Part 18 (2/2)
Though it was getting late we drove on to another place, the Arrakan PaG.o.da. 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 cafes 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 paG.o.das, 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 wors.h.i.+ppers 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 peac.o.c.ks 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 gla.s.s lamps from green-coloured beams were lit, and gradually wors.h.i.+ppers 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 melee of effects and things, that suggested a curiosity shop, yet withal a _bigness_ in the golden arches and a simplicity of wors.h.i.+p 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 peac.o.c.k feathers, in a blue silk s.h.i.+rt 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 wors.h.i.+pper's candle to light my sketch book; priests in yellow robes stood behind looking on, and made no remark.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
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 aesthetic 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 G.o.ds--the short circuit of ideas!
24th January.--This morning I have to try to paint the groups in the Arrakan PaG.o.da, 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 Madra.s.see, with her bra.s.s 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 bra.s.s chatty religiously with mud, and fills it with water where she has been dabbling, and goes ash.o.r.e 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 G.o.d'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 PaG.o.da 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 sh.o.r.e to collect food from the people on the river boats alongside the sand, and from one or two stalls on the sh.o.r.e. 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A Burmese Harpist]
Half an hour's gharry to the paG.o.da, an hour there sketching and trying to remember things, and half an hour's rattle back in the dark, wound up my day's study.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
The Mandalay gharry, a ”dog kennel on wheels,” is a frightfully ramshackle thing; doesn't the very name suggest a rickety, rattling sort of a machine? They are of hard wood, loosely built, with wooden seats, iron tyres, loose wooden blinds, and springs of iron--I doubt if there are any! and it is hauled by a tiny Burmese pony, licked by a native of India.
... 25th.--A faint mist lifting off the sh.o.r.e. 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 s.h.i.+ft our belongings along the sh.o.r.e 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 s.h.i.+ns 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.
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