RANGOON GYMKHANA
[Illustration]
January 7th.--We danced--I danced with ladies in Gainsborough hats,
their feathers tickling my eye, in pork pie hats, and Watteaus, and
picture hats like sparrows' nests; and there were little dumpy ladies
and tall, stately, Junos, _i.e._, compared with Eastern women. And it
was so funny to see men in suits of blue serge, tweeds, or tussore silk,
whirling round with ladies in muslins of every lovely colour. If the men
had only worn bowlers and smoked cigars, how it would have taken me back
to student days in Antwerp at Carnival time, not so jolly of course, but
very different from anything at home. And how stately are the
club-rooms--really they are well off these relations of ours "Out
East"--don't believe their groans altogether! it is hot now, they say,
but look at the fun they have, especially ladies. There are ladies'
billiard-rooms, card-rooms, music-rooms, reading-rooms inside, and
outside, lawns and flowers and attendants to fetch and carry, and swains
to admire them, and they have latest dresses, dances, balls, riding,
tennis all the time, and Royalties and Viceroys at intervals. Compare
this to the humdrum life of our women in Scotland with their brothers
and cousins, "A wede awa" to the uttermost ends of the Empire, and never
a Viceroy or Royalty of any description to show above their level
horizon--that is intolerable.
Then home to dinner, very full of interest and wonder at the sights of
the day, and scribbled the above dance scene, and dressed and walked
over the way in the soft dust in the soft moonlight and dined with
friends and relations, and talked in the dark teak-wood bungalow of
other friends and relations and home things, and looked at curios and
sketches; and little lizards looked out at us from the walls, and a huge
piebald fellow up in the shadows of the wooden roof, a foot and a half
long if an inch, a _Chuck-Tu_, didn't frighten our hosts in the least!
Then across the strip of moonlit, to sleep my lone, under the hospitable
teak roof-trees of "a Binning!"
Here there seems to be a hiatus in these notes of mine--it is rather a
jump from the British India steamer to a Gymkhana dance? But such a
break gives relief to the mind, and has sometimes even a dramatic
effect. I have twice observed such breaks in journals; the first in
Edinburgh, in the journal of the City Clerk. The break occurs when the
Provost and Clerk lay cold on Floddon Field, and the entries are taken
up in a new hand with a minute which begins--"Owing to a rumour of a
disaster in the south." The second break, I saw the other day in the
Madras records. It occured when the French called at Fort George in
1746. The break in my journal is simply the result of yesterday being so
full of interest that I did not write up till this forenoon, after a
pause for rest and refreshment.
So to hark back. The landing at Rangoon and coming up the river was the
best part of the journey from Madras. For descriptions of coming up the
Rangoon river see other writers. G. and I had been kept awake for
several nights by the natives[20] and finally had to shut our port and
snatched an hour or two of sleep without air so as to be without
noise,--this after various expeditions to try and quiet the beasts
outside, but nothing but drowning would have stopped their horrid
exuberance.
[20] Native in Burmah stands for native of India, not a Burman.
The peace that you feel in Iona seemed to lie over the country as we
came up the Rangoon river.
The Golden Pagoda stands up very simply and beautifully above the flat
country, and beneath it palms and ship's masts look very lowly things
indeed. It seems a perfect conductor of thought from earth to sky; the
gentle concave curves of its sides are more natural lines of repose than
those of our challenging spires. I had been prepared for
little--pictures and photographs have dwarfed the thing--they do not
give the firmness and delicacy in form and the sentiment that it
inspires. It is like the Burmans religion; there's a sense of happiness
in the way its wide gold base amongst nestling green palms and foliage
of trees gradually contracts till the point rises quietly against the
blue and fleecy clouds, where the glint of gold and flash from jewels
seems to unite heaven and earth.
The spire is 372 feet, two feet higher than St Paul's, but the terrace
from which it rises is 166 feet from the level of the ground, and as
lower Burmah is very flat, it is visible twenty-two miles from Rangoon.
It was unmitigatedly hot when we got from the tender to the wharf.
Relatives who met us said it was their hottest weather, so we hugged the
shade. But this was unseasonable, it ought to be fairly cool at the time
of year. We drove in gharries a mile or two to the bungalow, through
crowds of _natives_ of India--how ugly they look compared with the
Burmese! Though why one should compare them at all is beyond reason, for
the Burman is to an Indian as a Frenchman to a Hottentot.
After dividing ourselves and baggage between two bungalows on either
side of Tank Road, we drove with Mrs E. to see the lake and her
favourite views of the Pagoda; and--I was about to contradict myself!
Have I not said India was the most perfectly fascinating country for
picturesque scenes of people and streets, and trees and parks and
colour! Now, I withdraw; for Burmah puts India quite in the shade!
So you, my artist friends, who have no Academical leanings (you are
few), come here, right away, though you have to work your passage on a
B.I., or have even to travel first on that line as we did! You can come
direct by the Henderson line for L36, sailing from Glasgow or
Liverpool--L36 for a month on the blue sea, on a comfortable ship with
lots of deck-room. This line gives specially reduced fares for
_bona-fide_ missionaries, so artists _should_ be taken free--over page
is one of their liners.
In Madras I saw Mr Talbot Kellie's book on Burmah and thought Burmah had
been "done," and it was futile for other artists to try to paint
anything new there. But thanks be, we are each given our own way of
seeing things, though perhaps not the same patience to put them down; so
when I saw the wide stairs and the arcades up to the Pagoda, and the
terrace or platform from which it rises, it was new as could be to me,
and as if it had never been painted or described before.
Here follow notes I see about painting--much talk and little done, owing
to the novelty and variety of sights, and the relaxing damp warmth of
the climate. The mean temperature yesterday was 90 deg. with damp air and a
stuffy, thunderous feeling and the dust hanging in the air under bilious
looking clouds, which made people talk of earthquakes--we perspire, we
melt--we run away in rivers, and our own particular temperature is 100 deg..
How annoying to feel unfit to paint when there is so much to do at
hand.... Started fairly early this morning for the Pagoda, and sat
outside it in a gharry pulled up opposite the entrance porch and steps.
It takes courage to attempt to sketch such a scene of shifting beauty!
These architectural details, carvings in gold and colour, ought to be
ground at till the whole is got by heart--then brush and colour let go,
with a prayer to the saints.
[Illustration]
The "gharry" makes an excellent perambulating studio--it is a small,
high, wooden cab, with little lattice shutters instead of glass which
pull up all round so that you can let down those you need for view, aft
or forward, or at either side, and pull up the others and thus have
privacy and light and air, and you need no stove or hot pipes, for you
could roast a partridge inside!
A "native" policeman ("a native," be it clearly understood, in Burmah
stands for a native of India) hovered round as if he thought my stopping
in mid-street opposite the Pagoda porch might be his affair, but my Boy
explained on this occasion that I was a "Collector," why, I do not know;
however it had the desired effect, but it seemed to me rather a drop
from his usual title of Chief Justice to a mere Collector.
[Illustration: Entrance to the Shwey Dagon Pagoda, Rangoon.]
It grew so hot! and then hotter, and the picturesque flower sellers on
the eleven white steps outside put their white torch cheroots into their
mouths--you could see neither red ash nor smoke in such light--folded
their parasols and took their roses and baskets and went up the steps
and sat themselves down in the porch in the shade and were as pretty as
ever--Tadema's best pictures on the move!
Through the Arabesque wood carvings of the arcade roof, away up the
flight of steps, shafts of light came through brown fretted teak-wood
and fell on gold or lacquered vermilion pillars and touched the
stall-holders and their bright wares in the shadows on either side of
the steps, and lit up groups of figures that went slowly up and down the
irregular steep stairs, their sandals in one hand and cheroot in the
other. Some carried flowers and dainty tokens in coloured papers, others
little bundles of gold leaf, or small bundles of red and yellow twisted
candles to burn. Their clothes were of silks and white linen, the
colours of sweet peas in sun and in shadow, and the air was scented with
incense and roses and the very mild tobacco in the white cheroots.
It was hot in the gharry!
To my surprise an English Buddhist lady I know, pulled up in front of me
and got out of her carriage with a large paint box, took off her very
neat brown shoes at the foot of the steps and went up in brown open-work
stocking soles, and began to paint higher up the flights of steps, and a
little crowd of polite Burman children gathered behind her. And a
Britisher, a Scot, I think, came down, a little dazed-looking and
delighted, and melting, and spoke to me, a stranger, out of sheer wonder
and _per fervidum_ at the charm of colour, and of course we agreed that
it all "beggared description." I must have seen people of many races and
religions going up the steps, Chinese, Shans, Kachins, Mohammedans,
Hindoos, Americans, French, and British. I think in the space of two or
three hours one of almost every nation must go up; not that there is any
crowd at all, but the people are wonderfully varied, the greater number
being, of course, exquisitely clothed Burmese.
To lunch at 10 o'clock, which is considered late here, in my bachelor
friends' quarters--poor bachelors so far from home and home comforts!
_Figurez-vous_, a princely hall, princely bedrooms, splendid teak floors
and walls hung with many trophies, heads of tiger, of buffalo, sambhur,
gaur, tsine boar, etc., etc., and in the long dining-room a sideboard
gleaming with silver, white damask, white roses, and red lilies, perfect
waiters and a perfect chef behind the scene--upstairs, verandahs spread
with lounges and long chairs, tables with latest papers and latest
books, and if this is not enough, they have every sort of social
function within arm's length.--They are not to be only pitied, for all
their punkahs, and the damp heat.
Rangoon, 8th January.--The Shan Camp.
To this we were invited by Mr B. S. Carey, C.I.E. He dined with us at
the E.'s bungalow and told us much of interest of the people he had
brought from these states that lie between Burmah and China. As
Acting-Superintendent in place of Sir George Scott,[21] he has brought
these people's representatives to meet their Royal Highnesses The Prince
and Princess of Wales. Mr Carey's brother, and Mr Fielding Hall were
also at dinner, and my bachelor host A. Binning, so between these people
and G.'s host and hostess, Mr and Mrs E., information about Burmah and
its dependencies, its social, commercial, or political prospects was
available at first hand and to any extent.
[21] Author of "The Burman, his Life and Notions--a delightful
description of Burmah, Shway Yoe."
But to the Shan Camp, in our best array, the ladies in toilets most
pleasing to Western ladies, if not to Shan Princesses--we drove a mile
or so into the country, turned off the high road by a new cutting into
the jungle, and came on a clearing of perhaps two acres surrounded by
bamboos and trees, and in the twinkling of an eye we were transported
from European Rangoon to tribal life in jungle land. A village of pretty
cane houses had been built, and there were Princes and Princesses, and
Chieftains with their followings; I think there were thirteen different
tribes represented, and there were twenty times thirteen different
costumes. We were presented first to the Chiefs; they were in the most
magnificent, shimmering brown silk robes of state, all over gold and
precious stones, and had pointed seven-roofed pagoda crowns of gold.
There were three Princesses, willowy figures, one in an emerald-green
tight-fitting jacket of silk and clinging skirt, and a spray of jewels
and flowers in her black hair; she was pretty, by Jove she was, and at
anyrate uncommonly capable and shrewd looking. She had come about six
hundred miles to see their Royal Highnessess, had ridden three hundred
miles to Mr Carey's rendezvous up north-east, missed the party there,
rode on here post haste, other two hundred miles, and looked as if
another thousand wouldn't turn a hair--said hair was black and glossy
and dressed in a top knot, set off with a spray of diamonds and rubies!
I think she was considered the great lady of the day, as the country her
husband rules is in Chinese territory. The other ladies of the Shan
States were also beautifully dressed. Never in my life have I seen such
delicate blending of silks and faces and jewellery and flowers. I did
not know which was the more interesting, the gorgeousness and fantastic
form of the Princes' garments, or the exquisite harmonies and simplicity
of shape of the Princesses. The willowy emerald-green Princess, who
came from Fairyland, I am sure, shook hands with us and gave us tea and
sugar and cream and a buttonhole, heavily scented, likewise a cigar, and
if I hadn't had fever and could have spoken her language I'd have been
enchanted. But first I should have described the wonderful umbrellas
that ornamented the camp. When we got out of our carriage our ladies and
ourselves were escorted to the clearing, each by one of these potentates
with a liveried servant holding up one of these orange or white and
crimson umbrellas over us. The Princesses walked with the ladies and I
walked with an elderly Prince, with a jolly and kindly wrinkled face--it
felt so very odd to be walking in Western modern garments beside this
very old-world costume; his wings touched my shoulder, and the vane of
his pagoda-spired crown or hat waggled above my head.
Round the centre of the dealing, in a circle round us, were arranged
many retainers in tribal costumes; some of them held golden umbrellas,
others silver-mounted swords, spears, crossbows, and flags. The
arrangements and effect was so picturesque that it is to be hoped the
Prince and Princess will see these people in the same situation.
The various tribes danced each their characteristic dance; there were
too many to remember each distinctly. A bamboo instrument[22] with the
softest bell-like notes pleased me, and gentle but abrupt gong notes
were frequently struck. In some dances the dancers stood close together
in rows, hand in hand, and moved their feet and bowed their heads in
time to very sad music, which I was told was to represent marriage!
Another was full of movement and suggested a war dance, the dancers
whirled swords and postured; all the movements were silent and the music
low, with only occasional loud notes on gong and hollow bamboo, and so
were much in harmony with forest stillness and the shades of jungle
round the camp.
[22] Yang lam.
The most extraordinary dress was worn by the Padaung women, a kilt and
putties of dark cloth, with round the hips and upper part of kilt, many
rings of thin black lacquered cane; round the neck were so many brass
curtain-rings of graduated circumference, narrowing from the chest to
the ear, and so many of them that the neck had become so elongated that
the head either actually was dwarfed or seemed to be so small as to be
quite out of proportion to the body. Of course the proud wearer could
not move her head in the very least, and wore an expression like that of
a hen drinking.
Ten chiefs were present; I wrote down their names, but it is difficult
to decipher them now. There was the Sawbwa of Keng-tung, forty days'
journey from his capital east and south of Mandalay, and north of Siam;
the Sawbwa of Yawnghwe; the Sawbwa of Lawksak; and the Myosa of this
state, and the Myosa of that, and their wives. The Princess with the
green jacket was Sao Nang Wen Tip, wife of the ruler of the Chinese
state Keng-hung, and half-sister of the Sawbwa of Keng-tung; her journey
to Rangoon took fifty days; and she is well-known in western China and
our Shan States as a states-woman and woman of business. Her neat,
small, well-set on head, with pretty face and slightly oblique eyes, one
could not forget quickly--it was feline and feminine, and through and
through as a _poignarde ecossaise_. Her sister, Sao Nang Tip Htila, was
the only lady who rode on an elephant at the Delhi Durbar Procession.
She is also known as a clever business woman; at present she rules the
state of Keng Kham during the minority of her son. She lost her jewels
in the Hoogley on the road to Delhi Durbar, and thought that as nothing
to put against the satisfaction of having "shaken hands with the
King-Emperor's brother," the Duke of Connaught, the memory of whose
graciousness is treasured by the Shans to-day.
... G. and I went to the Pagoda and admired. It is the richest colour
I've seen in the world, and, please heaven, let me come back. Otherwise
Rangoon is not so very interesting; there are wide macadamised roads in
the European parts, with large, two-storied villas in dark-brown teak
wood on either side, with handsome trees in their compounds, thousands
of nasty raucous crows, and Indian servants everywhere, and a very few
Burmans. But the Pagoda is almost purely Burmese; a group of
sinister-looking southern Indian natives sometimes passes up or down the
steps in their dirty white draperies, and seem to bring an evil
atmosphere with them, and a band of our clean, sturdy red-necked
soldiers in khaki may go up, flesh and fire-eating sons of Odin, with
fixed glittering bayonets and iron heels clinking on the stone
steps--Gautama forgive us!--but they don't break the picture nearly so
much as the "natives," their frank expression is more akin to the
Burman's, they have not got the keen hungry look of the Indian; or the
challenging expression of some of our own upper classes.
Who can describe the soft beauty of the Pagoda platform--the sun-lit
square at top of the long covered stairway--with its central golden
spire supporting the blue vault of sky, surrounded at its base with
serene golden Buddhas in little temples of intricate carving, in gilded
teak and red lacquer, and coloured glass mosaic, with candles smoking
before them and flowers dying. The square is paved, and round the
outside against graceful trees and palms are more shrines and more
golden-marble Buddhas facing into the square, and some big bells hang on
carved beams, and children strike them occasionally with deers' horns,
half in play, half as a notice to the good spirits that they and their
seniors have been there to worship. They have a very soft, sweet tone,
and the crown of the sambhur's horn seems suited to bring it out. On the
pavement are some favoured chickens and some children and a dog or two,
and here and there devout people in silks, kneeling on the flags with
folded hands repeating the precepts of the Perfect Law of Gautama
Buddha. To overcome hatred with love, to subdue anger, to control the
mind, and to be kind to all living things, and to be calm. That this is
the greatest happiness, to subdue the selfish thought of I. That it is
better to laugh than to weep, better to share than to possess, better to
have nothing and be free of care than to have wealth and bend under its
burdens.
Such teachings we have at home; but the Buddhist believes too, what the
West forgets, what the old druid Murdoch, before he died, taught to
Columba on Iona: That all life in nature is divine, and that there is no
death, only change from one form to another. So they reverence trees and
flowers and birds and beasts, and each other, and believe that,
"He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small."
therefore their happiness and calm and the look of peace on the faces of
the very old people, and their great kindness to each other and to
animals, and the little offerings you see to the spirits of trees.
It is very peaceful, for the repetitions of the worshippers in the open
air are not disturbing; and from far overhead comes a little tinkling
from the light AEolian bells moved by the breeze high up on the Hte. If
you look up you see the Hte against the blue. It is an elaborate piece
of metal work on the tip top of the pagoda; you cannot make out its
details but you can see it is made of diminishing hoops with little
pendant bells hung from these, that the wind rings sometimes; and you
are told that one little bell may be so bejewelled that it may be worth
L70, and the whole Hte that looks so light and delicate is really of
heavy golden hoops encrusted with jewels; for which a king of Upper
Burmah gave L27,000, and the Burmese people L20,000 more in voluntary
subscriptions and labour. This was since our occupation of Lower Burmah.
The priests in their yellow robes, draped like Roman Togas, come and go
just like other people; they are greatly reverenced, they teach all the
boys of the nation their faith, reading, writing and simple arithmetic,
but they do not proselytise or assume spiritual powers, nor do they act
in civil affairs, and they "judge not;" they live, or try to live a good
life, and to work out each his own salvation, and you may follow their
example if you please, but they won't burn you if you do differently or
think differently.... If any one wants to have the wrinkles rolled out
of his soul--let him _go_ and rest in the quiet, and sun, and simple
beauty of the Shwey Dagon Pagoda, with its tapering golden spire and the
blue sky above.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: A Sacred Lake near Rangoon.]