There were splendid roses on the dinner-table and strawberries down from the Shan Highlands, as fine as any I have seen. Then after dinner we saw collections of the most recherché Burmese and Chinese art, in which Mr Graham evidently has a very critical taste. There was exquisite silver work and brass, gold, and amber carvings, dahs or swords in silver and velvet sheaths with ivory handles, long shaped books of papyrus with the heavy black print on lacquered gilded leaves, and Buddhas in gold and marble, and a little Chinese box carved in root amber, which I coveted—it suggested a picture by Monticelli—besides wonders of Burmese carvings in woodand ivory: then music, and good voices, and the piano sounding so well in the large teak drawing-room—and home again, rattling in the gharry over the hard macadam and the soft ups and downs and ruts along the sand, as here depicted in black and white, to our new quarters on the shores of Mandalay where the big mosquitoes play and sing us to sleep—"only a temporary plague," they say here, and we hope so! G. invented a plan of slaying them. When you are under the net, you can't bang them against the swaying muslin—this plan obviated that difficulty, and is effective, only it needs a candle and matches inside the net, and might, at any moment, set the ship and Mandalay in a blaze: I mentioned this dire possibility, and G. said she would not do it if I were not near!
26th, Friday.—Still aboard the S.S. "Mandalay," turned out bright and early—a delicious morning, dew lying on the short grass above the shore. Went to the bazaar with my native boy—wish I had a Burmese servant, as neither of us can speak a word of Burmese. I'd advise any tourist to try and get a Burmese servant for guide and councillor. It is horrid being tongue-tied amongst such kindly-lookingpeople. There does not seem to be much love lost between the Burmans and the natives of India, and I think the foolish Indian natives actually fancy themselves superior!
I have never seen, no, not in India, so much paintable "stuff" in so small a space. The stalls were sheltered by tall umbrellas made of sun-bleached sacks, over them the blue sky, and under them masses of colour in light and shade, heaps of oranges, green bananas, red chillies, and the girls and women sitting selling them, puffing blue smoke from white cheroots big as Roman candles, or moving about from shade to light like the brightest of flowers, no hurry, no bustle; a chatter of happy voices, nothing raucous in sound or colour, and all the faces good and kind to look at, except when a foxy Indian came across the scene. There is also near this open-air bazaar an immense market under cover. The light is not so picturesque in it, but the women are of a better class. There's much colour at the stalls where they sell silks, and talk to the passer-by, and brush their black hair, and powder their faces between times. If you could talk to them it would be fun, for they are as jolly and witty as can be. I understand Burmese girls of almost all families keep stalls at the bazaars when they "come out," which accounts for the Burmese women's great intelligence in business affairs.
Then to the Arrakan Pagoda, and felt inclined to stay all day listening to the sonorous recitations of the kneeling people.
Back in a tram-car, an excellent place to sketch faces, your topee over your eyes, and sketch book behind a newspaper—no one knows you are drawing. The following tram-car notes are of Burmese faces, except the face behind, with a look of cankered care on it; he is some kind of an Indian.
After lunch to the palace—a longish drive inland from the river. Thebaw not at home, and Supayalat out too, so we called on the Britishers, resting on long deck chairs in the golden rooms now used as a club. What a rude contrastWestern chairs and tables and newspapers were to the surroundings! I believe Lord Curzon has arranged that this æsthetic immorality shall be put right, and a proper place appointed for the Club, and Divine service.
I'd like to have been here at the looting of this particular palace, you hear such fascinating descriptions of Thebaw's barrels of jewels—emeralds and rubies to be had by the handful. How angry the soldier man is when you speak of it. He will explain to you, with the deepest feeling, that military men were put on their parole not to bag anything, and they did not; but the men in the Civils came on ponies, and went away with carts.
The palace grounds are surrounded by four crenellated walls, each a mile long; each wall has three seven-roofed gates in it, and each gate has a bridge across the wide moat. The palace rooms are nearly splendid; they are supported on many teak pillars, low at the sides of the rooms, and up to sixty feet in the middle. These are all gilt, and show "architectural refinements," for the teak trees they are made of are not absolutely straight, and theyhave an entasis that is quite natural where they taper away into the golden gloom of the sloping timber roofs. The rooms are lofty, and all on one floor, because the Burmese do not like to live in rooms with people above. There are infinite intricacies of gilded teak carving, and some rooms glitter like herring shoals with silvery glass mosaics and mirrors and crystals. How delightful it must have been to see these courts, and gardens, and palaces, and throne-rooms in their full brilliancy before our "occupation," but I suppose one would have had to crawl on all fours or lose one's head at the nod of Supayalat. She and Thebaw and their parents were very much in-bred, and, though she was otherwise particularly charming, she had a strongly-developed homicidal mania. However, the people wept when they saw their king and queen being so unexpectedly hurried away in a gharry to go "Doon the Water" in Denny's steamer, in November 1885. They had far more fun, they say, before we came; a rupee went farther, and so on; and I quite believe it—we did not grab the country to amuse them!
27th.—Painted till 2 from 8 in half-hearted way. To the Grahams, then to the Arrakan Pagoda again, too tired and mosquito-bitten to do much after getting there—a nostalgia of colour these last few days—but saw the golden Buddha. The florid iron gates were open, and an immense light shone on the seated and kneeling worshippers in front. It is the most effective scene in the world for the amount of staging. A glare of golden light from unseen lamps—electric, I believe—gleams all over the calm golden figure. It is raised so that the arch in front just allows you to see up to the top of the statue; it is over twelve feet high, and the base is about six feet off the ground.
I must come back; on this journey I have already seen so much on the way here—some day I will come out direct and paint this one scene, and perhaps one or two in the Shwey Dagon Pagoda—"if I'm spaired," as they say in the lowlands, instead of knocking under the table.
… On board to-night; Burmans and natives are making up their booths and stalls on the flats alongside, and on the after-decks of this boat, so there is a good deal of hammering during dinner-time. Afterwards we sit round the table on the fore-deck and tolerate the mosquitoes, and tell yarns, and I turn in with a picture in my mind, from a story of the captain's, of an East African coast, and a tramp steamer on a bar, the surf coming over her stern, and the shore lined with drunk niggers, and green boxes of square-faced Dutch gin—at four shillings and sixpence the dozen, box included.
"Away to Bhamo,Then fare ye wellYou Mandalay girlWe're away——To the Bhamo Strand."New verse to old Chantie.
"Away to Bhamo,Then fare ye wellYou Mandalay girlWe're away——To the Bhamo Strand."New verse to old Chantie.
Sunday, 28th.—The steamer blows a second time, and the friends and relations of our traders, sisters, cousins, and aunts get ashore across the flat or barge alongside, and the crowd of gharries, ox-carts, and fruit and food sellers begins to disperse up the sandbank. I see the tall beauty in green kirtle get a friend to raise her flat basket of oranges on plaintain leaves on to her head, a slow elegant movement she may have learned in dancing. Here, when the womendance, there is little movement of the feet, but the angular movements of the body, arms, and hands and fingers are very subtle and studied, and are done very slowly; they have time!—in fact, they have to look forward to so many re-incarnations before they even become men, that they must feel entirely superior to Time!
We had a quieter night, leastwise quieter than we expected. A child cried, and a Burman built his booth a little aft of our cabin, with box lids and French nails, and the hammering went on till about two. Then all was quiet, and traders and passengers and their families were asleep, stretched round the deck aft of our portion—Burmans, Phunghis, Shans, Karens, Chinese, Sikhs, wrapped in various coloured sheets, in lines fore and aft and from side to side, dimly lit from above by lamps—the same in the two decks of the flat which we are to take up the river with us alongside.
These cargo steamers usually take up two flats,[31]one on each side, and the amount of trade done on these each voyage up and down, I am told, is considerable, and must annually give great profit to the countries whose goods we carry; two-thirds of these goods are Continental—German, Swiss, Austrian, Italian, and some are Japanese. The deduction to be drawn from this will be equally clear to Protectionist or Free Trader.
[31]I am told this steamer is 250 feet, beam 48, flats 96, beam 24, and the mail steamer was 325, beam 62.
I am told this steamer is 250 feet, beam 48, flats 96, beam 24, and the mail steamer was 325, beam 62.
We made a false start; the mail steamer from the south we had been waiting for appeared just as we had cleared off the shore. She had been delayed by fog, so we anchored for an hour or so to tranship the mails and Burmese passengers. Meantime I took a spell of painting, then Krishna and I hunted up a bamboo, got out snake-rings, fishing book, and reel, and had a rod fixed up in no time. What with gun, cartridges,[32]and painting things, my cabin looks quite interesting—to my mind. We have but oneother passenger, so we may utilise two cabins, one as sleeping-room, the other as sitting-room, gun-room, and studio combined. As such it might be even bigger with advantage, but for situation it would be impossible to beat—for changing views from the window or swirling tide and passing boats with people in them, like bunches of flowers flaring in the sun, and then all soft and delicate as they float past in our shadow. The priests in these boats, with their yellow robes and round palm leaf fans have a decorative effect of repetition, and we are told these fans keep their thoughts from wandering from righteousness to pretty girls. Palm leaves, robes, and their bare right shoulders and arms are all in harmonious browns and yellows; the water is bluish mother-of-pearl. The men row their boats as all Southerners do, Italians, and the rest, standing and backing them like gondolas; only the Burman uses two oars.
[32]Telegraphed to Cook, Rangoon, who sent them to Mandalay by train.
Telegraphed to Cook, Rangoon, who sent them to Mandalay by train.
But to the fishing rod and line; we started with bait and did underhand casting from lower deck up and down the ship's side. The rod was excellent, a split new cane, if not exactly the "Hardy split," and it did not lie wholly between two points—it meandered a little, but I've got salmon on worse. We got nothing, and yet I saw a Burman in a dug-out log, with a no whit better rod, pull up a beauty like a sea trout of two pounds, as he drifted past; so next stopping place I hope you will hear of fish "grassed" or "creeled," as they say in the papers.
We pass Mingun, half-an-hour up the river from Mandalay. I've mentioned this place before and its bell. The bell is big, so the traveller is expected to make every effort to see it. To me, the size of a bell is not very interesting, and one heap of stone (pyramids included) seems as interesting as another. It's the design that counts.
The Flotilla steamer does not always stop at Mingun; we went steaming past it on our left. The reflections of the trees and ruin in the smoothly running stream were crossed by rippling bands of lavender, where a breeze touched thewater: and sea swallows poised and dipped, screaming and flashing after each other. On the far side of the river were level white sands, green sward, and distant blue mountains.
There's a pleasant sense of swelling fullness about the river; it may be an optical delusion, but I am inclined to believe it is a fact that the surface is slightly convex, like an old-fashioned mirror, perhaps an inch or two higher in the middle than at the sides. There is not much depth to spare, already we have touched bottom. It was a curious and almost incredible statement made to me that we draw four and a half feet, and can go over sand bars only covered four feet. It is true, however; the steamer after touching is backed astern a yard or two, and when her own following swell comes up to her, she goes ahead over the bar, on the swell.
At lunch we pass a great number of geese on the edge of a sandbank—our table is right in the bows, and we have a clear view of the banks on either side as we go along, even at meal times we have the field-glasses handy to pry into the scenes of animal life on river side—thecaptain, who generally has his gun handy, said, "Yes, certainly we must have a shot at them," and for a moment I hoped he would drop anchor, and that we would go off in a boat and stalk them, but I gathered sadly the "shot" was to be underway at 150 yards—and I'd rather not—another lost opportunity!
Now we pass a regular regiment of birds I do not know—cranes, I think—some four feet high, the colour of oyster catchers, long red bills and legs, and black and white plumage.
The Irrawaddy valley is here a little like the valley of the Forth. There is a centre hill for a Wallace monument, and the distant hills are like those in Perthshire, but both the valley and the river are wider; and the delicious summery sun and air are too ideal—we only had such summer weather when we were children.
Painted all afternoon, passing scenes. G. did a broad daylight effect of blue sky and distance, and the blue Ruby mountains and flecks of white cumuli and calm water, an effect in much too high a key for me to attempt; and I did a Punghis' bathing pool, in lower tones, a more getatable effect for my brush.…
We have to drop anchor at sunset in mid-stream, somewhere below Kyonkmyoung, to wait for the mail, and because we have no searchlight we cannot go on at night. The mountains are closer now, and towards evening they are reflected in voilet and rose in the wide river.
… The lights go on, and I assure you our open air saloon, with its table set for dinner with silver, white waxy champak flowers, and white roses in silver bowls are delightful against the blue night outside. The scent of the champak would be too heavy, but for a pleasant air from up-stream, which we hope will help to clear out the piratical longshore crew of Mandalay mosquitoes which we brought with us. We are only a few miles short of our proper destination for the night, but no matter,weare not in a hurry; the Burmans up-stream, waiting for their market, arenot either, they will just have to camp out for the night.
Mid-day on the Irrawaddy, distant Ruby Mountains
Mid-day on the Irrawaddy, distant Ruby Mountains
Before bedtime, G. and I and Miss Blunt, the only other passenger, go round the booths and make small purchases, and try to make ourselves understood by the jolly Burmese shopkeepers: the Indian shopkeepers speak English. A little later the family groups go to sleep in their stalls, their merchandise round them. A father and mother and child I saw, in pretty colours under a lamp, curled up in the space a European could barely sit on. And near our cabins there is a couple asleep on the deck, a dainty Burmese woman, her figure so neat, with narrow waist and rounded hip, and her hand and cheek on a dainty pillow, her husband lies opposite, and between them, also asleep, on the deck their mite of a child. Almost touching them is a priest still sitting up, his thoughts his company—possibly they are of Paternity. They all keep pretty quiet, they are not like those beasts on the B.I. boat; I daresay the quiet here is also due to better management. Now as I write the electric light goes out, and we light our candles—the ship is quiet fore and aft, the only sound the rippling of the Irrawaddy against our anchor chain and plates.
29th.—Second day from Mandalay. We have stopped three times at the river-side to-day. At each place a cascade of elegant people in heavenly colours came smiling down to our gangway planks, and when these were fixed, trooped on board; to buy purple velvet sandals, strips of silk, seeds, German hardware, American cigarettes, and goodness knows what else. I suppose I shall forget all these groups—and, colours, and expressions, in time—that is the gall and the wormwood of seeing beauty; I'd fain remember them longer and more vividly than I do.
At the first place we stopped two hours, so I went on shore, got a Burman as guide, and in a half-hour's run, got seven snipe and twelve pigeon. Pigeons, I was told,would help the larder; they were very tame, otherwise I'd hardly have cared to have let off at them.
Sabendigo for the night. In afternoon, stopped painting with reluctance, and if I'd stopped sooner might have beaten my small records at snipe.
The ladies elected to walk with me on shore, so, to give a sense of security, I took my gun! and as we went across the gangway, picked up a Burman, who I was told knew where there was game of some description, and the captain sent one of the Chittangong crew, and other two Burmans joined unofficially, so we made quite a party. The ladies shortly began to collect flowers, and not being so keen about sauntering as the second Charles, I set off at a mighty quick walk, the Burmans following at a dog-trot, whither, I'd no idea; but it was nice going, through lanes at first, past an occasional transparent house of cane and matting, past cow-byres and cattle feeding, then into a sandy track through jungle of tall trees and thick undergrowth. Then the bamboo clumps got thicker and met overhead, and the afternoon suncame through in golden threads and patches on the whitey-grey sand of the path. We hoped to see jungle-fowl in some of the more open places, and for an hour we dog-trotted, till we got a trifle warm—but never a sign of any really open snipe ground, and I almost turned back; but my Burmans pointed on and we soon turned to the left, crawled under thick bamboos and came on a clearing with water and paddy fields, and hope revived. But we walked round the edges of two or three fields without seeing anything, then just as the sun went down, the first snipe got up and flew straight at a Burman behind me, so it got away, and in five minutes—no, one minute—we were in ground absolutely alive with snipe, thick as midges and about as visible. I saw faintly a wisp get up, fired at one and it dropped somewhere, and heard the old familiar scraik, scraik on all sides as snipe got up at the shot, but it was hopelessly dark. It was a horrid sell, barring the satisfaction there always is in finding your game—I am not sure that killing it adds much—then we dog-trotted home to the river, along the soft sand track; it was very dark under the bamboos, but a new moon helped in the more open land. It was pretty going, all afternoon, with scenes like pictures by Rousseau and Daubigny, and twice, in the shadows of bamboo groves I saw veritable Monticelli's, when we met people and ox carts labouring through the sand; when forms and colours were all soft and blended, and the glow of day changed to night—Art is consoling when the bag is empty, even the purse sometimes!
Had a cast before we left with fly in the morning; fish were rising, had one on for a moment—saw a fish taken from a balance net on shore, seemed about seven to ten pounds, bright and silvery as a salmon, with a rather forked tail, should think said fish might be taken on a blue phantom or Devon. I have both here, and, granted a stay of any time, will try harling.
The shores of the river now are closer together,wooded and steep, showing here and there boulders through the sand rather like the lower reaches of Namsen in Norway, which perhaps only describes the appearance to rather a restricted number of fortunates.
We saw two elephants grazing by the river-side; I believe they were wild.
A Priests' Bathing Pool
A Priests' Bathing Pool
30th January1906.—Fog—6 o'clockA.M.—half daylight, and the anchor chain comes clanking on board—a cheery sound, the steady clink clank of the pall-pin in the winch—a comforting sound, and bit of machinery to anyone who has hauled in anchor overhand—what say you Baldy—or Mclntyre, do you remember Rue Breichnich or Lowlandman's Bay, before we got a winch, and the last three fathoms out of green mud?—and the kink in the back before breakfast, and the feeling you'd never stand straight again in your life?
We barely have the anchor up and fast and have steamed less than ten minutes when we run into a fog bank set cunningly across the stream by some river Nat. The bell rings, "Stop her"—and plunge goes the anchor with the chain rattling out behind it, and we lie still again in the silence of the fog. Sea swallows come out of the mist and give their gentle call and flit out of sight, they give a regular flavour of the sea; the mist hangs on our clothes and drips from the corrugated iron roof of the flat, and our iron lower decks are shining wet.
9 o'clock.—The mist very gently rises off the river and wanders away in the tree-tops and climbs the distant mountains slowly, and the warm sun comes out to dry everything. The anchor is up again and its "paddle and go,"—the leadsman is at his chant again. All the way up from Rangoon to Mandalay and from Mandalay here, two of the crew, one on either side of the bows, takes sounding with a bamboo, alternately singing out the feet in asing-song melancholy cadence that briskens and changes a little when the water suddenly shoals.
We draw four feet, and yesterday went over a bar covered by three feet nine inches only,—went towards it, backed, and went over it on our own following wave!
Kyankyet—We take on more wood faggots here to fill our bunkers. The wood smoke gives rather a pleasant scent in the air—pretty much like last halting place, same sunny dusty banks, plus a few rocks, and similar village of dainty cottages and of weather-bleached cane and teak showing out of green jungle. Above the place we stop at, a spit of sand runs into the river with a hillock and on it, there is a little golden pagoda amongst a few trees and palms: a flight of narrow white steps leads up to it, and below in the swirl of the stream are wavering reflections of gold, and white, and green foliage. And as usual there are figures coming to the ship along the shore, each a harmony of colours, each with a sharp shadow on the sand.
Whilst the wood goes on board we wander through the village and look at people weaving fringes of grass for thatch, much as grooms weave straw for the edges of stalls; thento the pagoda on the hillock, and up the narrow flight of steps. It is not in very first-class repair, the river is eating away its base. To obtain merit the Burman prefers to build anew rather than to restore, and this one has done its turn. We saw several bronze and marble Buddhas under a carved teak shed; some fading orchids lay before them. Two men were making wood carvings very freely and easily in teak. Miss B. and G. coveted a little piece of furniture in brown teak, covered with lozenges of greeny-blue stone. It looked like a half-grown bedstead, the colour very pretty. If we had had an interpreter, we might have saved it from the ruin. What I carried away was a memory of the blue above, the gliding river below, hot sun and stillness, and the hum of a large, irridescent black beetle that went blundering through scarlet poinsettia leaves into the white, scented blossoms of a leafless, grey-stemmed champak tree.
I am told there are barking deer and jungle fowl within an hour of the ship, elephant, rhinoceros, sambhur, and much big game within thirty miles, but we are on the move again, and my heart bleeds.—I cannot try for these for I have neither battery, guides, nor camp equipment.
At Tagaung, stopping-place for the ruby mines, we tie up for the night—a charmingly wooded country.
In "Wild Sports of Burmah and Assam," by Col. Pollock and W. S. Thom, published in 1900, you read that "some of the best big game shooting in the world, with the least possible trouble and expenditure, can be had in Upper Burmah," and this is the place to set out for it—from Mandalay, some seventy-seven miles. Mercifully, I did not read this till after we had left Burmah, or I'd have felt frightfully unhappy passing it all. Even now, as I read their descriptions, I feel vexed, to a degree, that I did not know more about the possibilities of sport in Upper Burmah before starting North. The above book must be invaluable to any keen sportsman who goes to Burmah; but keen he must be, and prepared tohuntfor his quarry; game is not driven up to him, the jungle is too dense.
I will now proceed to write about fish. As the sun set they were rising beside us, making rings in the golden flood, and the reflected woods of the far side of the river, so I put on a Loch Leven fly cast, and got a beauty right away, of about one pound; a shimmering, silvery fish, between a sea-trout and a whiting as to colour, and I missed other rises. A Woods and Forests' man on board told me he had recently caught a similar fish on a small fly rod; it weighed five pounds and leapt like a sea-trout, but no one apparently knows much about the possibilities of fishing here with rod and modern tackle. We then got a hand-line and a cod-hook from the engineer, and baited with squeezed bread, the size of a pigeon's egg, and fished on the bottom, and almost at once had on a heavy fish. It pulled tremendously and got a lot of line out, and wandered up and down the middle of the river; on a salmon rod it would have played long and heavily. We got it hand over hand alongside, aft the paddle-box, and a Burman in a canoe hitched a noose over its tail, and we hoisted it on board. I couldn't see the beast very clearly, as it was growing dusk, and all hands crowded round us to give advice. It looked rather like a cod, and weighed thirty-five lbs. I'd have guessed it to be eighteen lbs., but its weight was quite out of proportion to its measurements. Shortly after we got another—twenty lbs. They have red firm flesh, and to eat are like sturgeon, they say. The sporting silvery fish was called Mein and Butter fish, and they are said to be very good to eat, but they have a beard, which doesn't answer to my standard of a game fish. I got about a dozen of these smaller fellows of about one lb. each, not a bad way of putting in an hour or so, when the time does not allow of gunning ashore.
31st—Tegine.—This morning we passed on our right the elephant Kedar Camp, where natives are preparing to rope in wild elephants as they do in Mysore. The bank was steep, about level with the top of our funnel. The low jungle had been cleared, and we saw screens and housesof green thatch and palm leaves. A very brown Britisher came out of his tent as we passed, his face half white with soap lather, and his shirt sleeves rolled up; he did unintelligible semaphore signalling with both arms, a razor in one hand, paper in the other. He likewise spoke to us in words that were barely audible for the sound of the rush of the water. When we pieced together what each had heard, it came to "what the blankety blank has come over your—tut tut-down-stream cargo boat? She was to bring me tea and sugar! And I've no whiskey, and—" but there was a stiff turning just at this part of the river, and the skipper and pilot and everyone on board gave it all their attention, or we'd have been ashore. Soon after we met the dilatory down-river cargo boat, and waited where the channel was wide and she passed, its master shouting to us that the channel somewhere further up was "only four feet six, and very difficult." She had stranded somewhere for twenty-four hours or so. There were apparently only two passengers on board! I don't think these good days for passengers can last, the crowd is bound to come.
Next small item in to-day's entertainment. An otter, rather larger than any I've seen at home, performed to us on a sandbank, danced, and rolled over its own shadow, or possibly a fish, in apparent exuberance of spirit. It was a very pretty sight through the glass, and I think I could have got him with a rifle, but it was rather far to risk a shot and wounding with my Browning's colt pistol—the Woods and Forest man, by the way, had a Browning colt, and rather fancied himself as a shot. He told me his terrier puts up otters pretty often in the streams in the jungle, in family parties, greatly to the amusement of the otters. So there's another heading for a game book here; that might begin with elephant and finish up with mouse-deer andbutton-quail. What a list of water-fowl there would be, and wherewould turtle go?—under Game or Fish? They lay their eggs on the sandbanks in numbers, and these fetch quite a big price, four annas each. I'd willingly sacrifice a night's sleep to see one come out of the water up the sand, and to "turn it" would make me feel at the Ultima Thule of the world abroad.
All the way along the edge of the river, where there are not trees, there is Kaing or elephant grass—grass that waves some eighteen feet high and runs far inland, and here and there are bits of tree jungle. Every now and then we see some bird or beast which we have not seen before outside of a Zoo; a grand eagle is in sight just now, no vulture this fellow; he looks twice the size of our golden eagle, and sits motionless on a piece of driftwood in the middle of a sandbank. I can only just make out his or her mate soaring against the woods on the hills behind. On a bank to our right there's a whole crowd of large birds—as we get closer I can count their feathers with my glasses; they are not beauties—vultures of some kind, and gorged at that, to judge from their lazy movements; their plumage is agrey, chocolate colour; their lean bare neck and heads are black or deep plum colour. On the very edge of the sandbank there's a string of white sea-swallows, sitting each on its own reflection. There are several kinds, and they rise as we pass, and I see, for the first time, the Roseate Tern, a sea-swallow with deep lavender and black feathers, rather telling with its scarlet bill. To complete this menagerie's inventory we pass four elephants bathing; two on the bank are dry, and blow sand over themselves from their trunks, and are the same dry khaki colour as the banks; the other two lie in the water, their great tubby sides, big as a whale's back, are black as sloes. Through the glass we see them rise slowly and stalk up the bank, getting their little feet all sandy again.
We went aground about five or sixP.M., and are aground, and will probably take root here. The Chittagong crew aretalkingand working like niggers to kedge her off, and she won't budge. I'm sorry for the Captain; it seems running things rather fine to expect him to take his ship drawing four feet, over a bar only covered three feet.
In the pause, with the glasses I spy geese on a distant point, so with the steward as interpreter, engage a dug-out that came alongside to trade to take me in pursuit, but as I get out the gun, a Burman's boat comes down and passes within a few yards of them and they shift. The boatman tells me there are deer about—points to woods and jungle within a mile on the river's right bank, but time will not allow us to go after them. So we make a shooting engagement for the "morn's morn" if we are still on the sandbank.
The crew struck work and singing at ten and left things to Providence; the captain didn't believe in this; he remarked "All things come to those who wait, but I know a plan much slicker; for he who bustles for what he wants, gets things a d——d sight quicker!"—and called on them in their quarters—he had a whole stick when he went in—and they got to work again. He believes that if the riverwas buoyed by a white man instead of a native we wouldn't be fast now. I should think it is just the sort of work that would need a European, but I rather think after watching the soundings we made, that there was no deeper channel over the sand anywhere—at any rate none could be found from our small boat. They kept at this kedging till midnight, and later, dropping the anchor ahead from the small boat, then hauling the ship up to it by the chain and steam windlass—with the variations splendid exercise for all hands.
At first the flat, as it drew less than we did, was left behind a little, and our ship did this fighting with sand and water alone. They started again to the work early in the morning and by breakfast time, by constant steaming ahead and backing, had burrowed a channel in the sand; then went back and clawed on to the flat and steamed away for Chittagong distant a mile or two. As we went the anchor chains were unshackled and overhauled to get the twists out of them; and both anchors and chains were bright as silver from their rude polishing in the sand.
It is perishingly cold at Chittagong,i.e., in shade in the early morning, but it is bracing, A.1. weather for doing things. Last night I had three blankets and two sleeping suits and felt cold at that. The sides and windows of our cabin being made of open lattice woodwork we fix up some newspapers and a mat or two we have over these, which makes all the difference.
We had only half-an-hour for the bazaar at Chittagong. By the way I can't vouch for the spelling of this or any other names of places en route, but this is the way our First Mate spells it. We have no good map on board to give the names, but there are a number of books, and a piano, and many other comforts that one would hardly expect on a cargo steamer, so I think the Company, having done so well for their passengers, might run to a framed map of Upper and Lower Burmah.
At Kalone the people stood in splendid groups at thejungle edge waiting for the arrival of the market. It was absolutely a Fête Champêtre, but more brilliant and classic than Watteau ever can have seen. There were no houses visible, just the steep sandy bank with roots dangling out of it, and splendid trees above like sycamores and ash, some with creepers pouring from their highest branches. Against the green depths were these groups of happy people indelightful colours, some sitting and others standing, some in the full sunlight, others further in the jungle amongst the shadowy trunks and fern palms.
My Conscience pricked me and said "draw," but I said, "I'm bothered if I do, let's get into the jungle, if it's only for an hour, and see more new things, close," so we did, got a guide, and arranged to return at first blast of the steamer's horn, and away we wentventre à terreto a jheel said to be near, and had not more than enjoyed a glance at this pretty watery opening in the woods when up got a snipe with its old sweet song, and along with the snipe were any number of other waders—what a place for a naturalist! The first wisp went straight towards some paddy workers so I only got one flanker, and just as I was in the middle of them, beginning a record bag the horn sounded—the vexation of it! We turned and hoofed it back; under shadows of grand trees, over brown fallen leaves, past sunbeam lit girls in velvet sandals, coming from the ship, with bundles of purchases poised on their heads, and on board by the last plank of the gangway, muddy and hot and desperately annoyed at having to cut short a good morning's shooting. Some of the snipe were larger and deeper in colour than those I am familiar with—Painted snipe I believe.
A delightful country this would be for a holiday in a native river boat. What a pity it is so far from home; with a party and a boat I believe one could have a splendid time drifting down, there would be fishing, walks, rowing, sailing, shooting, sketching, and all in a delicious climate, and all the sport bar elephants free, and amongst courteous people with all the supplies of "the saut market" at arm's length from the Flotilla Company's steamers. Why not charter a big native dug-out up the river at Bhamo—sink it for a day or two—for reasons—then drift and row down. You could get up to Bhamo in a week or less, or in two or three days shortly, when there's a railway, and take, say three weeks down to Mandalay.
Kalone to Katha is interesting all the way. At Katha the mountains on the west come closer to the river. There is a short railway branch from this place to the line to Mandalay. I hardly like to mention a railway up here, it sounds so prosaic and so unassociated with any of the wild surroundings; but there—it's a solid fact, you can come up here from Rangoon in next to no time and see nothing on the way, by train. We walk past the little station, the first piece of blackened ground we have seen for many a day—a ballast truck, ashes, and coals—impossible! From the wire fence round the station-house and from its wooden eaves hang numbers of orchids, nameless and priceless—impossible again!
It is a pleasant country round Katha, once you get away from the line. There is low ground cleared for crops then knolly wooded hills within easy reach, and higher hills beyond. The air was still and wisps of wood-smoke from distant village fires hung in level bands above the plain. Miss B. and G. went to see the pagoda, I did the same, and also took my gun in case of a wet place and snipe. They saw a procession to a priest's funeral—one of the regular shows of Burmah, I only saw jungle, and brakes of white roses with rather larger blossoms than our sweet briar, growing to about twenty feet high. These grew many feet below the level of the river in the wet season, so I gather they spend several months in the rains under water: I also saw vultures, eagles, hawks, and a big kind of lapwing and snipe; but the snipe here were cunning, and got up wild and flew far, so I only got a small bag. But putting the afternoon's stravaig and the morning's ramble together made quite a decent day's exercise; and I believe the two or three hours in the jungle with its strange sights and sounds, flowers, birds, and beasts, were as interesting as a Phoungies' funerals.
2nd February.—There was a river mist this morning, the sun shining through, and we "slept in" for there was no engine to awaken us. When we did awaken, it was to the tune of reed instruments like our pipe chanters. These headed a single and double file procession to the pagoda along the top of the river bank. Thearrangementmight have been taken from the procession of the Parthenon. Most of the people were women, some carried offerings in lacquer bowls on their heads, others carried between them pagodas and pyramids in wicker-work hung with new pots and pans and, odd bits of pretty colours and flowers. Others carried round palm leaf fans, the whole effect through the sunny morning mist was exquisite in colour and perfectly decorative. I think it was part of the Phoungie funeral of last night. We got fairly cold looking at it from the deck in dressing-gowns.
… It gets cold truly—morning tub makes one gasp, but the Burmans are bathing and soaping themselves this morning alongside, apparently enjoying the cold water as much as they do down south.
The fog lifts and we swing out and into the current at eight o'clock; the mail boat that came up last night just ahead of us, and we go surging up in her wake, two mighty fine children of the great Cleutha; Glasgow owned, Clyde built and engineered—900 horse-power has this Mandalay, and she has twenty years behind her, and the engines run as smoothly as if she were new: and the whole ship fore and aft is so well kept, she might have come from the makers yesterday! I don't say that the mail boat infront exactly adds to the beauty of the scenery but it gives a big sense of successful enterprise. How gratifying it must be to Germans and other foreigners to have the use of such a fine line of steamers for their goods.
The cottages on your left after Katha are rather pretty. They are on piles of course, on account of the floods in the monsoon, not "because of ye tygers which here be very plentifull," as the old travellers had it. Their silvery weather-worn teak or cane showing here and there, is a pleasant contrast to the rich green foliage. We pass so close to the bank that we can see the bright colours of the women's tamaines inside them and through the trees we get glimpses of the blue hills to the west— d—— we are aground again—and my snipe shooting at Moda won't come off—horrid sell! No—I believe she's over. No, she's stuck!
… But we got off—and have arrived at Moda; and I think the show of native beauty crowding down the white sand here is even more effective and exquisite than any village crowds we have seen so far on either of the two sides of the river.
The girls are pictures; one has a yellow orchid between her golden coloured cheek and jet black hair, another a Marechal Niel rose above her forehead. There are old and young; Shans, Burmans, Chinese, Kachins—the young Burmese beauties vastly set off by the various northern tribes. Up the sand I see, for example, a group of three, an old lady and two young things sitting under a pink parasol, each with knees tucked up in a red purple and lemon yellow silk tamaine or tight skirt. Imagine the soft rose light from the parasol over the white jackets and silk and the sharp shadows on the sand. How graceful the owner of the parasol was when she stood up! I think it was her duenna who toppled off the edge of the gangway with one of the Chittagong crew in the push to come aboard. The old lady's face puckered as she went over, but she was out in a second, and came aboard withthe jolly crowd, smiling like the rest. The pretty girls drop their red and blue velvet sandals with a clatter on to our iron deck when they come up the gangway, shuffle their toes into them and waddle off to the stalls with an air. No—waddle is not the word, its a little body twist rather like that of our French cousins, and their frank look is Spanish, but with less langour and a little more lift in it for fun! Leaving all this grace and colour behind, we marched away with a gun and two men, a native and a Burman, which surely proves the vandalism of our upbringing.
But I may have scored by not staying and painting, granted I may never forget the charm of the mid-day stillness behind the village, and the walk through half jungle, half cultivated country with everything asleep in the quiet and warmth, and never a chance of game unless I trod on it. Through the village palms and trees I came on a lakelet with short grass and tall white briar rose bushes round its edge. It was almost covered with a water plant with leaves like a strawberry, which made a dull rose tracery across the reflected blue sky. There were three white ibis, distant dark blue hills and trees, and jungle grass and their reflections; a cormorant and sea swallow were fishing, and a little pagoda, with gleaming golden Hti hung its reflection in the mirror. It was so still and the air so sweet that I felt perfectly happy with never a thing to fire at but an occasional dove, or curiously coloured lapwing. The only thing I actually did fire at was a swagger bluebird whose plumage I did covet. It let me have five shots, at from seventy to eighty yards but never closer, and went off flaunting its green and blue plumage derisively, and I hurried home at top speed long after the second whistle, rather glad I'd done no damage to anything.
At Shewgee in the afternoon we pulled out of the sunlight on the river into the shadow of a steep bank with some sixty black-tarred wooden steps up it. Creepersand foliage hung in masses over the edge and on the top were the usual groups of brightly dressed people and palms and trees in half tone, against a warm sky; and a pagoda too, of course, in white and gold, with a banner staff in white glass mosaic. The dainty figures came trooping down the long black steps and surged on board, first of all politely making way to let us go ashore.
We wandered through, I think, the neatest village we have seen, each dainty mat house had a tiny compound with palms, trees, and roses and other flowers round it. We heard "The Potter thumping his wet clay" and stopped and watched. He, or she, sat on the ground with feet out in front and modelled bowls round the left hand, thumping and patting the stiff clay with a little wooden spade, and without any further appliance made complicated forms perfectly symmetrical. I'd no idea such symmetry could be attained without the use of the wheel.
As we came back the darkness was falling and there were fires in most of the houses on trays of earth and the light shone through the bamboo walls, and we could see figures sitting beside them, either for warmth or possibly to get away from mosquitoes.
We met a gold prospector here, a lean, brown, blue-eyed man in khaki shirt and well-cut, and well-worn tweed continuations. I think all prospectors must be somewhat alike. The last I saw was a similar type—drinking beer in "The First and Last,"—Port Stanley—he was just back from "the Coast," and his rig, and particularly, his expression were much the same, but the man from Terra del had found gold, "like melon seeds—G—D—two inches deep!"—this one hadn't.
Dinner talk suddenly interesting—the new passenger, Captain Kirke, R. A., commandant of the military police is just in from the hills on the west, where he has been on a punitive expedition. His three hundred Sikhs and Ghurkas and ponies are on a small government steamer which we have passed and repassed lately, so we have thelatest news of our neighbours to the west, the "partially subdued" Chins. The expedition was, I understand, to settle some family grievances of these people. One chief had taken some of a neighbouring chief's people when he wasn't at home, and had them tied to trees and little arrows fired into them, one by one, so that in the end they died. The cruel chief's wives were said to be the instigators of this "most bloody business" and the leading lady's photograph warranted the assertion. Her face was tattooed and was curiously like a Red Indian's. I have read in a book that the Chins tattoo their wives' faces to prevent them being stolen for their beauty! I gather this punitive expedition that we have come across unexpectedly, was carried out without a shot being fired, so it won't be in the papers. The wicked chief and his wives awoke one morning to find their village being looked at severely by two mountain guns, and a camera, and encircled with rifles, so they came along quietly-some ten chiefs all told. I think Captain Kirke was naturally a little pleased at the persuasive effect of his pet guns, and gratified that he had managed to bring them over the difficult country, and civil objections—but if I had run that show I'd have felt much inclined to have fired just one shot, for the sake of a medal and newspaper laurels.
We really begin to feel at the Empire's frontier now, when we have pointed out to us to the northward, the mountain tops where the military police,i.e., native troops and lonely British officers keep watch and ward over our furthest marches—heliographing between times to Bhamo for "news from Town."
3rd February.—We got away early this morning, and were stopped by a fog bank, so I saw the Defiles. The Defiles are considered the thing to see; and they are interesting enough; we passed the Third Defile down the river somewhere. At this the Second the river narrows and the mountains rise pretty steeply on either side, and areclothed with grand trees and jungle. It is less distinctive scenery than that of the wider valleys of the Irrawaddy; you might see similar features in many other rivers. At full flood the force of water down this narrow gorge must be rather tremendous, it is said to be forty fathoms deep then, and the captain told me, that when steaming up at fourteen knots, they could sometimes barely make way! Coming down must be kittle steering, I'd think. It is a good country for elephants. I am told.
After the Defiles we stop at Sinkan on the left bank, where the river spreads out again into the more usual style of Irrawaddy scenery, the valley very wide, the sandy river's edge capped with a jungle of waving kaing, or elephant grass, eighteen feet high, and over and beyond bluey-green tree-clad mountains, not very high, but high enough to be interesting and to raise hope.