Part 19 (2/2)

We had a quieter night, leastwise quieter than we expected. A child cried, and a Burman built his booth a little aft of our cabin, with box lids and French nails, and the hammering went on till about two. Then all was quiet, and traders and pa.s.sengers and their families were asleep, stretched round the deck aft of our portion--Burmans, Phunghis, Shans, Karens, Chinese, Sikhs, wrapped in various coloured sheets, in lines fore and aft and from side to side, dimly lit from above by lamps--the same in the two decks of the flat which we are to take up the river with us alongside.

These cargo steamers usually take up two flats,[31] one on each side, and the amount of trade done on these each voyage up and down, I am told, is considerable, and must annually give great profit to the countries whose goods we carry; two-thirds of these goods are Continental--German, Swiss, Austrian, Italian, and some are j.a.panese.

The deduction to be drawn from this will be equally clear to Protectionist or Free Trader.

[31] I am told this steamer is 250 feet, beam 48, flats 96, beam 24, and the mail steamer was 325, beam 62.

We made a false start; the mail steamer from the south we had been waiting for appeared just as we had cleared off the sh.o.r.e. She had been delayed by fog, so we anch.o.r.ed for an hour or so to trans.h.i.+p the mails and Burmese pa.s.sengers. Meantime I took a spell of painting, then Krishna and I hunted up a bamboo, got out snake-rings, fis.h.i.+ng book, and reel, and had a rod fixed up in no time. What with gun, cartridges,[32]

and painting things, my cabin looks quite interesting--to my mind. We have but one other pa.s.senger, so we may utilise two cabins, one as sleeping-room, the other as sitting-room, gun-room, and studio combined.

As such it might be even bigger with advantage, but for situation it would be impossible to beat--for changing views from the window or swirling tide and pa.s.sing boats with people in them, like bunches of flowers flaring in the sun, and then all soft and delicate as they float past in our shadow. The priests in these boats, with their yellow robes and round palm leaf fans have a decorative effect of repet.i.tion, and we are told these fans keep their thoughts from wandering from righteousness to pretty girls. Palm leaves, robes, and their bare right shoulders and arms are all in harmonious browns and yellows; the water is bluish mother-of-pearl. The men row their boats as all Southerners do, Italians, and the rest, standing and backing them like gondolas; only the Burman uses two oars.

[32] Telegraphed to Cook, Rangoon, who sent them to Mandalay by train.

But to the fis.h.i.+ng rod and line; we started with bait and did underhand casting from lower deck up and down the s.h.i.+p's side. The rod was excellent, a split new cane, if not exactly the ”Hardy split,” and it did not lie wholly between two points--it meandered a little, but I've got salmon on worse. We got nothing, and yet I saw a Burman in a dug-out log, with a no whit better rod, pull up a beauty like a sea trout of two pounds, as he drifted past; so next stopping place I hope you will hear of fish ”gra.s.sed” or ”creeled,” as they say in the papers.

We pa.s.s Mingun, half-an-hour up the river from Mandalay. I've mentioned this place before and its bell. The bell is big, so the traveller is expected to make every effort to see it. To me, the size of a bell is not very interesting, and one heap of stone (pyramids included) seems as interesting as another. It's the design that counts.

The Flotilla steamer does not always stop at Mingun; we went steaming past it on our left. The reflections of the trees and ruin in the smoothly running stream were crossed by rippling bands of lavender, where a breeze touched the water: and sea swallows poised and dipped, screaming and flas.h.i.+ng after each other. On the far side of the river were level white sands, green sward, and distant blue mountains.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

There's a pleasant sense of swelling fullness about the river; it may be an optical delusion, but I am inclined to believe it is a fact that the surface is slightly convex, like an old-fas.h.i.+oned mirror, perhaps an inch or two higher in the middle than at the sides. There is not much depth to spare, already we have touched bottom. It was a curious and almost incredible statement made to me that we draw four and a half feet, and can go over sand bars only covered four feet. It is true, however; the steamer after touching is backed astern a yard or two, and when her own following swell comes up to her, she goes ahead over the bar, on the swell.

At lunch we pa.s.s a great number of geese on the edge of a sandbank--our table is right in the bows, and we have a clear view of the banks on either side as we go along, even at meal times we have the field-gla.s.ses handy to pry into the scenes of animal life on river side--the captain, who generally has his gun handy, said, ”Yes, certainly we must have a shot at them,” and for a moment I hoped he would drop anchor, and that we would go off in a boat and stalk them, but I gathered sadly the ”shot” was to be underway at 150 yards--and I'd rather not--another lost opportunity!

Now we pa.s.s a regular regiment of birds I do not know--cranes, I think--some four feet high, the colour of oyster catchers, long red bills and legs, and black and white plumage.

The Irrawaddy valley is here a little like the valley of the Forth.

There is a centre hill for a Wallace monument, and the distant hills are like those in Perths.h.i.+re, but both the valley and the river are wider; and the delicious summery sun and air are too ideal--we only had such summer weather when we were children.

Painted all afternoon, pa.s.sing scenes. G. did a broad daylight effect of blue sky and distance, and the blue Ruby mountains and flecks of white c.u.muli and calm water, an effect in much too high a key for me to attempt; and I did a Punghis' bathing pool, in lower tones, a more getatable effect for my brush....

We have to drop anchor at sunset in mid-stream, somewhere below Kyonkmyoung, to wait for the mail, and because we have no searchlight we cannot go on at night. The mountains are closer now, and towards evening they are reflected in voilet and rose in the wide river.

... The lights go on, and I a.s.sure you our open air saloon, with its table set for dinner with silver, white waxy champak flowers, and white roses in silver bowls are delightful against the blue night outside. The scent of the champak would be too heavy, but for a pleasant air from up-stream, which we hope will help to clear out the piratical longsh.o.r.e crew of Mandalay mosquitoes which we brought with us. We are only a few miles short of our proper destination for the night, but no matter, _we_ are not in a hurry; the Burmans up-stream, waiting for their market, are not either, they will just have to camp out for the night.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mid-day on the Irrawaddy, distant Ruby Mountains]

Before bedtime, G. and I and Miss Blunt, the only other pa.s.senger, go round the booths and make small purchases, and try to make ourselves understood by the jolly Burmese shopkeepers: the Indian shopkeepers speak English. A little later the family groups go to sleep in their stalls, their merchandise round them. A father and mother and child I saw, in pretty colours under a lamp, curled up in the s.p.a.ce a European could barely sit on. And near our cabins there is a couple asleep on the deck, a dainty Burmese woman, her figure so neat, with narrow waist and rounded hip, and her hand and cheek on a dainty pillow, her husband lies opposite, and between them, also asleep, on the deck their mite of a child. Almost touching them is a priest still sitting up, his thoughts his company--possibly they are of Paternity. They all keep pretty quiet, they are not like those beasts on the B.I. boat; I daresay the quiet here is also due to better management. Now as I write the electric light goes out, and we light our candles--the s.h.i.+p is quiet fore and aft, the only sound the rippling of the Irrawaddy against our anchor chain and plates.

29th.--Second day from Mandalay. We have stopped three times at the river-side to-day. At each place a cascade of elegant people in heavenly colours came smiling down to our gangway planks, and when these were fixed, trooped on board; to buy purple velvet sandals, strips of silk, seeds, German hardware, American cigarettes, and goodness knows what else. I suppose I shall forget all these groups--and, colours, and expressions, in time--that is the gall and the wormwood of seeing beauty; I'd fain remember them longer and more vividly than I do.

At the first place we stopped two hours, so I went on sh.o.r.e, got a Burman as guide, and in a half-hour's run, got seven snipe and twelve pigeon. Pigeons, I was told, would help the larder; they were very tame, otherwise I'd hardly have cared to have let off at them.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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