Seven hundred and eight miles we have come to-day from the sea, a regular Argo trip, yet we are far from wearied, and, allowed a day to stop here and there, would willingly proceed in the same manner to the Arctic circle. The farther we go, the more are we impressed with the apparent wealth of this country; the soil is fertile to a degree, the climate is better than Egypt; there's coal, oil, minerals, precious stones, gold, marble, alabaster, and such a magnificent waterway. Had I a hundred years to live I'd scrape capital together to put into this recently "acquired" land; as it is perhaps it would be cheaper and better to stay here now, and learn Burmese philosophy, and make capital out of the flowers that blow.

… That settles the matter—I get my gun sent up from Rangoon, or go down for it myself—over 200 splendid geese along a sandbank! Within 200 yards! I could count their feathers with my glass. The Captain tells me you just need to drift down in a native canoe and make a bag with ease. Rather a shame, you say; for the Burmans are not supposed to take life, so the geese are not afraid of a dug-out canoe. But a Burman is delighted to eat what others kill, and besides, I have been so often outwitted by geese at home, that I'd just like to have one chance, to retrieve past misfortunes. Between Mandalay and Bhamo, the Captain says, they are even more numerous than here. Beyond Bhamo, he describes the river water as so clear you can count the pebbles thirty feet below its surface, and describes the whacking big Mahseer, the gold dredging, and the game alongside—peacocks—leopards—buffaloes!

As we were talking, the Rock pilot came alongside in a launch and handed aboard a bunch of geese, the same as those we had seen;[29] he is out of shot and powder, and I believe we have no cartridges on board. The geese weighed five and a half pounds each, but they put on some three pounds before the end of the season, before they go north, possibly to some lake in the Himilayas or Western China, to breed.

At Saigang we fairly draw a breath with astonishment at the beauty of the panorama that opens before us. The river widens to two miles, and comes to us in a grand curve from the north and east. Mandalay is at the bend, some nine miles up. It is like a beautiful lake edged with a thread of sand—a lake that Turner might have dreamed of. Above Saigang on our left are green woods, capped with white and gold minarets, with white stairs and terraces leading up to them. To the north one or two canoes, with bright sails, and distant mountains with purple corries, and fleecy clouds, are mirrored on the tranquil river: these distant hills are of very delicate warm violet tints, on their shoulders we can just make out the forms of forests, and heavy white cumuli hang above them in a hazy blue. The white Saigang pagodas on our left in the distance look like Scottish-baronial or French chateaux, embowered in foliage. Across the swelling river ("swelling" is the right word, I am sure, for the river's surface seems to be convex) and to our right the country is flat, and in the green woods are the overgrown ruins of the once splendid city of Ava. Certainly, of my most pleasant recollections, this wide landscape, and all its light tints of mother-of-pearl, will remain one of the most delightful.

Mandalay is at the upper end of this lake-like part of the Irrawaddy; it lies back and behind the river bank or bunda, so it is not visible from the river.

Our steamer pulls up against a flat that lies against the sandy shore, exposed, at this time of year, by the lowness of the river. There are no wharfs as I had expected, only two or three floating sheds, and two or three steamers like our own. The sandy shore slopes up some thirty feet to the bundar, and over that we see palms and trees.

Up and along the sandy shore we drove in a gharry, a man on either side to prevent it upsetting in the ruts, and if it had not been for the honour of the thing I would as soon have walked! On the top of the bundar we struck a macadamised road and rattled gaily along to see the town. It is almost pure Burmah here, and the native of India is beautifully scarce; but Chinese abound, and are uncommonly nice-looking people. We drive a mile or so with rather dingy teak and matting houses on trestle legs on either side of the road, overhung with palms and trees, and see the domestic arrangements through open verandahs—women and children winding yellow silk in skeins and cooking, the vivid colours of the silks in sudden contrast to the sombre dusty red and brown wood of the houses.

We stop at a wooden building with gilded pillars in a clear space of dry foot-trodden mud, surrounded with tall palms and some teak trees with grey-green leaves big as plates. The short lower wooden pillars support a gallery, and this again has other gilded pillars supporting one roof above another in most fantastic complication; green glass balustrades and seven-roofed spires wrought with marvellous intricacies of gilded teak-wood carving. Indian red underlies the gilding, and the weather has left some parts gold and some half gold and red, and other bits weather-worn silvery teak. The pillars and doors from the gallery into the interior shrines were all gold of varying colours of weather stain. Shaven priests, with cotton robes of many shades of orange, draped like Roman senators, moved about quietly; they had just stopped teaching a class of boys to read from long papyrus leaves—the boys were still there, and seemed to have half possession of the place. Overhead green paroquets screamed, flying to and fro between carved teak foliage and the green palm tops. The interior of the building was all gilded wood—a marvel of carpentry; there were lofty golden teak tree pillars and gilded door panels with gilded figures in relief, and yellow buff cane mats on the floor. Light only came in through doorways and chinks in the woodwork in long shafts, but such light! golden afternoon sun into a temple of gold, you can imagine the effect when it struck gilding—how it flamed, burned, and lit up remote corners of the shadowy interior with subdued yellows! As we looked in, a kneeling priest near us waved to us to enter, and went on with his devotions, his old wrinkled, kindly, brown face and neck and close cropped head, and deep orange drapery all in half tone against a placque of vivid lemon yellow gold in sunlight. These priests, or phungyis, in their old gold cotton robes form one of the most distinctive features of Burmese life in town and country. They are greatly respected by the people for their simplicity of life. They teach all the boys in the country reading, writing, and simple arithmetic, and how to try to follow the example of the life of their great Gautama. Theoretically they do this for love alone, or to "earn merit." What alms they receive is not in payment—gifts are accepted but not asked for. The people do not pay taxes for their clergy, nor do these literally free kirk ministers perambulate the country, and ask children for their Saturday pennies for a Sustentation Fund. One of the most interesting sights here is to see their young novitiate priests in the morning going round the bazaars and the boats and the stalls on the strand in their yellow robes, bowl in hand, silently waiting for a dole of boiled rice or fruit, and passing on if it is not quite ready, to come another day.

All Burmese men are priests for a certain time, even though it be but for a few months; for that time they must wear the simple yellow dress and renounce all worldly desires[30]. So it was in the earliest Scottish Church; the Culdee clergy were teachers as well as preachers, and taught arts and crafts as well as their faith.

The observances of the phungyis are almost austere, but the teaching that Gautama Buddha passed to the laity was less so. The Burman says, "Life is a vale of tears, so be happy as possible and make others happy and you will be good"—the religion of the actor and the artist—the rose and to-morrow fade, and "loves sweet manuscript must close," but do what you may, as beautifully as you can—be it a pastel or a matinÉe.

This monastery is called the Queen's golden Kyoung; it was erected by Thebaw's queen, Supayalat, in the early eighties—and now king Thebaw and his queen are in durance near Bombay.

Though it was getting late we drove on to another place, the Arrakan Pagoda. We had heard of it pretty much as a Burman coming to Europe might hear of a place called St Peter's.

It was a long, fatiguing, jolting drive in the rattling gharry, fatiguing physically and mentally, for along both sides of the road were such interesting things, Chinese cafÉs lighting up, huge paper lanterns outside, and stalls of every kind, makers of golden umbrellas and Burmese harness-makers, almost every stall showing some pretty colour and Rembrandtesque lamplight effect.

The entrance was like that of other pagodas, two white griffins looking up at the sky, with busy modern life at their feet. There was a long approach of shallow steps between double rows of red pillars with much wood-carving overhead, and panels of poor fresco; but it was rather dark to see details, and the stall-holders from either side were departing, and we could see little but the flare of these ladies cheroots. As we got up towards the centre of the temple, a light or two appeared, and worshippers came in from the shadowy outside. As the candle light increased it showed that we were under gilded Italian renaissance arches, and in the centre, where the four arcades met, were lofty elaborate ornate iron gates round a centre of great light.

Before the gates were curious umbrellas of pink and white silk, and pendant chrystals and ornate vases of china and lacquer with peacocks feathers in them; and a golden chest and huge silver bowl (full of flower-petals) were in shadow to one side.

More and more candles and hanging glass lamps from green-coloured beams were lit, and gradually worshippers collected and knelt before the great gates facing the strong light with the blue evening shadows behind them. They brought with them strange tokens in shapes like marriage cakes but in brilliant colours, gold, emerald, pink, and vermilion; these they placed on the pavement in front of them. There were dark-robed people, men and women from somewhere towards China, some of them old and tottering, and Chinese, Burmese, Shans, Kachins, Karens, and people of Asia that I could not place, all kneeling, sitting, and bowing in the warm glow of light that comes from the great golden Buddha behind the gates. Amongst them were golden and red lacquered boxes and bowls and a mÉlÉe of effects and things, that suggested a curiosity shop, yet withal a bigness in the golden arches and a simplicity of worship that was simply grand. Ghost of Rembrandt!—could you have but seen this and depicted it in your most reverend and inspired moment! Or Rubens—he would have caught the grandeur of effect, but would he also have caught the meekness and the piety of the old women's and men's faces.

There was a dog and a Chinese boy beside the peacock feathers, in a blue silk shirt and trousers edged with black; a Burmese woman sweeping; two little brown half naked children—a boy and girl playing on the stone pavement with the guttering wax of candles at the side of the arches; and the kneeling youths and seniors bowing and repeating their sonorous prayers, all within a few yards of each other, without one disturbing or apparently distracting the other. Only I felt out of place, a long standing Western figure from the Western world in topee and flannels with a sketch book, scribbling: but a boy kindly held half of some worshipper's candle to light my sketch book; priests in yellow robes stood behind looking on, and made no remark.

I fear an Occidental must look uncouth in such an Oriental setting; you feel you ought at least not to stand up in a place like that; I mean for Æsthetic reasons—you overbalance the composition.

How great and unexpected was the change from the morning on the river in the sun and clear air to the evening and the glow of lamps and colour and the chanted, prayers in this centre of Buddhism, the Mecca of this far East!

We came out and caught a tram-car home, i.e. to the "Java"—an electric car made in London—Ye gods—the short circuit of ideas!

24th January.—This morning I have to try to paint the groups in the Arrakan Pagoda, but in the bright daylight it is difficult to take one's attention from these Phrynes, who come down to bathe beside our steamer—Phrynes, as to figure I mean. One of the two nearest has a little white jacket and a tight hunting green cloth skirt and black velvet sandals; her movements are deliberate, almost languid, and she is fairly tall, very well proportioned, and when her white jacket comes off, the colour of her shoulders is very pretty in contrast to the jet black hair and undergarment of blue. This garment, with its white band tight across her bust, remains on when the green kirtle drops to her feet. Her friend is dressed in the same way in different colours. They walk in and swim a few strokes—if you may call it swimming—with other women already in the water. Then they wash themselves very carefully with soap, and when the first comes out in her blue tight garment, she slips the green kirtle over her head and the blue dress drops off underneath it. There is no drying—the sun does that, and they are hardy. A yard or two on this side of them, two men tuck their waist clothes round their hips and go in with their oxen; both the yellowy-brown men and the oxen seem to enjoy it, and come out with the sun in high lights on their tautened muscles.

Immediately at hand a native (Indian) woman, a Madrassee, with her brass chatty, wades into the water all standing—dirty white canopies and all—and futilely washes, without soap, and rubs her teeth with a finger, spits and makes ugly noises and faces, looking now and then critically at the Burmese women farther up the bank, as if she would fain copy their more graceful ways and movements. Then she polishes her brass chatty religiously with mud, and fills it with water where she has been dabbling, and goes ashore and up the sand, a bedraggled-looking creature, and conceited at that! Next comes a Burmese mother and her two young daughters, their bathing dress a smile and a Christmas orchid in the hair. The eldest is a thing of beauty, with lines to delight a Phidias. Alas! why must we hide all beauty of form except that of animals—hide fearfully God's image? Men, women, and children here all seem fit and fairly well shaped; you rarely see a deformity, except at show places such as the big temples. It would be the same with us were we to pay more attention to form, and proportion, than to dress.

I intended to paint at the Arrakan Pagoda to-day, but a pleasant looking man came on board with a chitsaya harp; I had to try and make a jotting of him. G. and Captain Turndrup brought him. He sat and played tunes for hours—epic tunes, which I'd have given anything to remember. His boat-shaped harp of thirteen strings was tuned in minor thirds, so you could readily pick out Celtic tunes on it. I am told Sir Arthur Sullivan came here and listened to his music and made many notes. The harp belonged to Prince Dabai, Thebaw's step-brother, and I confess I bought it; but I will restore it if it is required for any National Burmese Museum or Palace.

Whilst I painted him, the phungyi boys in yellow robes came along the shore to collect food from the people on the river boats alongside the sand, and from one or two stalls on the shore. They stood silently with the big black lacquer bowls in their arms against their waists, looking humbly down, and a stall holder placed large handfuls of the rice she was cooking into a bowl. Then the close-cropped bare-headed lad came to the fifty foot dug-out canoe beside us, but the food there was only being cooked so he moved on without a word.

… 25th.—A faint mist lifting off the shore. The sun is hardly risen, but already the bullock carts with heavy wooden wheels are squeaking and groaning along the sand. There is just enough mercantile life to be comprehensible and picturesque; some four or five Irrawaddy Flotilla steamers are fast to the bank, and between them are some sixty native canoes with round mat houses on them. The cargoes of the steamers are piled on the sand in bales, so you see the whole process of its being discharged and loaded on the carts and taken away. As the sun rises the dust does the same, and so do the voices of the people, old and young, and the geese and the children join in, but the babel is not unpleasant, it is not too loud; there are pleasant low notes and laughter all the time. The general tone of the voices is not unlike that of a French crowd in good humour.

We have received a kind invitation to go and stay with people on shore, but we resisted the temptation for the meantime. For here on the "Java," we see such interesting scenes; and our up-river boat ought to be here immediately, and to shift our belongings along the shore some thirty yards on to her, will be much less trouble than flitting to our friends' bungalow; so we go on drawing here.

The Phryne in hunting green is down again, languorously dropping her green kirtle. It has an orange vermilion band round the top that clips the green above her breast. She isn't a swell swimmer; all the women do in that way is with their hands and they raise their heels out of the water, and smack down their shins and toes together and just get along, this possibly on account of the tightness of the lungye or tamien. The men have various strokes, mostly sort of dog strokes, and get along but slowly. I have not seen either a man or woman dive.

We have gone up the bank now a few yards to the cargo boat and installed ourselves in it with our luggage—a very easy "flitting"—and we find the cargo steamer just as perfectly comfortable as the mail boat we have left—cabins, mess table, promenade on the upper deck in the bows. There are curtains round the bows to drop if there is too much draught, and thick handsome carpets on deck. To compare price, comfort, and beauty of scenery with a Nile trip would be hard luck on Old Nile and its steamers. I should say this is a third cheaper and six times more comfortable, and many times more interesting. With regard to mosquitoes there are more at this present moment of writing than I have had the misfortune of meeting elsewhere, but it isn't so all the road. I still think, however, that those mosquitoes of the Bassein Creek are incomparable.

We (that is merely "I" this time) went to-day with a very European party of Mandalay residents up and across the river to Mingun in a sort of large picnic on a Government launch. We went to see the second biggest bell in the world and a pagoda that would have been one of the biggest buildings, if it had ever been finished! Both are great draws, and neither is of any account. The view of the winding river from the top of the ruins of the pagoda is certainly exquisite, and for ever to be remembered. But it's a pretty stiff climb to get there, and you should let your enemy go behind, for the loose bricks sometimes go down through the shrubs like bolting rabbits.

The trees too are splendid, and the distant ruby mountains are very exquisite, but as for dancing on a Government boat's deck, and tea and small talk—such things may be had at home, and brass bands too—mo thruaigh!

The big bell weighs about ninety tons; it is hung on modern girders, far enough off the ground to let you crawl inside, and it has a poor tone. The diameter of the lip is sixteen feet. The masonry, otherwise the base for the proposed pagoda, contains 8,000,000 cubic feet, is 165 feet high and 230 feet square, and is cracked through the middle and tumbling to pieces owing, some say, to an earthquake and thunderbolts—I think from bad building and the natural inclination of loose bricks to find their angle of repose.

To-night we gharried to the Grahams to dinner, over the ups and downs and deep sand and ruts of the shore, over cables and round timber heads and teak logs till we got to the hard, a man on each side holding up the conveyance, and two men with lanterns.

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 wood and 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-looking people. 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 contrast Western 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 they have 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.