[Illustration: THE PAGODA STEPS, RANGOON. _Page 18._]
PEEPS AT MANY LANDS
BURMA
BY
R. TALBOT KELLY
R.I., R.B.A., F.R.G.S.
COMMANDER OF THE MEDJIDIEH
WITH TWELVE FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
IN COLOUR
BY THE AUTHOR
LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1908
* * * * *
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE LAND 1
II. RANGOON 5
III. THE PEOPLE 13
IV. THE IRRAWADDY 21
V. THE IRRAWADDY (_continued_) 29
VI. VILLAGE LIFE 35
VII. TOWN LIFE 41
VIII. FIELD WORK 50
IX. THE FOREST 56
X. THE FOREST (_continued_) 65
XI. TEMPLES AND RELIGION 74
* * * * *
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
IN COLOUR
BY R. TALBOT KELLY
THE PAGODA STEPS, RANGOON _frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
"A DAINTILY-CLAD BURMESE LADY" 9
A REST-HOUSE 16
A NATIVE BOAT SAILING UPSTREAM WITH THE WIND 25
THE IRRAWADDY 32
ENTRANCE TO A BURMESE VILLAGE 41
AT THE WELL 44
THE MARKET-PLACE 48
IN THE DEPTHS OF THE FOREST 57
A DAK BUNGALOW 64
THE QUEEN'S GOLDEN MONASTERY, MANDALAY 72
THE SHWE ZIGON PAGODA, PAGAN 80
SHRINE ON THE PLATFORM OF THE SHWE DAGON PAGODA _on the
cover_
_Sketch Map of Burma on p. viii._
* * * * *
[Illustration: A SKETCH MAP OF BURMA.]
BURMA
CHAPTER I
THE LAND
How many boys or girls, I wonder, ever turn to their school atlas for
amusement, or try to picture to themselves what manner of countries
those might be whose strange and unfamiliar place-names so often make
their geography lesson a difficulty?
Yet there are few subjects, I think, which might be made more
interesting than geography, and a map may often serve to suggest
delightful fancies to a boy or girl of imagination.
Open your atlas at random and see what it has to tell you. Here,
perhaps in the heart of a great continent, stretches a mountain range,
and from it in many directions wind those serpent-like lines which
denote rivers.
Following these lines in their course, through narrow valleys or wide
plains, we notice that upon their banks presently appear those towns
and cities whose names you so often find it difficult to remember, and
at length, frequently by many mouths that cut up the delta it has
formed, the river eventually finds its way into the sea.
These are the simple facts our map gives us, but there is a great deal
of poetry behind. That mountain range is Nature's means of attracting
and holding the moisture-laden clouds which have been blown in from
the sea, and either in the form of rain or snow it stores up the water
evaporated from it.
By thousands of little rills, or rushing torrents which score furrows
in its sides, the mountain gives up its store of water to feed the
thirsty plains, and with it yields also valuable ores and minerals,
which are often carried many many miles away to enrich a people too
far removed from the mountain to know the origin of their wealth.
These little streamlets are not marked upon your map, but presently
they join to form one combined river, by which, through the many
hundreds of miles of its windings, the mountain eventually returns its
gathered waters to the sea, from whence they came.
How interesting to follow the course of such a river, and try to
picture to oneself all it may have to show! What kind of mountain is
it from among whose rugged snow peaks first sprang those plunging
cascades, which, leaping and tossing over their rocky beds, join each
other at its base to form the river itself? Through what wild forests,
filled with curious vegetation, may it not flow, and how strange,
perhaps, are the people who, together with wild beasts and unknown
birds, inhabit its reedy margins!
As the river grows in size, the grass huts and dug-out canoes of its
upper waters give place to towns which bear names, while large and
strangely-shaped boats carry the produce of the country to some great
seaport at its mouth, where ships of all nations are waiting to
transport it over thousands of miles of ocean to supply us with those
many commodities which we have come to regard as daily necessities! If
boys and girls would think of such things geography, I am sure, would
never be a _dull_ study.
Now, to turn from an imaginary case to a real one, I want to tell you
something about Burma, a country which, though one of the most
interesting and beautiful in the world, is comparatively little known
to the majority of people.
This may seem surprising when it is remembered that Burma now forms
part of our Indian Empire, and has for many years carried on a large
trade with England. We may perhaps better understand this if we turn
to our atlas and see how the country is situated. As you will see,
Burma lies on the eastern side of the Bay of Bengal, just north of the
Malay Peninsula, joining Siam and China on the one side and the Indian
provinces of Assam and Manipur on the other, while from an unknown
source in the heart of Thibet its great river, the Irrawaddy, flows
throughout the entire length of the country, and through Rangoon, the
seaport at its mouth, forming the great highway for commerce and
communication between the world at large and its little-known
interior.
Looking at the map again, you will see that on each side of the
Irrawaddy, running north and south, are mountain ranges called
"yomas" (or back-bones, as the word means), which divide the country,
while other large rivers, such as the Sittang and Salween, flowing in
deep, precipitous valleys, render any communication with Siam
difficult. On the north-west similar ranges of hills form a barrier
between Burma and the frontier provinces of India, and when I tell you
that all these mountains are densely covered with forest and jungle,
and that the rivers are wide, and in many cases unnavigable, you will
understand how it is that Burma is not better known, and that so few
people undertake the arduous work of exploring its interior. Only by
way of one little corner in the north-east, where Burma joins the
Chinese province of Yunnan, is access from the land side easy, and
here caravans of Yunnanese constantly enter the country to trade at
Bhamo and Hsipaw.
Otherwise, separated by its mountain chains and forests from the rest
of the world, Burma has for centuries remained untouched and
unspoiled, and it is only since the deposition of King Thebaw, in
1885, and the assumption of its government by England that the gradual
extension of the railway system is slowly bringing the interior into
easier communication with the outside world, and beginning to effect a
change in the character of the people.