had earned her discharge by a long course of meritorious service, the faithful animal was again restored to the freedom of her native woods."

Unlike those occidental savages, the heroine of our history, if asked to eat the flesh of men or even butchers' meat, would have felt as much insulted as Bernard Shaw himself. I do not mean that either she or "the Shaw" would rather starve than nibble a chicken; but that their tastes were delicate, and they preferred cereals and vegetables and fruits and sweets to any kind of carcasses.

The Burmans call the bear "wetwun," the governor or minister of the pigs, the "gentleman pig"; and sometimes say, between jest and earnest, that pigs and bears are good Buddhists. That is because they are not murderous, though strong. It is only in self-defence that they ever do hurt. They live in general without taking life; and a nice she-bear that was sleek and tame was a treat to see, especially as she was not proud, the unpardonable sin in Mongolian eyes. She was ever willing to accept little tit-bits of fruit and to stand and be caressed by anybody.

The woods were near. No doubt she often lifted up her eyes in that direction; but the sweet things of the table and the excitements of the bazaar--all the comforts of Charing Cross, so to speak--kept her from trying to escape.

I once knew a pet that did run away, and after some days' absence came back again; but in this instance, the bear did not worry her master in that way. Servants are not partial to pets. She could go wherever she liked, and perhaps they would not have been sorry if she had departed altogether. But she always came back. Perhaps it was because she could escape at any time, as easily to-morrow as to-day. There was no hurry. She may have intended to go off to the woods at some time or other, and always postponed it. As Goethe admirably says, "We love to walk along the plains, with the summit in our eye."

Whatever her feelings or thoughts, when she took her walks abroad, that is to say, outside her master's little park or compound, she generally went to the bazaar.

7. THE WONDERFUL SUCKLING

One of the most amusing of European ways in Burma and India is the habit of adhering to hours of work and fashions of garments that suit London. In the heat of the day the whites and their direct employees are supposed to be working hard. This leaves the best hours of the twenty-four for amusement, which is not exactly what was intended. The fashion is set by men who live in the hills. That is the secret.

You cannot really ignore the sun in the Tropics, however; you can only pretend to do it. Go into many a native quarter or bazaar in the middle of the day, as the bear used to do at Kyauktan, and you behold life honestly relaxed. The customers in the bazaar are country cousins from a distance, if there are any customers. The buzz of an occasional sewing-machine is like the drone of bees in summer, harmonious enough in the ears of the bazaar-sellers, many of whom are taking a siesta.

When she wanted fun or fruit or to see the crowd--when she was on business, so to speak--the bear went to the bazaar like other Kyauktan people, in the morning, or perhaps the late afternoon. When she went in the middle of the day, it was just because master was busy at court and it was dull at home, and a rest seemed likely to be more enjoyable in company.

When once she was sauntering towards it at this mid-day hour, she passed an Indian cottage, in front of which, upon a "charpoy" or bedstead, used also as a couch, and now set upon the ground in a shady spot, a young Indian mother lay sound asleep, with baby in her lap, it may be guessed. At any rate the baby had had enough for the time, while mamma lay back upon the couch, breathing peacefully. Her plump and healthy breasts were full of milk; and as the little bearess looked, the instinct of childhood returned upon her, and she went up softly and laid her lips to the nipple which the other baby had abandoned. "She milked the woman dry," said people afterwards; but nobody saw it being done. Nobody noticed anything till the street rang with female shrieks. "Ayāh! Ayāh! Ayāh! Mother! mother! Help, help! Come, all! Come, all! Come! Come! Come, all! Come, all! Help! help! Ah, mother, mother, mother, mother! Ayāh! Ayāh!" The bear pushed her way through the gathering crowd and hurried home unhurt. One does not readily lift a hand against an old favourite; and she was home before people realised the terrible event.

Luckily for everybody, Kyauktan was, and still is, blessed with that most useful of men--an honest lawyer. He was a barrister-at-law; but the queer convention of some parts of Europe, which restricts the best lawyers to talking in court, and allows them to be consulted only through another lawyer, is as unknown in Burma as in America. At Kyauktan, as in Boston, you do _not_ need to be "lathered in one shop and shaved in another." You choose your lawyer, and go to him, straight.

The Kyauktan barrister had been an official once; but, as people said, he had retired and reformed. In sober truth, he had been one of the best Commissioners ever known in Burma; and now his mere presence at Kyauktan made life more bearable to honest men, for many miles around.

To him the husband of the unhappy young mother, just milked dry, went running, a score of women probably shrieking instructions after him, and half the women in Kyauktan standing ready to advise. But, wonderful to tell, there were many of them on the side of the bear, poor harmless orphan; and when, after a while, the obedient husband slowly returned to his wife, and did not announce a suit or anything else to be done, some praised the lawyer, and others said that the man had only pretended to go and consult him. The strangest thing of all, significant of much, was that nobody then complained to the bear's master or even told him of the matter. He was left to learn it later from the bantering of the honest lawyer. Was there ever a pet so popular before?

8. HARUM-SCARUM

There were many other freaks of the bear which a kind conspiracy of silence concealed from her master as long as possible. Like other bachelors who live alone, he was not always punctual in sitting down to table. His pet had the healthy appetite of youth, and was hungry at times before dinner was ready, and then, being at home everywhere and not troubled with false pride, she naturally went to the kitchen and helped herself.

It is likely that she burned or scalded herself in that way, for it is known that another little Burman bear, who frequented the kitchen, had that experience. But we have only probability to go upon in this instance. She made no complaints, and returned regularly, and the cook would not tell tales. Indeed, he seems to have taken great pains to protect her, thrusting himself between her and danger so often that, at last, not knowing what he would be at, she either misunderstood his intentions or lost patience, and recollecting how strong she was, she turned to claw that affectionate but too meddlesome cook.

The upshot was all her master was allowed to know. It could not be concealed. The cook had to bolt. Alone in the kitchen, with unfettered discretion, she behaved like the reasonable, civilised animal she was. She merely took what she wanted and did what she liked, and allowed the cook to return. She had never meant to hurt him, only to remove him out of her way.

She used to travel about with her master, when he went on tour. Being unable to ride a pony, she sat in a cart. The ideal method would have been for her to sit in a box or basket on such occasions, and journey as Gulliver did in Brobdingnag; but it was useless to argue with her. She could burst any wickerwork, as easily as Samson burst his bonds, and she saw no need for anything but a convenient seat. She liked to joke with the driver, like a passenger on an old-fashioned bus or coach; but gradually it came to her master's knowledge that, only too often, the driver and anybody else in the cart had to jump down to avoid her--she was so rough in her horseplay. There was a rumour that she once knocked down a driver; but he made no complaint and it was probably an accident. I was once nearly knocked down by a bear that cannoned against me by inadvertence, hurrying to greet me in a friendly way.

When left alone in the cart, she never attempted to touch the reins. She gazed at them and the bullocks, serenely unconcerned, as the passengers in a steamer look at the machinery. When the driver went to the bullocks' heads and stopped them, and gathered up the reins and climbed back into the cart, she seemed to consider his behaviour a matter of course, and looked as if anything else would have surprised her. Nevertheless, when these transporting adventures became known, her master insisted on leaving her at home.

9. ALL THE REST

It was not altogether disagreeable to the bear to be left alone in the house, with only a servant or two, and nobody to correct her; but she made herself unpleasant to other people. Her master found her, after every absence, "more and more savage" upon his return. These are his own words; and yet, and yet, however imperious to others or contemptuous of humanity, she was always amenable to him, and to him she was always dear.

At this point, as is common in biographies, the historian who would be faithful must face a divided duty. In order to please the friends and relatives, one has to heed nothing but what they choose to tell; and if one does that, then the biography is merely an unreadable fiction. As a satirist cynically puts it,--

Facts inane the volume fill, Keep the secret secret still; Here and there may truth be guessed From what can be seen--suppressed!

One of the things that make this biography worth writing is the freedom from conventional restraints. So readers shall have the truth, and the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The bear's master has long been a friend of mine, and I hope will so continue, but truth is dearer than anybody. So I will not suppress the remarks of the honest lawyer at Kyauktan, who is also an old friend, and has read the first draft of this work. He sent me a letter on the subject, containing the excruciating words that the bear at Kyauktan had become "a nuisance." The expression is his. My responsibility is limited to quoting it. I desire to express no opinion of my own.

What her own master could not help seeing was the contrast between her behaviour and that of a very respectable bear at Syriam, a place at the other end of the ridge, nearly a day's walk from Kyauktan, just across the river from Rangoon. The bear living there belonged to Mr Brand of the Burma Oil Company, and he and our heroine's master often compared notes, and discussed the problem of her higher education. Mr Brand seemed to think she had good natural gifts, but had come to a difficult age when she needed _daily_ supervision. He never went on tour himself, and was willing to take charge of her. She would be sure to benefit by the company of an older and well-behaved bear, and the two together would be happier at Syriam than either was alone. At last her owner was persuaded, and, when every preliminary had been settled, our heroine set out for her new home (A.D. 1900).

She went in a slow cart, and the day was hot. It is not so well known as it should be that bears and elephants and tigers, too, are almost as sensitive to the sunshine as white men. In this instance, though every possible precaution was taken, the bear was decidedly unhappy on the way. We have to remember that she was an adolescent female and a fully emancipated one, who had lived exclusively for her own amusement, and never had anything particular to do or to suffer in this world. Her sensations, therefore, must have been remarkably like those of the American family, immortalised in Ruskin's letter to Norton of 1869.

"I ... was fated to come from Venice to Verona with an American family, father and mother and two girls--presumably rich--girls 15 and 18. I never before conceived the misery of wretches who had spent all their lives in trying to gratify themselves. It was a little warm--warmer than was entirely luxurious--but nothing in the least harmful. They moaned and fidgeted and frowned and puffed and stretched and fanned, and ate lemons, and smelt bottles, and covered their faces, and tore the cover off again, and had no one thought or feeling, during five hours of travelling in the most noble part of all the world, except what four poor beasts would have had in their den in a menagerie, being dragged about on a hot day...." (_Letters of John Ruskin to C.E. Norton_, I, pp. 218 and 219.)

The longest road has an end, and Syriam was reached at last. The cart stopped, and the bear came down from it with every sensation smothered in one irresistible craving for coolness "Anything to be cool!" A pleasant-looking tank of water was near, and into it she plunged.

The details of what followed are variously reported. Eyes she had and ears of the best; but she used them to avoid people. It was only after a long time that it pleased her to emerge, quite shivering now, cool enough at last.

Fever came on and pneumonia; and, next day she died, and that is the end of the story. When you think of it, that is how every story would end if it went on long enough.

10. HER EPITAPH

It is now 1910: and already Mr Brand himself is dead; and, spinning in the official whirligig, "like the wind's blast, never resting, homeless," the bear's old master has long ago left Kyauktan, and been in many places. So it is natural that no monument has been put up to her memory; and, maybe, none ever will be. But the things of the spirit are so wonderfully made that words on paper may endure longer than marble or brass; wherefore, though it has not been engraved, let her epitaph be printed. If it is remembered till there is another as long and equally free from falsehood, it may endure for centuries; and, in the far forward dark abysms of time, this little bear may be associated with the constellation of that name, the constellation containing the Polar star. Far stranger things have happened in this wonderful world.

HER EPITAPH

"Here sleeps a bear emancipated, Who died here young, and died unmated, Because obedience was not taught her, And so she stayed too long in water, When once she wanted to be cool, And did not know she was a fool: Her every wish she gratified, And so she had a chill, and died.

In vain are others' love and care; The others can't be everywhere. For sins no neighbours can atone; We suffer, and we die, alone. For fine sleek hair and sparkling eyes Are useless, if you aren't wise; And things outside you have their laws, Far stronger than the strongest paws.

So sister-mortals, learn from me! Take warning if you'd happy be, To hate the darkness, love the light, And don't do nothing but what's right; And listen sometimes now and then, To what is yelled at you by men; And so enjoy your lives, instead Of being, prematurely, dead."

XXXII

A CHINESE HUNTER (740 B.C.)

A strange and vivid glimpse by firelight into distant darkness is given by two Chinese songs, Odes i, vii, 3 and 4, in Legge's _Chinese Classics_, IV, pp. 127 to 131. I have versified Mr Legge's prose. The date was certainly more than 500, and probably 740 B.C., and the locality northern China, probably Honan. Shuh means "younger brother," so that, except to those who believe the commentators, which I cannot, the hero, like the poet, is anonymous,--"_The_ younger brother."

Both translations may be sung to the same air, "Scots Wha Ha'e," which was a traditional hunting tune in the south of Scotland.

_N.B._--"Ribbons" for reins is a literal translation. That familiar metaphor is over 2600 years old.

I. SHUH HAS OUT A-HUNTING GONE

Shuh has out a-hunting gone; Men enough are still in town; But it seems to me there's none, While I look for you! People feast and people drive; Streets are thronged with men alive; But they're blank till Shuh arrive, None there are like Shuh!

II. SHUH UPON HIS CHARIOT STANDS

I

Shuh upon his chariot stands; Takes the ribbons in his hands; Four bay horses feel commands, Stepping to and fro. Regular, like dancers high, Or the wild geese in the sky, Insides lead, and outsides nigh, Like their shoulders, go!

II

At the marsh Shuh stands the first; Bright the fires around it burst. Out there springs the tiger curst, Teeth and claws we meet. So does Shuh; his arms are bare, Stops the tiger, kills it there; Lays the bloody carcass fair At the prince's feet.

III