THE LAND OF PAGODAS
Somewhat back from the wharves, yet within earshot of the cadenced song
of stevedores and coal-heavers, stand two shaded bungalows, well-known
among the inhabitants of the metropolis of Burma. The larger is the
Sailors’ Home, the less important the Seamen’s Mission. Rangoon, it
transpired, was suffering a double visitation of beachcombers and the
plague. The protest of the managers of both mariners’ institutions, that
they were already “full up with dead ones,” gave us small grief. For
were we not sure of admission to a more interesting residence? But there
was real cause for wailing in the assurance of the cosmopolitan band who
listened to the tale of our “get-away” from Calcutta, that we had fallen
on one of the least auspicious ports in the Orient.
There was work ashore for all hands, white or brown, for the servants of
the plague doctors had daubed on house-walls throughout the city the
enticing offer:—“Dead Rats—Two pice each.” But even the penniless
seamen, who had learned during long enforced residence in the Burmese
capital that their services were useful in no other field, scorned to
turn terriers.
It was my bad fortune to reach Rangoon a bit too late to be greeted by
an old acquaintance.
“Up to tree day ago,” cried one of the band at the Home, “dere was one
oder Yank on der beach here, ja. Min he made a pier’ead yump by er tramp
tru der Straits.”
“That so?” I queried.
“Aye,” put in another of the boys, “’e was a slim chap with a bloody lot
of mouth, always looking fer a scrap, but keepin’ ’is weather-eye peeled
fer the Bobbies.”
“Bet a hat,” I shouted, “that I knew him. Wasn’t his name Haywood?”
“Dick ’Aywood, aye,” answered the tar; “leastway that was the ’andle ’e
went by. But ’e’s off now fer good, an’ bloody glad we are to be clear
of ’im.”
We struck off through the city, taking leave of Rice before the door of
the first European official whose beneficence he chose to investigate.
The native town, squatting on the flat plain along the river, was
reminiscent of the Western world. Its streets were wide and parallel, as
streets should be, no doubt, yet lacking the picturesqueness of narrow,
meandering passageways, so common elsewhere in the Orient. Sidewalks
were there none, of course. Pedestrians mingled with vehicles and
disputed the way with laden animals and human beasts of burden. Before
and behind, on either side, as far as the eye could see, stretched
unbroken vistas of heterogeneous wares and yawning shopkeepers. For to
the Burman no other vocation compares with that of merchant. A flat city
it was, with small, two-story hovels for the most part, above which
gleamed a few golden pagodas.
In the suburbs the scene was different. Vine-grown bungalows and squat
barracks littered a rolling, lightly-wooded country that sloped away to
a clear-cut horizon. Here and there shimmered a sun-flecked lake; along
umbrageous highways strolled khaki-clad mortals with white faces and a
familiar vocabulary. High above all else, as the Eiffel tower over
Paris, soared the pride of Burma, the Shwe Dagón pagoda.
We climbed the endless vaulted stairway to the sacred hilltop, in
company with hundreds of natives bearing their shoes, when such they
possessed, in their hands, and amid the bedlam of clamoring hawkers. Now
and again a pious pilgrim glanced at our rough-shod feet, but smiled
indulgently and passed us by. The village of shrines at the summit of
the knoll was an animated bazaar, stocked with every devotional
requisite from bottled arrack to pet snakes. Even the tables of the
money-changers and the desks of the scribes were not lacking to complete
the picture.
Barefooted worshipers, male and female, wandered among the glittering
topes, setting up candles or spreading out lotus blossoms before the
serene-visaged statues; kowtowing now and then, but puffing incessantly,
one and all, at long native cigars. Near the mouth of the
humanity-belching stairway creaked a diminutive clothes-reel
overburdened with such booty as the red-man, returned from a scalping
expedition, hangs over the entrance to his wigwam. While we marveled, a
panting matron with close-cropped head pushed past us and added to the
display a switch of oily, jet-black hair. Her prayer had been granted
and the shorn locks bore witness to her gratitude.
Shrines and topes were but doll-houses compared with the central mass of
masonry, towering upward to neck-craning height and covered with
untarnished gold from tapering apex to swollen base. It was a monument
all too brilliant in the blazing sunlight. Tiny pagodas floated before
our eyes as we glanced for relief into the deep shadows of the
encircling sanctuaries. Burmen from the sea to the sources of the
Irawaddy are inordinately proud of the Shwe Dagón. Its destruction, they
are convinced, would bring national disaster in its train. Their rulers
have turned this superstition to account. Down at the edge of the
cantonment below, John Bull has mounted two heavy cannon that are
trained on the pagoda day and night. A brief word of command from the
officer in charge would reduce the sacred edifice to a tumbled mass of
ruins. Ten regiments of red-coats would be far less effective than those
two pieces of ordnance, in maintaining the sahib sway over Burma.
Rice of Chicago scorned to share the simple life among the wearers of
the yellow robe. As the day waned, he joined us at the Home with the
announcement that he had “dug up a swell graft” among the European
residents and, declining to disclose the details thereof, strutted away
towards the harbor.
We set off alone, therefore, the Australian and I, to the monastery that
had witnessed the metamorphosis of the erstwhile Larry O’Rourke. The
far-famed institution occupied an extensive estate flanking Godwin Road,
a broad, shaded thoroughfare leading to the Shwe Dagón. Its grounds were
surrounded by a crumbling wall and a shallow, weed-choked ditch that
could not be styled moat for lack of water. Three badly-warped planks,
nailed together into a drawbridge that would not draw, led through a
breach in the western wall, the main entrance, evidently, for many a
year.
Inside was a teeming village of light, two-story buildings, with deep
verandas above and below, scattered pell-mell about the inclosure as if
they had been constructed in some gigantic carpenter-shop, shipped to
their destination, and left where the expressman had thrown them off.
The irregular plots and courts between them were trodden bare and hard
or were ankle-deep in loose sand. Here and there swayed a tall,
untrimmed tree, but within the area was neither grass nor flower nor
garden patch. For the priest of Buddha, forbidden to kill even a grub or
an earthworm, may not till the soil about his dwelling.
[Illustration: Bungalows along the way in rural Burma]
[Illustration: Women of the Malay Peninsula wear nothing above the
waist-line and not much below it]
The surrounding town was no more densely populated than the monastery
village. Besides a small army of servants, male and female, in layman
garb, there were yellow-robed figures everywhere. Wrinkled, sear-faced
seekers after Nirvana squatted in groups on the verandas, poring over
texts in the weak light of the dying day. More sprightly priests,
holding a fold of their gowns over an arm, strolled back and forth
across the barren grounds. Scores of novices, small boys and youths,
saffron-clad and hairless like their elders, flitted in and out among
the buildings, shouting gleefully at their games.
We turned to the first bungalow, a servants’ cottage evidently; for
there were both men and women and no shaven polls in the group that
crowded the veranda railing. Twice we addressed them in English, once in
Hindustanee; but the only response was a babel of strange words that
rose to an uproar. The women screamed excitedly, the men shouted
half-angrily, half-beseechingly and motioned to us to be off. As we
mounted the steps the shrieking folk took to their heels and tumbled
through the doors of the cottage, or over the ends of the veranda,
leaving only a few decrepit crones and grandsires to keep us company.
Here was no such welcome as the Irishman had prophesied; but first
impressions count for little in the Orient, and we sat down to await
developments. For a time the driveling ancients stared vacantly upon us,
mumbling childishly to themselves. Then there arose a chorus of excited
whispers; around the corners of the bungalow peered gaping brown faces
that disappeared quickly when we made the least movement. At last a
native whom we had not seen before advanced bravely to the foot of the
steps.
“Goo’ evening,” he stammered, “will you not go way? There is not plague
in the monastery.”
“Eh!” cried James, “We’d be more like to go if there was.”
“But are the sahibs not doctors?” queried the Burman.
The suggestion set the Australian choking with laughter.
“Doctors!” I gasped, “We’re sailors, and we were sent by Damalaku.”
The babu uttered a mighty shout and dashed up the steps. The fugitives
swarmed upon the veranda from all sides and crowded around us, laughing
and chattering.
“They all running way when you coming,” explained the spokesman,
“because they thinking you plague doctors and they ’fraid.”
“Of what?” asked James.
“Sahib doctors feel all over,” shuddered the babu, “not nice.”
Our errand explained, the interpreter set off to announce our arrival to
the head priest, and the grinning servants squatted in a semicircle
about us. Suddenly James raised a hand and pointed towards the breach in
the wall.
“Seems other beachcombers know this graft,” he laughed.
A burly negro, dressed in an old sweater of the White Star line and the
rags and tatters of what had once been overalls and jumper, stepped into
the inclosure. Anxious to make a favorable impression at the outset, he
had halted in the street to remove his shoes, and, carrying them in one
hand, he shuffled through the sand in his bare feet, about the ankles of
which clung the remnants of a bright red pair of socks. In color, he was
many degrees darker than the Burmese; and the apologetic, almost
penitent mien with which he approached struck the assembled natives as
so incongruous in one attired as a European that they greeted him with
roars of laughter. When he addressed them in English they shrieked the
louder, and left him to stand contritely at the foot of the steps until
we, as the honored guests of the evening, had been provided for. There
is needed more than the whiteman’s tongue and garb to be accepted as a
sahib in British-India.
The babu returned, and, bidding us follow, led the way back into the
village and up the out-door stairway of one of the largest bungalows.
Inside, under a sputtering torch, squatted an aged priest of sour and
leathery countenance. He squinted a moment at us in silence, and then
demanded, through the interpreter, an account of our meeting with
Damalaku. We soon convinced him that the note was no forgery. He
dismissed us with a grimace that might have been expressive either of
mirth or annoyance, and the babu set off towards a neighboring bungalow.
“You are sleeping in here,” he said, stopping several paces from the
cottage, “Goo’ night.”
“Thunder!” muttered James, as we started to mount the steps to a
deserted veranda, “He might, at least, have told ’em what we want. If
there’s anything I hate, it’s talking to natives on my fingers and
listening to their jabber all the evening without an interpreter. He—”
“Hello, Jack!” shouted a voice above us, “Where the blazes did you come
from?”
We fell back in astonishment and looked up. Framed in the doorway of the
brightly-lighted bungalow stood a white priest.
“Englishmen?” he queried.
“I’m American,” I apologized.
“The thunder you are!” cried the priest, “So’m I. On the beach, eh?”
“Yep,” I answered.
“Well, come up on deck, mates. But first,” he added hastily, in more
solemn tones, “in respect for the revered Buddha and his disciples, take
off your shoes down there.”
“And socks?” I asked, struggling with a knot in one of my laces.
“Naw,” returned the priest, “just the kicks.”
We crossed the veranda and, having deposited our shoes in a sort of
washtub outside the door, followed the renegade inside.
The typical Indian bungalow is a very simple structure. The Oriental
carpenter considers his task finished when he has thrown together—if the
actions of so apathetic a workman may be so described—a frame-work of
light poles, boarded them up on the outside, and tossed a roof of thatch
on top. The interior he leaves to take care of itself, and the result is
a dwelling as rough and ungarnished as an American hay-loft.
The room in which we found ourselves was some twenty feet square and
extremely low of ceiling, its skeleton of unhewn beams all exposed, like
the ribs of a cargo steamer. Two rectangular openings in opposite walls,
innocent of frame or glass, admitted a current of night air that made
the chamber almost habitable. In the center of the floor, which was
polished smooth and shining by the shuffle of bare feet, was a large
grass mat; while beyond, on a low daïs, squatted a gorgeous, life-sized
statue of Buddha.
At the moment of our appearance, a score of native priests were crouched
on as many small mats ranged round the walls. They rose slowly, really
agog with curiosity, yet striving to maintain that phlegmatic air of
indifference that is cultivated among them, and grouped themselves about
us. In the brilliant light cast by several lamps and long rows of
candles before the statue, we had our first clear view of the American
priest. He was tall and thin of figure, yet sinewy, with a suggestion of
hidden strength. His face, gaunt and lantern-jawed, was seared and
weather-beaten and marked with the unmistakable lines of hardships and
dissipation. It was easy to see that he was a recruit from the ranks of
labor. His hands were coarse and disproportionately large. As he moved
they hung half open, his elbows a bit bent, as though he were ready at a
word of command to grasp a rope or a shovel. The rules of the priesthood
had not been framed to enhance his particular style of beauty. A thick
shock of hair would have concealed the displeasing outline of a bullet
head, the yellow robe hung in loose folds about his lank form, his feet
were broad and stub-toed. But it was none of these points in his
physical make-up that caused James to choke with suppressed mirth. A
Buddhist priest, be it remembered, must ever keep aloof from things
feminine. The American had been a sailor, and his bare arms were
tattooed from wrist to shoulder with female figures that would have
outdone those on the raciest posters of a burlesque show!
Our hosts placed mats for us in a corner of the room and brought forth a
huge bowl of rice and a smaller one of blistering currie. While we
scooped up handfuls alternately from the dishes, they squatted on their
haunches close at hand, watching us, it must be admitted, somewhat
hungrily. The American had not yet mastered the native tongue. His
interpreter was a youthful priest who spoke fluent English. With these
two at our elbows, the conversation did not drag. The youth was a human
interrogation point; the convert, for the nonce, a long-stranded mariner
eager for news of the world outside. Were “the boys” still signing on in
Liverpool at three pound ten? Did captains still ship out of Frisco with
shanghaied crews, as of yore? Were the Home in Marseilles and the
Mission in Sydney still closed to beachcombers? Was the Peter Rickmers
still above the waves? His questions fell fast and furious, interspersed
with queries from his companion. Then he grew reminiscent and told us,
in the vocabulary of them that go down to the sea in ships, tales of his
days before the mast and of his uninspiring adventures in distant ports.
For the moment he was plain Jack Tar again, swapping yarns with his
fellows.
The youth rose at last and laid a hand on the convert’s shoulder. He
started, blinked a moment, and glanced at his brilliant garment. Then he
rose to dignified erectness and stood a moment silent, gazing down upon
us with the half-haughty, half-pitying mien of a true believer
addressing heathen.
“You will excuse us,” he said, in his sacerdotal voice. “It is time for
our evening devotions.”
He moved with the others to the further side of the room, where each of
the band lighted a candle and came to place it on the altar. Then all
knelt on a large mat, sank down until their hips touched their heels
and, with their eyes fixed steadfastly on the serene countenance of the
statue, rocked their bodies back and forth to the time of a chant set up
by one of the youngest priests. It was a half-monotonous wail, rising
and falling in uneven cadence, lacking something of the solemnity of the
chanted Latin of a Catholic office, yet more musical than the three-tone
song of the Arab. One theme, often repeated, grew familiar even to our
unaccustomed ears, a long-drawn refrain ending in:—
“Vooráy kalma-á-y s-ă-ă-mée,”
which the swaying group, one and all, caught up from time to time and
droned in deep-voiced chorus.
The worship lasted some twenty minutes. When the American returned to
us, every trace of the seaman—save the tattooing—had disappeared. He was
a missionary now, fired with zeal for the “true faith”; though into his
arguments crept occasionally a suggestion that his efforts were less for
conversion than for self-justification. Now and again he called on his
sponsor in Buddhist lore and ritual to expatiate on the doctrines he was
striving to set forth. The youth needed no urging. He drew a book from
the folds of his gown and, for every point brought up by the American,
read us several pages of dissertations or tales of the miracles
performed by the Wandering Prince.
The hour grew late for beachcombers. A dreadful fear assailed us that
the night would be all sermon and no sleep. We sank into an open-eyed
doze, from which we started up now and then half determined to turn
Buddhists that we might be left in peace. Towards midnight the
propagandists tired of their monologues and rose to their feet. The
white man led the way to a back room, littered with kettles and bowls,
bunches of drying rattan, and all the odds and ends of the
establishment, and pointed out two mats that the servants had spread for
us on the billowy, yet yielding floor of split bamboo.
“Take my tip, mate,” said the Australian, as we lay down side by side,
“that bloke don’t swallow any more of this mess about the transmigration
of souls than I do. Loafing in the shade’s his religion.”
We were awakened soon after daylight by a hubbub of shrill laughter and
shouts behind the bungalow. I rose and peered through a window opening.
In the yard below, a score of boys, some in yellow robes, some in
nothing worth mentioning, were engaged in a game that seemed too
energetic to be of Oriental origin. The players were divided into two
teams; but neither band was limited to any particular part of the field,
and all mingled freely together as they raced about in pursuit of what
seemed at first sight to be a small basket. It was rather, as I made out
when the game ceased an instant, a ball about a foot in diameter, made
of open wickerwork. This the opposing contestants kicked alternately,
sending it high in the air, the only rule of the game being, apparently,
that it should not touch the ground nor any part of the player’s body
above the knees. When this was violated, the offending side lost a
point.
The wiry, brown youths were remarkably nimble in following the ball, and
showed great skill in returning it—no simple matter, for they could not
kick it as a punter kicks a pig-skin without driving their bare toes
through the openings. They struck it instead with the sides of their
feet or—when it fell behind them—with their heels; yet they often kept
it constantly in the air for several minutes. It was a typical Burmese
scene, with more mirth and laughter than one could have heard in a whole
city in the land of the morose and apathetic Hindu.
The servants brought us breakfast. Behind them entered the American
priest. He squatted on the floor before us, but refused to partake,
having risen to gorge himself at the first peep of dawn. Whatever its
original purpose, the rule forbidding wearers of the yellow robe to eat
after noonday certainly makes them early risers.
The meal over, we fished our shoes out of the tub and, promising the
American to return in time for supper and “evening devotions,” turned
away. At the wooden bridge connecting the monastery with the world
outside, we met the foraging party of novices returning from their
morning rounds. Far down the street stretched a line of priests,
certainly sixty in all, each holding in his embrace a huge bowl, filled
to the brim with a strange assortment of native foodstuffs.
“Mate,” said James, later in the morning, as we stood before a world map
in the Sailors’ Home, “it looks to me as if we’d bit off more ’n we can
chew. There’s nothing doing in the shipping line here, and not a show to
earn the price of a deck passage to Singapore. And if we could, it’s a
thunder of a jump from there to Hong Kong.”
“Aye,” put in a grizzled seaman, limping forward, “ye’ll be lucky lads
if ye make yer get-away from Rangoon. But once ye get on the beach in
Singapore, ye’ll die of ould age afore iver ye see ’Ong Kong, if that’s
’ow yer ’eaded. Why mates, that bloody ’ole is alive with beachcombers
that’s been ’ung up there so long they’d not know ’ow to eat with a
knife if iver they got back to God’s country. Take my tip, an’ give ’er
a wide berth.”
“It would seem foolish anyway,” I remarked, addressing James, “to go to
Singapore. It’s a good fifteen degrees south of here, a week of loafing
around on some dirty tub to get there, and a longer jump back up
north—even if we don’t get stuck in the Straits.”
“But what else?” objected James.
“Look how narrow the Malay Peninsula is,” I went on, pointing at the
map. “Bangkok is almost due east of here. We’d save a lot of travel by
going overland, and run no risk of being tied up for months in
Singapore.”
“But how?” demanded the Australian.
“Walk, of course.”
The sailors grouped about us burst out in a roar of laughter.
“Aye, ye’d walk across the Peninsula like ye’d swim to Madras,” chuckled
one of them. “It’s bats ye have in yer belfry, from a touch o’ the sun.”
“But Hong Kong,” I began—
“If it’s ’Ong Kong, ye’ll go to Singapore,” continued the seaman, “or
back the other way. There’s no man goes round the world in the north
’emisphere without touching Singapore. Put that down in yer log.”
“If we walk across the Peninsula,” I went on, still addressing James,
“it would—”
“Yes,” put in the “Askins” of the party, “it would be a unique and
onconventional way of committin’ suicide, original, interestin’, maybe
slow, but damn sure.”
“Now look ’ere, lads,” said the old seaman, almost tearfully, “d’ ye
know anything about that country? There’s no wilder savages nowhere than
the Siameese. I know ’em. When I was bo’s’n on a windjammer from the
Straits to China, that’s fourt—fifteen year gone, we was blowed into the
bay an’ put ashore fer water. We rowed by thousands o’ dead babies
floatin’ down the river. We ’adn’t no more ’n stepped ashore when down
come a yelpin’ bunch o’ Siameese, with knives as long as yer arm, an’
afore we could shove off they’d killt my mate an’ another ’and—chopped
’em all to pieces. Them’s the Siameese, an’ the dacoits in the mountains
is worse.”
In short, the suggestion raised such an uproar of derision and chatter
among “the boys” that we were forced to retreat to the street to
continue our planning. For all the raillery, I was still convinced that
the overland trip was possible; necessary, in fact, for there was no
other escape from the city. “The boys” might be right, but there was a
promise of new adventures in the undertaking, and, best of all, the
territory was unknown to beachcombers. For the truest satisfaction of
the Wanderlust is to explore the world by virgin routes and pose as a
bold pioneer in the rendezvous of the “profession” ever after.
James asserted that he was “game for anything,” and, though we had no
intention of quitting Rangoon for a week, we turned our attention at
once to gathering information concerning the route. The task proved
fruitless. Our project was branded idiotic in terms far more cutting
than I had heard even in Palestine and Syria. We appealed to the
American consul; we canvassed half the bungalows in the cantonment and
every European office in the city; we tramped far out past the Gymkana
station to the headquarters of the Geographical Society of Burma, and,
surrounded by excited bands of native clerks, pored over great maps and
folios ten feet square. All to no purpose. The original charts showed
only wavy, brown lines through the heart of the Peninsula; and not a
resident of Rangoon, apparently, had the slightest knowledge of the
territory ten miles east of the city.
Our inquiries ended, as we had dreaded, by attracting the attention of
the police. Late in the afternoon, while we were lounging in the Home,
an Englishman in khaki burst in upon us.
“Are you the chaps,” he began, “who are talking of starting for Bangkok
on foot?”
“We’ve been asking the way,” I admitted.
“Well, save yourselves the trouble,” returned the officer. “There is no
way. The trip can’t be made. You’d be killed sure, and your governments
would come back at us for letting you go. I have orders from the chief
of police that you are not to leave Rangoon except by sea, and I have
warned the patrolmen on the eastern side of the city to head you off.
Thought I’d tell you.”
“Thanks,” said James, “but we’ll hold down Rangoon for a while yet
anyway.”
“Yes, I know,” laughed the Englishman. “So the government is going to
give you a guide to show you the sights. Come in, Pearson!”
“Pearson” entered, grinning. He was a sharp-eyed Eurasian in uniform,
gaunt of face and long of limb. The Englishman took his leave and the
half-breed sat down beside us. When we left the Home he followed us to
the monastery. When we slipped on our shoes next morning, he was waiting
for us at the foot of the steps. He was a pleasant companion and his
stories were well told; but we could no more shake him off than we could
find work in Rangoon. For three days he camped relentlessly on our
trail.
“Look here, James,” I protested, as we were breakfasting on Monday
morning, “the longer we hang around Rangoon, the closer we’ll be
watched. If ever we get away, it must be now, before they think we’re
going.”
“But Pearson—” began James.
“There’s one scheme that always works with Eurasians,” I answered.
The Australian raised his eyebrows.
“Firewater,” I murmured.
“Swell,” grinned James.
We put the plan into execution at once, halting at the first arrack-shop
beyond the monastery to show the detective our appreciation of his
services. By eight bells he was the most jovial man in Rangoon; by noon
he felt in duty bound to slap on the back every European we encountered.
Luckily, good cheer sells cheaply in Burma, or the project would have
made a serious inroad on our fortune of seven rupees.
We halted, well on in the afternoon, at an eating house hard by the
Chinese temple. The Eurasian, alleging lack of appetite, ignored the
plate of food that was set before him.
“See here, Pearson,” I suggested, “you’ve been sticking close to us for
a long time. The government should be proud of you. But I should think,
after three days, you’d like to get a glimpse of your wife and the
kids.”
“Yesh, yesh,” cried the half-breed, starting up with a whoop, “I’m close
to ’ome ’ere. I’ll run round a minute. Don’t mind, old fel, eh? I’ll be
back fore you’re ’alf through,” and he stumbled off up the street.
Once he was out of sight, we left our dinner unfinished, and hurried
back to the Home. The manager was sleeping. We laid hold on the knapsack
that we had left in his keeping and struck off through the crowded
native town.
“This is no good,” protested James. “All the streets leading east are
guarded.”
“The railroad to Mandalay isn’t,” I replied. “We’ll run up the line out
of danger, and strike out from there.”
The Australian halted at a tiny drug store, and, arousing the
bare-legged clerk, purchased twenty grains of quinine. “For jungle
fever,” he muttered as he tucked the package away in his helmet. That
was our “outfit” for a journey that might last one month or six. In the
knapsack were two cotton suits and a few ragged shirts. As for weapons,
we had not even a penknife.
Just beyond the drug store we turned a corner and came face to face with
Rice, sauntering along in the shade of the shops as if life were a
perpetual pastime, a huge native cigar stuck in a corner of his frog’s
mouth.
“We’re off, Chi!” cried James, hardly lessening his pace. “Want to go
along?”
“Eh!” gasped our former partner, “Hit the trail? An’ the rains comin’
on? Not on yer tintype. Ye’re bughouse to quit this burg. The graft is
swell, an’ I see yer finish in the jungle.”
“Well, so long,” we called, over our shoulders.
A mile from the Home we entered a small suburban station. The native
policeman strutting up and down the platform eyed us curiously, but
offered no interference. We purchased tickets to the first important
town, and a few moments later were hurrying northward. James settled
back in a corner of the compartment, and fell to singing in sotto voce:—
“On the road to Mandalay,
“Where the flying fishes play—”
About us lay low, rolling hills, deep green with tropical vegetation.
Behind, scintillated the golden shaft of the Shwe Dagón pagoda, growing
smaller and smaller, until the night, descending swiftly, blotted it
out. We fell asleep, and, awakening as the train pulled into Pegu, took
possession of two wicker chairs in the waiting-room. A babu, sent to
rout us out, murmured an apology when he had noted the color of our
skins, and stole quietly away.
Dawn found us already astir. A fruit-seller in the bazaars, given to
early rising, served us breakfast and we were off; not, however, until
the sun, peering boldly over the horizon, showed us the way, for we had
no other guide to follow.
A sandy highway, placarded the “Toungoo Road,” led forth from the
village, skirting the golden pagoda of Pegu, a rival of the Shwe Dagón;
but soon swung northward, and we struck across an untracked plain. Far
away to the eastward a deep blue range of rugged hills, forerunners of
the wild mountain chains of the peninsula, bounded the horizon; but
about us lay a flat, monotonous stretch of sandy lowlands, embellished
neither by habitation nor inhabitant.
Ten miles of plodding, with never a mud hole in which to quench our
thirst, brought us to a teeming bamboo village hidden away in a tangled
grove. When we had driven off a canine multitude and drunk our fill, we
should have gone on had not a babu pushed his way through the gaping,
beclouted throng and invited us to his bungalow. He was an employé of a
projected railway line from Pegu to Moulmein, even then under
construction, that was to bring him, on the day of its completion, the
coveted title of station-master. In anticipation of that honor he had
already donned a brilliant uniform of his own designing, the sight of
which filled his fellow townsmen with unutterable awe.
We squatted with him on the floor of his open hut and dispatched a
dinner of rice, fruit, and bread-cakes—and red ants; no Burmese lunch
would be complete without the latter. When we offered payment for the
meal, the babu rose up chattering with indignation and would not be
reconciled until we had patted him on the back and hidden our puerile
fortune from view.
Railways are strictly handmade in Burma. Within hail of the village
appeared the first mound of earth, its summit some feet above the
high-water mark of flood time; and a few miles beyond we came upon a
construction gang at work. There were neither steam cranes, “slips,” nor
“wheelers” to scoop up the earth of the paddy-fields. Of the band, full
three hundred strong, a few toiled with shovels in the shallow trenches;
the others swarmed up the embankment in endless file, carrying flat
baskets of earth on their heads. They were Hindus, one and all, of both
sexes; for the Burman scorns coolie labor. The workers toiled steadily,
mechanically, though ever at a snail’s pace, and the basketfuls fell too
rapidly to be counted. But many thousands raised the mound only an inch
higher; and, where the grading had but begun, one day’s labor did not
suffice to cover the short grass.
Beyond, were other gangs and between them deserted trenches and sections
of embankment. The dyke was not continuous. The company sub-let the
grading by the cubic yard to dozens of Hindu contractors, each of whom,
having staked out some ten rods along the right of way, threw up a ridge
of the required height and moved on with his band to the head of the
line. Their trenches were sharp-cornered, flat-bottomed, and contained
little pagoda-shaped mounds of earth with a tuft of grass on top, by
which the depth could be estimated.
Early in the afternoon we came upon a small, sluggish stream, beyond
which stood a two-story bungalow of unusual magnificence for this corner
of the world. A rope was stretched from shore to shore, and the
primitive ferry to which it was attached was tied up at the western
bank. We boarded the raft and had all but pulled ourselves across when a
greeting in our own tongue drew our attention to the bungalow. On the
veranda stood an Englishman, bareheaded and smiling.
James sprang hastily ashore, leaving me to bring up the rear—and the
knapsack; but at the top of the bank he stopped suddenly and grasped me
by the arm.
“Holy dingoes!” he gasped. “Do my eyes deceive me? I’m a Hottentot if it
isn’t a white woman!”
It was, sure enough. Beside the Englishman stood a youthful memsahib, in
snow-white gown. A millinery shop could not have looked more out of
place in these blistered paddy fields of the Irawaddy delta.
“Trouble you for a drink of water?” I panted, halting in the shade of
the bungalow, which, like all dwellings in this region, stood some eight
feet above the ground, on bamboo stilts.
“A drink of water!” cried the lady, smiling down upon us. “Do you think
we see white men so often that we let them go as easily as that? Come up
here at once.”
“We’re just sitting down to lunch,” said the man. “I had covers laid for
you as soon as you hove in sight.”
“Thanks,” I answered, “we had lunch three hours ago.”
“Great Cæsar! Where?” gasped the Englishman.
“In a bamboo vil—”
“What! Native stuff?” he cried, while the lady shuddered, “With red
ants, eh? Well, then, you’ve been famished for an hour and a half.”
We could not deny it, so we mounted to the veranda.
“Put your luggage in the corner,” said the Englishman. “Do you prefer
lemonade or seltzer?”
I dropped the bedraggled knapsack on the top step and followed my
companion inside. In our vagabond garb, covered from crown to toe with
the dust of the route, the perspiration drawing fantastic arabesques in
the grime on our cheeks, we felt strangely out of place in the
daintily-furnished bungalow. But our hosts would not hear our excuses.
When our thirst had been quenched, we followed the Englishman to the
bathroom to plunge our heads and arms into great bowls of cold water
and, greatly refreshed, took our places at the table.
The Burmese cook who slipped noiselessly in and out of the room was a
magician, surely, else how could he have prepared in this outpost of
civilization such a dinner as he served us—even without red ants? If
conversation lagged, it was chiefly the Australian’s fault. His remarks
were ragged and brief; for, as he admitted later in the day: “It’s so
bloody long since I’ve talked to a white man that I was afraid of making
a break every time I opened my mouth.”
The Englishman was superintendent of construction for the western half
of the line. He had been over the route to Moulmein on horseback, and
though he had never known a white man to attempt the journey on foot, he
saw no reason why we could not make it if we could endure native “chow”
and the tropical sun. But he scoffed at the suggestion that any living
mortal could tramp from Moulmein to Bangkok, and advised us to give up
at once so foolhardy a venture, and to return to Rangoon as we had come.
We would not, and he mapped out on the table-cloth the route to the
frontier town, pricking off each village with the point of his fork.
When we declined the invitation to spend the night in his bungalow, even
his wife joined him in vociferous protest. But we pleaded haste, and
took our leave with their best wishes.
“If you can walk fast enough to reach Sittang to-night,” came the
parting word, “you will find a division engineer who will be delighted
to see you. That is, if you can get across the river.”
“It’s Sittang or bust,” said James, as we took up the pace of a forced
march.
Nightfall found us still plodding on in jungled solitude. It was long
afterwards that we were brought to a sudden halt at the bank of the
Sittang river. Under the moon’s rays, the broad expanse of water showed
dark and turbulent, racing by with the swiftness of a mountain stream.
The few lights that twinkled high up above the opposite shore were
nearly a half-mile distant—too far to swim in that rushing flood even
had we had no knapsack to think of. I tore myself free from the
undergrowth and, making a trumpet of my hands, bellowed across the
water.
For a time only the echo answered. Then a faint cry was borne to our
ears, and we caught the Hindustanee words “Quam hai?” (Who is it?). I
took deep breath and shouted into the night:—
“Dö sahib hai! Engineer sampan, key sampan kéyderah?”
A moment of silence and the answer came back, soft yet distinct, like a
nearby whisper:—
“Achá, sahib.” (All right.) Even at that distance we recognized the
deferential tone of the Hindu coolie.
A speck of light descended to the level of the river, and, rising and
falling irregularly, came steadily nearer. We waited eagerly, yet a
half-hour passed before there appeared a flat-bottomed sampan, manned by
three struggling Aryans whose brown skins gleamed in the light of a
flickering lantern. They took for granted that we were railway
officials, and, while two wound their arms around the bushes, the third
sprang ashore with a respectful greeting and, picking up our knapsack,
dropped into the craft behind us.
With a shout the others let go of the bushes and the three grasped their
oars and pulled with a will. The racing current carried us far down the
river, but we swung at last into the more sluggish water under the lee
of a bluff, and, creeping slowly up stream, gained the landing stage. A
boatman stepped out with our bundle, and, zigzagging up the face of the
cliff, dropped the bag on the veranda of a bungalow at the summit,
shouted a “sahib hai,” and fled into the night.
The Englishman who flung open the door with a bellow of delight was a
boisterous, whole-hearted giant of a far different type from our noonday
host; a soldier of fortune who had “mixed” in every activity from
railway building to revolutions in three continents, and whose
geographical information was far more extensive than that to be found in
a Rand-McNally atlas. His bungalow was a palace in the wilderness; he
confided that he drew his salary to spend, and that he paid four rupees
a pound for Danish butter without a pang of regret. The light of his
household, however, was his Eurasian wife, the most entrancing
personification of loveliness that I have been privileged to run across
in my wanderings. The rough life of the jungle seemed only to have made
her more daintily feminine. One would have taken his oath that she had
just budded into womanhood, even in face of the four sons that rolled
about the bungalow; plump-cheeked, robust little tots, with enough
native blood in their veins to thrive in a land where children of white
parents waste away to apathetic invalids.
We slept on the veranda high above the river, and, in spite of the
thirty-two miles in our legs and the fever that fell upon James during
the night, rose with the dawn, eager to be off. As we took our leave,
the engineer held out to us a handful of rupees.
“Just to buy your chow on the way, lads,” he smiled.
“No! no!” protested James, edging away. “We’ve bled you enough already.”
“Tommy rot!” cried the adventurer, “Don’t be an ass. We’ve all been in
the same boat and I’m only paying back a little of what’s fallen to me.”
When we still refused, he called us cranks and no true soldiers of
fortune, and took leave of us at the edge of the veranda.
Sittang was a mere bamboo village with a few grass-grown streets that
faded away in the encircling wilderness. In spite of explicit directions
from the engineer, we lost the path and plunged on for hours almost at
random through a tropical forest. Noonday had passed before we broke out
upon an open plain where the railway embankment began anew, and satiated
our screaming thirst with cocoanut milk in the hut of a babu contractor.
Beyond, walking was less difficult. The rampant jungle had been laid
open for the projected line; and, when the tangle of vegetation pressed
upon us, we had only to climb to the top of the broken dyke and plod on.
The country was not the unpeopled waste of the day before. Where bananas
and cocoanuts and jack-fruits grow, there are human beings to eat them,
and now and then a howling of dogs drew our attention to a cluster of
squalid huts tucked away in a productive grove. Every few miles were
gangs of coolies who fell to chattering excitedly when we came in view,
and, dropping shovels and baskets, squatted on their heels, staring
until we had passed, nor heeding the frenzied screaming of high-caste
“straw-bosses.” Substantial bungalows for advancing engineers were
building on commanding eminences along the way. The carpenters were
Chinamen, slow workmen when judged by Western standards, but evincing
far more energy than native or Hindu.
The migratory Mongul, rare in India, unknown in Asia Minor, has invaded
all the land of Burma. Few indeed are the villages to which at least one
wearer of the pig-tail has not found his way and made himself a force in
the community. His household commonly consists of a Burmese wife and a
troop of half-breed children; and it is whispered that the native women
are by no means loath to mate with these aliens, who often prove more
tolerant and provident husbands than the Burmen.
Those Celestial residents with whom we came in contact were shrewd,
grasping fellows, far different from the gay and prodigal native
merchants. The pair in whose shop we stifled an overgrown hunger, well
on in the afternoon, received us coldly and served us in moody silence.
Their stock in trade was exclusively canned goods among which American
labels were not lacking. Their prices, too, were reminiscent of the
Western world. When we had paid them what we knew was a just amount,
they hung on our heels for a half-mile, screaming angrily and clawing at
our tattered garments.
Where the western section of the embankment ended began a more open
country, with many a sluggish stream to be forded. We were already
knee-deep in the first of these when there sounded close at hand a snort
like the blowing of a whale. I glanced in alarm at the rushes about us.
From the muddy water protruded a dozen ugly, black snouts.
“Crocodiles!” screamed James, turning tail and splashing by me. “Beat
it!”
“But hold on!” I cried, before we had regained the bank, “These things
seem to have horns.”
The creatures that had startled us were harmless water buffaloes, which,
being released from their day’s labor, had sought relief in the muddy
stream from flies and the blazing sun.
As the day was dying, we entered a jungle city, named Kaikto, and
jeopardized the honor in which sahibs are held in that metropolis of the
delta by accepting a “shake-down” in the police barracks. From there the
route turned southward, and the blazing sun beat in our faces during all
the third day’s tramp. Villages became more numerous, more thickly
populated, and the jungle was broken here and there by thirsty
paddy-fields.
When twilight fell, however, we were tramping along the railway dyke
between two dense and apparently unpeopled forests. The signs portended
a night out of doors, and we were already resigned to that fate when we
came upon a path leading from the foot of the embankment across the
narrow ridge between two excavations. Hoping to find some thatch shelter
left by the construction gangs, we turned aside and stumbled down the
bank. The trail wound away through the jungle and brought us, a mile
from the line, to a grassy clearing, in the center of which stood a
capacious _dak bungalow_.
Public rest-houses of this sort are maintained by the government of
British-India, where no other accommodations offer, for the housing of
itinerant sahibs. They are equipped with rough sleeping quarters for a
few guests, rougher bathing facilities, a few reclining chairs, and a
babu keeper to register travelers and entertain them with his wisdom;
for all of which a uniform charge of one rupee a day is made. There is,
besides, a force of native servants at the beck and call of those who
would pay more. A punkah-wallah will keep the velvet fans in motion all
through the night for a few coppers; the _chowkee dar_ or Hindu cook
will prepare a “European” meal on more or less short notice.
But the bungalow that we had chanced upon in this Burmese wilderness was
apparently deserted. We mounted the steps and, settling ourselves in
veranda chairs, lighted our pipes and stretched our weary legs. We might
have fallen asleep where we were, listening to the humming of the
tropical night, had we not been hungry and choking with thirst.
The bungalow stood wide open, like every house in British-India. I rose
and wandered through the building, lighting my way with matches and
peering into every corner for a water bottle or a sleeping servant. In
each of the two bedrooms there were two canvas charpoys; in the main
room a table littered with tattered books and magazine leaves in
English; in the back chamber several pots and kettles. There was water
in abundance, a tubful of it in the lattice-work closet opening off from
one of the bedrooms. But who could say how many travel-stained sahibs
had bathed in it?
I returned to the veranda, and we took to shouting our wants into the
jungle. Only the jungle replied, and we descended the steps for a
circuit of the building, less in the hope of encountering anyone than to
escape the temptation of the bathtub. Behind the bungalow stood three
ragged huts. The first was empty. In the second, we found a snoring
Hindu, stretched on his back on the dirt floor, close to a dying fire of
fagots.
We awoke him quickly. He sprang to his feet with a frightened “achá,
sahib, pawnee hai,” and ran to fetch a chettie of water, not because we
had asked for it, but because he knew the first requirement of travelers
in the tropics.
“Now we would eat, oh, chowkee dar,” said James, in Hindustanee, “julty
karow.”
“Achá, sahib,” repeated the cook. He tossed a few fagots on the fire,
set a kettle over them, emptied into it the contents of another chettie,
and, catching up a blazing stick, trotted with a loose-kneed wabble to
the third hut. There sounded one long-drawn squawk, a muffled cackling
of hens, and the Hindu returned, holding a chicken by the head and
swinging it round and round as he ran. Catching up a knife, he slashed
the fowl from throat to tail, snatched off skin and feathers with a few
dexterous jerks, and less than three minutes after his awakening, our
supper was cooking. Truly, the serving of sahibs had imbued him with an
unoriental energy.
We returned to the veranda, followed by the chokee dar, who lighted a
decrepit lamp on the table within and trotted away into the jungle. He
came back at the heels of a native in multicolored garb of startling
brilliancy, who introduced himself as the custodian, and, squatting on
his haunches in a veranda chair, took up his duties as entertainer of
guests. There was not another that spoke English within a day’s journey,
he assured us, swelling with pride; and for that we were duly thankful.
Long after the cook had carried away the plates and the chicken bones,
the babu chattered on, drawing upon an apparently unlimited fund of
misinformation, and jumping, as each topic was exhausted, to a totally
irrelevant one, without a pause either for breath or ideas. Fortunately,
he had arrived with the notion that we were surveyors of the new line,
and we took good care not to undeceive him; for railway officials were
entitled to the accommodations of dak bungalows without payment of the
government fee. We still had a few coppers left, therefore, when the
cook had been satisfied, and, driving off the inexhaustible keeper, we
rolled our jackets and shoes into two “beachcomber’s pillows” and turned
in.
We slept an hour or two, perhaps, during the night. Of all the hardships
that befall the wayfarer in British-India, none grows more unendurable
than this—to be kept awake when he most needs sleep. Either his resting
place—to call it a bed would be worse than inaccurate—is too hard, or
the heat so sultry that the perspiration trickles along his ribs,
tickling him into wakefulness. If a band of natives is not chattering
under his windows, a fellow roadster snoring beside him, or a flock of
roosters greeting every newborn star, there are a dozen lizards at least
to make the night miserable.
The dak bungalow in the wilderness housed a whole army of these pests;
great, green-eyed reptiles from six inches to a foot long. Barely was
the lamp extinguished, when one in the ceiling struck up his refrain,
another on the wall beside me joined in, two more in a corner gave
answering cry, and the night concert was on:—
“She-kak! she-kak! she-kak!”
Don’t fancy for a moment that the cry of the Indian lizard is the
half-audible murmur of the cricket or the tree toad. It sounds much more
like the squawking of an ungreased bullock-cart:—
“She-kak! she-kak! she-kak!”
To attempt to drive them off was worse than useless. The walls and
ceiling, being of thatch, offered more hiding places for creeping things
than a hay stack. When I fired a shoe at the nearest, a shower of
branches and rubbish rattled to the floor; and, after a moment of
silence, the song began again, louder than before. Either the creatures
were clever dodgers or invulnerable, and there was always the danger
that a swiftly-thrown missile might bring down half the thatch
partition:—
“She-kak! she-kak! she-kak!”
Wherever there are dwellings in British-India, there are croaking
lizards. I have listened to their shriek from Tuticorin to Delhi; I have
seen them darting across the carpeted floor in the bungalows of
commissioner sahibs; I have awakened many a time to find one dragging
his clammy way across my face. But nowhere are they more numerous nor
more brazen-voiced than in the jungles of the Malay Peninsula. There
came a day when we were glad that they had not been exterminated—but of
that later.
Early the next morning we fell into a passable roadway that led us every
half-hour through a grinning village, between which were many isolated
huts. We stopped at all of them for water. The natives showed us marked
kindness, often awaiting us, chettie in hand, or running out into the
highway at our shout of “yee sheedela?” This Burmese word for water
(yee) gave James a great deal of innocent amusement. Ever and anon he
paused before a hut, to drawl, in the voice of a court crier:—“Hear ye!
hear ye! hear ye! We’re thirsty as Hottentots!” Householders young and
old understood. At least they fetched us water in abundance.
The fourth day afoot brought two misfortunes. The rainy season, long
delayed, burst upon us in pent-up fury not an hour after we had spent
our last copper for breakfast. Where dinner would come from we could not
surmise, but “on the road” one does not waste his energies in worry.
Something would “turn up.” It is in wandering aimlessly about the
streets of a great city in the midst of plenty that the penniless
outcast feels the inexorable hand of fate at his throat—not on the open
road among the fields and flowers and waving palm trees.
The first shower came almost without warning; one sullen roar of
thunder, the heavens opened, and the water poured. Thereafter they were
frequent. At times some hut gave us shelter; more often we could only
plod on in the blinding torrent that, in the twinkle of an eye, drenched
us to the skin. The storms were rarely of five minutes’ duration. With
the last dull growl of thunder, the sun burst out more calorific than
before, sopping up the pools in the highway as with a gigantic sponge,
and drying our dripping garments before we had time to grumble at the
wetting. Amid the extravagant beauties of the tropical landscape the
vagaries of the season were so quickly forgotten that the next downpour
took us as completely by surprise as though it had been the first of the
season.
During the morning we met a funeral procession en route for the place of
cremation. Wailing and mourning there were none. Why should death bring
grief to the survivors when the deceased has merely lost one of his
innumerable lives? There came first of all dozens of girls dressed as
for a yearly festival. About their necks were garlands of flowers; in
their jet-black hair, red and white blossoms. Each carried a flat
basket, heaped high with offerings that made us envious of him who had
been gathered to his fathers. Here one bore bananas of brightest yellow;
another, golden mangoes; a third, great, plump pineapples. The girls
held the baskets high above their heads, swaying their bodies from side
to side and tripping lightly back and forth across the road as they
advanced, the long cortège executing such a snake-dance as one sees on a
college gridiron after a great contest. The chant that rose and fell in
time with their movements sounded less a dirge than a pean of victory;
now and again a singer broke out in merry laughter. The coffin was a
wooden box, gayly decked with flowers and trinkets, and three of the
eight men who bore it on their shoulders were puffing at long native
cigars. Behind them more men, led by two saffron-clad priests, pattered
through the dust, chattering like school girls, yet adding their
discordant voices now and then to the cadenced chorus of the females.
The sun was blazing directly overhead, leaving our pudgy shadows to be
trampled under foot, when we heard behind us a faint wail of “sahib!
sahib.” Far down the green-framed roadway trotted a beclouted brown man,
waving his arms above his head. We were already fifteen miles distant
from the dak bungalow; small wonder if we were surprised to find our
pursuer none other than that chowkee dar who had skinned our chicken so
deftly the night before. A misgiving fell upon us. No doubt the fellow
had found out that we were no railway officials after all, and had come
to demand the bungalow fee of two rupees. We stepped into the shade and
awaited anxiously the brown-skinned nemesis.
But there was no cause for alarm. Amid his chattering the night before,
the babu custodian had forgotten his first duty—to register us. When his
error came to light, we were gone; and he had sent the cook to get our
names. That was all; and for that the Hindu had run the entire fifteen
miles. When we had scribbled our names on the limp, wet rag of paper he
carried in his hand, he turned aside from the road and threw himself
face down in the edge of the forest.
The beauties of the landscape impressed themselves less and less upon us
with every mile thereafter. Not that our surroundings had lost anything
of their charm, the scenery was rather more striking; but the dinner
hour had passed and our bellies had begun to pinch us. The Burmese, we
had been told, were charitable to a fault. But what use to “batter” back
doors, when we knew barely a dozen words of the native tongue? Here and
there a bunch of bananas hung at the top of its stocky tree, but the
fruit was hopelessly green; cocoanuts there were in abundance, but they
supplied drink rather than food. Still hunger grew apace. The only
alternative to starving left us was to exploit the shopkeepers,—to eat
our fill and run away.
We chose a well-stocked booth in a teeming village, and, advancing with
a millionaire swagger, sat down on the bamboo floor and called for food.
The merchant and his family were enjoying a plenteous repast. The wife
grinned cheerily upon us for the honor we had done her among all her
neighbors, and brought us a bowl of rice and a strange vegetable currie.
While we ate, the unsuspecting victims squatted around us, shrieking in
our ears as though they would force us to understand by endless
repetitions and lusty bellowing. When we addressed them in English, they
cried “nămelay-voo,” and took deeper breath. When we spoke in
Hindustanee, they grinned sympathetically and again bellowed
“nămelay-voo.” How often I had heard those words since our departure
from Rangoon! At first, I had fancied the speaker was attempting to
converse in French. It was easy to imagine that he was trying to say
“what is your name?” But he was not, for when I answered in the language
of Voltaire, the refrain came back louder than before:—“Nămelay-voo?”
We did not eat our fill at the first shop. To have done so would have
been to leave the keeper a pauper. When our hunger had been somewhat
allayed, we rose to our feet.
“I’m sorry to work this phony game on you, old girl,” said James, “but I
know you couldn’t cash a check—”
“Nămelay-voo?” cried the personage thus disrespectfully addressed, and
the family smile broadened and spread to the family ears. We caught up
the knapsack and walked rapidly away; for well we knew the agonized
screams that would greet our perfidy and the menacing mob that would
gather at our heels. Four steps we had taken, and still no outcry. We
hurried on, not daring to look back. Suddenly a roar of laughter sounded
behind us. I glanced over my shoulder. Not a man pursued us. The family
still squatted on the bamboo floor of the booth, doubled up and shaking
with mirth.
We levied on the shopkeepers whenever hunger assailed us thereafter,
though never eating more than two or three cents’ worth at any one
stall. Never a merchant showed anger at our rascality. So excellent a
joke did our ruse seem to the natives that laughter rang out behind us
at every sortie. Nay, many a shopkeeper called us back and forced upon
us handfuls of the best fruit in his meager little stock, guffawing the
while until the tears ran down his cheeks, and calling his neighbors
about him to tell them the jest, that they might laugh with him. And
they did. More than once we left an entire village shaking its sides at
the trick which the two witty sahibs had played upon it.
When night came on we appropriated lodgings in the same high-handed
fashion, stretching out on the veranda of the most pretentious shop in a
long, straggling village. Unfortunately, the wretch who kept it was no
true Burman. A dozen times he came out to growl at us, and to answer our
questions with an angry “nămelay-voo.” Darkness fell swiftly. It was the
hour of closing. The merchant began to drag out boards from under his
shanty and to stand them up endwise across the open front of the shop,
fitting them into grooves at top and bottom. When only a narrow opening
was left, he turned upon us with a snarl and motioned to us to be off.
We paid no heed, for so fierce an evening storm had begun that the shop
lamp lighted up an unbroken sheet of water at the edge of the veranda.
The shopkeeper blustered and howled to make his voice heard above the
rumble of the torrent, waving his arms wildly above his head. We
stretched our aching legs and let him rage on. He fell silent at last
and squatted disconsolately in the opening. He could have put up the
last board and left us outside, but that would have been to disobey the
ancient Buddhist law of hospitality.
A half-hour had passed when he sprang up suddenly with a grunt of
satisfaction and stepped into his dwelling. When he came out he carried
a lantern and wore a black, waterproof sheet that hid all but a narrow
strip of his face and his bare feet. Bellowing in our ears, he began a
pantomime that we understood to be an offer to lead us to some other
shelter.
“Let’s risk it,” said James. “This is no downy couch, and he’s probably
going to take us to a Buddhist monastery. If he tries any tricks we’ll
stick to him and come back.”
We stepped into the deluge and followed the native along the highway in
the direction we had come. The storm increased. It was not a mere matter
of getting wet. There was not a dry thread on us when we had taken four
steps. But the torrent, falling on our bowed backs, weighed us down like
a mighty burden, a sensation one may experience under an especially
strong shower bath.
Mile after mile the native trotted on; it seemed at least ten, certainly
it was three. The mud, oozing into our dilapidated shoes during the day,
had blistered our feet to the ankles; our legs creaked with every step.
The Australian fell behind. I stumbled over a knoll and sprawled into a
river of mud that spattered even into my eyes. A bellow brought the
Burman to a halt. I splashed forward and grasped him by a wrist.
“Hold him!” howled James from the rear. “The bloody ass will take us
clear back to Pegu. There’s a house down there. Let’s try it.”
We skated down the slippery slope, dragging the shopkeeper after us, and
stumbled across the veranda into a low, rambling hovel of a single room.
At one end squatted a half-dozen low-caste men and as many slatternly,
half-naked females. In a corner was spread an array of food stuffs; in
another, several dirty, brown brats were curled up on a heap of rush
mats and foul rags. James sprang through the squatting group and fell
upon the wares.
“Only grains and vegetables,” he wailed. “Not a damn thing a civilized
man’s dog could eat unless it was cooked. It’s no supper for us, all
right. What say we turn in?”
He dived towards the other corner and tumbled the sleeping children
together. The natives stared stupidly, offering no sign of protest at
this maltreatment of their offspring. The Australian threw himself down
beside the slumberers.
“Holy dingoes!” he gasped, bounding again to his feet, “What a smell!”
We had indeed fallen upon squalor unusual in the land of Burma.
Our guide, waiving the rights of higher caste, squatted with the others.
Then he began to chatter, and, that accomplishment being universal among
his countrymen, he was soon joined by all the group; the old men first,
in rasping undertones, then the younger males, in deeper voice, and
last, the females, in cracked treble.
We sat down dejectedly on two Standard Oil cans. For an hour the natives
jabbered on, gaping at us, chewing their betel-nut cuds like ruminating
animals. Green-eyed lizards in wall and ceiling set up their
nerve-racking “she-kak! she-kak!” The mud dried in thick layers on our
faces.
Suddenly James bounded into the midst of the group and grasped the
shopkeeper by the folds of his loose gown.
“We want something to eat!” he bellowed. “If there’s any chow in this
shack show it up. If there isn’t, cut out this tongue rattle, you
missing link, and let us sleep!” and he shook the passive Burman so
savagely that the cigarette hanging from his nether lip flew among the
sleeping children.
The shopkeeper, showing neither surprise nor anger, regained his
equilibrium, picked up his lantern, and marched with dignified tread out
into the night. Apparently he had abandoned us in spite of the law of
hospitality.
But he was a true disciple of Gautama, for he sauntered in, a few
moments later, in company with five men in high-caste costumes.
“Any of you chaps speak English?” I cried.
The newcomers gave no sign of having understood. One, more showily
dressed than his companions, sat down on a heap of rattan. The others
grouped themselves about him, and a new conference began. The rain
ceased. The lizards shrieked sardonically. James fell into a doze,
humped together on his oil can.
Suddenly I caught, above the chatter, the word “babu.”
“Look here,” I interrupted, “If there’s a babu here he speaks English.
Who is he?”
The only reply was a sudden silence that did not last long.
“Babu,” cried the shopkeeper, some moments later. This time there could
be no doubt that he had addressed the silent Beau Brummel on the rattan
heap.
“You speak English!” I charged, pointing an accusing finger at him.
“Tell them we want something to eat.”
The fellow stared stolidly. If the title belonged to him he was anxious
to conceal his accomplishments.
“It’s some damn sneak,” burst out James, “come here to eavesdrop.”
Four days in the jungle had weakened the Australian’s command over his
temper. Or was his speech a ruse? If so, it succeeded in its object. A
flush mounted to the swarthy cheek of the native; he opened and closed
his mouth several times as if he had received a heavy blow in the ribs,
and spoke, slowly and distinctly:—
“I am not damn snake. I have been listening.”
“Of course!” bellowed James, “I repeat, you are a sneak.”
“Don’t!” shuddered the babu, “Don’t name me damn snake. If they know you
talk me so I fall in my caste.”
“Well, why didn’t you answer when I spoke to you?” I demanded.
“I was listening to find out what you were wishing,” stammered the
Burman.
“You half-baked Hindu!” shouted James. “You heard us say a dozen times
we wanted something to eat.”
“But,” pleaded the babu, “this is a very jungly place and we have not
proper food for Europeans.”
“Proper be blowed!” shrieked the Australian. “Who’s talking about
European food? If there’s anything to eat around here trot it out. If we
_haven’t_ got money we can pay for it. Here’s a good suit of clothes—”
he caught up the knapsack and tumbled his “swag” out on the floor.
“There’s only native food,” objected the Burman. “White men cannot—”
“What you can eat, so can we,” I cried. “Take the suit and bring us
something.”
“Oh! We cannot take payment,” protested the babu.
“Jumping Hottentots!” screamed James. “Take pay or don’t, but stop your
yapping and tell them we want something to _eat_.”
“I shall have prepared some food which Europeans can eat,” murmured the
native in an oily voice. He harangued the group long and deliberately.
An undressed female rose, hobbled to a corner of the room, lighted a
fire of fagots, and squatted beside it. Though it was certainly
midnight, we gave up all hope of expediting matters, and waited with set
teeth. For a half-hour not a word was spoken. Then the female rose and
strolled towards us, holding out—four slices of toast!
“If I’d known there was bread in this shack,” cried James, as we
snatched the slices, “there’d have been damn little toasting.”
“I have worked for Europeans,” said the babu proudly, yet with a touch
of sadness in his voice, “and I know they cannot eat the native bread,
so I have it prepared as sahibs eat it.”
“We’ve been eating native bread for months,” mumbled James, “days
anyway. You’re a bit crazy, I think. Got any rice?”
“There is rice and fish,” said the Burman, “but can you eat that too?”
“Just watch us,” said James.
The female brought a native supper, and we fell to.
“How wonderful!” murmured the babu, “And you are sahibs!”
When we acknowledged ourselves satisfied, two blankets were spread for
us on the floor, the chattering visitors filed out into the night, and
we stretched out side by side to listen a few hours to the croaking of
irrepressible lizards.
The following noonday found us miles distant. It was our second day
without a copper; yet the natives received us as kindly as if we had
been men of means. The proximity of Moulmein, where sahib muscular
effort might be turned to account, filled us with new hope and we
splashed doggedly on.
Villages there were without number. Their tapering pagodas dominated the
landscape. On the east stretched the rugged mountain chain, so near now
that we could make out plainly the little shrines far up on the summit
of each conspicuous peak. Tropical showers burst upon us at frequent
intervals, wild deluges of water from which we occasionally found
shelter under long-legged hovels. Even when we scrambled up the bamboo
ladders into the dwellings, the squatting family showed no resentment at
the intrusion; often they gave us fruit, once they forced upon us two
native cigars. It was these that made James forever after a stout
champion of the Burmese; for two days had passed since we had shared our
last smoke.
Queer things are these Burmese cigars! They call them “saybullies,” and
they smoke them in installments; for no man lives with the endurance
necessary to consume a saybully at one sitting. They are a foot long, as
thick as the thumb of a windjammer’s bo’s’n, rather cigarettes than
cigars; for they are wrapped in a thick, leathery paper that almost
defies destruction, even by fire. In the country districts they serve as
almanacs. The peasant buys his cigar on market day, puffs fiercely at it
on the journey home, stows it away about his person when he is
satisfied, and pulls it out from time to time to smoke again. As a
result, one can easily determine the day of the week by noting the
length of the saybullies one encounters along the route.
To determine the ingredients that make up this Burmese concoction is not
so simple a matter. Now and then, in the smoking, one comes across
pebbles and fagots and a variety of foreign substances which even a
manufacturer of “two-fers” would hesitate to use. But the comparison is
unjust, for the saybully _does_ contain tobacco, little wads of it,
tucked away among the rubbish.
Men, women, and children indulge in this form of the soothing weed. As
in Ceylon, the females, and often the males, wear heavy leaden washers
in their ears until the aperture is stretched to the size of a rat hole.
It is a wise custom. For, having no pockets, where could the Burmese
matron find place for her half-smoked saybully were she denied the
privilege of thrusting it through the lobe of her ear?
Dusk was falling when we overtook a fellow pedestrian; a Eurasian youth
provided with an umbrella and attended by a native servant boy. When he
had gasped his astonishment at meeting two bedraggled sahibs in this
strange corner of the world and volunteered a detailed autobiography, I
found time to put a question over which I had been pondering for some
days.
“As your mother is Burmese,” I began, while we splashed on into the
night, “you speak that language, of course?”
“Oh! yes,” answered the Eurasian, “even better than English.”
“Then you can tell us about this phrase we have heard so much. It’s
‘nămelay-voo.’ Sounds like bum French, but I suppose it’s Burmese?”
“Oh! yes, that is Burmese.”
“What the deuce does it mean?”
“I don’t know,” replied the youth.
“Eh! But it’s certainly a common expression. Every Burman we speak to
shouts ‘nămelay-voo.’ What are they trying to say?”
“I don’t know,” repeated the half-breed.
“Mighty funny, if you speak Burmese, that you don’t understand that!”
“But I do understand it!” protested the youth.
“Well, what is it then?”
“I don’t know. I don’t understand.”
“Say, what are you giving us?” cried James. “Don’t you ever say
‘nămelay-voo’?”
“Certainly! Very often, every day, every hour!”
“Well, what do you mean when you say it?”
“I don’t understand. I don’t know.”
“Look here!” bellowed the Australian, “Don’t you go springing any stale
jokes on us. We’re not in a mood for ’em.”
“Gentlemen,” gasped the half-breed, with tears in his voice, “I do not
joke and I am not joking. ‘Nămelay-voo’ is a Burmese word which has for
meaning ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I don’t understand!’”
It was black night when we stumbled down through the village of Martaban
to the brink of the river of the same name, a swollen stream fully two
miles wide where our day’s journey must have ended, had we not fallen in
with the Eurasian. His home was in Moulmein, and, summoning a sampan, he
invited us to embark with him. The native boat was either light of
material or water-logged, and the waves that broke over the craft
threatened more than once to swamp us. Crocodiles, whispered our
companion, swarmed at this point. Now and then an ominous grunt sounded
close at hand, and the boatman peered anxiously about him as he strained
wildly at his single oar against the current that would have carried us
out to sea. Panting with his exertions, he fetched the opposite shore,
beaching the craft on a slimy slope; and we splashed through a sea of
mud to a roughly-paved street flanking the river.
“You see Moulmein is a city,” said the Eurasian, proudly, pointing along
the row of lighted shops, with fronts all doorway, like those of
Damascus. “We have even restaurants and cabs. Will you not take supper?”
We would, and he led the way to a Mohammedan eating-house in which we
were served several savory messes by an unkempt Islamite, who wiped his
hands, after tossing charcoal on his fire or scooping up a plate of
food, on his fez, and chewed betel-nut as he worked, spitting perilously
near to the open pots. The meal over, the Eurasian called a “cab.” It
was a mere box on wheels, about four feet each way, and had no seats.
When we had packed ourselves inside, the driver imprisoned us by
slamming the air-tight door, and we jolted away.
Fearful of calling paternal attention to his extravagance, the youth
dismissed the hansom at the edge of the quarter in which he lived, and
we continued on foot to his bungalow. His father was an emaciated
Englishman of the rougher, half-educated type, employed in the Moulmein
custom service. He greeted us somewhat coldly. When we had been duly
inspected by his Burmese wife and their eighteen children, we threw
ourselves down on the floor of the open veranda and, drenched and
mud-caked as we were, sank into corpse-like slumber.