Part 3

[Sidenote: 2. The Shore, Madras.] [Sidenote: 3. In Madras Harbour.] We embark from Madras on the steamer which is to carry us to Rangoon. Formerly it was necessary to go out to the vessel through the surf in specially constructed boats, for all the Coromandel Coast is shoal, and there is not a single natural harbour. Often the surf is very rough. Now, however, a harbour has been made at Madras. Two piers have been built out into the sea at right angles to the shore. They may be seen in the distance in this view. At their extremities they bend inward towards one another, so as to enclose a quadrangular space within which the steamers lie. None the less there are times when the mighty waves sweep through the open mouth, rendering the harbour unsafe, so that the shipping must stand out to sea. There have been many terrible disasters in the cyclones which from time to time strike the east coast of India. When the Madras harbour was half completed the works were overwhelmed by a storm and the undertaking had to be recommenced.

[Sidenote: 4. Coolies on Steamer.] Our vessel carries nearly two thousand coolies, natives of Madras, going to Burma to work in the rice mills or on the wharves, for Burma is a thinly peopled land. It has great natural resources, which are being rapidly developed by British capital. The coolies take passage as deck passengers for a few rupees, and each on landing at Rangoon has to undergo a searching medical examination, because the Plague is often carried from Madras to Burma. The disease manifests itself first by swollen glands, especially under the arms. The contagion, caused by a minute organism, is conveyed by rats. This terrible sickness is one of the worst scourges of modern India. It first broke out in Bombay in August, 1896. Since that date there have been three years in each of which a million deaths were due to it. As time goes on the mortality will probably decrease, for the first onslaught of a new disease is generally deadly. We must beware, however, of exaggerating its significance. There are three hundred million people in the Indian Empire, and the death rate by plague, even at its maximum, is therefore not very high. It is, indeed, low as compared with the death rate by malarial fever.

[Sidenote: 5. Chinese Junk in the Rangoon River.] After a probably rough passage, we approach the low-lying shore of the great delta of the Irawaddy river, and enter that branch of it which is known as the Rangoon river. A stray Chinese junk reminds us of the fact that we are entering Indo-China, and of the trade relations of Burma with Singapore and the regions of the Far East. Burmese rice is sent to China, the Malay States, India, East Africa, and Europe. Rangoon depends for her commerce mainly on the rice harvest. In recent years, famines in India have been mitigated by rice exported from Rangoon.

[Sidenote: 6. Map of Burma.] As we steam up the river for some miles inland, let us consider, with the help of a map, the main features of the geography of the land which we are about to visit. In this map is shown nearly the whole of the great southeastward peninsula of Asia. The areas which are coloured green are lowland, those which are yellow are upland, and the brown signifies highland and mountain. A ridge of highland, broken only at two or three points, runs southward through the centre of the map, separating Burma and the river basins of the Indian Ocean from Siam and the river basins of the Pacific Ocean. This great divide of the drainage is continued beyond the southern edge of the map through the Malay Peninsula for some distance. It ends near Singapore in the southernmost point of Asia, only one degree north of the Equator.

In Burma, parallel with the dividing range, are three other ridges, striking southward side by side. These separate three valleys, through which flow severally the Salween, Sittang, and Irawaddy rivers. The valley of the Salween, as the yellow and brown colours upon the map indicate, is less deeply trenched between its bounding ranges than are the other two valleys. As we should therefore expect, the Salween river has a steeply descending course broken by rapids, and is of small value for navigation. At its mouth is the port of Moulmein. The valley of the Sittang, which is a short river, prolongs the upper valley of the Irawaddy, which latter river makes a great westward bend at Mandalay, and passes by a transverse passage right through one of the parallel mountain ridges. Beyond this passage it bends southward again, accepting the direction of its tributary, the Chindwin river. The great port of Rangoon is placed on a tidal channel at the eastern edge of the Irawaddy delta. The railway from Rangoon to Mandalay runs through the Sittang valley and does not follow the Irawaddy. There is navigation, however, by the Irawaddy past Pagan and Mandalay northward to Bhamo, which is close to the Chinese frontier. The coastal plain of Burma is known as Arakan where it runs northward from the Irawaddy delta, and as Tenasserim where it runs southward from that delta along a coast beset with an archipelago of beautiful islands. The delta itself bears the name of Pegu, or Lower Burma; while the region round Mandalay is Upper Burma.

[Sidenote: 7. Plan of Rangoon.] We are in the Rangoon river. A tall, pointed pagoda appears on a hill to the right, and presently, as the channel bends to the west, we approach the busy commercial front of Rangoon city, surmounted by the golden spire of the great Shwe Dagon Pagoda.

[Sidenote: 8. Shwe Dagon Pagoda, from across the Royal Lakes.] [Sidenote: 9. The Shwe Dagon Pagoda, Rangoon.] [Sidenote: 10. Images of the Sitting Buddha.] [Sidenote: 11. Earning Merit at the Shwe Dagon Pagoda.] Rangoon, apart from its chief Pagoda, is a modern city. Fifty years ago it was a village. To-day it has a quarter of a million people. A wharf-fronted road, the Strand, follows the shore of the main river for several miles. Up the Pegu tributary to the east for several other miles are many rice mills with tall chimneys throwing out black smoke. The harbour is busy with shipping. There are great timber yards, and there are oil mills, for the products of Burma are, first and foremost, rice, and then timber, especially great logs of teak—harder than oak, and then petroleum. Back from the Strand is a well kept town, with broad streets at right angles, though as yet there are few really impressive buildings to compare with the public buildings of Madras. There is a beautiful group of lakes, the Royal Lakes, set in wooded public grounds, and across these is the finest view of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda, like a great hand-bell placed on a low hill. This pagoda is said to be the most frequented in the Buddhist world, for it has as relics eight hairs of Gautama, the founder of the Buddhist religion. It began some two thousand years ago as a small village fane. In successive ages the original structure has been encased afresh and afresh, until as the result of work done in the days of Queen Elizabeth, the great pagoda was completed which is now the glory of Rangoon. It rises to a height of nearly 400 feet, and is solid, there being no chamber within. The brickwork of which it is built makes a series of steps or ledges, so that it would be possible to climb for some distance up the spire. The whole is plated with gold-leaf, and the gilding is constantly renewed by pious devotees, who thus earn merit. The word “Shwe” in the name of this pagoda signifies golden. On the summit is a “hti,” or umbrella, of exquisite workmanship and material. It is said to have cost sixty thousand pounds. In the vane are 5,000 gems—diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. The base of the pagoda is surrounded first by shrines of varying sizes, and then by a flagged courtyard, which again is fringed with canopies and halls opening towards the pagoda, with many carved screens and arches, and innumerable shrines and altars, and images of Gautama. Flights of steps roofed over with teak descend from the courtyard, and one of the lower entries is guarded by great grotesque figures, partly lion and partly griffin, made of plastered bricks. We see one of them in this view. Then we have two very interesting pictures: the one represents three images of the Sitting Buddha from one of the shrines on the flagged courtyard at the foot of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda, and the other shows a pilgrim “earning merit” by putting gold leaf on to the pagoda itself.

[Sidenote: 12. The Sule Pagoda, Rangoon.] There is another considerable pagoda in the city, the Sule Pagoda. We have it here, with a corner of a building adjacent of European architecture, the Municipal Offices. Observe the watering of the streets by hand labour.

[Sidenote: 13. A Typical Burman.] [Sidenote: 14. Burmese Gambling, Rangoon.] The Burmese are a short, sturdy people, merry and happy, and akin rather to the Japanese in temperament than to the people of the Indian Peninsula. The features of their faces are obviously Mongolian. They have the oblique eyes of the Chinaman. Here is a typical Burman with a rose coloured wrap round his head. The Burmese women, whose praises have been sung through the world, are dainty and, according to a more or less Chinese standard, not infrequently beautiful. They love to clothe themselves in silks of brilliant and delicate hue. Excessive industry is certainly not a failing of the race, yet there are no poor. We have here a group of Burmese gamblers at Rangoon. The theatres play all night and the spectators go home by daylight. The “pwe,” or show, consists invariably of three parts—a prince, a princess, and a clown; it may be compared with our traditional harlequinade. Both Indians and Chinese are migrating to Burma in great numbers, but agricultural work is still chiefly in native hands.

[Sidenote: 15. Elephants lifting Teak.] [Sidenote: 16. Elephants Pushing Teak.] [Sidenote: 17. Tusker Elephant.] [Sidenote: 18. Tusker Elephant lifting Teak.] [Sidenote: 19. The Same.] One of the most curious and typical sights of Rangoon is that of elephants manipulating the great logs of teak wood in the timber yards. The logs are cut in the forests of the north of Burma, and are floated for hundreds of miles down the Irawaddy in large rafts, until they are stranded at a creek near Rangoon, called Pazundaung. Elephants are then employed for the purpose of moving and piling up the logs. The male elephant is very powerful and has strong tusks, on which he carries the logs, preventing them from falling with his trunk, but the female elephants are not so strong, and do not as a rule lift the logs off the ground, but merely drag them, or push them with the head. We have here two cow elephants, the one forty years old and the other seventy. We have them here again, one of them at the command of her rider pushing the logs forward with her head. In the next scene is a male elephant with tusks. He is fifty years old, and we realise his power in the next two views, where we see him poising on his tusks a great tree trunk. These huge animals are fed entirely on a grass which grows along the banks of the Irawaddy not far from Rangoon. Machinery is now taking the place of elephants in the timber yards, and Rangoon is, therefore, likely to lose one of its most interesting sights.

[Sidenote: 20. A Rice Mill, Rangoon.] [Sidenote: 21. The Same.] While we are on the river front let us glance also at a rice mill, where a process equivalent to thrashing is carried out, the grain being separated from the husk. The black smoke is from the paddy husks used to supply the motive power of the mill. Paddy, or unthrashed rice, is mostly brought to Rangoon by water, though more than a million and a half tons now come annually by rail. After the milling process is complete, the rice is packed into bags for shipment all over the world.

[Sidenote: 22. A Burmese Railway Train.] We will take train and run by the Burmese Sittang Railway over the broad levels of the delta, passing through fields from which the paddy has recently been cut. Only the ears are lopped off, and the straw is burnt as it stands. The Burmans are mostly yeomen, each owning his cattle and doing his own work in the field. Beyond Pegu we follow the Sittang River, with hill ranges low on the eastern and western horizons, until we come to Mandalay, once capital of the independent kingdom of Upper Burma. This kingdom was annexed to India in 1885 at the conclusion of the third Burmese war. Mandalay is the last of three capitals a few miles apart, which at different times in the past century have been the seat of the Burmese kings. Amarapura, a few miles to the south, was the earliest, and Ava, a few miles to the west, was the capital from 1822 to 1837.

[Sidenote: 23. The 450 Pagodas from Mandalay Hill.] At Mandalay we are again on the banks of the Irawaddy. There is a hill in the northern suburbs several hundred feet in height, from which we may look over the city. The houses are so buried in foliage that, seen from the height, the place appears almost like a wood of green trees. The square Dufferin Fort, with walled and moated boundary, and sides more than a mile in length, is distinguishable in the centre, but for the rest there is none of the ordinary panorama of a European city. One striking feature, however, lies at our feet, a little to one side. It is a square group of 450 white pagodas, with a more considerable gilded pagoda in the centre. Beside each of these pagodas there stands a large stone, and on these stones are inscribed quotations from the sacred books of the Buddhists. In the distance to the southeast are the hills inhabited by the Shan tribes.

[Sidenote: 24. The Moat, Fort Dufferin.] [Sidenote: 25. King Thebaw’s Palace.] [Sidenote: 26. The Aindaw Temple, Mandalay.] [Sidenote: 27. Maker of Temple Htis, Mandalay.] The Dufferin Fort was built around the Palace of King Thebaw, the last of the Burmese dynasty. It is enclosed by a square of red walls pierced by three gates on each side, each gate bearing a pointed pagoda-like super-structure. Without there is a broad moat, a hundred yards wide, with lotus plants, floating in it like water lilies. This moat is crossed by five wooden bridges. Inside the walls is the King’s Palace, of which we have here the spire, surmounted by a “hti” finial. This spire is called by the Burmese the “Centre of the Universe,” since it is in the centre of Mandalay, which they claim as in the centre of the world. A “hti” we may observe again at the summit of the great Aindaw Temple in the south of Mandalay, and here we have one before it has left the home of its maker.

[Sidenote: 28. The Queen’s Palace.] [Sidenote: 29. The Verandah of King Thebaw’s Palace.] [Sidenote: 30. Entrance to the Arakan temple, Mandalay.] We return to the Fort, and to the palaces within it. This is the Queen’s Palace, a very beautiful building of gilded teak, exquisitely carved, and here is the verandah where King Thebaw in 1885 surrendered to the British generals. He was taken away to India, and there he still lives under surveillance on the Malabar Coast. Here we have the entrance to the Arakan Temple, specially venerated by Buddhists, for it contains a great image of Gautama, over twelve feet high, made of brass. Pilgrims gain merit by placing gold leaf upon this figure. This is the building which Kipling spoke of as the Moulmein Pagoda; it is not, however, a pagoda, which is a solid spire, but a temple.

[Sidenote: 31. Sappers and Miners, Fort Dufferin.] [Sidenote: 32. Crossing the Moat, Fort Dufferin.] [Sidenote: 33. A Garrison Family.] Burma has been gradually annexed to India as the result of three successive wars. The first ended in 1826, and then the low-lying coastal strips known by the names of Tenasserim and Arakan were taken, and also the great valley of the Brahmaputra, known as Assam. In 1852 the country of Pegu, or Lower Burma, comprising the delta of the Irawaddy, was annexed, but Upper Burma round Mandalay remained independent. The last king of Mandalay was Thebaw, a notorious tyrant, guilty of the most horrible atrocities. Being anxious to maintain his independence, he intrigued with the French in the lands of Tonkin and Annam to the east of Burma, and as a result brought upon himself the conquest of his country in the time when Lord Dufferin was Viceroy of India. It took fully ten years to reduce Burma to order, for the land was infested with dacoits or robbers, as it is still in some of the remoter districts. Every village in those days was defended by a palisade. Here we have two views of a party of troops in Fort Dufferin, with the King’s Palace in the background, and then a family scene in the married quarters of the garrison. The Burman does not make a good soldier, for he has very little sense of discipline. Even the police of the province are for the most part Gurkhas, Sikhs, and Punjabi Musulmans.

[Sidenote: 34. The Bazaar, Mandalay.] [Sidenote: 35. The Flower and Seed Market, Mandalay Bazaar.] The Bazaar or market of Mandalay, as in every other Indian city, is the centre of public life. Externally it is of little interest, having been constructed since the conquest, but internally it is an epitome of the varied peoples who have thronged of late into the growing centres of Burmese trade. Here is a scene in the fruit market; but it is the silk market which delights the Burmese lady, who will be seen there accompanied by her maid, making purchases and enjoying the touch of more than she buys, as in similar places in Europe. The most striking contrast which is presented by Burma to one accustomed to Indian life is the freedom of the women, who move about unveiled. In Burma, under the Buddhist religion, we have neither seclusion of women nor the distinctions of caste. The city of Mandalay has a population of about 190,000, so that it is now smaller than the upstart Rangoon.

[Sidenote: 36. Ferryshaw Siding, near Mandalay.] [Sidenote: 37. Mora.] [Sidenote: 38. Katha.] Let us make a voyage up the Irawaddy to the border of the Chinese Empire. This is a river scene a short way above Mandalay, with a group of white pagodas conspicuous on the bank, and here is a village scene. There follows a view at Katha, a large straggling village on the Irawaddy, remarkable for its many pagodas, most of them ruined. The majority of the Burmese pagodas are thus dilapidated for the reason that there is considered to be no merit in merely restoring an existing Buddhist shrine. The wealthy devotee prefers therefore to erect a new pagoda. The Shwe Dagon is an exception, for it contains sacred relics.

[Sidenote: 39. Raft on the Irawaddy.] [Sidenote: 40. On the Irawaddy.] [Sidenote: 41. In the defile between Katha and Bhamo.] [Sidenote: 42. The Same.] [Sidenote: 43. Burmese Children.] [Sidenote: 44. Cart with solid Wheels.] [Sidenote: 45. Lacquer Workers.] Here we have a raft of bamboos and teak logs floating down the river, and then a typical river craft with a great oar for a rudder. Our steamer must progress with care, measuring the depths with bamboo poles at either bow. None the less, navigation extends for more than nine hundred miles from the sea. From Mandalay to Katha the bank of the river is in most places low and sandy, but between Katha and Bhamo there are striking defiles, where the ground rises with wooded fronts from the water’s edge. There is population along the banks the whole way, as is evidenced by the pagodas amid the vegetation. Here are three little Burmese villagers, and then a rustic cart with solid wheels, and here a picture showing the process of the famous lacquer work of Burma. A “shell” is first made of very thin and finely plaited bamboo, and this is covered with a pigment which, when dry, is softened on a primitive lathe. Then red lacquer is put on by hand, and the bowl is dried in the sun. When dry it is buried for some days in order that it may harden. Finally it is engraved, and often inlaid with gold.

[Sidenote: 46. Bhamo from the Irawaddy.] [Sidenote: 47. China Street, Bhamo.] [Sidenote: 48. Kachin Women, Bhamo.] [Sidenote: 49. Houses at Bhamo.] We approach Bhamo, at the head of the Irawaddy navigation, lying low along the bank of the river, twenty miles from the Chinese frontier. There are naturally many Chinese at Bhamo. This is China Street. Here, on the other hand, is a group of Kachin women, heavy-faced, in picturesque costume. The Kachins are the hill tribes of the northern frontier of Burma, as the Shans are of the eastern frontier and the Chins of the western. Until quite recently the Kachins often raided the caravans passing from Bhamo to China. They are now becoming civilised under British rule. The Burmese people proper, of ancient civilisation, are a relatively small population confined to the valley and the delta. Here we see a row of houses at Bhamo, raised high upon piles. The change which has come over Burma since the British occupation may be appreciated from the fact that twenty years ago it was no uncommon sight on the voyage up from Katha to Bhamo to see along the river banks, and on rafts floating down the river, the dead bodies of Kachins who had been tortured to death under the terrible rule of the kings of Mandalay.

[Sidenote: 50. The Gokteik Gorge and Bridge.] [Sidenote: 51. Native House, Hsipaw.] [Sidenote: 52. The Bazaar, Hsipaw.] From Mandalay a railway runs eastward into the Shan country. At one point this line crosses a gorge by a steel bridge, nearly half a mile long and over 800 feet above the water of the stream. The bridge is so light in design that its great size and real solidity are difficult to grasp. Beyond this bridge we come to the chief place of the Shans, Hsipaw. Here are a couple of scenes in Hsipaw, the one of a Shan house, the other of a Shan market.

[Sidenote: 53. Pagan.] [Sidenote: 54. The Ananda Temple, Pagan.] [Sidenote: 55. The Ananda Temple, nearer view of the west side.] [Sidenote: 56. Buddha Image at Pagan.] To realise the antiquity and the splendour of early Burmese civilisation, we must descend the Irawaddy below Mandalay to a place called Pagan. There, for some ten miles beside the river, and for three miles back from its bank, are the ruins of a great capital which flourished about the time of the Norman Conquest of England. From the centre of the ruined city it is impossible to point in any direction in which a pagoda or a temple is not visible. We have here a general view of the remains, and then the Ananda Temple, seen in the midst of a bank of vegetation, from which at various points rise other smaller red and white ruins. The Ananda Temple was built more than eight hundred years ago by the Thatons, the original inhabitants of the country, who were overcome by the invading Burmans. Some thirty thousand of these Thatons were brought to Pagan as slaves, and set to build the pagodas and temples, just as during the captivity in Egypt the Israelites were employed in building the pyramids. Here is the Ananda Temple close at hand, white and glittering in the sunshine, as though built of sugar. If we enter the great portal—there are three other portals similar, for the plan of the building is that of a cross—we find facing us a huge image of the Buddha, over ten yards in height.