Rangoon Gymkhana

January 7th.—We danced—I danced with ladies in Gainsborough hats, their feathers tickling my eye, in pork pie hats, and Watteaus, and picture hats like sparrows' nests; and there were little dumpy ladies and tall, stately, Junos, i.e., compared with Eastern women. And it was so funny to see men in suits of blue serge, tweeds, or tussore silk, whirling round with ladies in muslins of every lovely colour. If the men had only worn bowlers and smoked cigars, how it would have taken me back to student days in Antwerp at Carnival time, not so jolly of course, but very different from anything at home. And how stately are the club-rooms—really they are well off these relations of ours "Out East"—don't believe their groans altogether! it is hot now, they say, but look at the fun they have, especially ladies. There are ladies' billiard-rooms, card-rooms, music-rooms, reading-rooms inside, and outside, lawns and flowers and attendants to fetch and carry, and swains to admire them, and they have latest dresses, dances, balls, riding, tennis all the time, and Royalties and Viceroys at intervals. Compare this to the humdrum life of our women in Scotland with their brothers and cousins, "A wede awa" to the uttermost ends of the Empire, and never a Viceroy or Royalty of any description to show above their level horizon—that is intolerable.

Then home to dinner, very full of interest and wonder at the sights of the day, and scribbled the above dance scene, and dressed and walked over the way in the soft dust in the soft moonlight and dined with friends and relations, and talked in the dark teak-wood bungalow of other friends and relations and home things, and looked at curios and sketches; and little lizards looked out at us from the walls, and a huge piebald fellow up in the shadows of the wooden roof, a foot and a half long if an inch, a Chuck-Tu, didn't frighten our hosts in the least! Then across the strip of moonlit, to sleep my lone, under the hospitable teak roof-trees of "a Binning!"

Here there seems to be a hiatus in these notes of mine—it is rather a jump from the British India steamer to a Gymkhana dance? But such a break gives relief to the mind, and has sometimes even a dramatic effect. I have twice observed such breaks in journals; the first in Edinburgh, in the journal of the City Clerk. The break occurs when the Provost and Clerk lay cold on Floddon Field, and the entries are taken up in a new hand with a minute which begins—"Owing to a rumour of a disaster in the south." The second break, I saw the other day in the Madras records. It occured when the French called at Fort George in 1746. The break in my journal is simply the result of yesterday being so full of interest that I did not write up till this forenoon, after a pause for rest and refreshment.

So to hark back. The landing at Rangoon and coming up the river was the best part of the journey from Madras. For descriptions of coming up the Rangoon river see other writers. G. and I had been kept awake for several nights by the natives[20] and finally had to shut our port and snatched an hour or two of sleep without air so as to be without noise,—this after various expeditions to try and quiet the beasts outside, but nothing but drowning would have stopped their horrid exuberance.

The peace that you feel in Iona seemed to lie over the country as we came up the Rangoon river.

The Golden Pagoda stands up very simply and beautifully above the flat country, and beneath it palms and ship's masts look very lowly things indeed. It seems a perfect conductor of thought from earth to sky; the gentle concave curves of its sides are more natural lines of repose than those of our challenging spires. I had been prepared for little—pictures and photographs have dwarfed the thing—they do not give the firmness and delicacy in form and the sentiment that it inspires. It is like the Burmans religion; there's a sense of happiness in the way its wide gold base amongst nestling green palms and foliage of trees gradually contracts till the point rises quietly against the blue and fleecy clouds, where the glint of gold and flash from jewels seems to unite heaven and earth.

The spire is 372 feet, two feet higher than St Paul's, but the terrace from which it rises is 166 feet from the level of the ground, and as lower Burmah is very flat, it is visible twenty-two miles from Rangoon.

It was unmitigatedly hot when we got from the tender to the wharf. Relatives who met us said it was their hottest weather, so we hugged the shade. But this was unseasonable, it ought to be fairly cool at the time of year. We drove in gharries a mile or two to the bungalow, through crowds of natives of India—how ugly they look compared with the Burmese! Though why one should compare them at all is beyond reason, for the Burman is to an Indian as a Frenchman to a Hottentot.

After dividing ourselves and baggage between two bungalows on either side of Tank Road, we drove with Mrs E. to see the lake and her favourite views of the Pagoda; and—I was about to contradict myself! Have I not said India was the most perfectly fascinating country for picturesque scenes of people and streets, and trees and parks and colour! Now, I withdraw; for Burmah puts India quite in the shade!

So you, my artist friends, who have no Academical leanings (you are few), come here, right away, though you have to work your passage on a B.I., or have even to travel first on that line as we did! You can come direct by the Henderson line for £36, sailing from Glasgow or Liverpool—£36 for a month on the blue sea, on a comfortable ship with lots of deck-room. This line gives specially reduced fares for bona-fide missionaries, so artists should be taken free—over page is one of their liners.

In Madras I saw Mr Talbot Kellie's book on Burmah and thought Burmah had been "done," and it was futile for other artists to try to paint anything new there. But thanks be, we are each given our own way of seeing things, though perhaps not the same patience to put them down; so when I saw the wide stairs and the arcades up to the Pagoda, and the terrace or platform from which it rises, it was new as could be to me, and as if it had never been painted or described before.

Here follow notes I see about painting—much talk and little done, owing to the novelty and variety of sights, and the relaxing damp warmth of the climate. The mean temperature yesterday was 90° with damp air and a stuffy, thunderous feeling and the dust hanging in the air under bilious looking clouds, which made people talk of earthquakes—we perspire, we melt—we run away in rivers, and our own particular temperature is 100°. How annoying to feel unfit to paint when there is so much to do at hand.… Started fairly early this morning for the Pagoda, and sat outside it in a gharry pulled up opposite the entrance porch and steps. It takes courage to attempt to sketch such a scene of shifting beauty! These architectural details, carvings in gold and colour, ought to be ground at till the whole is got by heart—then brush and colour let go, with a prayer to the saints.

The "gharry" makes an excellent perambulating studio—it is a small, high, wooden cab, with little lattice shutters instead of glass which pull up all round so that you can let down those you need for view, aft or forward, or at either side, and pull up the others and thus have privacy and light and air, and you need no stove or hot pipes, for you could roast a partridge inside!

A "native" policeman ("a native," be it clearly understood, in Burmah stands for a native of India) hovered round as if he thought my stopping in mid-street opposite the Pagoda porch might be his affair, but my Boy explained on this occasion that I was a "Collector," why, I do not know; however it had the desired effect, but it seemed to me rather a drop from his usual title of Chief Justice to a mere Collector.

To my surprise an English Buddhist lady I know, pulled up in front of me and got out of her carriage with a large paint box, took off her very neat brown shoes at the foot of the steps and went up in brown open-work stocking soles, and began to paint higher up the flights of steps, and a little crowd of polite Burman children gathered behind her. And a Britisher, a Scot, I think, came down, a little dazed-looking and delighted, and melting, and spoke to me, a stranger, out of sheer wonder and per fervidum at the charm of colour, and of course we agreed that it all "beggared description." I must have seen people of many races and religions going up the steps, Chinese, Shans, Kachins, Mohammedans, Hindoos, Americans, French, and British. I think in the space of two or three hours one of almost every nation must go up; not that there is any crowd at all, but the people are wonderfully varied, the greater number being, of course, exquisitely clothed Burmese.

To lunch at 10 o'clock, which is considered late here, in my bachelor friends' quarters—poor bachelors so far from home and home comforts! Figurez-vous, a princely hall, princely bedrooms, splendid teak floors and walls hung with many trophies, heads of tiger, of buffalo, sambhur, gaur, tsine boar, etc., etc., and in the long dining-room a sideboard gleaming with silver, white damask, white roses, and red lilies, perfect waiters and a perfect chef behind the scene—upstairs, verandahs spread with lounges and long chairs, tables with latest papers and latest books, and if this is not enough, they have every sort of social function within arm's length.—They are not to be only pitied, for all their punkahs, and the damp heat.

Rangoon, 8th January.—The Shan Camp.

To this we were invited by Mr B. S. Carey, C.I.E. He dined with us at the E.'s bungalow and told us much of interest of the people he had brought from these states that lie between Burmah and China. As Acting-Superintendent in place of Sir George Scott,[21] he has brought these people's representatives to meet their Royal Highnesses The Prince and Princess of Wales. Mr Carey's brother, and Mr Fielding Hall were also at dinner, and my bachelor host A. Binning, so between these people and G.'s host and hostess, Mr and Mrs E., information about Burmah and its dependencies, its social, commercial, or political prospects was available at first hand and to any extent.

But to the Shan Camp, in our best array, the ladies in toilets most pleasing to Western ladies, if not to Shan Princesses—we drove a mile or so into the country, turned off the high road by a new cutting into the jungle, and came on a clearing of perhaps two acres surrounded by bamboos and trees, and in the twinkling of an eye we were transported from European Rangoon to tribal life in jungle land. A village of pretty cane houses had been built, and there were Princes and Princesses, and Chieftains with their followings; I think there were thirteen different tribes represented, and there were twenty times thirteen different costumes. We were presented first to the Chiefs; they were in the most magnificent, shimmering brown silk robes of state, all over gold and precious stones, and had pointed seven-roofed pagoda crowns of gold. There were three Princesses, willowy figures, one in an emerald-green tight-fitting jacket of silk and clinging skirt, and a spray of jewels and flowers in her black hair; she was pretty, by Jove she was, and at anyrate uncommonly capable and shrewd looking. She had come about six hundred miles to see their Royal Highnessess, had ridden three hundred miles to Mr Carey's rendezvous up north-east, missed the party there, rode on here post haste, other two hundred miles, and looked as if another thousand wouldn't turn a hair—said hair was black and glossy and dressed in a top knot, set off with a spray of diamonds and rubies! I think she was considered the great lady of the day, as the country her husband rules is in Chinese territory. The other ladies of the Shan States were also beautifully dressed. Never in my life have I seen such delicate blending of silks and faces and jewellery and flowers. I did not know which was the more interesting, the gorgeousness and fantastic form of the Princes' garments, or the exquisite harmonies and simplicity of shape of the Princesses. The willowy emerald-green Princess, who came from Fairyland, I am sure, shook hands with us and gave us tea and sugar and cream and a buttonhole, heavily scented, likewise a cigar, and if I hadn't had fever and could have spoken her language I'd have been enchanted. But first I should have described the wonderful umbrellas that ornamented the camp. When we got out of our carriage our ladies and ourselves were escorted to the clearing, each by one of these potentates with a liveried servant holding up one of these orange or white and crimson umbrellas over us. The Princesses walked with the ladies and I walked with an elderly Prince, with a jolly and kindly wrinkled face—it felt so very odd to be walking in Western modern garments beside this very old-world costume; his wings touched my shoulder, and the vane of his pagoda-spired crown or hat waggled above my head.

Round the centre of the dealing, in a circle round us, were arranged many retainers in tribal costumes; some of them held golden umbrellas, others silver-mounted swords, spears, crossbows, and flags. The arrangements and effect was so picturesque that it is to be hoped the Prince and Princess will see these people in the same situation.

The various tribes danced each their characteristic dance; there were too many to remember each distinctly. A bamboo instrument[22] with the softest bell-like notes pleased me, and gentle but abrupt gong notes were frequently struck. In some dances the dancers stood close together in rows, hand in hand, and moved their feet and bowed their heads in time to very sad music, which I was told was to represent marriage! Another was full of movement and suggested a war dance, the dancers whirled swords and postured; all the movements were silent and the music low, with only occasional loud notes on gong and hollow bamboo, and so were much in harmony with forest stillness and the shades of jungle round the camp.

The most extraordinary dress was worn by the Padaung women, a kilt and putties of dark cloth, with round the hips and upper part of kilt, many rings of thin black lacquered cane; round the neck were so many brass curtain-rings of graduated circumference, narrowing from the chest to the ear, and so many of them that the neck had become so elongated that the head either actually was dwarfed or seemed to be so small as to be quite out of proportion to the body. Of course the proud wearer could not move her head in the very least, and wore an expression like that of a hen drinking.

Ten chiefs were present; I wrote down their names, but it is difficult to decipher them now. There was the Sawbwa of Keng-tung, forty days' journey from his capital east and south of Mandalay, and north of Siam; the Sawbwa of Yawnghwe; the Sawbwa of Lawksak; and the Myosa of this state, and the Myosa of that, and their wives. The Princess with the green jacket was Sao Nang Wen Tip, wife of the ruler of the Chinese state Keng-hung, and half-sister of the Sawbwa of Keng-tung; her journey to Rangoon took fifty days; and she is well-known in western China and our Shan States as a states-woman and woman of business. Her neat, small, well-set on head, with pretty face and slightly oblique eyes, one could not forget quickly—it was feline and feminine, and through and through as a poignarde ecossaise. Her sister, Sao Nang Tip Htila, was the only lady who rode on an elephant at the Delhi Durbar Procession. She is also known as a clever business woman; at present she rules the state of Keng Kham during the minority of her son. She lost her jewels in the Hoogley on the road to Delhi Durbar, and thought that as nothing to put against the satisfaction of having "shaken hands with the King-Emperor's brother," the Duke of Connaught, the memory of whose graciousness is treasured by the Shans to-day.

… G. and I went to the Pagoda and admired. It is the richest colour I've seen in the world, and, please heaven, let me come back. Otherwise Rangoon is not so very interesting; there are wide macadamised roads in the European parts, with large, two-storied villas in dark-brown teak wood on either side, with handsome trees in their compounds, thousands of nasty raucous crows, and Indian servants everywhere, and a very few Burmans. But the Pagoda is almost purely Burmese; a group of sinister-looking southern Indian natives sometimes passes up or down the steps in their dirty white draperies, and seem to bring an evil atmosphere with them, and a band of our clean, sturdy red-necked soldiers in khaki may go up, flesh and fire-eating sons of Odin, with fixed glittering bayonets and iron heels clinking on the stone steps—Gautama forgive us!—but they don't break the picture nearly so much as the "natives," their frank expression is more akin to the Burman's, they have not got the keen hungry look of the Indian; or the challenging expression of some of our own upper classes.

Who can describe the soft beauty of the Pagoda platform—the sun-lit square at top of the long covered stairway—with its central golden spire supporting the blue vault of sky, surrounded at its base with serene golden Buddhas in little temples of intricate carving, in gilded teak and red lacquer, and coloured glass mosaic, with candles smoking before them and flowers dying. The square is paved, and round the outside against graceful trees and palms are more shrines and more golden-marble Buddhas facing into the square, and some big bells hang on carved beams, and children strike them occasionally with deers' horns, half in play, half as a notice to the good spirits that they and their seniors have been there to worship. They have a very soft, sweet tone, and the crown of the sambhur's horn seems suited to bring it out. On the pavement are some favoured chickens and some children and a dog or two, and here and there devout people in silks, kneeling on the flags with folded hands repeating the precepts of the Perfect Law of Gautama Buddha. To overcome hatred with love, to subdue anger, to control the mind, and to be kind to all living things, and to be calm. That this is the greatest happiness, to subdue the selfish thought of I. That it is better to laugh than to weep, better to share than to possess, better to have nothing and be free of care than to have wealth and bend under its burdens.

Such teachings we have at home; but the Buddhist believes too, what the West forgets, what the old druid Murdoch, before he died, taught to Columba on Iona: That all life in nature is divine, and that there is no death, only change from one form to another. So they reverence trees and flowers and birds and beasts, and each other, and believe that,

therefore their happiness and calm and the look of peace on the faces of the very old people, and their great kindness to each other and to animals, and the little offerings you see to the spirits of trees.

It is very peaceful, for the repetitions of the worshippers in the open air are not disturbing; and from far overhead comes a little tinkling from the light Æolian bells moved by the breeze high up on the Hte. If you look up you see the Hte against the blue. It is an elaborate piece of metal work on the tip top of the pagoda; you cannot make out its details but you can see it is made of diminishing hoops with little pendant bells hung from these, that the wind rings sometimes; and you are told that one little bell may be so bejewelled that it may be worth £70, and the whole Hte that looks so light and delicate is really of heavy golden hoops encrusted with jewels; for which a king of Upper Burmah gave £27,000, and the Burmese people £20,000 more in voluntary subscriptions and labour. This was since our occupation of Lower Burmah.

The priests in their yellow robes, draped like Roman Togas, come and go just like other people; they are greatly reverenced, they teach all the boys of the nation their faith, reading, writing and simple arithmetic, but they do not proselytise or assume spiritual powers, nor do they act in civil affairs, and they "judge not;" they live, or try to live a good life, and to work out each his own salvation, and you may follow their example if you please, but they won't burn you if you do differently or think differently.… If any one wants to have the wrinkles rolled out of his soul—let him go and rest in the quiet, and sun, and simple beauty of the Shwey Dagon Pagoda, with its tapering golden spire and the blue sky above.