FIRST DAY IN BURMAH.--THE GOLDEN PAGODA.
The first land they saw in approaching Burmah was, as Fred expressed it,
a light-house without any land visible for it to stand on. The
light-house is on a dangerous reef of rocks more than a mile long, and
quite covered at high-tide, and many a ship came to grief there before
the beacon was erected. As there is no sign of land at the point where
the light-house is first seen, the sight is a curious one. Fred and
Frank were much interested in the spectacle, and when they first saw the
tall structure of stone, 150 feet in height, they could hardly believe
the evidence of their eyes.
[Illustration: CREEK LEADING FROM THE RANGOON RIVER.]
A boat headed for them, and before passing the light-house they had
taken on board the pilot who was to show them the way to Rangoon. The
city stands on one of the mouths of the Irrawaddy, twenty-six miles from
the sea, and the boys were forcibly reminded of their visit to Saigon by
the general similarity of the scenery at the mouths of the Meikong and
the river they were now ascending. The branch on which Rangoon stands is
known as the Rangoon River; it is nearly two miles wide at its mouth,
but gradually narrows until it is only about a third of a mile across at
the city itself. The banks are low and flat, and the scenery is
monotonous; there are many little creeks and canals branching off from
the river, and forming quite a net-work of waters navigable for small
boats. Rice-fields and uncultivated swamps stretch away for long
distances, and it was hardly necessary for the captain of the steamer to
say that the region was an unhealthy one for foreigners.
The steamer anchored among a considerable number of foreign ships, and
as a good many of the latter were receiving cargoes from lighters that
lay along-side, the scene was a busy one. Boats, rowed by Chinese,
Burmese, Klings, and other Oriental laborers, were speedily at the side
of the new arrival, and a lively bargaining began for transportation to
the shore. A Chinese boatman offered better terms than any one else, and
in a short time our friends were deposited with their baggage in a
little hotel facing the river, and in that part of Rangoon known as
"The Strand." This is a wide street that has been well paved by the
authorities, and it contains the principal foreign residences and
business houses, together with the Government offices and other public
buildings. The tropical foliage is so dense in many places that
comparatively few of the houses can be seen at once, and it is difficult
for a stranger to realize that he is in front of a city of a hundred
thousand inhabitants when his ship drops anchor in Rangoon River.
Rangoon is only a century and a quarter old, having been founded in 1755
by the Burman king, who conquered the province of Pegu, and determined
to have a city near the sea; it extends about three miles along the
river and a mile back from it, and its streets are generally at right
angles, and well paved. There is a great difference between the foreign
and native quarters, as in all the open seaports of the East: the
former contains well-built houses of planks, with tiled roofs, while
the latter consists of bamboo huts that cost only a few dollars to
build, and are liable to be blown down in a high wind. Most of the
European houses are on piles, to protect them from the occasional floods
of the river, and to prevent the intrusion of snakes, who often drop in
upon them.
The boys were eager to see the greatest of all the sights of Rangoon as
soon as possible, and they could hardly wait for the Doctor to complete
the negotiations for their stay at the hotel. They found it very
interesting, if we may judge from Frank's letter, which he wrote that
evening, describing what they had seen during the day.
After narrating their impressions of the voyage up the river, and the
sights on the way, the youth wrote as follows:
[Illustration: GREAT SHOAY DAGON, OR GOLDEN PAGODA.]
"We went as soon as we could to see the _Shoay Dagon_, or golden pagoda,
and it is the largest thing of the kind we have yet seen; I enclose you
a picture of the pagoda, as it would not be possible to give a full idea
of it with words alone. In the first place, it is on a small hill, which
makes it all the more imposing, and enables you to see it from a long
distance, and it rises way above all the houses and other buildings in
Rangoon. As you come up to the entrance you find some horrid-looking
griffins, with impossible features and a very angry look; but as they
are of brick and stone, they are not at all dangerous. They are put
there to keep out all evil spirits, but they could not prevent the
occupation of the temple by the British soldiers when they captured the
city in 1852. A gentleman who was here then says it was not a very
solemn spectacle to see the soldiers smoking among the shrines, and
cooking their dinners on the altars, while the necks of the idols were
hung with cartridge-boxes, and their heads covered with military caps.
The Burmese were very angry at the desecration, but as soon as the war
was over the temple was restored to the care of the priests, and has
remained in their hands ever since.
"If the griffins let you pass without trouble, you next come to some
long passage-ways with high walls; these walls are decorated with
Burmese paintings that represent the tortures of all wicked people,
according to the Burmese notions, and it does not need a long study to
convince you that the artists must have had very lively imaginations.
There is a great deal of yellow and gold in these paintings, and in the
other ornamentation of the walls; and certainly the gilding must have
cost a large amount of money.
"Then you go on till you come to a staircase very much out of repair;
when you climb the staircase you come to a stone platform 1000 feet
square, and in the middle of this platform, or terrace, the shoay dagon
stands. It is an octagonal pagoda 300 feet high and 500 in diameter, and
is the shape of a bell, as you will see by looking at the picture. It is
built of brick and stone, and covered with gold-leaf: the gold that was
used for the gilding is said to have equalled the weight of the king who
ruled at the time of its completion; but we are not told how much that
was. It has worn off in spots by the heavy rains that fall in Burmah,
but enough is left to give it a rich appearance, and justify the name it
bears.
"Around the base of the pagoda are some smaller pyramids of the general
shape of the great one, and there are broad steps of stone with more
griffins to watch over them. When you get inside the pagoda you find
temples and statues in irregular order, as though they had been put
there without any general plan; some of the sitting statues are ten or
twelve feet high, and we saw some standing ones that must have measured
eighteen feet at least. They represent Buddha, or Gaudama, and the
largest are of brick and mortar, while the smaller ones are of metal.
All are gilded, and some very thickly, and a good many had their
garments made of bits of glass that were arranged to give a very
pleasant effect. The general appearance of the temples and statues
reminded us of those of Siam that we have already told you about, and
the object is the same--the veneration of Buddha. It is proper to remark
that the pagodas of Burmah are not actually temples, but simply the
places where sacred relics are kept, and so the only sanctity the
edifice possesses comes from the articles deposited there. The relics in
this pagoda consist of eight hairs from the head of Gaudama, or the last
Buddha, and a few other things of less importance. We were not permitted
to see these relics, but only the shrines containing them.
[Illustration: STATUE OF BUDDHA IN THE GOLDEN PAGODA.]
"I send you also a picture of the statue of Gaudama, so that you may see
how a Burmese idol looks. It is not a fine work of art, as the fingers
are out of proportion to the arms, and the arms to the body, while the
nose and mouth are on a more liberal scale than the most of us would
like to have. All these statues have a very happy and contented
expression, and some of them actually seem to smile when you look at
them.
"From the golden pagoda we went to a pavilion near by, where hangs the
Great Bell of Rangoon. All three of us went inside, and there was room
for half a dozen more; the Doctor stretched his arms to their full
length, and could just touch the edges of the bell with the tips of his
fingers. The bell has no tongue or clapper, but is rung by means of a
beam swung against the outside. The bells of Burmah are generally
tongueless, but the Doctor says that is not the case with the belles.
"This great bell is said to be worth a hundred thousand dollars, as it
contains a large amount of gold. Before it was cast the people of all
classes crowded around to throw their offerings into the furnace where
the metal was melted; women gave the golden ornaments from their ears,
and the anklets and armlets that are so highly cherished throughout the
East; men threw into the molten mass their golden scabbards, often
glistening with jewels, and their costly betel-boxes; and even children
came with their toys of copper or baser metals, where they were too poor
to give gold or silver. The bell has a delicious tone, and in this
respect is said to be the finest of all the great bells of the world.
"When the English captured Burmah, in 1824, they tried to carry the
great bell away to England. While they were loading it into the ship the
tackle broke, and the bell fell into the river, where it lay till after
the country was restored to the Burmese. The latter fished it out and
put it back in its place, and since then it has not been disturbed. The
natives believed that so long as the bell remained here, and gave forth
its sounds, the country could not be conquered; but their theories have
been somewhat confused, as the English have had possession of this part
of Burmah since 1852.
"The golden pagoda and its enclosure were full of natives coming to
their worship, or going from it, while not a few seemed to be there for
the sole purpose of idling away the time.
[Illustration: A BURMESE WOMAN.]
"The Burmese have some resemblance to the Siamese in features and
stature, but their physiognomy is not the same to a close observer, and
there is a considerable difference in the dress of the two people. The
children wear little clothing, or none at all, and when thus costumed
they look very much like young Siamese in similar garb. Both men and
women wear a short jacket of white material, and coming down about to
the hips; the men wear a _putso_, which is a piece of silk or cotton
cloth about a yard wide, wrapped around the waist, and descending to the
knees, while the women have a similar garment that comes nearly to the
ground. In each case this article is more or less gay in color, and the
more red or yellow they can get into it the better are they suited. Both
sexes wear the hair long; the women comb it straight back over the
forehead, while the men make a bunch of it on the top of the head, and
frequently cover it with a gaudy handkerchief.
"Both sexes wear ornaments in the ears, and large ones too. The ear is
pierced so that it looks as though a large piece had been taken out of
it: we are told that they puncture the ear when a child is very young,
and gradually enlarge the opening by inserting pieces of bamboo. The ear
is not considered properly pierced until the hole through it is at least
half an inch in diameter; then it is useful as well as ornamental, as it
will hold a cigar or any article of similar size, and a Burmese clerk
finds it a convenient place for carrying a pencil. Doctor Bronson says
that when you send a messenger to carry a letter, he rolls it up and
puts it in his ear; he might put it in his pocket, but then he is far
less likely to have a pocket about him than to have his ear pierced. The
women use their ears as bouquet-holders, and it is not unusual to see
one of them walking along the streets with a bunch of flowers in her
ears that would sell for at least ten cents on Broadway in a summer
afternoon.
[Illustration: A BURMESE JUDGE AND HIS ATTENDANTS.]
"The natives have their own courts and ways of justice, subject to the
control of the English; but the latter do not interfere with them so
long as their sentences are not accompanied with cruelty. The British
rule has been so humane, in comparison with the tyrannical methods of
the kings of Burmah, that the people are quite content with the
invaders, and have no desire to return to the old system. It is the
custom of the Burmese to submit their disputes to an elder, whose
decision is rarely opposed. We had a chance to look into a native court
on our way back from the pagoda; the elder was sitting cross-legged on a
stool, and his attendants were seated or squatted near him--two on each
side. One of them was holding an umbrella--the symbol of dignity and
power--and on the floor in front of the judge there were two large fans
of palm-leaf. At certain parts of the ceremonials of a court these fans
are taken up and waved, and, no matter how small the case may be, the
judge displays an immense amount of dignity in giving his decision.
"It is said that the Burmese judges are very corrupt, and the man who
pays the highest price can have the kind of justice he wants. This is
particularly the case in those parts of Burmah where the English are not
in power, and the whole government is a system of bribery and
corruption. The officers are rarely paid, and even if they are they get
very small salaries; a gentleman who has lived here some years, says
that a native official in Burmah cannot make an honest living unless he
steals it."
While Frank was busy with his description of the golden pagoda, and the
sights connected with it, Fred devoted his attention to a short account
of the British in Burmah, and how they came there. Here it is:
"The British possessions in Burmah comprise about 100,000 square miles
of territory, with 5,000,000 inhabitants; they include the former States
of Tenasserim, Aracan, and Pegu, and these States are now the three
provinces that constitute the Government of British Burmah. The first
two have been occupied since 1824; Pegu was captured at that time, but
afterward restored, and it remained in Burmese possession till the
second war, in 1852. An American doctor, who was temporarily serving on
an English gun-boat during the second war, says that the Burmese were
very brave in many instances, but of course they were no match for the
artillery and other warlike apparatus of the English.
[Illustration: BURMESE RIVER SCENE.]
"But it seems that not all the bravery was genuine, for when this doctor
went through the fortifications of Rangoon, after its capture, he found
that the Burmese general who commanded the place had chained his gunners
to the cannon, so that they could not run away. And furthermore, when
the battle was going on, the wives and children of the officers and
soldiers were penned up in the trenches, and ordered to lose their heads
if the defence was not successful.
"Many of the cannon used in the defence of Rangoon were made of teak
logs, hooped with iron; some did good service, but many of them burst
after a few rounds, in consequence of being overloaded. The Burmese were
at least two hundred years behind the times in making and using
artillery; and they were not much better off with their war-boats, which
were very narrow in proportion to their length, and made from the
largest teak logs, hollowed out like the canoes of the Indians. They
were rowed or paddled, and there were from fifty to one hundred rowers
in each boat; the men kept time by singing a monotonous song, which had
the word 'hah!' at the end of each line, and every time the 'hah!' was
uttered the paddle was dipped into the water. The boats were propelled
very swiftly by their crews, but the thin sides offered no resistance to
the cannon of the English ships, and a single well-directed shot was
enough to knock one of them to pieces.
"So much about the war, which did not last long when it was fairly
begun. After peace was arranged, the English went to work to develop the
country as much as possible, and to show the natives they had come there
to stay. They made roads, introduced steamboats on the rivers, and a few
years ago they began the construction of a railway which is intended to
run to the frontier, and some time go on to the capital of the kingdom
of Ava, which is the part of Burmah that remains under its native ruler.
"The country has been very prosperous since the English took possession
of it; the population has doubled in consequence of immigration--some of
it from China, and some from native Burmah; and the natives seem to
understand very well the advantages of living under a government that
does not oppress them. The principal product of the country is rice, and
it is exported to England and other countries; Rangoon rice is not
unknown in America, and sometimes there have been half a dozen ships
loading at one time in this port for the United States. About 2,000,000
acres of land are devoted to the cultivation of rice, and a few hundred
acres to indigo, tea, and mulberries. There are very few manufactures;
with the exception of a small quantity of silks that are woven at Prome,
and some lacquered ware, the country does not make much that the rest of
the world cares for.
"Perhaps this information will be found a little dry to some of the boys
at home, but if it is they can skip it. There's a good deal more I could
say, but the hour is late and we must rest ourselves for to-morrow."
[Illustration: NATIVE FORT CAPTURED BY BRITISH TROOPS.]