CHAPTER II.THE JOURNEY TO MANDALAY.
It was in the month of January 1887 that I left Calcutta, in company with my old friend and former colleague, the Rev. J. Brown, of Calcutta, for Burma. We were on a prospecting expedition with a view to the establishment of a Mission in Upper Burma. On reaching Rangoon we were cordially received by the members of the American Baptist Mission, and spent a few days there. Rangoon is one of the most remarkable cities in the East for rapid growth and commercial prosperity. It was only after the second Burmese war in 1852-53 that it became British territory. Since then it has grown to be a city of 180,324 inhabitants. This population is by no means all Burman, but is largely English and Eurasian, Indian and Chinese. Its railways, steam tramways, public buildings, sawmills, ricemills, the shipping at anchor in the river, its banks, warehouses, public buildings and shops, at once proclaim it the busy capital of Burma, and in all probability a place destined to see a still greater and more prosperous future as the resources of the country develop.
After a day or two spent in Rangoon and a visit to Toungoo, we proceeded by rail to Prome, which is some 150 miles from Rangoon, and there we embarked on the Irrawaddy by one of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company’s splendid river steamers for Mandalay. It was then a time of great demand for transport, on account of the military operations for the pacification of Upper Burma, so that there were, in addition to a large number of Burman and Indian passengers, many military men coming andgoing. On that occasion we had over a thousand passengers on board. Not long after leaving Prome we passed what was formerly the British frontier station and port of Thayetmyo. Henceforth the contrast between the trim neatness of the towns under British rule and those of the Upper country was sufficiently apparent; and for many a long day after, the frequent sound of the bugle, and after dark the challenge of the sentries, together with the very warlike state of the news, and the constant sight of soldiers and police, always fully armed, and of gangs of dacoits being brought in manacled, kept us in mind of the fact that we had come to a land where the security of life and property we were accustomed to was only in course of being established.
Towards sunset we reached Minhla, on the right bank of the Irrawaddy; and as we made fast for the night right opposite, we had time before it was dark to step ashore and climb the precipitous bank and look over the redoubt, the taking of which was the only action worth mentioning in the expedition. It is a square-built stone fort, and was well manned with Burmese troops. The British force went round by the jungle, and got to the back of the fort, where there was a way leading up to the ramparts; and having fought their way up to the summit, the Burmans inside were at their mercy, as the machine guns in the armed steamers on the river covered the exit by the front. Thus the place was taken.
Next morning saw us steaming away again up the river. The scenery varies much. Now the banks of the river are flat, showing the country for miles, and again high banks and rolling hills diversify the scene. Further up, near Bhamo, in the defiles, the mighty river has forced its way between high mountains which rise suddenly from the water’s edge, and the scenery there is majestic. Numbers of villages and small towns are seen on the banks of the river, for here, as elsewhere, the fresh water of the river means life to man and beast, and verdure and freshness to the crops irrigated from it.
Almost every hill and knoll for much of the way has one or more of the dazzling white, bell-shaped, brickwork pagodas so common all over this Buddhist land, in most cases surmountedwith the “htee” or “umbrella,” a large iron framework of that shape, richly covered with gold leaf; and at various points the pagoda is hung with numbers of bells, that tinkle musically with every breeze. The number of pagodas is truly astonishing, and the amount they must have cost is one of the marvels of this strange and interesting country.
Pagodas are seen everywhere and in large numbers. Not only is there hardly a village without them, but they are to be seen on lonely hillsides and hilltops in abundance, and sometimes in almost inaccessible places, on some crag or ledge of rock overlooking the plain. The reason for this vast multiplication of pagodas is not far to seek. Of all works of merit none is so effectual as the building of a pagoda.
A VILLAGE ON THE IRRAWADDY.
A VILLAGE ON THE IRRAWADDY.
A VILLAGE ON THE IRRAWADDY.
The following day, in the early morning twilight, we passed Pagân, a most remarkable place on the left bank of the river. It is one of the many former capitals of Burma, being the Royal City in the thirteenth century, but is now practically deserted, except for a few hundreds of pagoda slaves—an outcast class,condemned under Burmese rule to lifelong and hereditary service about the religious buildings.
“It is practically,” says a recent writer, “a city of the dead; but as a religious city, it is certainly the most remarkable and interesting in the world, not excepting Mecca, Kieff or Benares. For eight miles along the river bank, and extending to a distance of two miles inland, the whole surface is thickly studded with pagodas of all sizes and shapes, and the very ground is so thickly covered with crumbling remnants of vanished shrines, that according to the popular saying, you cannot move foot or hand without touching a sacred thing. A Burmese proverb says there are 9,999. This may or may not be true; but in any case it is certain that an area of sixteen square miles is practically covered with holy buildings. They are of every form of architecture and in every stage of decay, from the newly built fane glittering in white and gold, with freshly bejewelled umbrella on its spire, to the mere tumulus of crumbling brick, hardly to be distinguished now from a simple mound of earth.”
They are also of very various sizes, some of them being fine and imposing buildings, and others very small. What a weird sight it was, in the dim twilight of the early morning, to see from the upper deck of the steamer, passing before us like a panorama for eight miles, the towering growths of many centuries of vain offerings, of useless and unavailing endeavours. All was dark and gloomy; mist and the dim twilight covered everything. It was the abode of the dead. Those pagodas were the memorials of a dead faith, and all the self-sacrifice that produced them was but elaborate self-seeking. The buildings seen in the distance put me in mind of a cathedral city, but it was a chilling thought that amid all that grim and solitary vastness there were neither worshippers nor worship—nothing, in fact, but a dreary waste of pagodas, most of them in various stages of decay. A subsequent visit to Pagân, and the more leisurely survey of this marvellous place, made one feel still more the sadness of the spectacle of this untold expenditure of property and labour, and the result neither honour to God nor benefit to man. Such is human “merit,” and such are all attempts to accumulate a store of it.
ENTRANCE TO A BURMESE PAGODA.
ENTRANCE TO A BURMESE PAGODA.
ENTRANCE TO A BURMESE PAGODA.
It is a curious feature about pagodas that though so many are seen going to decay they still continue to build. The explanation of this is that the work of special merit is to build a pagoda, and no special merit attaches to the work of restoration or repair, except in the cases of the few pagodas of great renown, which are greatly resorted to by worshippers and pilgrims.
On the morning of the fourth day from Prome we reached Mandalay. Here we met the Rev. J. H. Bateson, who had arrived three weeks before, having come out from England in the capacity of Wesleyan chaplain to the Upper Burma Field Force.
The first thing to attend to after we had looked round a little was to find a place to lodge. This matter was soon settled by our Army chaplain taking us to the quarters which had been assigned to him by the military authorities. This lodging was novel, for it consisted of one of the buildings belonging to a large Buddhist monastery, substantially built of teak, and with the usual highly quaint, ornamental and fantastic-looking roof, richly decorated with most elaborate carving all over, and tapering at one end into the form of a spire. There were many other buildings of a similar kind around us, some of them really grand and imposing. Within a very short distance of us, in buildings of a similar kind, which are quite different from the ordinary Burmese houses, the whole of the 2nd Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment, several hundreds strong, were lodged. It was said by the chief Buddhist authorities about the time of the annexation that there were close upon six thousand monks in Mandalay, but there are monastery buildings to accommodate many times that number. In addition to all the monks, the entire British force of English troops, Native Indian Sepoy troops, and military police in Mandalay, altogether several thousands strong, were lodged in monastery buildings, and still there was plenty of room to spare.
Mandalay has been well styled the Vatican of Buddhism. So numerous are the religious buildings they seem almost endless, and it is evident that no small portion of the resources of the country must have gone in these works of merit. Within a day or two of our arrival, when we began to look about, we foundthat we were in close proximity to many remarkably fine religious buildings, and many startling contrasts were brought into view by the exigencies of the times. Close by the quarters of the Hampshire Regiment was a pagoda of fantastic shape. Being a brick building, and not liable to catch fire, it had been put in use as the armourer’s shop, and there the regimental blacksmith was at work with his anvil and tools, his portable fireplace and bellows, and close beside him, as he worked, was the beautiful marble image of Buddha for which the pagoda was erected.
The regimental canteen, from whence proceeded of an evening the loud laughter of the soldiers in their cups, and the singing of many a long-drawn-out song in the true English vernacular, was originally a building consecrated to Buddhist meditation, asceticism and prayer. The regimental guard-room—and in those days they had to keep good watch and ward, for the country was in a state of great disturbance—was a Burmese zayat or resting-place, built by the piety of some one for the benefit of frequenters of these holy places, who little imagined that his zayat would ever be used as a place of detention for drunken and refractory British soldiers.
But the great sight of the place is the “Incomparable Pagoda,” as the Burmans proudly style it, situated close by the guard-room, and directly facing the beautiful monastery building then used as the officers’ mess. This remarkable structure is a huge pile of building raised upon vast masonry pillars. It measures fully 300 feet in length, is proportionately broad, and rises in the form of a pyramid to such a height as to be visible several miles off. Its sumptuously carved and gilded teak-wood doors, forty-four in number, are quite a sight to see in themselves, as is also the magnificent decorative plaster work all around and over the building, and rising to its very summit. At that time, in the absence of churches and chapels, for want of a better place with sufficient space for hundreds to assemble together, the Hampshire Regiment used to have “church parade” in the vast expanse amongst the pillars at the basement of the Incomparable Pagoda. It was a cool, airy, comfortable place, and open on all sides to the breeze, so that it answered very well in such a hot climate.
There also many other meetings were held in those days of “Field Service,” when we had all to be satisfied with such accommodation as we could get. It was there our prayer-meetings and class-meetings were held for the soldiers, and there, amidst that wilderness of pillars, under that vast heathen shrine, we had the joy of directing anxious penitents to the Saviour, and there, too, we held, in company with Major Yates of the Royal Artillery, the first temperance meeting ever held in Mandalay.
Leaving this Bethel of ours at the basement of the Incomparable Pagoda, and ascending by one of the fine broad flights of steps, the visitor comes to the wooden platform of the pagoda, and on being ushered in by the polite old abbot or presiding monk, he sees a very fine, spacious building, very lofty, with many images of Buddha, sheltered under great white canopies, besides some curiosities of European manufacture, such as mirrors of vast size, and gigantic coloured glass chandeliers, that must have been imported at immense cost.
Butthesight of the place is the hall which contains the marvellous wood carvings in relief, all of Burmese workmanship, representing most clearly all manner of sacred histories and incidents, the whole of this elaborate and ingenious work being overlaid with gold leaf. Truly Mandalay is a wonderful place for religious buildings.
Close beside the Incomparable Pagoda are to be seen the Ku-tho-daw or Royal Merit pagodas, forming a unique and truly wonderful piece of work. They consist of a triple square of sets of little white pagodas, each of which is amply large enough to form a shrine for one large slab of Burmese marble, which stands up in the middle, like a cemetery headstone, enshrined each in its own neat, bell-shaped pagoda building. Each slab of marble is covered completely with a most accurately executed inscription in the Pali language, in letters about three-eighths of an inch in length. I have never counted these pagodas, but I am told by those who have that there are 730 of them in all. They are arranged in perfect symmetry, forming three squares one within another, each square being surrounded by a wall with handsomely carved gates. In the centre of the innermost square is a largepagoda, and ascending the steps of that the spectator can obtain a good view of the whole, extending over many acres of ground. The whole space between the rows of pagodas is carefully paved with bricks. Every part of the work has been most thoroughly carried out, utterly regardless of expense, and everything is of the best. There is no crowding, but ample space is given everywhere. Is there to be found anywhere or in any religion a more striking, impressive and unique example of thoughtful devotion and loving care of those writings supposed to contain the sacred truth? These 730 pagodas contain 730 tables of stone covered with inscriptions, and it is considered to be the best edition extant of the text of the three Pitakahs, and the three Pitakahs are the scriptures of Buddhism, acknowledged as authoritative wherever Buddhism is the people’s faith.
Close by the Ku-tho-daw we found another marvel. In a tall brick building is an immense marble sitting figure of Buddha, 25 feet high, scores of tons in weight, and thought to be perhaps the largest monolith in the world.
But it is time we returned to the three men who, after a long, hot and tiring day in the dusty streets of Mandalay, had taken refuge in the little monastery, and were preparing to pass the night. Though little was said about it, we were well aware that we ran some risks in being there at that time. Upper Burma was still in the throes of the revolution which had taken place, and life and property were unsafe. Any day a rising might take place. We were practically in an enemy’s country. The military were then, and for more than a year after, on the footing of a Field Force, and had constantly to patrol the country in small columns, and to go in all directions in pursuit of dacoits. Conflicts with dacoits were of daily occurrence, and bulletins were published daily by the military authorities describing what took place.
With all this military and police activity there were still bands of dacoits of considerable numbers; crimes of violence and dacoit raids were constantly taking place, often with circumstances of revolting cruelty and outrage. The state of the country was such that English ladies and children were in official circles forbiddento come to live in Upper Burma, and in unofficial circles dissuaded from it as much as possible; the authorities could not undertake to protect them. No Englishman was allowed then, and for two years after that time, to travel outside the towns without military escort. Those were days when everybody who possessed a revolver kept it handy in case he should need to defend himself, and Government was glad to supply to every Englishman in the country a rifle and ammunition to be ready in case of need.
Under these circumstances, with so much that was new and strange, it is not much to wonder at if we committed ourselves that night to Divine protection with more than usual fervency of petition. Our monastery was not built to meet such an emergency, and had no proper fastenings to the doors. Our carnal weapons consisted of one revolver and several stout bamboos, which having disposed to the best advantage, we lay down on our camp beds, and rested as well as the circumstances permitted.
Happily this state of things has now passed away, and Upper Burma is as quiet as any other part of our Eastern possessions. During the few days Mr. Brown remained with us in Mandalay we came to the conclusion that this city, from its size and population (about ten times as large as any other town in Upper Burma), and from its general importance, was by far the best place to fix upon for the headquarters of the mission. Having settled this point, we reported to the committee in London accordingly, and Mr. Brown returned to Calcutta. After spending a fortnight in our monastery we found that, as it was on the extreme east of the town and a couple of miles from the centre, it was a very inconvenient place to live in. We therefore moved to a more central position, and rented for the time being a house belonging to an elderly Italian, who had been settled in Mandalay for many years as a weaver of velvet in the service of the king. Here we lived for a period of a year, by which time the new mission house was built, and we removed to our permanent quarters.