In the Shadow of the Pagoda. Sketches of Burmese life and character

Preface

. A RESIDENCE of six and a half years in the country docs not qualify one to pose as an authority, and I have not even the conventional excuses to offer in submitting this very superficial book to the public ; friends have not urged its publication, and it aims at fulfilling no want. If it gives Englishmen any clearer idea of their fellow-sub jects in Burma I shall be satisfied ; it is a little singular that a people so interesting and so peculiarly accessible is not better known. I only hope that in the chapters on dacoity I have not brought into unfairly prominent relief the national shortcomings. I lay no claim to the title of sportsman, but I have in cluded in this book two tiger stories. That they differ in the essential feature from those generally published is my only excuse for adding to the long list of these.

The illustrations are from photographs by Mr. P. Klier and by Messrs. Watts and Skeen of Rangoon. For kind permission to republish herein several papers, I have to thank the proprietors of Land and Water, Comhill, Macmillan's, and Chambers' s. CONTENTS. IN THE SHADOW OF THE PAGODA. CHAPTER. PAGE. I. — Some Aspects of the Country i II. — The Burman in Town ... 16 III. — On the Jury 32 IV. — Some Superstitions 44 V. — The Shway Dagone Pagoda 55 VI. — An Idle Morning 66 VII. — The Burman at Home t ... 89 VIII. — In the Busy Season 109 IX. — The Karen at Home 131 X. — Wanted, a Light 149 XI. — Not by Appointment 171 XII. — Some Compulsory Acquaintances 187 XIII. — The Head of Boh Gway 205 XIV. — The Queen's Pardon 224 PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF A DACOIT. I. — The Victim of Opportunity 239 II.— Nobody's Guest 255 III. — Left no Address 268 IV. — A Morning Call 276 V. — Will O' the Wisp 292 VI. — The First Law of Nature 307 VII.— A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing 324 VIII.— Called Behind the Curtain ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE. The Shway Dagone Pagoda, Rangoon . . Frontispiece. South Entrance to the Shway Dagone Pagoda . . 7 Kilbey Hill House, Akyab . . . . . . . . 9 Country Cart . . . . . . . . . . . ■ n A Village Poay . . . . . . . . . . . • 3T South Shrine, Shway Dagone Pagoda . . . . 58 Shrine of the Great Bell . . . . . . . . 62 House and Rice Mill at Padoukchoung . . . . 69 Passenger Cart . . . . . . . . . . 77 Houses in a Jungle Village . . . . . . . . 93 Hpoongyees and Scholars . . . . . . . . 101 A Steering Chair .. .. .. .. ..in Paddy Boat . . . . . . . . . . ..113 Karen Girls . . . . . . . ■ . . . 142 Burmese Convicts . . . . . . . . . .

Chapter I. Some Aspects Of The Country

You will not fall in love with Burma at first sight, if like most new arrivals you come to her front door, the mouth of the Rangoon River. From shipboard at Elephant Point the prospect is depressing. The low brown coastline, raggedly trimmed with jungle, falls away on either hand from the great river brown from hundreds of miles of wandering over alluvial mud. On the left bank, a little back from the stream, the watchtower and flagstaff of the telegraph station give just a touch of lonely civilisation to destroy the mysterious possibilities of virgin jungle. As the steamer feels her zigzag way up the channel from left mud-bank to right mud-bank, under screaming escort of gulls and kites, there is nothing to look at on either side; the swirling river hedged by rank vegetation is the view, devoid of character.

A palm tree would give some sort of Eastern colouring ; but palms there are none after passing Elephant Point. You look in vain for the saving grace of a crocodile. The smallest cro codile ever born, basking on those shimmering mud slopes, B would redeem the whole from the commonplace. But Nature can afford nothing better than a water-snake coiled pensive on a stump, or slithering lazily water wards, to the terror of myriads of restless shrimps. There is no river traffic, for the tide is running up, and we passed the fishermen hours ago out in the gulf of Martaban. You have had time to be thoroughly disappointed before a flutter of fulfilled expectancy stirs the quarter deck, and " The Pagoda ! " is on everybody's lips. Far away over the jungle, to the north, a tiny cone, tapering concavely from its broad base, stands low against the sky.

" There it is again ! "groans a passenger of full habit, whose capacity for iced drinks has expanded daily since Suez. " Steward ! " For the sight of the Shway Dagone to them that know it is provocative of thirst. Past the masked battery of Syriam, born of the Russian scare of '85, and the scattered suburbs of Rangoon crop up in the chimney stalks and mill roofs of Poozoondoung. The Pagoda, solitary in its gilded majesty, glitters on the low hill beyond the town. The prospect is more interest ing now. Round the Hastings shoal, where three rivers meet, under the embrasures of Monkey Point battery, and we are in the Port. The rice season is not open yet, but four long lines of masts, flying flags of half the nations of the world, cut the stately waterway into broad avenues. Save for a steamer or two loading teak from nearly sub merged rafts alongside, and three ships discharging coal in clouds of black dust over on the left at Dallah, all swing high and light in idleness.

Down the right bank Rangoon throws a long tentacle of mills, native dwellings, and timber yards, varied by an occasional pagoda falling to ruins and overgrown with vegetation. The distant left bank, the Dallah side, is lined with huge godowns, or sheds, whose low-pitched roofs of corrugated iron shelter coal and salt ; a dreary range straggling off in more and larger timber yards. where elephants stalk unmoved amid viciously screaming circular saws and hissing steam. Life at Dallah is banish ment. There are few Europeans there ; the assistants in charge of the timber yards and engineers at the Flotilla Company's works form the white population. Their visitors are chiefly Viceroys and distinguished travellers, whose desire it is to see elephants working timber. Hence the best elephant stories come from Dallah.

I think I am right in giving Dallah credit for the elephant which when stacking squares (i.e. squared logs) habitually shut one eye and applied the other to the end of the log to make sure he had put it straight. Presently we come abreast of Rangoon town, a study in greys, browns, and greens toned down with dust. On first landing you see nothing of the natives of the country. Gangs of lank Coringa coolies are working cargo on the wharf and in the godowns. The sampan-wallahs arc Chittagonians ; the drivers of gharries and bullocks carts are Malabar coast men ; if the road is under repair coolies are the labourers ; the policeman dozing harmlessly in the shade is probably a Madras man too ; and fifteen out of twenty people you meet in the streets are of nationalities strange to the soil. Of the one hundred and eighty thou sand and odd inhabitants of Rangoon only seventy-nine thousand are Burmese ;* and the large majority of these dwell in the suburbs. * " The returns are analysed by religions, and though, no doubt, a return of towns by races would have been even better, yet in Burma, as nearly all Burmans are Bhuddists, the return by religions is sufficiently accurate." — (Census report, 1891).

B The variety of the races which form the population of the seaport towns is a tribute to the wealth of the country. Europeans of every nation, Americans, Chinese, Armenians, Negroes, and representatives of almost every Indian people between the Himalayas and Ceylon find a home here. The Burmese mingle freely with them all, giving their daughters in marriage to men differing in race, colour, and religion ; this, be it said, with the cor dial consent of the girls themselves. The European who settles in the country often takes a daughter of the land to wife, so does the Armenian. So would the native of India if he found favour in the ladies' sight. The wealthier Suratis do find such favour sometimes ; but the native of India has ever in his mind's eye the home of his youth, to which he will retire to pass the evening of life, and the Burmese girl will not leave her country.

The Chinaman, who prospers here even better than he seems to do everywhere else, is glad to get a Burmese wife, whose ways appeal to his business-like instincts. The boys of such a pair are educated and dressed as Chinamen and the girls as Burmese ; a fair adjustment of the claims of nationality which has advantages of its own; for the boy so brought up can rely upon the aid of his father's fellow-countrymen, and a Burmese girl can always make her way in the world. To return to the outward aspect of Rangoon as first seen from the river. The town does not look invitin^. o The buildings have a substantial solvent air, but the general effect is glaring baldness. It improves on closer acquaintance. The better streets throughout are wide and clean ; guiltless of side-walks but shaded on either side by trees in leaf all the year round.

The East end is the more important, but even in Merchant Street extremes of industry meet. Over against a great mercantile office forming a block in itself, stands a tumble-down tiled shed, the " shop " of Ah Toon whose signboard glibly proclaims him " Carpenter, Furniture and Contractor"; or a Madrassi's dingy sweet-stuff emporium, reached by a plank across the open brick drain, whose customers are coolies and crows. There are a few good shops to cater for European wants — if that may be called a shop which rises superior to window display and wherein a set of double harness or half a pound of cheese may be had on demand. The West side of the town beyond Fytche Square is occupied almost entirely by the Eastern traders who congregate, according to custom, in quarters ruled by race, and streets determined by trade.

All the hardware dealers dwell side by side ; the crockery men cling together, and the dealers in cloth. It is convenient for the purchaser, and. stimulating competition, makes business distinctly lively. This was always a bustling part of the town and has been still more so since the introduction of the steam tram-cars. The enterprise was undertaken by the late Mr. Darwood, than whom no man better under stood the people. He knew that the success of his costly venture depended chiefly on the patronage of the Burmese, and began by constructing a line along the street most trodden by the people, from the Strand Road, up China Street, to within fifty yards of the gaping, vacuous monsters which guard the South entrance to the Pagoda. In India, native religious sentiment might have been outraged.

The Burmese, ever practical when physical exertion is in question, took just the view Mr Darwood anticipated and looked with high favour on an innovation which would save their legs. Every Bhuddist, man, woman and child, goes to offer prayer at the Pagoda with more or less frequency, and although Dar-woo' thekin was neither Burman nor Bhuddist, it was felt that the author of so meritorious a work, foreigner as he was, had claims on Neikban which could scarcely be ignored. The more orthodox had their doubts at first ; but when at dawn on the first day of the great feast of the Full Moon of Taboung, which brings Burmans in thousands from all parts of the country to worship at the Shway Dagone, the line was opened and everybody was carried free in honour of the occasion, the misgivings of orthodoxy vanished.

It was unani mously agreed that when Dar-woo' thekin paid the last debt of Nature he would be caught up to the blissful abode of the Nats, in spite of accidents of birth and belief. More substantial proof of approval was forth coming in the meantime : people took to travelling up and down for the fun of the thing, disbursing their four anna bits on return tickets with reckless prodigality. Across the Northern limits of the town proper runs the railway, now extended to Mandalay ; and, roughly speaking, beyond this we are in Cantonments where most of the European residents live. The approved style of house in Burma is a shallow box smothered under a waste of brown shingle roof, and raised high on piles. Some people enclose and floor the space among the piles to make a basement storey ; such are prepared to meet miniature flood in the rains, are indifferent to frogs and scorpions, and take their chance of snakes.

The majority are content to utilise it as coach-house, dog kennel or extra stable. From the town the land rises gently through Canton ments, reaches its highest in the eminence crowned by SOUTH ENTRANCE TO THE SHWAY DAGONE PAGODA. the Pagoda and its fortified lower court, and thence rolls away in billowy undulations to a dead level which would be monotonous but for the alternations of jungle and cultivation. Sleeping in the shade of big trees are nume rous Hpoongyee Kyoungs, or monasteries, and "country houses " of Europeans, Suratis, and Parsees. In the twilight of mango, bamboo and jack tree on either side of the Prome Road, the industrious Chinaman watches the growth of acres of pineapples which he takes by the cartload to sell in Rangoon at two rupees a hundred. The pineapple jungle is a favourite resort of Thomas Atkins, who revels unchecked in the turnip-like plenty of fruit he has known only through shop windows at home.

Unfortunately he does not always wait until the pines are ripe, and green pines are not more wholesome than bazaar liquor. Both are factors in the deadliness of the much-abused climate. The whole Delta of the Irrawaddy is a maze of water ways, great and small, which tap an endless series of streaks and patches of paddy land. The country is guiltless of roads, save for one or two trunk highways, and, with the exception of a quantity brought to Ran goon by rail, all the grain comes to market by boat. The people congregate in villages on the creeks and cultivate the land within a mile radius or less, according to population. Each area of kwin is fenced into squares by low, broad bunds of earth to retain the depth of water growing rice requires. Every village is surrounded by a lake of green with shores of jungle and perhaps an occasional island of fallow, which, rising above the level, cannot be water-logged and cultivated.

Where such islands are many, there is the ground for snipe, with which bird few countries are better supplied than Lower KILBEY HILL HOUSE, AKYAB Burma and Arracan. The attention paid him by the white man has earned him, among the country people, whose nomenclature is before all things descriptive, the euphonious name of Boh-sah-hnit — the "bird the gentle man eats." The paddy lands are oases in a world of jungle, often impenetrable in its tangled density, else where open and park-like, destitute of population and full of game. The wonderful fertility of the soil is reflected in the character of the people whose predominating traits are amiability and indolence. Famine and anxiety for the morrow are unknown in the rice country, where the minimum of work produces the maximum of result. Ploughing, an operation which consists of churning knee deep mud with a rude iron-tipped implement drawn by water-buffaloes, is performed in June and July, after the sun-cracked soil has been deluged by the early rains.

Then the seed is scattered closely in the nursery kwins. When it has grown up a foot or more, the shoots are thinned out and replanted in the fields which are more in the nature of shallow lakes. This replanting business is comparatively hard work. Small sheaves of green shoots are placed conveniently on the bunds, and the farmer, his pasoh tucked closely about his thighs, wades in, carrying a handful of plants and a stick cleft at one end. Sliding the shoots rapidly one by one through his left hand he dexterously catches each above the root in the cleft stick and therewith plunges it deep into the mud. Such rough usage, one would think, should seal the fate of any growing thing, but the hardy paddy shoot thrives on it. In a few hours it is standing erect and healthy, asking no further aid from man.

Planting out finished, work is over, and the farmer looks on in COUNTRY CART happy idleness till harvest time. When the crops are ready for the sickle he obtains Coringa coolies from the towns and looks on while they reap and pile the grain on the clumsy solid-wheeled carts which convey it to the primitive threshing floors to be trodden out by buffaloes. From the artistic standpoint the landscape of the delta is seldom attractive. The villages, though often picturesque, nay beautiful compared with the eyesore of mud hovels which form the village of the Northern India plains, lack variety. If you seek scenery you will find it on the other side of the Gulf of Martaban, in the mountainous Tenasserim Division. Maulmain, the chief to\vn is one of the most beautifully situated places in the East.

It wanders disjointedly along eight miles of hill side, overlooked by pagodas. The European town has grown up, intertwined with the Burmese, and the result is a piquant medley of East and West. For instance, the Club faces the clean-swept courtyard of a pagoda surrounded by zayats or rest-houses, hpoongyee kyoungs rich in their wealth of carved gable, and seven-storied roofs sheltering images of the Bhudda. From the road along the ridge of the hill the eye runs riot over river, green plain, hill and jungle to the far horizon of the Siamese mountain ranges on the East ; on the other hand, over town and river to nearer boundaries of jungle-clad hill broken by waters which melt in mirage to sky. Maulmain is rich in rivers. The Sal ween, Attaran, and Gyaing meet here and moat her round on all sides but the south.

The Attaran boasts being the only stream of any size in Southern Asia which flows northward. Rising sheer and abrupt from the sea of paddy on the Siam side are gigantic cliffs three and four hundred feet in height, standing out lonely and rugged, like the flood-wrack of a continent washed away. One of these contains the " Farm Caves ' whose deeper recesses, so vast as to be poorly illuminated by a ship's Bengal light, are — or were — leased to Chinamen for the guano deposit of myriads of bats. The more accessible galleries are niched for the shrines of Bhuddas, but sacrilegious hands have carried off most of the portable images to send home as curios. There is a tiny kyoung and a few rest-houses on the north side near the mouths of the caves, and there dwelt a solitary hpoongyee, whose guardianship of the sacred treasures was lax.

He was a weakened vessel. He kept a soda-water bottle convenient to receive the con tents of any white visitor's flask, for he happened to know a man who would drink whiskey. In the old days, before Rangoon became British property, Maulmain was a busier port than she has been since. Her rivers were the highways from the great forests, and besides exporting more timber than any port in the East, she built ships for "John Company." Within the last few years the teak forests have become worked out to a great extent ; the rice business, however, is considerable, and increasing. The vast hill-districts have a sparse and scattered population of Karens who dwell either alone in solitary huts, in small villages, or in that peculiar barrack-like habitation called a tai which shelters under one enormous roof a whole clan of from fifty to eighty families, each occupying its own rooms off the common hall which forms the centre.

On the hill slopes with infinite trouble, for Karen appliances are primitive, and the forest growth is heavy, they clear patches of land where on is grown the rice required for home consumption. Toungyah cultivation is a very different thing from agriculture in the plains. The paddy is a distinct variety which grows on comparatively dry soil, and needs no standing water ; the weeds and undergrowth come up with it and would soon choke off the thin crop unless the Karen worked incessantly to keep his plot clear. Then there are living enemies to guard against. By careful fencing he can keep out the deer and wild pig, which do terrible mischief if they succeed in leaping over or snouting a way through the close-set wattle ; but the highest fence is useless against jungle fowl and other seed-eating birds.

The only professional shikarries in Burma are Karens, who make a business of going round from place to place to kill troublesome animals. The jungle-fowl the cultivator snares for himself. Burma is essentially a democratic country. There is no old nobility, there are no large landed proprietors, and no idle rich living on inherited wealth. Social superiority (apart from the priesthood) rests with Government officials ; ancient tradition, dating from the oppressive rule of the local governors appointed by the king, breaks out in the deference paid the tlwogyce of a Circle by the people. The thoogyce is the tax-collector, and he does his work with the assistance of loogyees and goungs, lesser lights who shine only in their own villages. The cultivators hold their lands, patches of from ten to perhaps fifteen acres, from the Government and light taxes represent their sole respon sibility in respect thereto : unless their improvidence lead into the money-lender's clutches, which is too often the case.

The character of the Burman produces one curious result in his relations with Europeans in the country. Outside the ring of officialdom and a section of the mercantile community, Englishmen and Englishwomen have scarcely more than an eye-acquaintance with the son of the soil. He is not fond of domestic service with its mild restraints and petty indignities, so the necessity of acquiring even that smattering of the language, essential in Bengal and Upper India, does not exist. Foreigners monopolise almost all but the interior trade of the country, and only those brought in contact with the farmers and boat-owners and with the Chinamen find a knowledge of Burmese even useful. Hindustani is the tongue of most utility for ordinary needs, and very little of that goes a long way with the majority.

The patient Madras man comes over in hundreds to take service as butler, boy and cook, and the Bengali also finds the higher rate of wages paid in Burma an inducement to cross the " black water." These— the Madrassis at all events — bring with them some little knowledge of English and soon acquire as much of Burmese as enables them to transact domestic business in the bazaars. Hence, you may spend twenty years in the country and leave it with your linguistic acquirements confined to the solitary phrase " Nah mah lay boo" — " I do not understand."

Chapter II. The Burman In Town

YOUR first introduction to the Burman is in the office, where he is to be found as a clerk. First — and last — impressions of him in this capacity are distinctly favourable. He is painstaking, neat, accurate, tolerably in dustrious, sometimes methodical, and always respectful. Moung Hpo now, is an excellent example of the intelligent Burmese kirani ; I take Moung Hpo because I happen to know him better than any of the other boys — he is rather older than I am, by the way, but that is a detail. His father is a much-respected man, trader, of Edward Street (I quote Moung Hpo.) Old Moung Hla Doon Oung was a judicious parent, and recognised that if his son was to succeed in the world he must have an English education. So after the little Moung Hpo had learned at the hpoongyee kyoung to read and write Burmese and mastered the multiplication table up to nine times nine (for the Burman does not venture into double figures), he was placed in the care of Dr. Marks.

The famous missionary conducts his great school at Ahlone on broad-minded principles. He prepares his pupils for the battle of life without concerning himself with their faith ; and during his long career he has equipped a respectable army of boys with a sound, useful education. Moung Hpo is energetic for a Burman, and enjoyed his school days at Ahlone. He took prizes at the school sports for running and high jumping, and if he did not care much for cricket, he made up for it by his attention to football. Football as played in Burma is rather dissimilar from the game in England ; I must confess that after watching many matches I have been unable to discover what rules are in vogue. They resemble Eton more than Rugby or Association, but it appears quite legitimate to pick up the ball by the lace and whack an opponent over the head with it.

When the Burman is playing against English or Eurasian boys he wears boots, but they do not improve his play, and he does far better when he kicks them off and tackles the leather with his bare toes. Moung Hpo admits that he was caned with some frequency, but adds that it did not hurt very much. He would have gone home if it had. His besetting sins were restlessness in class and want of punctuality, but in these respects he erred in goodly company. He was by no means an idle boy, but was neither clever nor industrious enough to beconsidered a suitable subject to coach for the competitive examinations which lie between the scholar and the Government official. Neither had Moung Hla Doon Oung any "interest." And by consequence, after Moung Hpo had run to seed for a year or two at home, he was glad to avail himself of an introduction and enter a merchant's office as a clerk.

Like every other new boy he began as an unpaid volunteer. A useful, trustworthy man may earn as much as two hundred or two hundred and fifty rupees a month, so the incipient clerk is glad to accept an opportunity to prove what he can do. Moung Hpo did very well during his probation. He was never noisy, seldom went to sleep in office hours, and acquired what the head clerk, Mr. Edward Moung Kheen, calls the "habit of business" with considerable facility. " Habit of business " I gather means the art of keeping your cheroot alight without detection when a superior visits your desk ; looking busy whether you are occupied or not; and punctuality, that is, leaving the office at five o'clock sharp. He also practised, with exemplary diligence, his handwriting, which had grown a little rusty. The quantity of pens and paper he consumed in experimental caligraphy was simply prodigious, but as it betrayed his desire to " get on " and also kept him out of mischief any waste was overlooked.

He made mistakes, of course, but Moung Hpo's blunders were usually redeemed bya touch of genius. As, for instance, when he wrote to the Government Stallion at Allanmyo and with due formality "had the honour to inform" that animal of the arrival from Madras of a package to his address, and would he be good enough to send early instructions regarding its disposal. But on the whole he made rapid progress, and was soon able to copy correctly the letters and papers obligingly placed at his disposal by fellow clerks inclined to enjoy a little rest or recrea tion themselves. At the end of three months Moung Hpo decided to give us the chance of engaging him ; and accordingly one morning I found on my table a laboriously con structed envelope of imposing size addressed to me as " Superintendent Manager" of the firm.

The inference was that Moung Hpo regarded the native staff of which he formed one as the firm, for I superintended nobody else. This, by the way. The envelope contained the usual petition written in Moung Hpo's best hand, and with a spirited attempt at decorative capitals. The writing and spelling were excellent, and if the phraseology was a little eccentric it was agreeably free from the polysylla bic pedantry which makes the Bengali Baboo the laugh ing-stock of the East. Education has not upon the Burman the terrible effect it works upon the Bengali. The Burman eschews inapposite quotation and " ten thousand horse-power words and phrases." With him language is the means : not the end. Moung Hpo's petition, written on every second line of a double sheet of foolscap and with liberal margin, was couched in the usual strain.

It painted the diligence wherewith petitioner had toiled in my honour's office without pay ; dwelt at some length on the difficulty he found in maintaining his wife and little children on nothing at all; laid stress on the advantages retention of his services must confer upon me ; and concluded with a confused dual prayer for my honour's eternal good health and a salary of fifty rupees a month. The punkah-wallah a yard or two behind my chair signalled when I opened the envelope, and forthwith Moung Hpo, wearing his best silk pasoh, a clean white cotton jacket and a new goung-bottng, or head-kerchief, crept round the doorpost and squatted upon his heels. Adoption of the attitude of respect, like the best clothes, testified to the greatness of the occasion. It would retard the course of business if the clerks habitually moved about the office in the attitude approved by "John Wellington Wells The Sorcerer," but in presenting a petition it is considered proper.