"The blairin' trumpet sounded far,
And horsemen rode weel graith'd for war."
_The Battle of Preston_.
The horsemen were mostly civilians such as two of our friends in these
bachelor quarters, and very smart they looked in their neat white
uniforms and white helmets with a glitter of gold lace. Another
attraction this for the young man from home; he may be only in commerce,
say in Rice, and yet may be of some official service on high days and
holidays, and prance on a charger with a sword like any belted knight.
The reason of the stir was, of course, the Prince's arrival.
Rangoon is all bedecked--_pandals_ at every turning--these are triumphal
arches with seats inside erected by the Burmese, Chinese, Indians,
Parsees, and children of Rangoon. They are all very brilliant and almost
as beautiful as boxes of crackers, and through these and the decorated
streets for days, have been driven rehearsals of the Prince and
Princess's procession. Only those behind the scenes can compute the work
that making these arrangements gave to the already overworked officials
in this trying climate. Yesterday they had the last rehearsal, when a
young member of the Lieutenant Governor's staff filled the part of the
Prince in the great reception tent or Shamiana. Various city dignitaries
were presented to him and made their bows, and to each of them in turn
he addressed gracious and suitable words, such as the following to Mr
Smith, known in Rangoon for his thriftiness: "Very pleased indeed to
meet you, Mr Smith. Allow me on behalf of my Royal Father, to thank
you, for the very excellent decorations you have made on your house and
compound in honour of our visit." And Mr Smith got quite red, for he had
not made any at all!
... The Prince and Princess came up the river early and landed at a
wharf and were led through a narrow canvas tunnel into a wide low
tent--so all danger of hats being spoiled by a shower or a squall was
avoided, also all spectacular effect. Perhaps it is idiocyncrasy, but I
can't help feeling that the crucial point of the Prince's tour was his
landing on his foreign possessions, say at Bombay or Rangoon; that the
landing should have been made magnificent and historic. Here was an
opportunity just such as there was at Bombay; all the material at hand
for a splendid spectacle, light, water, sky, ships, masts, boats,
wharfs, the most beautifully dressed crowds and people of every
nationality for background. A fraction of fancy was all that was
necessary to have set up the most magnificient composition,--something
to go down in the history of the country. But the Prince and Princess
were ushered through the canvas alley-way into a dim tent, full of damp
exhausted air, hired American chairs, and people in stiff Western
clothes, and sat on two high-backed chairs with their backs to the
little light and listened to speeches. It was a Royal pageant arranged
as we do these things at home by men of T square and double entry,
energy and goodwill. What is needed for such shows, in the first place,
is a knowledge of historical precedents, and imagination, then
organisation and reckless regard for weather, with say an artist, a
historian, a general, and a cashier, for working Committee.
There was a beautiful thing in the reception Shamiana, but you had to
have your eye lifting to note it. As you entered this tent from the town
side, there were on either side three tiers of Burmese ladies sitting
one above the other, their faces becomingly powdered with yellowish
powder, and their eyebrows strongly pencilled, and they each had a
yellow orchid in their black hair, and their dresses were of silks of
infinite variety of tint--primrose, rose, and delicate white--"soft as
puff, and puff, of grated orris root" and they glittered with diamonds
and emeralds, and each held a silver bowl marvellously embossed, filled
with petals of flowers and gold leaf. Their attitudes were studied to
their finger tips, and as the Prince and Princess went out they stood
and dropped a shower of petals before them.
The arrangements for the procession through the streets were perfect,
and the crowds in the streets were great! and best of all were the
groups of Burmese country people coming in to town in their bullock
carts, the rough dry wood of the wheels and arched sun-bitten covers in
such contrast to the family parties tucked up inside, in their short
white jackets and skirts and kilts of brightly coloured silks. How happy
they are, old and young--you begin to wish you had been born a Burman
when you hear their laughter and jollity. But I fear we will soon change
all that with our Progress and Law of orderly grab and necessary
ugliness. Everyone is on the move but the priests, for they do not take
part in worldly affairs.
There was a garden party at Government House in the afternoon. G. and
her hosts went. I was told I positively must not go without a frock-coat
and top hat, so I stayed at home. It is pretty far East here, so
frock-coats and toppers are necessary, at Bombay they are still worn
occasionally; there you might have seen Royalty at a garden party
actually chatting to men in pith helmets and tussore silks--gone at the
knee at that!
In the evening the park and lake were beautifully lit up, and a local
shower of rain came, just in time to put out half the lamps on the
trees, so there was not too much light, as I am sure there would have
been had some not been extinguished; but everyone moaned--said it was
"so sad" and "you should have seen it last time." There must have been
a vast concourse of people. We were in the Boat Club grounds, and it was
damp and hot. We waited about the lawn at the water's edge, and people
chatted and smoked away the evening. Everyone seemed very jolly, and to
know everybody else, and we were given the names of many people and the
letters after their names; they all had them, but one would need to live
in official circles for a long time to learn their meanings.
I thought of Whistler's "Cremorne Gardens" and his "Valparaiso," for
this was such a night effect as he could have painted, and so I thought
of The M'Nab's saying, "The night is the night if the men were the
men."--someone, a Neish perhaps, may see the connection of ideas here, I
admit it is slight.
[Illustration]
The Prince and Princess were floated across the calm water of the lake
in a fairy galley all over lamps. I made a jotting from recollection, so
I will put it in here. It had three spires and each spire had seven
roofs tapering to a Hte, and two great heads of paper geese were at the
bow, and hundreds of glowing lamps lit the Royal suite on board. Besides
the great state barge there were many boats fancifully decorated with
glowing arrangements of lamps and flowers. The prettiest, I thought,
a great water lily with a dainty little Burmese girl in green ("The
jewel in the lotus") in its petals, posturing and singing. The heavy
white petals in lamplight and rosy lights in the reddish buds and leaves
against the dark water were charming, and the Burman in charge, with the
usual red strip of cloth round his black hair, brown face, and white
jacket, caught a little of the warm light and so blended into the
picture. Burmese crews in dug-out war canoes, towed the Royal barge
across the lake, and as each canoe crossed the paths of light reflected
from the illuminated boats, the figures paddling stood out clearly and
were then lost in darkness. They sang in full chorus with a reed piping
between each line, liquid quiet music; who was it said--like the sound
of grass growing? For a moment the charm was broken by the brass band
behind us beginning, but mercifully some one stopped it, and the Royal
passengers landed to gentle native music.
[Illustration: H.R.H. Prince and Princess of Wales landing at the
Boat Club, Rangoon]
Here is, as nearly as possible, in colour, what I remembered of the
Prince and Princess landing on the lawn, and neither more nor less, I
hope--but one is so apt to put in more from careless habits of
accuracy--to count the spokes of the moving wheel.
The words the crews sang were of "Our King Emperor, who is of the
lineage of World Emperors (Mandat), and who on the lustrous throne of
Britain was crowned." They compare our King to the resplendent Indian
sun; "Our King Emperor" begins each stanza with the catch of the stroke,
or rather, the dig of the paddle. "Our King Emperor, who enjoys his
Imperial pleasures in the golden palace[23] in London, and with
especially distinguished intellectual powers rules over a kingdom whose
inhabitants are like the Nimmanarati Gods delighting in self created
pleasures.... The illustrious Royal couple come from the palace of
flowers over distant seas in the _Renown_ surrounded on all sides by the
blue expanse of wave after wave, through the Indian Empire escorted by
Guards of honour, and amidst echoes of the Royal salute from the
Artillery.... For long life extending over a hundred years for our
sovereign's heir-apparent and for his Royal consort, the Princess of
Wales, who is like a wreath of the much prized Tazin (orchid) flowers on
a bed of roses...." It is pretty in bits, I think, the blue expanse,
wave after wave, and the wreath of Tazin on a bed of roses quite take my
fancy.
[23] All the Burmese royal residencies were and are still covered with
gilding. Shwey or gold, is also a Burmese term for royalty.
The illuminations, like the reedy music, went out slowly, and the brass
band had its turn and pom-pomed away finely, as the Prince and Princess
stood a little, on a knoll under the Club trees, in a glow of hundreds
of lamps. Their coming down the winding path from the knoll was
picturesque. I've a thumb-nail jotting of it, our people's faces on
either side were so enthusiastic, and the Prince looked so pleased and
the Princess looked so handsome and queenly, and the cheering--each man
seemed to think depended on himself alone. It was really very pretty,
the ladies' dresses, and uniforms and many black coats and the lamps on
the trees made a gay piece of colour. We do shine on occasions, we
people of the Occident, but the Burmese shine all the time.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
17th.--Now we are moving on, up the river, by the Irrawaddy Flotilla Co.
paddle boat, instead of going to Mandalay by train and down by boat as
is more customary, this for the reason that all the comfortable bogie
carriages are away north with the Prince's following, and night in an
old carriage is not to our tastes.
We go south down this Rangoon River a little way, then about sixty miles
from the sea, cut across the Delta west by the Bassein Creek, and get
into the navigable Irrawaddy, spending a night on the way tied up in the
creek at a place where, I am told, we will probably be attacked by a
very powerful tribe of mosquitoes, then next day higher up we will,
according to Messrs Cook, see mountains again!
[Illustration: Sunset on the Irrawaddy]