CHAPTER XIX.A JUNGLE JOURNEY.
We had a great desire in the mission to pay a visit to the Chin tribes on the western frontier, with the view of ascertaining their locality and circumstances. Consequently, when the cool season arrived, the usual time of year for tours, I started with my brother missionary, Mr. Bestall, then stationed at Pakokku, for a journey to the Chin country. The Chins, as explained inChapter X., are not Buddhists, but worshippers of spirits or demons, and are on that account more barbarous, and, contradictory as it may seem to say so, more ready of access than the Buddhistic races, to Christian mission effort.
We left Pakokku at 4A.M.one morning in November, mounted on two lively Burmese ponies, with a cart drawn by a pair of bullocks for our things. In travelling through the jungle you need to take almost everything you require; so that when the sugar, and salt, and tea, and bread, and butter, and tins of meat (in case the gun brings down nothing), and soap, and candles, and rice, and curry, and frying-pan, and kettle, and crockery, and a few other simple necessaries, not omitting medicines, are packed up in a box, and the pillows and rugs for the night rolled up in a mat, and a change or two of clothes put in a portmanteau, and a few Gospel portions and tracts included, to distribute in the villages as we pass along, you find you require a cart to carry them. As the cart can only travel, on an average, about two miles an hour, it requires a long day to do twenty miles. There is no advantage in going ahead of the cart, you only have towait at the end of the stage, and it is more enjoyable to spend the time in leisurely travelling. In this way these jungle journeys, though the travelling is rough and often fatiguing, are very serviceable for the sake of the change of air and scene, and the free out-door exercise they afford.
We managed to make a stage of six miles before it was daylight, and pushed on the next stage of fifteen miles farther without stopping. There we halted at one of the establishments constructed at every stage along this route, to accommodate troops and convoys, on the march to the military and police stations on the frontier. It consisted of long rows of temporary bamboo barracks, and a bamboo shed for the officers. There was a Burmese police guard close by. How regularly and irreproachably that Burman constable shouldered his rifle, and did his “sentry go,”while we were looking on! Here we halted for our midday meal and a short rest. It is wonderful with what dexterity your native servant, availing himself of almost no facilities for cooking, can produce you a savoury breakfast on the march. Three stones or bricks to support the kettle, and the same for the frying-pan, are all he requires for a fireplace, and a few sticks and bits of bamboo out of the jungle are enough for a fire. In the afternoon we did another twelve miles, making thirty-three miles that day, which was rather more than the cartman would have driven his bullocks, if it had not been that the next day was Sunday, the day of rest. The weather was lovely, being the best time of the year for a journey. It was not much hotter in the day than a warm summer day in England; the nights and mornings were chilly.
At Pyinchaung we halted on the Saturday night, again putting up in the temporary military lines. The route we had taken was not a road, as we understand roads in England, but, strictly speaking, more of a track, fairly passable in dry weather for carts, but almost impracticable after heavy rains. Good metalled roads are a luxury we have not seen much of as yet in Upper Burma, but we shall get them in course of time. On the Sunday we rested, and spent some time amongst the villagers, distributing tracts and preaching. Here we had the misfortuneto lose our two ponies. Mr. Bestall, pitying them, that there was so little grass to eat in the rest-house enclosure, opened his kind heart, and the gate at the same time, and let them out to graze, giving them in charge to the cartman to look after. He followed them for awhile, and then, native-like, came back without them. We went in search of them, but never saw them again that journey. They strayed for many miles, and it was a month before they were brought back. It speaks well for the hold the English now have on the country, and the great diminution of crime, that search was made in all the district round, and they were returned by the police, as we felt sure they would be. We had to borrow for the rest of the way.
An eloquent reminder of the troublous times we had then barely passed through, was the little police fort close by the rest-house, constructed on the top of a ruined pagoda, where there was a view of the country for some distance round. During the first three or four years of British rule places like this had to be selected wherever practicable, and made strong enough to stand a rush by dacoits, and a careful watch had to be kept. The little bamboo house was perched right on the top of the steep mound of ruined brickwork, a wall breast high was erected round it, and with a few resolute men, well armed, inside, it would not have been easy to take. The rest-house at Pyinchaung, looking westward, overlooked a most lovely valley of great extent and fertility, through which we had now to pass. This valley looks as if it might have been at one time the bed of a mighty river, but the stream is now contracted to a very narrow span, and the alluvial soil of this rich valley is a veritable land of plenty. I never saw a region more lovely with “the fairer forms that cultivation glories in” than the Yaw valley then appeared. Whilst crossing this great valley we rode through fields of maize, and another tall grain, a kind of millet, far above our heads, with rice fields here and there, and abundance of pumpkins, beans and other vegetables, the ponies snatching an occasional bite at the sweet juicy stems and leaves of the millet, which they are so fond of. Carts in great numbers passed us, drawn by well-fed, plump oxen, and mostly laden with the leaves which envelopthe maize cobs, all laid straight and packed neatly in bundles. The maize crop had nearly all been reaped, and these leaves of the Yaw valley maize, not the grain itself, form the most valuable product of the crop, and are largely sold all over Burma for the purpose of enveloping Burmese cigars.
The people of this district all looked fat and well fed. There was abundance of cattle, and the inhabitants of that region seemed to want for nothing in a material point of view. Fifteen miles from Pyinchaung we reached Pauk, a small Burmese town, the headquarters of the township officer, a police officer, and a lieutenant in charge of a detachment of Madras troops. They were all very young Englishmen, two of them apparently not over twenty-five, and it might have seemed odd at first sight to see such young men in such responsible positions. But suddenly having to find a sufficient staff of officials, to rule over a country as large as France, has involved engaging the services of many young men, for they must enter upon their duties young to be properly trained for the work; and it is a notable fact that the great work of pacifying and restoring to order Upper Burma has been chiefly the work of very young men. The civil officer is a magistrate, and has to try such cases as are within his jurisdiction, to collect the revenue through his native subordinates, to keep his eye on everything in general, and to keep the Deputy Commissioner of the district informed of all that is going on, to initiate whatever is needful for the well-being of the community, and to act the part of a father to the people of his township, which is as large, though not so populous, as an English county. The police inspector is responsible for the maintenance of order, and the pursuit and arrest of criminals; and the military may at any time be called out to take the field, and try conclusions with some dacoit band that has gathered in force. As far as I could judge they all seemed very fit for the work they had to do.
Only a year or so before, this township of Pauk was in an exceedingly disturbed state, by reason of dacoit bands; and if things had not greatly improved, we could never have travelled unprotected through it as we did. It is to the credit of theseyoung men, and the troops and police under them, that things are so peaceable now. We saw at Pauk the same abundant evidences of prosperity and improvement, that are visible everywhere throughout the country, not only in the erection of a new court house and public Government office, and many private houses, but still more in the great improvements made about the town, in the improvement of the roads, and most of all in the construction of a new bazaar, which the township officer showed us through with pardonable pride, and in which a great deal of business was going on.
Having stayed in Pauk the night, we were off the next morning early, forded the river, travelled a stage, and rested for our midday meal in a monastery. This is no uncommon thing in Burma; we had occasion to do so several times on this journey. There is hardly a village without its monastery, one or more, always the best building in the place, and kept very clean; and it generally happens, as in this case, that there are some vacant buildings used as rest-houses by chance travellers. We always found the monks affable and pleasant to meet, quite chatty, with a kind of friendly familiarity entering at once into conversation, and evidently not having the slightest objection to seeing us about the premises. We, on our part, reciprocated these advances, and made things pleasant all round.
Thus we travelled on from day to day, as fast as our bullocks could make the journey, which was very slowly indeed. As we could gain nothing by going ahead of our cart, we were obliged to spend the spare time as best we could. My companion, having a gun, and being a good shot, managed to get something every day, which, in the entire absence of the butcher’s shop, was very acceptable for the larder. We had either a hare, wild pigeons, jungle fowl, partridges, or something. Game is abundant on the route, and in the jungle you have no fear of encroaching on anybody’s preserves.
I suppose there are few places in the world now, however remote, where an Englishman is not constantly meeting with some wandering specimens of his countrymen; and even in the wildest recesses of the jungles of Upper Burma, you are liable tothe discovery that the genus Englishman includes the species gentleman and the species snob. We had a curious illustration of this. Arriving one evening, long after dark, about eight o’clock, at a roadside rest-house, built by the Public Works Department for the common use of English travellers, we found a gentleman whom I will call Captain X. He was travelling in charge of a large military convoy of elephants, ponies and other baggage animals, carrying up supplies to one of the distant military stations in the Chin country. He and a junior companion were in possession of the comfortable, spacious, three-roomed bamboo rest-house, where there would have been ample accommodation for us as well, with our scanty travelling kit, in the third room, which they were not using; and they had really no more right to monopolise the whole than we had. However, they were in possession; and on our presenting ourselves at the door, Captain X. never so much as asked us to step inside, never attempted even to ascertain who we were, or to enter at all into conversation with us, but simply directed our attention to a dirty, shabby bamboo shed at the lower part of the compound, built for natives, and at that moment quite full of Burman coolies, who, he cheerfully assured us, would readily “nip out” and make room for us, if we asked them. Some people’s idea of the purpose of other people seems to be that they were meant by Providence to “nip out” and make way for them! Gathering from his manner that he did not mean us to have the use of the vacant room at the rest-house, or to show the slightest courtesy in any way, we betook ourselves to the said outbuilding. The courteous Burmans squeezed themselves into smaller space, and left us enough room to spread our rugs on the bamboo floor, and we managed to put up for the night. I am glad to say that this kind of discourtesy is very uncommon indeed abroad. In all my experience of many years in Ceylon and Burma, I have never met with such scant civility from a fellow-traveller in the jungle, but always something more in accordance with the circumstances.
A striking contrast to this was the gentlemanly conduct of Lieutenant T., whom we happened to meet in a similar way at a rest-house on the return journey. He was in possession, too, beforewe arrived, and though that rest-house only consisted of one room, which he was occupying, he most kindly pressed us to share it with him. This, however, we would not do, but decided to occupy a zayat which we found vacant close by. We entered into conversation, and shortly after, when we took leave of him for the night, we found that, finding our cart had not arrived, and that our supper would have been long delayed, he had sent his servant boy round with enough supper for both of us, and a candle by the light of which to eat it! Lieutenant T. is a brave man, and has made quite a name in connection with the rough military and civil work of the last few years, amongst the tribes of the western frontier. He has been, as we were elsewhere informed, in thirteen engagements; and he was at that time returning to his distant appointment on the hills, from an event which must have been to him, as a soldier, the proudest moment of his life, when the general decorated him, in the presence of all the troops of the station assembled on parade, with the Distinguished Service Order. It was currently reported by his brother-officers that it would have been the Victoria Cross, had he not been in command of the detachment on the special occasion, and as the writer of the despatch, he chivalrously gave the praise to another.
I could not but observe this, as another instance, showing that true bravery is usually associated with true modesty, and all other gentlemanly qualities.
We now began to make our way over a mountainous ridge, along which an earthen road had been cut out, but not gravelled, and many a rustic bridge erected over the torrents that crossed the track, by the British, about a year before, on purpose for the Chin Expedition, and for subsequent traffic. Some £35,000 we were told had been spent upon it. Some thousands of coolies were brought over from India, and the thing was done without delay. The expedition would have been almost impossible without a road. This serves to give the reader a glimpse of what it means to undertake the pacification and administration of a new country of abundant resources, but without means of communication, and with much raiding and dacoity going on. A road, or still better a railway, always means increased traffic andcommerce, better markets for produce, and better means of getting about, and is itself, therefore, a pacifier and civiliser of no mean account; and it soon tends, under British law and insistence on good behaviour, to demonstrate that honesty is the best policy. Good government should always make it pay better to lead an honest, industrious, orderly life, than to pursue a career of robbery and violence—should, in fact, make it hard to do wrong and easy to do right.
This part of our journey was through a hilly and picturesque country, consisting almost entirely of thick natural forest, with many teak and other fine timber trees, and bamboo jungle everywhere. At Thileng we were ninety-eight miles from Pakokku, and close to the Chin Hills. We had here to leave the road, and our cart could go no farther with us, as the hills are very precipitous, and there is only a jungle path. We therefore reduced our baggage to the lowest possible limits of sheer necessity, and had our few things carried the remainder of the journey by a couple of coolies.
We observed that the village of Thileng had some attempts at protection against the Chin raids. At each of the four ends of the village, where the two main roads, placed at right angles, lead out to the jungle, there are log huts erected, where a police guard can be sheltered against their arrows and spears, and the gates are shut at night. The remaining protection consists of a broad hedge of dead thorns heaped all round the village. At this and several villages in the vicinity sad tales were told us of Chin raids, in which Burmans were taken captive, and some of them detained amongst the Chins for many years. The various British expeditions sent up to the Chin tribes, with a view of reducing them to order, have released from time to time a great many of these unfortunate people, and the practice will soon come to an end, if it has not already ceased. This is one example of the ways in which English rule is a great blessing to a country like Burma, in removing such an intolerable burden as this constant dread of these murderous and disastrous raids, and the subsequent miseries of the unfortunate captives. The distance from Thileng to Pinloak, the nearest Chin village, is aboutsixteen miles, and over as rugged and difficult a path as ever I travelled. About noon we halted, and had our lunch at the bottom of a very lovely gorge, by the side of an icy-cold stream, just the picturesque kind of place that would become a favourite with tourists in England.
At about two o’clock we approached the village, and we halted, under cover of the tall grass, while our Burman guide went forward to announce our approach. Presently they called to us to come forward, and we emerged from the tall grass upon a clearing, on the steep hillside, of several acres. The forest trees and undergrowth had been felled and burnt, and crops of various kinds of grain, cultivated in a rough and ready manner, and a few vegetables, were growing. The people received us in a friendly way, and we went forward and rested in the nearest house, which was of bamboo, something like the houses of the Burmans. We found the Chins in many respects different from the Burmans—far more backward in civilisation. In colour they are about the same complexion, a light brown, but altogether dirty and unwashed. The men wear the merest rag of a garment, the women wear a kind of tunic covering the body, but the legs and thighs and feet are quite bare. The peculiar custom of tattooing the faces of the women, described inChapter X., gives them rather a hideous appearance, and when seen in such a dress, with the face tattooed in that fashion, and with a bamboo pipe stuck in their mouths, smoking, the effect is not the most lady-like imaginable. Still it is only fair to say that the women we saw, despite all these disadvantages, did not strike us as looking particularly unwomanly. Some of the faces, both of the men and women, were of rather a fine cast, notwithstanding their barbarous, unkempt appearance; but the greater part of them wore that degraded appearance which utter ignorance and the many hardships of a savage life generally produce. As I have given many particulars about the manners and customs of the Chins in a former chapter, I need not repeat it. We spent the afternoon fraternising with them in their houses, making purchases of some of their weapons and other articles, which they certainly did not make the mistake of charging too little for, andwitnessing their wonderfully accurate shooting with the bow and arrow.
“THE WOMEN AND GIRLS OF THE CHIN TRIBE WEAR A KIND OF TUNIC.”
“THE WOMEN AND GIRLS OF THE CHIN TRIBE WEAR A KIND OF TUNIC.”
“THE WOMEN AND GIRLS OF THE CHIN TRIBE WEAR A KIND OF TUNIC.”
As evening drew on our Burmese guide advised us to camp out across the river in preference to sleeping in the village. As the best native houses in Burma are apt to harbour much vermin, and as the Chins never think of such a thing as washing their bodies, it may be understood that we were not unwilling to take that advice. Moreover, it was desirable to avoid any complications that might lead to a breach of the peace, for with barbarians it is sometimes a word and a blow, and the blow first. We therefore crossed the river and prepared to camp out in the forest, under a great clump of bamboos, spreading our mats on the sand, and kindling a good fire, for it became very cold as the night advanced, and the dew dropped from the trees almost like rain. Some of the Chins came over and sat with us as we ate our supper, accepting a taste of each article, and testifying their approval, especially of the jam. As one or two of them could talk Burmese we were able to converse with them, and until late at night they stayed listening round our camp fire, as we told them about England and its greatness, and tried to explain, as well as we could make them understand, some of the leading truths of Christianity.
I must not omit to state what it was in us that astonished them most of all. After they had investigated the mystery of the gun, and had fired off a cartridge, and had examined whatever else we had about us that was curious, my companion suggested to me that, as I embodied in my own person a good example of the dentist’s art, it might be well to let them see what the English experts could do in supplementing deficiencies of that nature. I thought it was a good suggestion; so calling their special attention to what I was about to do, I quietly detached the upper set of teeth and held it forth at arm’s length, full in the gaze of the astonished barbarians, and then slipped it back again in a moment, and showed them that I was able to eat with them just as well as they could with theirs. We had expected them to be surprised at this exhibition, but their astonishment exceeded our expectation. Up to that moment my friend, as the proprietor ofthe gun, and the more affable and engaging gentleman of the two, had been the chief centre of observation and admiration, but after that he had to take the second place. They were greatly amazed. Never had they seen such a thing before. They had no idea it was possible to do it. To make a gun, or any other piece of mechanism, or any manufactured article, was very likely within the power of a highly civilised people. But to be able to detach and take out the whole upper set of teeth, gums, palate and all (apparently), and then to slip them in again, and enjoy the full and perfect use of them!—that far exceeded any notions they had previously formed of what was possible, and they evidently regarded this not as a piece of mechanism, but more in the light of an utterly inexplicable, if not magical, accomplishment.
It is not amiss for barbarous people like these, who have been accustomed to set all law and order at defiance, and raided upon Burmese territory just as they liked, to have the opportunity of seeing for themselves some marks of a superior civilisation. It may be expected to induce in them a wholesome dread of the British power, and a more orderly and peaceful mode of life.
They begged us to stay over the next day, stating that they wished to bring their people from far and near to see this strange sight, but the risk of fever, through sleeping out in the jungle, was too great to justify us in remaining longer, and next day we left Pinloak, and returned the way we came. And we live in hopes that, when the funds will allow of it, the information we gleaned on this tour may be turned to good account.