Part 15 (1/2)

[20] Native in Burmah stands for native of India, not a Burman.

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

The Golden PaG.o.da stands up very simply and beautifully above the flat country, and beneath it palms and s.h.i.+p'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 PaG.o.da; 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 pa.s.sage 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 s.h.i.+p 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 PaG.o.da, 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 PaG.o.da, 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 s.h.i.+fting 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The ”gharry” makes an excellent perambulating studio--it is a small, high, wooden cab, with little lattice shutters instead of gla.s.s 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 PaG.o.da 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 t.i.tle of Chief Justice to a mere Collector.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Entrance to the Shwey Dagon PaG.o.da, Rangoon.]

It grew so hot! and then hotter, and the picturesque flower sellers on the eleven white steps outside put their white torch cheroots into their mouths--you could see neither red ash nor smoke in such light--folded their parasols and took their roses and baskets and went up the steps and sat themselves down in the porch in the shade and were as pretty as ever--Tadema's best pictures on the move!

Through the Arabesque wood carvings of the arcade roof, away up the flight of steps, shafts of light came through brown fretted teak-wood and fell on gold or lacquered vermilion pillars and touched the stall-holders and their bright wares in the shadows on either side of the steps, and lit up groups of figures that went slowly up and down the irregular steep stairs, their sandals in one hand and cheroot in the other. Some carried flowers and dainty tokens in coloured papers, others little bundles of gold leaf, or small bundles of red and yellow twisted candles to burn. Their clothes were of silks and white linen, the colours of sweet peas in sun and in shadow, and the air was scented with incense and roses and the very mild tobacco in the white cheroots.

It was hot in the gharry!

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 s.p.a.ce 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.

[21] Author of ”The Burman, his Life and Notions--a delightful description of Burmah, Shway Yoe.”

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, s.h.i.+mmering brown silk robes of state, all over gold and precious stones, and had pointed seven-roofed paG.o.da crowns of gold.