_THE PEOPLE OF MANDALAY._
Mandalay is very cosmopolitan. As with many cities in the East, the
modern facilities for travel and the prospects of business have brought
together people of many nations and tongues. As regards the Burmans
themselves, who of course are the great majority of the inhabitants,
future chapters will afford opportunities for describing them. It is
rather of the multifarious foreign element of the population that I wish
now to speak.
In the streets of Mandalay it is no uncommon thing to see a people
evidently of the Mongolian type, and not unlike the Burmans in
appearance, but slightly different in features, different in language,
and in dress. These are the Shans, the inhabitants of the elevated
country to the east of Upper Burma—a fine country by all accounts, and
likely to grow greatly in prosperity and to attract population, now
that it has come under firm and settled rule. They are distinguishable
by their dark, baggy trousers in place of the Burmese loin cloth, by
the very large pliable straw sun-hats which they wear, and by a larger
amount of tattooing on the body than is usual with the Burmans. The
Shans are great gardeners and great traders. Caravans of pack bullocks
loaded with produce from the Shan Hills are frequently seen coming into
Mandalay, accompanied by Shans armed to the teeth, as well as men on foot
carrying loads; and now that the land has rest from incessant tribal
war and dacoity, this trade is on the increase. In 1888-89, according
to Government returns, the number of laden bullocks was 27,170, and the
value of the goods 730,279 rupees; nearly double the returns of the
previous year. The Shans, after disposing of their loads, purchase in the
bazaar goods of European manufacture for the return journey. A few Shans
are permanently resident in Mandalay.
There were scarcely any English people in Upper Burma, especially during
the reign of King Theebaw; but now, of course, they are the leading
race, and are to be found in all the highest posts. In addition to those
belonging to the army, the leading civilians and officials of Government
are English gentlemen; and to them is committed the control of the
revenue, the administration of justice, the police, the Departments of
Public Works and of Survey; whilst some are there in business of their
own, and others find employment under the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company as
officers or engineers on board the river steamers.
The Eurasian element—_i.e._, of mixed descent, European and Asian—is
of course also to be found, some having come over from India, others
belonging to Burma, and they mostly find employment as clerks or in some
similar capacity. French, Italians and Greeks were there before we were,
and some of these nationalities found employment in various capacities in
the service of the king.
The Armenians are a small but very respectable class. They are similar in
dress and habits to Europeans, and speak English. Many of their number
are to be found in Calcutta also, and in Rangoon, quite settled and
domiciled in the East. In Mandalay they have a church of their own, and
the priests of the Greek Church, to which they belong, pay occasional
visits.
Of Parsees we have a few; and here, as in their native place about
Bombay, they are an enlightened and very respectable people in good
positions.
There is quite a numerous section of the population belonging to the
Zarabadee community, as they are called. They are half-caste Mahomedans,
the descendants of Mahomedans from India settled in Mandalay, by Burmese
mothers. They supply an interesting example of the growth of a religious
community merely by the natural process, and apart from proselytising
efforts, when the natural increase of numbers is all absorbed by that
religious community. They are Mahomedan in religion, but largely Burman
in dress and appearance. They speak Hindustanee and Burmese.
[Illustration: “THE SHANS ARE DISTINGUISHABLE BY THEIR DARK, BAGGY
TROUSERS, AND THE VERY LARGE PLIABLE STRAW SUN-HATS THEY WEAR.”]
There is a class of people called Kathays about whom there appears to be
some special interest. They are the descendants of people from Manipur,
brought over formerly as the result of some conquest by the Burmans, and
long since settled in the capital. Their condition, at least as it was
originally, reminds one of the exile of the Jews in Babylon. They have
a language and religion of their own, but speak Burmese too. They are
a peaceable and industrious community, mostly employed in weaving the
pretty, bright-coloured, figured silk cloths worn by the Burmese women.
Another class not native, but long resident in Upper Burma, are the
Ponnâs or Brahmins from Manipur. To one accustomed to meet with that
caste in India they look very degenerate, and although they still wear
the sacred Brahmin thread over the shoulder as in India, they seem to
have become very much less fastidious about mixing with other castes than
their brethren of the great continent. They seem to enjoy a position of
considerable standing and influence in the country of their adoption, and
gain a good livelihood by the two apparently not very kindred occupations
of dairy-keeping and fortune-telling. It is their reputation for the
latter that gains them their position of importance with a light-hearted,
casual and very superstitious people like the Burmans. This soothsaying
seems to be quite a recognised function, that makes the Ponnâ welcome
throughout Burmese society, and nowhere more so than at court. In their
literature, the Ponnâ constantly figures as an honoured and indispensable
personage at the palace, whose business it is to study the stars, consult
the horoscopes, make known lucky days, and, in fact, decide the thousand
and one important affairs of life wherein the Burman considers it
necessary to appeal to the occult.
Coming now to the mercantile classes, we have some interesting specimens.
First, the Suratees, keen business men, merchants and shopkeepers, men
capable of large transactions, Mahomedans in religion, Oriental in dress.
The leading member of this community in Upper Burma, a very wealthy man,
did a good deal of financing for the king, and no doubt made it pay well.
When the downfall of the Burman kingdom took place he came to no harm.
Amongst other transactions he was the lessee of the Great Bazaar, and
as the lease had still some years to run, he continued to hold it, and
profited greatly by the enormously improved trade.
The Marwarees are another class of traders hailing from India. They are
Hindus from Gujerat, wholesale dealers in piece goods, and very smart
business men.
The Moguls are Mahomedans from Persia, with a complexion almost as fair
as a European’s. They are the only people of all the many nationalities
I have met with in the East who dress exactly like the pictures that
are drawn of Bible scenes and characters. The special shape and size of
turban, and the long loose outer garment some of them wear, put one in
mind of the pictures exactly.
A cosmopolitan place would be incomplete without some Jews. We have them
in Mandalay of various nationalities, European and Oriental, and they
seem to be all shopkeepers. One firm hail from Baghdad, very near the
dwelling-place of our first parents, and speak a vernacular which they
call Hebrew.
The principal native bankers are the Hindu Chetties from the Madras
Presidency. They are a remarkable class of people, very wealthy, very
keen at business, men of their word in all transactions, being fully
alive to the value of keeping their credit by an unstained reputation in
finances; and if one firm of their community find it difficult to make
their payments, the rest of the Chetty firms will usually come to their
help, to save the reputation of the whole. Yet with all this they dress,
eat and live as if they had a very meagre income, and have the appearance
of mere savages. The vast array of naked skin they show is almost
black in complexion, and they have almost no education beyond the bare
necessities of finance. Their food is of the simplest; their houses, all
on the two sides of one street to be near each other, are substantially
built to protect them from thieves, but almost devoid of all furniture.
They are not negligent of religion, for as soon as they came they
secured land and built a Hindu temple. Their dress, consisting of two
pieces of thin white cotton cloth, one round the waist and the other
loosely thrown over one shoulder, could be bought for three-and-sixpence;
the closely shaven head has no covering, and the feet none. Such is the
Tamil Chetty, the very last man in all Mandalay you would take for a
wealthy money-lender; but he is in great request with the improvident
Burmans who possess any property upon which it is possible to borrow. The
Chetties came over to Mandalay when the country was annexed; their keen
business instincts telling them two things—one, that there would now be
plenty of business doing; the other, that it would now be safe to come
and do it. The prospects of those who get into their clutches are not
bright. The price of money is very high in the East. The late Earl of
Beaconsfield speaks somewhere of “the sweet simplicity of the three per
cents,” but the Tamil Chetty considers twenty-five per cent. per annum
much simpler.
Leaving the mercantile and moneyed classes, and coming to the rank and
file, there are in Mandalay some thousands of natives from many different
parts of India, speaking many languages, and engaging in a great variety
of callings. Europeans often think of India as a country, but it is
really a continent, and has as great, if not a far greater, variety of
peoples and tribes than Europe presents. There is the Bengalee Baboo,
probably a clerk, the Hindustanee doorkeeper or messenger, the Tamil
overseer or coolie. Even in our Sepoy army in Mandalay one sees great
variety. There is the tall hardy Punjabee, the wild Pathan and the still
wilder Beloochee. There is the jolly stout little Goorkha, who stands in
such good repute as a fighting man; the somewhat weedy-looking Madrassee,
whose name does not rank high for valour; and there is the brave,
fierce-looking Sikh, with a national-religious scruple against cutting
his hair, who curls the two ends of his beard up round his two ears when
it becomes too long to hang down. What tact it must require to mould
out of these diverse elements “the finest body of disciplined Asiatic
troops in existence,” and yet we are told, and it is true, that the real
strength and safety of our Indian Sepoy army lies in the judicious
blending and balancing of these diverse elements, a lesson which the
great mutiny unmistakably taught us.
We depend very much upon Indians for the supplying of our wants in Burma.
The butcher, the baker, the washerman, the cook, the railway porter, the
writer, the messenger, the soldier, the cabman, the postman, the farrier,
the sweetmeat vendor, the sweeper, are in almost all instances natives of
India, for the easy-going Burman lets all these employments slip past him.
The place is quite a Babel for languages. The names of the stations on
the railway indicate the polyglot character of the population. It is of
course out of the question to attempt to represent even the half of the
tongues commonly spoken, but they select the five which we may presume
are in most common use, English, Burmese, Hindustanee, Hindi and Tamil,
and the name of the station is painted in all these.
The Chinese in Burma are worthy of special mention as forming an
important community in every great centre of population. In Mandalay
they are numerous, occupying almost entirely both sides of one long
street, called after them China Street, as well as other localities in
the town. They seem to settle down and marry Burmese women and live very
happily. They are keener business men than the Burmans, more knowing,
more enterprising, more persevering, more industrious. The Burman is as
good at carpentry as he is at anything; that is, in fact, one of his
strongest points, but John Chinaman ousts him completely at that. Leaving
the little petty carpentry to the Burmans, he carries all before him in
large building contracts. Though John’s rates are higher he does the work
better, and what is important to the English mind, he finishes the work
in the time stated. Some of the Chinese are shopkeepers. Whilst many
Chinamen are thus a boon to the country, and valued as a useful class of
workers, others again do much mischief, corrupting the people wherever
they go—keeping liquor shops, diligently spreading the opium-smoking
habit, and pandering to the natural love of the Burmans for gambling.
The offenders against the excise laws—cunning secreters and workers of
illicit stills—are usually Chinese.
With the mention of so many different nationalities of foreigners in the
place, it will at once occur to the reader that the carrying on of all
kinds of work and business depends very largely upon the foreigners and
very little upon the Burmans. That is true. Somehow the Burmans, though
they are in Mandalay considerably over 100,000 strong, and multitudes
of them are very poor, fail to take up very many of the duties of life
and the needs of society, and allow themselves to be ousted in many
employments by immigrants from other countries where the conditions of
life have taught them to bestir themselves. The Burman is easy-going,
casual and satisfied with a little. When a great increase of the
population of Burma has rendered the struggle for existence much more
urgent than it is now, the Burman will either have to bestir himself or
go to the wall.