Seven hundred and eight miles we have come to-day from the sea, a
regular Argo trip, yet we are far from wearied, and, allowed a day to
stop here and there, would willingly proceed in the same manner to the
Arctic circle. The farther we go, the more are we impressed with the
apparent wealth of this country; the soil is fertile to a degree, the
climate is better than Egypt; there's coal, oil, minerals, precious
stones, gold, marble, alabaster, and such a magnificent waterway. Had I
a hundred years to live I'd scrape capital together to put into this
recently "acquired" land; as it is perhaps it would be cheaper and
better to stay here now, and learn Burmese philosophy, and make capital
out of the flowers that blow.
... That settles the matter--I get my gun sent up from Rangoon, or go
down for it myself--over 200 splendid geese along a sandbank! Within 200
yards! I could count their feathers with my glass. The Captain tells me
you just need to drift down in a native canoe and make a bag with ease.
Rather a shame, you say; for the Burmans are not supposed to take life,
so the geese are not afraid of a dug-out canoe. But a Burman is
delighted to eat what others kill, and besides, I have been so often
outwitted by geese at home, that I'd just like to have one chance, to
retrieve past misfortunes. Between Mandalay and Bhamo, the Captain says,
they are even more numerous than here. Beyond Bhamo, he describes the
river water as so clear you can count the pebbles thirty feet below its
surface, and describes the whacking big Mahseer, the gold dredging, and
the game alongside--peacocks--leopards--buffaloes!
As we were talking, the Rock pilot came alongside in a launch and handed
aboard a bunch of geese, the same as those we had seen;[29] he is out of
shot and powder, and I believe we have no cartridges on board. The geese
weighed five and a half pounds each, but they put on some three pounds
before the end of the season, before they go north, possibly to some
lake in the Himilayas or Western China, to breed.
[29] Barhead and grey lag geese are the two kinds commonly seen.
At Saigang we fairly draw a breath with astonishment at the beauty of
the panorama that opens before us. The river widens to two miles, and
comes to us in a grand curve from the north and east. Mandalay is at the
bend, some nine miles up. It is like a beautiful lake edged with a
thread of sand--a lake that Turner might have dreamed of. Above Saigang
on our left are green woods, capped with white and gold minarets, with
white stairs and terraces leading up to them. To the north one or two
canoes, with bright sails, and distant mountains with purple corries,
and fleecy clouds, are mirrored on the tranquil river: these distant
hills are of very delicate warm violet tints, on their shoulders we can
just make out the forms of forests, and heavy white cumuli hang above
them in a hazy blue. The white Saigang pagodas on our left in the
distance look like Scottish-baronial or French chateaux, embowered in
foliage. Across the swelling river ("swelling" is the right word, I am
sure, for the river's surface _seems_ to be convex) and to our right the
country is flat, and in the green woods are the overgrown ruins of the
once splendid city of Ava. Certainly, of my most pleasant recollections,
this wide landscape, and all its light tints of mother-of-pearl, will
remain one of the most delightful.
Mandalay is at the upper end of this lake-like part of the Irrawaddy; it
lies back and behind the river bank or _bunda_, so it is not visible
from the river.
Our steamer pulls up against a flat that lies against the sandy shore,
exposed, at this time of year, by the lowness of the river. There are no
wharfs as I had expected, only two or three floating sheds, and two or
three steamers like our own. The sandy shore slopes up some thirty feet
to the bundar, and over that we see palms and trees.
Up and along the sandy shore we drove in a gharry, a man on either side
to prevent it upsetting in the ruts, and if it had not been for the
honour of the thing I would as soon have walked! On the top of the
bundar we struck a macadamised road and rattled gaily along to see the
town. It is almost pure Burmah here, and the native of India is
beautifully scarce; but Chinese abound, and are uncommonly nice-looking
people. We drive a mile or so with rather dingy teak and matting houses
on trestle legs on either side of the road, overhung with palms and
trees, and see the domestic arrangements through open verandahs--women
and children winding yellow silk in skeins and cooking, the vivid
colours of the silks in sudden contrast to the sombre dusty red and
brown wood of the houses.
We stop at a wooden building with gilded pillars in a clear space of dry
foot-trodden mud, surrounded with tall palms and some teak trees with
grey-green leaves big as plates. The short lower wooden pillars support
a gallery, and this again has other gilded pillars supporting one roof
above another in most fantastic complication; green glass balustrades
and seven-roofed spires wrought with marvellous intricacies of gilded
teak-wood carving. Indian red underlies the gilding, and the weather has
left some parts gold and some half gold and red, and other bits
weather-worn silvery teak. The pillars and doors from the gallery into
the interior shrines were all gold of varying colours of weather stain.
Shaven priests, with cotton robes of many shades of orange, draped like
Roman senators, moved about quietly; they had just stopped teaching a
class of boys to read from long papyrus leaves--the boys were still
there, and seemed to have half possession of the place. Overhead green
paroquets screamed, flying to and fro between carved teak foliage and
the green palm tops. The interior of the building was all gilded wood--a
marvel of carpentry; there were lofty golden teak tree pillars and
gilded door panels with gilded figures in relief, and yellow buff cane
mats on the floor. Light only came in through doorways and chinks in the
woodwork in long shafts, but such light! golden afternoon sun into a
temple of gold, you can imagine the effect when it struck gilding--how
it flamed, burned, and lit up remote corners of the shadowy interior
with subdued yellows! As we looked in, a kneeling priest near us waved
to us to enter, and went on with his devotions, his old wrinkled,
kindly, brown face and neck and close cropped head, and deep orange
drapery all in half tone against a placque of vivid lemon yellow gold in
sunlight. These priests, or phungyis, in their old gold cotton robes
form one of the most distinctive features of Burmese life in town and
country. They are greatly respected by the people for their simplicity
of life. They teach all the boys in the country reading, writing, and
simple arithmetic, and how to try to follow the example of the life of
their great Gautama. Theoretically they do this for love alone, or to
"earn merit." What alms they receive is not in payment--gifts are
accepted but not asked for. The people do not pay taxes for their
clergy, nor do these literally free kirk ministers perambulate the
country, and ask children for their Saturday pennies for a Sustentation
Fund. One of the most interesting sights here is to see their young
novitiate priests in the morning going round the bazaars and the boats
and the stalls on the strand in their yellow robes, bowl in hand,
silently waiting for a dole of boiled rice or fruit, and passing on if
it is not quite ready, to come another day.
All Burmese men are priests for a certain time, even though it be but
for a few months; for that time they must wear the simple yellow dress
and renounce all worldly desires[30]. So it was in the earliest Scottish
Church; the Culdee clergy were teachers as well as preachers, and
taught arts and crafts as well as their faith.
[30] For exhaustive and interesting accounts of life and education in
the Monastery, _see_ "Picturesque Burmah," by Mrs Ernest Hart.
The observances of the phungyis are almost austere, but the teaching
that Gautama Buddha passed to the laity was less so. The Burman says,
"Life is a vale of tears, so be happy as possible and make others happy
and you will be good"--the religion of the actor and the artist--the
rose and to-morrow fade, and "loves sweet manuscript must close," but do
what you may, as beautifully as you can--be it a pastel or a matinee.
This monastery is called the Queen's golden Kyoung; it was erected by
Thebaw's queen, Supayalat, in the early eighties--and now king Thebaw
and his queen are in durance near Bombay.
Though it was getting late we drove on to another place, the Arrakan
Pagoda. We had heard of it pretty much as a Burman coming to Europe
might hear of a place called St Peter's.
It was a long, fatiguing, jolting drive in the rattling gharry,
fatiguing physically and mentally, for along both sides of the road were
such interesting things, Chinese cafes lighting up, huge paper lanterns
outside, and stalls of every kind, makers of golden umbrellas and
Burmese harness-makers, almost every stall showing some pretty colour
and Rembrandtesque lamplight effect.
The entrance was like that of other pagodas, two white griffins looking
up at the sky, with busy modern life at their feet. There was a long
approach of shallow steps between double rows of red pillars with much
wood-carving overhead, and panels of poor fresco; but it was rather dark
to see details, and the stall-holders from either side were departing,
and we could see little but the flare of these ladies cheroots. As we
got up towards the centre of the temple, a light or two appeared, and
worshippers came in from the shadowy outside. As the candle light
increased it showed that we were under gilded Italian renaissance
arches, and in the centre, where the four arcades met, were lofty
elaborate ornate iron gates round a centre of great light.
Before the gates were curious umbrellas of pink and white silk, and
pendant chrystals and ornate vases of china and lacquer with peacocks
feathers in them; and a golden chest and huge silver bowl (full of
flower-petals) were in shadow to one side.
More and more candles and hanging glass lamps from green-coloured beams
were lit, and gradually worshippers collected and knelt before the great
gates facing the strong light with the blue evening shadows behind them.
They brought with them strange tokens in shapes like marriage cakes but
in brilliant colours, gold, emerald, pink, and vermilion; these they
placed on the pavement in front of them. There were dark-robed people,
men and women from somewhere towards China, some of them old and
tottering, and Chinese, Burmese, Shans, Kachins, Karens, and people of
Asia that I could not place, all kneeling, sitting, and bowing in the
warm glow of light that comes from the great golden Buddha behind the
gates. Amongst them were golden and red lacquered boxes and bowls and a
melee of effects and things, that suggested a curiosity shop, yet withal
a _bigness_ in the golden arches and a simplicity of worship that was
simply grand. Ghost of Rembrandt!--could you have but seen this and
depicted it in your most reverend and inspired moment! Or Rubens--he
would have caught the grandeur of effect, but would he also have caught
the meekness and the piety of the old women's and men's faces.
There was a dog and a Chinese boy beside the peacock feathers, in a blue
silk shirt and trousers edged with black; a Burmese woman sweeping; two
little brown half naked children--a boy and girl playing on the stone
pavement with the guttering wax of candles at the side of the arches;
and the kneeling youths and seniors bowing and repeating their sonorous
prayers, all within a few yards of each other, without one disturbing or
apparently distracting the other. Only I felt out of place, a long
standing Western figure from the Western world in topee and flannels
with a sketch book, scribbling: but a boy kindly held half of some
worshipper's candle to light my sketch book; priests in yellow robes
stood behind looking on, and made no remark.
[Illustration]
I fear an Occidental must look uncouth in such an Oriental setting; you
feel you ought at least not to stand up in a place like that; I mean for
aesthetic reasons--you overbalance the composition.
How great and unexpected was the change from the morning on the river in
the sun and clear air to the evening and the glow of lamps and colour
and the chanted, prayers in this centre of Buddhism, the Mecca of this
far East!
We came out and caught a tram-car home, _i.e._ to the "Java"--an
electric car made in London--Ye gods--the short circuit of ideas!
24th January.--This morning I have to try to paint the groups in the
Arrakan Pagoda, but in the bright daylight it is difficult to take one's
attention from these Phrynes, who come down to bathe beside our
steamer--Phrynes, as to figure I mean. One of the two nearest has a
little white jacket and a tight hunting green cloth skirt and black
velvet sandals; her movements are deliberate, almost languid, and she is
fairly tall, very well proportioned, and when her white jacket comes
off, the colour of her shoulders is very pretty in contrast to the jet
black hair and undergarment of blue. This garment, with its white band
tight across her bust, remains on when the green kirtle drops to her
feet. Her friend is dressed in the same way in different colours. They
walk in and swim a few strokes--if you may call it swimming--with other
women already in the water. Then they wash themselves very carefully
with soap, and when the first comes out in her blue tight garment, she
slips the green kirtle over her head and the blue dress drops off
underneath it. There is no drying--the sun does that, and they are
hardy. A yard or two on this side of them, two men tuck their waist
clothes round their hips and go in with their oxen; both the
yellowy-brown men and the oxen seem to enjoy it, and come out with the
sun in high lights on their tautened muscles.
Immediately at hand a native (Indian) woman, a Madrassee, with her brass
chatty, wades into the water all standing--dirty white canopies and
all--and futilely washes, without soap, and rubs her teeth with a
finger, spits and makes ugly noises and faces, looking now and then
critically at the Burmese women farther up the bank, as if she would
fain copy their more graceful ways and movements. Then she polishes her
brass chatty religiously with mud, and fills it with water where she has
been dabbling, and goes ashore and up the sand, a bedraggled-looking
creature, and conceited at that! Next comes a Burmese mother and her two
young daughters, their bathing dress a smile and a Christmas orchid in
the hair. The eldest is a thing of beauty, with lines to delight a
Phidias. Alas! why must we hide all beauty of form except that of
animals--hide fearfully God's image? Men, women, and children here all
seem fit and fairly well shaped; you rarely see a deformity, except at
show places such as the big temples. It would be the same with us were
we to pay more attention to form, and proportion, than to dress.
I intended to paint at the Arrakan Pagoda to-day, but a pleasant looking
man came on board with a chitsaya harp; I had to try and make a jotting
of him. G. and Captain Turndrup brought him. He sat and played tunes for
hours--epic tunes, which I'd have given anything to remember. His
boat-shaped harp of thirteen strings was tuned in minor thirds, so you
could readily pick out Celtic tunes on it. I am told Sir Arthur Sullivan
came here and listened to his music and made many notes. The harp
belonged to Prince Dabai, Thebaw's step-brother, and I confess I bought
it; but I will restore it if it is required for any National Burmese
Museum or Palace.
Whilst I painted him, the phungyi boys in yellow robes came along the
shore to collect food from the people on the river boats alongside the
sand, and from one or two stalls on the shore. They stood silently with
the big black lacquer bowls in their arms against their waists,
looking humbly down, and a stall holder placed large handfuls of the
rice she was cooking into a bowl. Then the close-cropped bare-headed lad
came to the fifty foot dug-out canoe beside us, but the food there was
only being cooked so he moved on without a word.
[Illustration: A Burmese Harpist]
Half an hour's gharry to the pagoda, an hour there sketching and trying
to remember things, and half an hour's rattle back in the dark, wound up
my day's study.
[Illustration]
The Mandalay gharry, a "dog kennel on wheels," is a frightfully
ramshackle thing; doesn't the very name suggest a rickety, rattling sort
of a machine? They are of hard wood, loosely built, with wooden seats,
iron tyres, loose wooden blinds, and springs of iron--I doubt if there
are any! and it is hauled by a tiny Burmese pony, licked by a native of
India.
... 25th.--A faint mist lifting off the shore. The sun is hardly risen,
but already the bullock carts with heavy wooden wheels are squeaking
and groaning along the sand. There is just enough mercantile life to be
comprehensible and picturesque; some four or five Irrawaddy Flotilla
steamers are fast to the bank, and between them are some sixty native
canoes with round mat houses on them. The cargoes of the steamers are
piled on the sand in bales, so you see the whole process of its being
discharged and loaded on the carts and taken away. As the sun rises the
dust does the same, and so do the voices of the people, old and young,
and the geese and the children join in, but the babel is not unpleasant,
it is not too loud; there are pleasant low notes and laughter all the
time. The general tone of the voices is not unlike that of a French
crowd in good humour.
We have received a kind invitation to go and stay with people on shore,
but we resisted the temptation for the meantime. For here on the "Java,"
we see such interesting scenes; and our up-river boat ought to be here
immediately, and to shift our belongings along the shore some thirty
yards on to her, will be much less trouble than flitting to our friends'
bungalow; so we go on drawing here.
The Phryne in hunting green is down again, languorously dropping her
green kirtle. It has an orange vermilion band round the top that clips
the green above her breast. She isn't a swell swimmer; all the women do
in that way is with their hands and they raise their heels out of the
water, and smack down their shins and toes together and just get along,
this possibly on account of the tightness of the lungye or tamien. The
men have various strokes, mostly sort of dog strokes, and get along but
slowly. I have not seen either a man or woman dive.
We have gone up the bank now a few yards to the cargo boat and installed
ourselves in it with our luggage--a very easy "flitting"--and we find
the cargo steamer just as perfectly comfortable as the mail boat we
have left--cabins, mess table, promenade on the upper deck in the bows.
There are curtains round the bows to drop if there is too much draught,
and thick handsome carpets on deck. To compare price, comfort, and
beauty of scenery with a Nile trip would be hard luck on Old Nile and
its steamers. I should say this is a third cheaper and six times more
comfortable, and many times more interesting. With regard to mosquitoes
there are more at this present moment of writing than I have had the
misfortune of meeting elsewhere, but it isn't so all the road. I still
think, however, that those mosquitoes of the Bassein Creek are
incomparable.
We (that is merely "I" this time) went to-day with a very European party
of Mandalay residents up and across the river to Mingun in a sort of
large picnic on a Government launch. We went to see the second biggest
bell in the world and a pagoda that would have been one of the biggest
buildings, if it had ever been finished! Both are great _draws_, and
neither is of any account. The view of the winding river from the top of
the ruins of the pagoda is certainly exquisite, and for ever to be
remembered. But it's a pretty stiff climb to get there, and you should
let your enemy go behind, for the loose bricks sometimes go down through
the shrubs like bolting rabbits.
The trees too are splendid, and the distant ruby mountains are very
exquisite, but as for dancing on a Government boat's deck, and tea and
small talk--such things may be had at home, and brass bands too--_mo
thruaigh_!
The big bell weighs about ninety tons; it is hung on modern girders, far
enough off the ground to let you crawl inside, and it has a poor tone.
The diameter of the lip is sixteen feet. The masonry, otherwise the base
for the proposed pagoda, contains 8,000,000 cubic feet, is 165 feet high
and 230 feet square, and is cracked through the middle and tumbling to
pieces owing, some say, to an earthquake and thunderbolts--I think from
bad building and the natural inclination of loose bricks to find their
angle of repose.
To-night we gharried to the Grahams to dinner, over the ups and downs
and deep sand and ruts of the shore, over cables and round timber heads
and teak logs till we got to the hard, a man on each side holding up the
conveyance, and two men with lanterns.
[Illustration]
There were splendid roses on the dinner-table and strawberries down from
the Shan Highlands, as fine as any I have seen. Then after dinner we saw
collections of the most recherche Burmese and Chinese art, in which Mr
Graham evidently has a very critical taste. There was exquisite silver
work and brass, gold, and amber carvings, dahs or swords in silver and
velvet sheaths with ivory handles, long shaped books of papyrus with the
heavy black print on lacquered gilded leaves, and Buddhas in gold and
marble, and a little Chinese box carved in root amber, which I
coveted--it suggested a picture by Monticelli--besides wonders of
Burmese carvings in wood and ivory: then music, and good voices, and
the piano sounding so well in the large teak drawing-room--and home
again, rattling in the gharry over the hard macadam and the soft ups and
downs and ruts along the sand, as here depicted in black and white, to
our new quarters on the shores of Mandalay where the big mosquitoes play
and sing us to sleep--"only a temporary plague," they say here, and we
hope so! G. invented a plan of slaying them. When you are under the net,
you can't bang them against the swaying muslin--this plan obviated that
difficulty, and is effective, only it needs a candle and matches inside
the net, and might, at any moment, set the ship and Mandalay in a blaze:
I mentioned this dire possibility, and G. said she would not do it if I
were not near!
[Illustration]
26th, Friday.--Still aboard the S.S. "Mandalay," turned out bright and
early--a delicious morning, dew lying on the short grass above the
shore. Went to the bazaar with my native boy--wish I had a Burmese
servant, as neither of us can speak a word of Burmese. I'd advise any
tourist to try and get a Burmese servant for guide and councillor. It is
horrid being tongue-tied amongst such kindly-looking people. There does
not seem to be much love lost between the Burmans and the natives of
India, and I think the foolish Indian natives actually fancy themselves
superior!
I have never seen, no, not in India, so much paintable "stuff" in so
small a space. The stalls were sheltered by tall umbrellas made of
sun-bleached sacks, over them the blue sky, and under them masses of
colour in light and shade, heaps of oranges, green bananas, red
chillies, and the girls and women sitting selling them, puffing blue
smoke from white cheroots big as Roman candles, or moving about from
shade to light like the brightest of flowers, no hurry, no bustle; a
chatter of happy voices, nothing raucous in sound or colour, and all the
faces good and kind to look at, except when a foxy Indian came across
the scene. There is also near this open-air bazaar an immense market
under cover. The light is not so picturesque in it, but the women are of
a better class. There's much colour at the stalls where they sell silks,
and talk to the passer-by, and brush their black hair, and powder their
faces between times. If you could talk to them it would be fun, for they
are as jolly and witty as can be. I understand Burmese girls of almost
all families keep stalls at the bazaars when they "come out," which
accounts for the Burmese women's great intelligence in business affairs.
Then to the Arrakan Pagoda, and felt inclined to stay all day listening
to the sonorous recitations of the kneeling people.
Back in a tram-car, an excellent place to sketch faces, your topee over
your eyes, and sketch book behind a newspaper--no one knows you are
drawing. The following tram-car notes are of Burmese faces, except the
face behind, with a look of cankered care on it; he is some kind of an
Indian.
After lunch to the palace--a longish drive inland from the river. Thebaw
not at home, and Supayalat out too, so we called on the Britishers,
resting on long deck chairs in the golden rooms now used as a club. What
a rude contrast Western chairs and tables and newspapers were to the
surroundings! I believe Lord Curzon has arranged that this aesthetic
immorality shall be put right, and a proper place appointed for the
Club, and Divine service.
[Illustration]
I'd like to have been here at the looting of this particular palace, you
hear such fascinating descriptions of Thebaw's barrels of
jewels--emeralds and rubies to be had by the handful. How angry the
soldier man is when you speak of it. He will explain to you, with the
deepest feeling, that military men were put on their parole not to bag
anything, and they did not; but the men in the Civils came on ponies,
and went away with carts.
The palace grounds are surrounded by four crenellated walls, each a mile
long; each wall has three seven-roofed gates in it, and each gate has a
bridge across the wide moat. The palace rooms are nearly splendid; they
are supported on many teak pillars, low at the sides of the rooms, and
up to sixty feet in the middle. These are all gilt, and show
"architectural refinements," for the teak trees they are made of are not
absolutely straight, and they have an entasis that is quite natural
where they taper away into the golden gloom of the sloping timber roofs.
The rooms are lofty, and all on one floor, because the Burmese do not
like to live in rooms with people above. There are infinite intricacies
of gilded teak carving, and some rooms glitter like herring shoals with
silvery glass mosaics and mirrors and crystals. How delightful it must
have been to see these courts, and gardens, and palaces, and
throne-rooms in their full brilliancy before our "occupation," but I
suppose one would have had to crawl on all fours or lose one's head at
the nod of Supayalat. She and Thebaw and their parents were very much
in-bred, and, though she was otherwise particularly charming, she had a
strongly-developed homicidal mania. However, the people wept when they
saw their king and queen being so unexpectedly hurried away in a gharry
to go "Doon the Water" in Denny's steamer, in November 1885. They had
far more fun, they say, before we came; a rupee went farther, and so on;
and I quite believe it--we did not grab the country to amuse them!
27th.--Painted till 2 from 8 in half-hearted way. To the Grahams, then
to the Arrakan Pagoda again, too tired and mosquito-bitten to do much
after getting there--a nostalgia of colour these last few days--but saw
the golden Buddha. The florid iron gates were open, and an immense light
shone on the seated and kneeling worshippers in front. It is the most
effective scene in the world for the amount of staging. A glare of
golden light from unseen lamps--electric, I believe--gleams all over the
calm golden figure. It is raised so that the arch in front just allows
you to see up to the top of the statue; it is over twelve feet high, and
the base is about six feet off the ground.
I must come back; on this journey I have already seen so much on the way
here--some day I will come out direct and paint this one scene, and
perhaps one or two in the Shwey Dagon Pagoda--"if I'm spaired," as they
say in the lowlands, instead of knocking under the table.
... On board to-night; Burmans and natives are making up their booths
and stalls on the flats alongside, and on the after-decks of this boat,
so there is a good deal of hammering during dinner-time. Afterwards we
sit round the table on the fore-deck and tolerate the mosquitoes, and
tell yarns, and I turn in with a picture in my mind, from a story of the
captain's, of an East African coast, and a tramp steamer on a bar, the
surf coming over her stern, and the shore lined with drunk niggers, and
green boxes of square-faced Dutch gin--at four shillings and sixpence
the dozen, box included.