Part 17 (1/2)
I ought to be painting these boats that pa.s.s--but there's breakfast-bell--boats my friends, with the colours of Loch Fyne skiffs, as to their sails and woodwork, a little deeper in colour, perhaps, and set off with brighter figures, with here and there a rose pink turban or white jacket. The hulls have a quaint dignity about them, and the carvings on their sterns are as rich as the woodwork in a Belgian cathedral.
Prome.--The sandbanks withdraw, and the wooded ranges of blue hills show more firmly in the background. It is as if we were at the beginning of a very wide Norwegian valley. Fishermen's mat shelters break the monotony of some long sandbanks--isolated signs of life, each on its sharply-cast purple shadow; a naked boy and his sister run along the freshly broken edge of a sandbank, and wave to us.
Round, bend after bend, each a splendid delight to the eye--till two o'clock we look, and look, loath to leave the deck, though our eyes are sore and appet.i.tes keen--then lunch, watching the pa.s.sing scenes--and Prome.
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Looking out of our windows, to our left across the river, the scenery reminds me of loch Suinnart or loch Swene in Argyll: there are knolly hills, with woodc.o.c.k scrub, and terns, or sea-swallows, dipping in the current. To the right the sh.o.r.e is flat, then rises steeply to the road on the bundar, above which we see the tops of brown teak bungalows, set amongst rich green trees like planes, and beyond these again, stand grey stemmed teak trees, and over all, the deep blue sky, and the Shwe Sandaw PaG.o.da spire glittering with gold, with lower spires of marble whiteness.
PaG.o.da spires are all along the river side every mile or two, but they do not bespeak a population; most of them are in ruins, they are simply built with sun-dried bricks, some are white-washed, others gilt, only the famous paG.o.das are ever repaired, for a Burman obtains more evident merit by building a new one. To judge by their number, one might think there must be so many people that game could not abound, but this is not the case at all.
We go ash.o.r.e by the gangways (two broad planks) past Indian coolies and Burmese laden with bales and boxes slung from either end of bamboos balanced across their shoulders, through ramparts of bales and sacks piled on the sand and gravel sh.o.r.e. On either side of the path there are women sitting with snacks of Burmese food to sell to travellers, sugar-cane, sweet cakes, cheroots, soda-water, and ngapi; this is a great Burmese delicacy and has a peculiar smell! It is composed of pounded putrid fish--as unpleasant to us as a lively old Stilton-cheese would be to a Burman.
Up the bank some forty feet we find we are again in the track of the Royal Procession! There are tiny decorations going up amongst the trees.
A triumphal arch, quite twenty feet high, is being covered with coloured paper and tinsel, and a line of flags and freshly cut palm leaves leads to the little siding on the line that goes to Rangoon. The place is so pretty that you feel it is a pity that its natural features should be disturbed by ornament however well intentioned.
We go to the paG.o.da and climb slowly up the steps, for they are high and steep, and at every flight there are exquisite views out over the jungle of trees, palms, and bamboo, and knolly ”Argyll hills,” and looking up or down the stairs are more pictures; on both sides are double rows of red and gold pillars, supporting an elaborately panelled teak roof, with carvings in teak picked out with gold and colour. Groups of people with sweet expressions, priests, men, women, and children pa.s.s up and down.
On the platform there is heat and a feeling of great peace, the subdued chant of one or two people praying, the cluck of a hen, the fragrance of incense, and now and then the deep soft throb of one of the great bells, touched by a pa.s.sing wors.h.i.+pper with the crown of a stag's horn. There are s.p.a.ces of intense light, and cool shadows and shrines of gla.s.s mosaic, inside them Buddhas in marble or bronze--the bronzes are beautiful pieces of _cire perdu_ castings--flowers droop before them, and candles are melting, their flame almost invisible in the sunlight, and two little children play with the guttering wax.
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As we come down the stairs we meet khaki-clad Indian soldiers, with high khaki turbans, and indecently thin shanks in blue putties. They do not fit their uniforms or boots, or the surroundings, and only the sergeants seem to feel their rifles less than a burden. They are told off to posts in the jungle at each stage of the ascent, and we feel our retreat is menaced, but it is only a rehearsal for the Royal Visit to-morrow.
Little Prome is all agog! for the Prince comes down the river and is to land here and train to Rangoon.
Before we go aboard we walk through the marketplace by the side of the river; it is lit with a yellow sunset from over the river, the umbrellas stand out brown against the sky, and the burning tobacco of the girls white cheroots begins to show red, and the oranges have a very deep colour, the blue smoke hangs in level wisps in the warm dusty air--and you could lean up against the smell of the ngapi. It is in heaps, and of finest quality they say. Here is a jotting from a sketch in colour; I made also one in line to immortalise the Prome triumphal arch.
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There are more than a dozen flags on it now, and you see two natives putting up two lamps; and the governor, you can imagine--he is training his pair of carriage ponies to stand this unusual display. They go up and down the mile of high road on the bundar in such a lather, one nearly out of its skin with excitement. What would be better than an arch, and would please every one, would be to collect all the Burmese residents in the district in their best dresses, and allow them to group themselves as their artistic minds would suggest; their grouping and posing would be something to remember. Burmese woman study movement from childhood, and nothing more beautiful could be conceived than their colour schemes; I've seen arrangement of colours to-day in dresses, delicate as harmonies in Polar ice, and others rich and strong as the colours of a tropical sunset.
But one line more about the town.--Before the Christian era, Prome was within six miles east of being one of Burmah's many ancient capitals; it marked the ancient boundary between Ava and Pegu, otherwise Upper and Lower Burmah. It is seventy five miles above Rangoon, and has 27,000 inhabitants, and has streets here, and a law court there, and an Anglican church, so it is moving--one way or the other.
CHAPTER XXVII
Thayet Myo, January 20th.--After leaving Prome we have a good long wait here; we have the Prince's mails on board. Their Royal Highnesses are coming down river from Mandalay, so we wait their steamer. As we lunch on deck we watch the villagers collecting, coming in bullock carts and canoes.
The Flotilla Company have painted their steamer for the Prince all white--given her a buff funnel, and she flies the Royal Standard with the quarterings wrong, as usual, and looks mighty big and fine as she surges south over the silky, mirror-like surface of the river. There is a blaze of sun, and three dug-out canoes, with men in pink and white, flying bannerets, go out to meet her. With their gay colours, the white steamer, and the gleam of bra.s.s-work, you have a subject for a picture after the style of Van Beers--if there was only time! I just make a modest grab at it with an inky pen.
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Burmans come streaming along the yellow sandy sh.o.r.e in rainbow tints, and two of our soldiers in khaki, almost invisible but for the boots and red necks, sweat along the loose sand with them. Up the bank are seated groups of girls and women, quietly filling their souls with the joy of gazing at the white s.h.i.+p that contains the Imperial Ti.
... Put in the night at Minhla.--After dropping anchor, our new pa.s.sengers, Mrs Jacobs and daughter, and their guests and ourselves sit round the deck-table and talk of the celebrations in Rangoon, and we all turn in at ten, for we grudge an hour taken off these days of light.
They got off at Yenangyat further up the river, a place where there are oil springs and works.
21st.--We get up early these days, because the country is so beautiful, and because it is a little chilly out of the sun, and morning tub begins to have attractions again; it is so cold and exhilarating, and you feel fifty times more energetic up here than in Rangoon; you feel you must not miss any of the river's features, so tumble out betimes. Possibly the anchor coming up at daybreak awakened you, and if that did not, a dear little Burmese boy's c.o.c.k and hen must have done so; the c.o.c.k sends out such clarion challenges to all the c.o.c.ks ash.o.r.e before daybreak. The boy in green silk kilt with touch of pink, holding his two white pets with their red combs, makes a most fetching piece of colour.
We begin to think thicker clothing would not be amiss--but a quick walk on sh.o.r.e makes one's blood go merrily. We decided to come here again with some sort of a house on a keel of our own, and stop and shoot here and there, and paint; perhaps drift down river from Bhamo through the defiles, with sport wherever one wanted it--four kinds of deer, elephant, jungle fowl, francolin, snipe, geese, duck, possibly leopard or tiger, and a few miles inland there are rhino and gaur--there's a choice!--and I'd have a net too--four weeks out, by ”Henderson” or ”Bibby,” four here, and four back--I wonder if my presence could be spared at home.