CHAPTER IVThe Physical Features of Burma
Itis common to tell of the physical aspects of a country in one of the first chapters of any book that may be written giving the characteristics of any land; but the object of this book is to present, first, a picture of life in Burma, as the writer and his associates experienced it. There is a logical order in taking up the study of the topography, climate, and products of Burma, as they were observed from time to time in residence and travel through that country. That is the way the observations herein recorded came to the writer after he had begun the work and care of a mission in Rangoon and the adjoining regions.
A missionary soon learns to take an interest in all that affects the life of the people among whom he labors. He finds that climate determines the products of a land to a great extent, and these in turn determine the occupations of the people. He must adjust himself to these conditions. He also finds that his plans for a people must take in their present state and their future prospects. These conditions are largely material. The wealth or poverty of a people determines their spirit and possibilities to a great extent.
Americans especially, very few of whom have ever traveled or lived in a tropical country, and who have not studied conditions in the Eastern hemisphere, except in the best-known portion of the Oriental world, have great need of enlargement of their views on Asiatic questions. In nothing is this more evident than on the geography of Southern Asia. While speaking on missions and Asiatic themes at home recently, I have often tried to gauge the ideas of my audience by asking them to guess the length of the Red Sea. I selected this body of water because it is most familiar to all Bible-students. I take the Red Sea because all have heard of it and all have seen it mapped from childhood, instead of the Gulf of Martaban, for instance, which lies off the coast of Burma; for most of my American readers have scarcely heard of the latter body of water. The answers to this question from an audience, especially if it is secured, as it usually has been, on the moment, have been at once amusing and instructive. The guesses as to the length of the Red Sea generally vary from “sixty” to “three hundred” miles, while a few have gone somewhat higher. But only one answer secured in months, and that from a schoolteacher after reflection and mental calculation, has beenhalfthe length of that historic body of water. Usually an audience has taken a laugh at the guesser and their own mental estimate when they have been informed that the Red Sea is about fifteen hundred miles long. I have sometimes told the man whoguessed “one hundred miles” to multiply all his ideas of the Eastern world by fifteen, and he would come nearer to the reality than he had been hitherto.
It is common to hear at home all the land commonly spoken of as “India” as a land of a sameness of character, in climate, people, language, and products. One province of it, like Burma, is a small section of the country, just like the rest of the land, and chiefly differing from the other portions of “India” in geographical lines. But establish something of the largeness of these complex countries in the mind, and also their diversity of people and physical conditions, and the man so informed is prepared to understand that Burma may be reckoned as a land of considerable importance in itself and worthy of special study.
Burma is a land with an area of seventy thousand square miles. It lies between the Bay of Bengal and Assam on the west, China on the north, and French Indo-China and Siam on the east. It also extends through eighteen degrees of latitude, from ten to twenty-eight north. In shape it is a little like the folded right hand, with index finger only extended southward. Its greatest width is about four hundred miles, while the Tennasserim Coast far to the south is but a narrow strip of land.
The topography of the country is interesting. There are three principal rivers, the Irrawaddy (the greatest), the Salween, and the Sitiang. All these rise in the north, near or beyond the Burmeseborder, and flow southward. Between these river basins and to the westward of the Irrawaddy there run ranges of hills rising to mountains. They range from small, picturesque hillocks that only serve to divide water-basins to mountains above ten thousand feet in height. The valleys are comparatively narrow, but very fertile. The hills are not simply single crests running parallel with the rivers, but are extensive successions of ranges quite regular, with indications here and there of volcanic action. The strata are very much broken. For this reason the coal-fields of Burma are not of much value, owing to the broken condition of the strata. When one little portion is worked for a distance, the vein is lost, being removed or buried too deep for work.
The Irrawaddy River deserves special mention. It rises somewhere in the heights of Thibet near the headwaters of the Indus and the Ramaputra. It is noteworthy that the three great rivers of Southern Asia rise very near each other and flow to the ocean so far apart. The Irrawaddy breaks through the hills of northern Burma, and descends into the plains, widening and gathering volume till it reaches the sea. It has several navigable river tributaries, of which the Chindwin is chief. Toward the lower end of its course it connects with a network of tidal creeks that unite with its several mouths, one of which is the Rangoon River. This system of internal water-ways makes it possible to traverse all portions of Lower Burma with river steamers of various sizes, froma steam launch to river boats as large and well equipped as those of the Mississippi. The enterprising and prosperous Flotilla Company of Burma has a great fleet of these vessels running on the Irrawaddy and its tributaries, while the many steamers and launches utilize the tidal creeks. This great enterprise has no rival for this river-borne traffic. The amount of business done on the Irrawaddy is enormous. The Salween is navigable for only thirty miles by ocean steamers, and the Sitiang not at all at present, though formerly sailing vessels made ports about its mouth. Steam launches still ply on both these streams and their tributaries. On all these inland waters there are multitudes of native boats, of curious but most serviceable pattern. They never modify these Eastern crafts after any Western design. It is doubtful if modern ships have made much improvement in their water-lines over many Eastern boats, which can be seen in different styles everywhere, from the Red Sea all around the coasts of Southern Asia. They vary greatly in different countries, and have become fixed along certain accepted lines from which they do not depart, but they all seem to be good. Of all Oriental crafts I have seen, none are more picturesque than the Burma river boats.
Paddy-Boat
Paddy-Boat
The mountain areas of Burma affect the country in many ways. They greatly affect the rainfall. Lower Burma receives the full force of the monsoon current as it comes in off the Indian Ocean. The consequence is a heavy rainfall eachyear, and a regular and bountiful harvest. Lower Burma has never had a famine. The amount of rainfall varies from one hundred to three hundred inches during the rainy season of six months. The western side of the outer range of the hills, exposed to the same current, has even a heavier fall of rain than the low lands bordering on the sea. The coast range of hills rises to a considerable altitude, and as they extend north and south, the southwest rain currents pour out their water in crossing this range, and so have little moisture left to furnish rain in the upper valleys of Burma. While the sea coast round about Rangoon, and the Sitiang and Irrawaddy Valleys, have abundant rains in the lower portions, as you go northward in each valley the rainfall steadily decreases until in portions of Upper Burma there are great areas of land that will seldom give a crop for lack of moisture. The soil in this arid region is as fertile as anywhere, and where the great and enlarging canal system of the Government is effective, they can produce enormous harvests. But left to the uncertain rainfall, there would be only failure of crops and famine. Happily this condition does not extend over the most thickly-populated portion of Burma.
In another respect the hill portion of Burma is important. Compared with the plains or plateaus of the country, there is a relatively smaller portion of the province of low elevations than that of India proper. The greatest level area is bordering on the sea, and is in consequence much modified bythe sea breezes, and the heat is never very intense for a tropical country. But a large portion of the province, which is not cooled by the breeze from the sea, has also a moderate heat for the tropics. I attribute this condition of modified temperature to the fact that we have nolarge plainsor plateaus. Unlike India, where the area that becomes superheated is immense, in Burma the area of low land is small, and therefore is continually modified by the cooler air from the large adjacent mountain tracts. This, it seems to me, accounts for the fact that all the seacoast of Burma is so much cooler than the same kind of elevation of Bengal. They both alike share the sea breeze for a certain distance; but Bengal has hundreds of miles of low plain unbroken by high hills, while Burma’s hills approach near the sea. This gives Burma a relatively moderate temperature, though so far down in the tropics. All the valleys of the tropical world are fertile. But a word should be said about the fertility of the mountain tracts of Burma. Nearly all of these hills and mountains that I have seen are covered with a dense growth of forest. The Indian hills are not so. Many of the latter are entirely barren of trees, and where there is any chance at all they are cultivated in terraces. But the virgin forests of Burma stretch hundreds of miles over hills and mountains. Here and there are villagers, it is true, mostly Karens, in Lower Burma, who cultivate only small areas; but only one year in a place, making a new clearing each year to avoid the work of digging or plowing, and then they letthe last year’s clearing grow up to forest again, which it quickly does.
There is room for a vast population to make an easy living in the hills of Burma alone. If those fertile hills were in America, they would be all occupied as cattle and horse ranches, if not cultivated. Wherever the forest is thinned or cut away, a great luxuriant growth of grass and bamboos springs up, on which cattle feed and flourish. They can get plenty of grazing the year round in these hills, and there would always be a ready market for beef and for bullocks for plowing.
Among the many natural resources of Burma, there are two that require careful attention. Here we find one of the greatest rice-growing countries of the world. Here also are vast forests of the famous teak wood, that is used so extensively for ship-building and other structures.
Rice-growing is theoneline of cultivation that characterizes the land of Burma. In India there are greater rice fields, because the rice lands are more extensive. But in India they cultivate other crops, and this even on the rice land. In India they frequently, if not generally, grow two or more crops on the same land in one year, or different crops on adjacent land at the same season. But the Burman grows one crop only, and that is uniformly rice. He is a rice-grower and a rice-eater. In the plains there is no other grain grown that is generally used for human food. There is a little Indian corn cultivated, but not in sufficient amount to break the force of this general statement.
The rice fields of Burma amount to over six million acres. There are often as many as one hundred bushels of unhusked rice grown on an acre. Of course, the average yield is far below this amount. Yet the aggregate rice crop is enormous. It feeds all Burma, and there are vast quantities shipped to India, China, Europe, and South America. No year since I have been in Burma has there been insufficient rice for her people. If rice of a different variety comes to Burma for the immigrants that are used to the Indian article, there is also much Burma rice shipped annually to various ports in India.
A word should be added as to rice cultivation. Perhaps all readers are aware that rice is grown usually in water, though there is some dry cultivation. The land is inclosed in very small fields, averaging less than one acre, but often not more than one-tenth of that area. There are embankments round all these fields, and several inches of water are kept always on the ground. Sometimes the water is a foot deep. So long as the rice can have a very little of the upper blade out of the water it will flourish. The ground is stirred with a wooden rake like a plow when it is covered with water. The mud is made very fine, and as deep as this mode of cultivation, will stir it. The rice has been sown in nurseries, and when from a foot to fifteen inches high it is pulled up, bound into bundles of approximately one hundred plants each, and taken, usually in boats, to the prepared field, where it is all transplanted by hand. Oftenthe root is divided, so that from one grain there come to be grown several bunches of rice. In appearance a rice field looks very much like a field of oats. The reader will hardly be prepared to believe that it takes nearly twice as long to mature a rice crop under a tropical sun, as it does to grow a field of oats in the northern latitudes, especially in America. The rice is sown in the nursery in May or June, and the ripened grain is not harvested before the last of December or in January. It is all cut with a sickle. I have never seen any one harvesting with any other instrument in Southern Asia. The grain is always threshed under the feet of cattle, and winnowed by hand. An American sees hundreds of ways wherein this crop could be grown more economically, and some missionary will yet introduce modern methods successfully. The missionary is the only man likely to succeed in such a task.
When speaking of the great food-producing industries of Burma, that of fishing should have special prominence. Burma has a vast area of swamps submerged every rainy season, and these are classed as “fisheries,” and a very large revenue is secured from the sale of the fish. The fisherman makes an excellent living, and the people almost universally are able to eat fish with their rice. So long has this been the case that no Burman considers that he has been well fed unless he has fish of some sort with rice every day. Then he shares the characteristic of all Asiatics in desiring much condiment with his rice. He therefore takes thefish, which is of fine flavor and excellent quality when fresh, and rots it, and mixes with it peppers and other spices until it suits his taste and smell, and then feasts! Other less Burmanized people declare that his “gnape,” as he calls this preparation, is simply very rotten fish.
The teak-wood forests, before mentioned, are among the most valuable in the world. This famous wood will not shrink under the most intense sun’s rays, nor will it expand when wet with the rain. It does not warp, and has a smooth grain and works easily. In the tropics, when used for building purposes, it is not eaten by white ants, which destroy almost all other building material in hot countries. The Government has taken hold of this industry, and protects the trees from fires, regulates the cutting, and does all it can to maintain and extend these exceedingly valuable forests. The cutting of the trees, their transport to the sea, and conversion into lumber is one of the greatest organized industries in the country. The amount of money required to carry on this business in the process of cutting the timber from the stump, hundreds of miles inland, gathering it out of the forests, carrying it in rafts to the seaports, and putting it through the great sawmills, to the final disposal to the European and other purchasers, is enormous. The time element is a large one. It takes years to get these logs through the process. I have often desired to know just how long this timber has been waiting or is in transit from the time it was felled. This at least must beseveral years, for the logs often show signs of hard usage through a long period. They are sometimes cracked and worn as if decades old.
The Elephant at Work
The Elephant at Work
It is in this timber industry that the elephants of Burma are very useful. All travelers visiting Burma have at least seen the elephant at work in the mills of Rangoon. They drag the great logs from the river, place them in position to be guided to the saws, drag away the slabs and squared lumber, pile all these in orderly heaps ready for further handling, and manipulate the logs and ropes and their own chains in a marvelous way. They go in and out of the mills with every part of the great machinery running, and never make a false motion to tramp on a carriage, become entangled in the belting, or allow a whirling saw to touch their precious skins. Why a great beast with such strength, joined to such intelligence and self-possession, will submit to the feeble and often stupid man who sits on his neck, and work for man at all, is a marvel. But the transient visitor only sees the elephant working in the mills. This is only a small part of his task. He does all the heavy dragging of the logs to get them to the river from the forest where they are grown. This is often over the most difficult ground. He will go into a thicket where no other beast can go, where a horse or an ox could not climb at all, or if he did, would be perfectly useless for work. But the elephant goes into these worst places and drags the logs over fallen trees, bowlders, and through mud, not being dismayed by muddy ditches or rocky steeps.
It is no wonder that the Government protects the herds of wild elephants. But sometimes they invade the rice fields in great numbers. When they do, the destruction is so great that the officials give license to go and shoot them. Sometimes the hunters succeed in killing a few. If they are males, the tusks are very valuable. The feet are also skinned, including the leg, sole of the feet, and the nails, and when so prepared are often used as waste-paper baskets, and are regarded as great curiosities.
Burma has great ruby mines; but as these stones are not of so much value as formerly, the mining is not to be considered as constituting a great industry. But the oil fields of Burma are very valuable, and it is supposed that the industry is as yet only in its early beginning. It is said that the company that owns the chief refinery, and many of the oil fields, will not sell any part of the stock they hold, and that they are getting rich rapidly.
It will be seen from the foregoing facts that Burma is a great land in itself. It belongs to the Indian Empire, and it is the richest province in the whole country. It pays all its own expenses, which are heavy, and gives largely to the deficit of other provinces. As a field for mission work, there is none more promising so far as natural conditions are concerned.