Chapter 3

These were simply a series of minor throne-rooms. The first one in order from the private apartments was close to the _Bya-dyt_. It must be borne in mind that the whole suite, including the great audience hall, were not rooms at all in our sense of the word. They were simply open-roofed spaces, the roofs gabled, spiked, and carved into fantastic shapes, laden with dingy gold-leaf garishly picked out with glaring colours and studded with bits of stained glass; the roofs, or rather I should say, the one continuous roof, supported on massive deep red pillars of teak-wood. The whole palace was raised from the ground on a brick platform some 10 feet high. The partitions between the several walls were simply skirtings of planking covered with gold-leaf. The whole palace seemed an armoury. Some ten or twelve thousand stand of obsolete muskets were ranged along these partitions and crammed into the anteroom of the throne-room proper. The whole suite was dingy, dirty, and uncared-for; but on a great day, with the gilding renewed, carpets spread on the rugged boards, banners waving, and the courtiers in full dress, no doubt the effect would have been materially improved. The vista from the throne of the great hall of audience looked right through the columned arcade to the "Gate of the Chosen"; and that we might imagine the scene more vividly, we considered ourselves as on our way to Court on one of the great days, and going back to the gate again began our pilgrimage anew. The pillared front of the Palace stretched before us raised on the terrace, its total length 260 feet. Looking between the two gilded cannon, we saw at the foot of the central steps a low gate of carved and gilded wood. That gate, it seemed, was never opened except to the King--none save he might use those central steps. Raising our eyes we looked right up the vista of the hall to the lofty throne raised against the gilded partition that closed at once the vista and the hall. We had been looking down the great central nave, as it were, toward the west gate, in the place of which was the throne. But along the eastern front of the terrace ran a long colonnade, whose wings formed transepts at right angles to the nave. The throne-room was shaped like the letter T, the throne being at the base of the letter and the cross-bar representing the colonnade. Entering at the extremity of one of these, we traversed it to the centre and then faced the nave. The throne was exactly before us, at the end of the pillared vista. Five steps led up to the dais. Its form was peculiar, contracting by a gradation of steps from the base upwards to mid-height, and again expanding to the top, on which was a cushioned ledge such as is seen in the box of a theatre. On the platform, which now was bare planks, the King and Queen on a great reception day would sit on gorgeous carpets. The entrance was through gilded doors from a staircase in the ante-room beyond. There was a rack of muskets round the foot of the throne, and just outside the rails a half-naked soldier lay snoring. Our Burman companion assured us that seeing the throne-room now in its condition of dismantled tawdriness, I could form no idea of the fine effect when King and Court in all their splendour were gathered in it on a ceremonial day. I tried to accept his assurances, but it was not easy to imagine such forlorn dinginess changed into dazzling splendour. Just over the throne, and in the centre of the Palace and of the city, rose in gracefully diminishing stages of fantastic woodcarving a tapering _phya-sath_ or spire similar to those surmounting sacred buildings, and crowned with the gilded _Htee_, an honour which royalty alone shared with ecclesiastical sanctity. The spire, like everything else, had been gilt, but it was now sadly tarnished and had lost much of its brilliancy of effect.

Having looked at the hall of audience we strolled through the Palace esplanade. A wall parted this off from the private apartments and the pleasure grounds occupying the western section of the Palace enclosure. A series of carved and gilded gables roofed with glittering zinc plates was visible over the wall. The grounds were said to be well planted with flowering shrubs and fruit trees and to contain lakelets and rockeries. Built against the outer wall and facing the enclosed space were barracks for soldiers and gun sheds. The accommodation was as primitive as are the weapons, and that was saying a good deal. Pio Nono led us across to a big wooden house, scarcely at all ornamented, which was the everyday abode of the "Lord White Elephant." His "Palace," or state apartment, was not pointed out to us. His lordship, in so far as his literal claim to be styled a white elephant, was an impostor of the deepest dye and a very grim and ugly impostor to boot. He was a great, lean, brown, flat-sided brute, his ears, forehead, and trunk mottled with a dingy cream colour. But he belonged all the same to the lordly race. "White elephants" were a science which had a literature of its own. According to this science, it was not the whiteness that was the criterion of a "white elephant." So much, indeed, was the reverse, that a "white elephant" according to the science may be a brown elephant in actual colour. The points were the mottling of the face, the shape and colour of the eyes, the position of the ears, and the length of the tail. Certainly the "Lord White Elephant" had, to the most cursory observation, a peculiar and abnormal eye. The iris was yellow, with a reddish outer annulus and a small, clear, black pupil. It was essentially a shifty, treacherous eye, and I noticed that everybody took particularly good care to keep out of range of his lordship's trunk and tusks. The latter were superb--long, massive, and smooth, their tips quite meeting far in front of his trunk. His tail was much longer than in the Indian elephants, and was tipped with a bunch of long, straight, black hair. Altogether he was an unwholesome, disagreeable-looking brute, who munched his grass morosely and had no elephantine geniality. He was but a youngster--the great, old, really white elephant which Yule describes had died some time back, after an incumbency dating from 1806. The "White Elephant" was never ridden now, but the last King but one used frequently to ride its predecessor, acting as his own mahout. We did not see his trappings, as our visit was paid unawares when he was quite in undress; but Yule says that when arrayed in all his splendour his head-stall was of fine red cloth, studded with great rubies, interspersed with valuable diamonds. When caparisoned he wore on his forehead, like other Burmese dignitaries including the King himself, a golden plate inscribed with his titles and a gold crescent set with circles of large gems between the eyes. Large silver tassels hung in front of his ears, and he was harnessed with bands of gold and crimson set freely with large bosses of pure gold. He was a regular "estate of the realm," having a _woon_ or minister of his own, four gold umbrellas, the white umbrellas which were peculiar to royalty, with a large suite of attendants and an appanage to furnish him with maintenance wherewithal. When in state his attendants had to leave their shoes behind them when they enter his Palace. In a shed adjacent to that occupied by the "Lord White Elephant" stood his lady wife, a browner, plumper, and generally more amiable-looking animal. Contrary to universal experience elsewhere, elephants in Burmah breed in captivity, but this union was unfertile and the race of "Lord White Elephants" had to be maintained _ab extra_. The so-called white elephants are sports of nature, and are of no special breed. They are called Albinoes, and are more plentiful in the Siam region than in Burmah.

By this time the hour was approaching that had been fixed for the presentation, and we returned to the _Bya-dyt_. The summons came almost immediately. Ushered by Pio Nono and accompanied by several courtiers, we traversed some open passages and finally reached a kind of pagoda or kiosk within the private gardens of the Palace. The King was not to appear in state, and this place had been selected by reason of its absolute informality. There was no ornament anywhere, not so much as a speck of gilding or an atom of tinsel. We solemnly squatted down on a low platform covered with grass matting, through which pierced the teak columns supporting the lofty roof. A space had been reserved for us in the centre, on either side of which, their front describing a semicircle, a number of courtiers lay crouching on their stomachs but placidly puffing cheroots. On our left were two or three superior military officers of the Palace guard, distinguishable only by their diamond ear-jewels. My presents--they were trivial: an opera-glass, a few boxes of chocolate, and a work-box--were placed before me as I sat down. There were other offerings to right and to left of them--a huge bunch of cabbages, a basket of _Kohl-rabi_, and three baskets of orchids. In the clear space in front I observed also a satin robe lined with fur, a couple of silver boxes, and a ruby ring. These, I imagined, were also for presentation, but it presently appeared they were his Majesty's return gifts for myself. Before us, at a higher elevation, there was a plain wooden railing with a gap in the centre, and the railing enclosed a sort of recess that looked like a garden-house. Over a ledge where the gap was, had been thrown a rich crimson and gold trapping that hung low in front, and on the ledge were a crimson cushion, a betel box, and a tall oval spittoon in gold set with pearls. A few minutes passed, beguiled by conversation in a low tone, when six guards armed with double-barrelled firearms of very diverse patterns, mounted the platform from the left side and took their places on either side, squatting down. The guards wore black silk jackets lined with fur and with scarlet kerchiefs bound round their heads. Then a door opened in the left side of the garden-house, and there entered first an old gaunt beardless man--the chief eunuch--closely followed by the King, otherwise unattended. His Majesty came on with a quick step, and sat down, resting his right arm on the crimson cushion on the ledge in the centre of the railing. He wore a white silk jacket, and a _loonghi_ or petticoat robe of rich yellow and green silk. His only ornaments were his diamond ear-jewels. As he entered all bent low, and when he had seated himself a herald lying on his stomach read aloud my credentials. The literal translation was as follows:--"So-and-so, a great newspaper teacher of the _Daily News_ of London, tenders to his Most Glorious Excellent Majesty, Lord of the Ishaddan, King of Elephants, master of many white elephants, lord of the mines of gold, silver, rubies, amber, and the noble serpentine, Sovereign of the empires of Thunaparanta and Tampadipa, and other great empires and countries, and of all the umbrella-wearing chiefs, the supporter of religion, the Sun-descended Monarch, arbiter of life, and great, righteous King, King of kings, and possessor of boundless dominions, and supreme wisdom, the following presents." The reading was intoned in a uniform high recitative, strongly resembling that used when our Church Service is intoned; and the long-drawn "Phya-a-a-a-a" (my lord) which concluded it, added to the resemblance, as it came in exactly like the "Amen" of the Liturgy.

The reading over, the return presents were picked up by an official and bundled over to me without any ceremony, the King meanwhile looking on in silence, chewing betel and smoking a cheroot. Several of the courtiers were following his example in the latter respect. Presently the King spoke in a distinct, deliberate voice--

"Who is he?"

Dr. Williams acting as my introducer, replied in Burmese--

"A writer of the _Daily News_ of London, your Majesty."

"Why does he come?"

"To see your Majesty's country, and in the hope of being permitted to reverence the Golden Feet."

"Whence does he come?"

"From the British army in Afghanistan, engaged in war against the Prince of Cabul."

"And does the war prosper for my friends the English?"

"He reports that it has done so greatly and that the Prince of Cabul is a fugitive."

"Where does Cabul lie in relation to Kashmir?"

"Between Kashmir and Persia, in a very mountainous and cold region."

There had been pauses more or less long between each of these questions; the King obviously reflecting what he should ask next; then there was a longer, and, indeed, a wearisome pause. Then the King spoke again.

"Where is the Kingwoon Menghyi?"

"In Court, your Majesty," replied Pio Nono. "It is a Court day."

"It is well. I wish the Ministers to make every day a Court day, and to labour hard to give prompt justice to suitors, so that there be no complaint of arrears."

With this laudable injunction, his Majesty rose and walked away, and the audience was over.

The King of Burmah, when I saw him, was little over twenty, and he had been barely four months on the throne. He was a tall, well-built, personable young man, very fair in complexion, with a good forehead, clear, steady eyes, and a firm but pleasant mouth. His chin was full and somewhat sensual-looking, but withal he was a manly, frank-faced young fellow, and was said to have gained self-possession and lost the early nervous awkwardness of his new position with great rapidity. Circumstances had even then occurred to prove that he was very far from destitute of a will of his own, and that he had no favour for any diminution of the Royal Prerogative. As we passed out of the Palace after the interview a house in the Palace grounds was pointed out to me, within which had been imprisoned in squalid misery ever since the mortal illness of the previous King, a number of the members of the Burmese blood royal.

_P.S._--A few days after my visit, all these unfortunately were massacred with fiendish refinements of cruelty.

GERMAN WAR PRAYERS 1870-71

In the multifarious ramifications of their military organisation the Germans by no means neglect religion. Each army corps is partitioned into two divisions and each division has its field chaplain. In those corps in which there is a large admixture of the Catholic element, there is a cleric of that denomination to each division as well as a Protestant chaplain. The former is known as a _Feldgeistliger_, a word which in itself means nothing more distinctive than a "field ecclesiastic," while the Protestant chaplain has usually the title of _Feldpastor_. Of the priest I can say but little. The pastors, for the most part, are young and energetic men. They may be divided into two classes: those who have at home no stated charges, and those who have temporarily left their charge for the duration of the war. The former generally are regularly posted to a division; the latter, equally recognised but not perhaps quite so official, are chiefly to be found in the lazarettoes, in the battlefield villages whither the wounded are borne to have their fresh wounds roughly seen to, and on the battlefield itself. Not that the regular divisional chaplains do not face the dangers of the battlefield with devoted courage; but their duties, in the nature of their special avocation, lie more among the hale and sound who yet stand up before an enemy, than with the poor fellows who have been stricken down. Earnestness and devotion are the chief characteristics of those pastors. It struck me that their education was not of a very high order--certainly not on a par with that of the average regimental officer.

The _Feldpastor_ wears an armlet of white and light purple to denote his calling; but indeed it is not easy to mistake him for anything else than he is. He has his quarters with the Divisional General, and preaches whenever and wherever it is convenient to get a congregation. A church is passed on the wayside, a regiment halts and defiles into it, and the pastor mounts the steps of the altar and holds forth therefrom for half an hour. There is a quiet meadow near a village, in which a brigade is lying. Looking over the hedge, you may see in the meadow a hollow square of helmeted men with the general and the pastor in the centre, the latter speaking simple, fervent words to the fighting men. When, as during the siege of Paris, a division occupies a certain district for a long time, you may chance--let me say on a New Year's night--on the village church all ablaze with light. The garrison have decorated the gaunt old Norman arches with laurels and evergreens; they have cleared out the market-vendor's stock of tallow-dips to illuminate the church wherewithal. The band has been practising the glorious _Nun Danket alle Gott_ for a week; the vocalists of the regiments have been combining to perfect themselves in part-singing. The gorgeous trumpery of Roman Catholic church paraphernalia, unheeded as it is, looks strangely out of place and contrasts curiously with the simple Protestant forms.

The church is crowded with a denser congregation than ever its walls contained before. The _Oberst_ sits down with the under-officer; the general gropes for half a chair between two stalwart _Kerle_ of the line. Hymn-cards are distributed as at the Brighton volunteer service in the Pavilion on Easter Sunday. As the pastor enters and takes his way up the altar steps--he goes not to the pulpit--there bursts out a volume of vocal devotional harmony, which is so pent in the aisles and under the arches that the sound seems almost to become a substance. Then the pastor delivers a prayer and there is another hymn. He enunciates no text when he next begins to speak; he chops not a subject up into heads, as the grizzled major who listens to him would partition out his battalion into companies. There is no "thirteenthly and lastly" in his simple address. But he gets nearer the hearts of his hearers than if he assailed them with a battery of logic with multitudinous texts for ammunition. For he speaks of the people at home, in the quiet corners of the Fatherland; he tells the soldier in language that is of his profession, how the fear of the Lord is a better arm than the truest-shooting _Zündnadelgewehr_; how preparedness for death and for what follows after death, is a part of his accoutrement that the good soldier must ever bear about with him.

Herr Pastor has other functions than to preach to the living. The day after a battle, his horse must be very tired before the stable-door is reached. The burial parties are excavating great pits all over the field, while others pick up the dead in the vicinity and bear them unto the brink of the common grave. Herr Pastor cannot be ubiquitous. If he is not near when the hole is full, the _Feldwebel_ who commands the party bares his head, and mutters, "In the name of God, Amen," as he strews the first handful of mould on the dead--it may be on friends as well as on foes. If the pastor can reach the brink of the pit, it is his to say the few words that mark the recognition of the fact that those lying stark and grim below him are not as the beasts that perish. The Germans have no set funeral service, and if they had, there would be no time for it here. "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, _durch unsern Herr Jesu Christe_. Amen;" words so familiar, yet never heard without a new thrill.

They are slightly uncouth in several matters, these _Feldpastoren_, and would not quite suit sundry metropolitan charges one wots of. They do not wear gloves, nor are they addicted to scent on their pocket-handkerchiefs. Their boots are too often like boats, and when they are mounted there is frequently visible an interval of more or less dusky stocking between the boot-top and the trouser-leg. They slobber stertorously in the consumption of soup, and cut their meat with a square-elbowed energy of determination that might make one think that they had vanquished the Evil One and had him down there under their knife and fork. But they are simple-hearted and valiant servants of their Master. Who was it, in the bullet-storm that swept the slope of Wörth, from facing which the stout hearts of the fighting men blenched and quailed, that there walked quietly into it, to speak words of peace and consolation to the dying men whom that terrible storm had beaten down? A smooth-faced stripling with the _Feldpastor's_ badge on his arm, the gallant Christian son of an eminent Prussian divine, Dr. Krummacher of Berlin. At one of the battles (I forget which) a pastor came to fill a grave, not to consecrate it. Shall I ever forget the unswerving hurry to the front of Kummer's divisional chaplain when the _Landwehrleute_, his flock, were going down in their ranks as they held with stubbornness unto death the villages in front of Maizières les Metz? Let the _Feldpastoren_ slobber and welcome, say I, while they gild their slobbering with such devotion as this! But there must be times and seasons when Herr Pastor is not at hand; nor can the ministration of any pastor stand in the stead of private prayer. The German soldier's simple needs in this matter are not disregarded. Each man is served out when he gets his kit with a tiny gray volume less than quarter the size of this page, the title of which is _Gebetbuch für Soldaten_--the Soldier's Prayer-Book. It is supplied from the Berlin depôt of the Head Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge in Germany, and it is a compendium of simple war prayers for almost every conceivable situation, with one significant exception--there is no prayer in defeat. The word is blotted out of the German war vocabulary. It has been said that the belief in the divinity of our Saviour is rapidly on the wane in Germany. If this war prayer-book avails aught, the taint of the heresy may not enter into the army.

Germany is at war. While Paris is frantically shouting _A Berlin!_, while all Germany is singing and meaning _Die Wacht am Rhein_, Moltke's order goes forth into the towns and villages of the Fatherland for the mobilisation of the Reserves. Hans was singing _Die Wacht am Rhein_ last night over his beer; but there is little heart for song left in him as he looks from that paper on the deal table into Gretchen's face. She is weeping bitterly as her children cling around her, too young to realise the cause of their parents' sorrow. Hans rises moodily, and pulling down what military belongings he has not given into the arsenal after the last drill, falls a turning over of them abstractedly. By chance his hand rests upon the little gray volume, the _Gebetbuch für Soldaten_. It opens in his hand, and he comes and sits down by Gretchen and reads in a voice that chokes sometimes, the

PRAYER IN STRAIT AND SORROW

O Lord Jesus Christ! let the crying and sighing of the poor come before Thee. Withhold not Thy countenance from the tears and beseechings of the woebegone. Help by Thine outstretched arm, and avert our sorrow from us. Awake us who are lying dead in sin and in great danger, and whose thoughts often wander from Thee. Let us trust with all our hearts that nothing can be so broad, so deep, so high, nor so arduous that Thy grace and favour cannot overcome it; that we so can and must be holpen out of every difficulty and discomfiture when Thou takest compassion upon us. Help us, then, through grace, and so I will praise Thee from now to all eternity.