Part 19 (1/2)
The monks are standing in a solemn group near their staircase when we go back, and when I suggest to Ramaswamy we should give them something he disagrees vigorously. ”Not touching money, Master, only food and rice, no money.” All right, we won't tempt them, and I put back the rupee I had taken out. You must have noticed already that the money here is the same as in India. Then we climb into the miserable little box on wheels which is waiting for us; it is the only cab we can get here, and calls itself a ticca-gharry. The little rat of a pony seems a very long way off; it is a tight squeeze for us inside, and there is certainly no room on the box beside the hairy-legged native for Ramaswamy, but he hops up on a board there is behind for the purpose, and hangs on as we jolt away to the Golden PaG.o.da.
The first thing we see when we arrive at it are two enormous monsters, not like any animal in existence, made of white plaster with glaring red eyes. They have dragons' heads and tigers' bodies and are most terribly ferocious. These guard the entrance to the paG.o.da and are called leogryphs. Between them there is a long ascent rising to the paG.o.da platform. The place is like a bazaar with people in their gay clothes coming and going, and the sun glinting through between the pillars at the open s.p.a.ces. It is difficult to tell the difference between men and women, for all alike wear skirts and jackets, and you never see a man with a beard, hardly ever with a moustache. But the true distinction is that the men have a gay handkerchief called a _goungbaung_ wound round their heads, and the women wear no head covering, and, as you have seen, they never think of veiling their faces, like the Mohammedan women. The men's head-gear is very different from that we saw in India; it is not a huge and heavy erection, but just a silk or cotton scarf twisted up and tucked in, and very often there is a ”bird's nest” of dark hair sticking out in the middle of it, for the men's hair is long as well as the women's, but they roll it up so that it is not seen.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LEOGRYPH.]
Everyone is very bright and friendly, and the girls who are selling all sorts of little tawdry things on the stalls by the stairs call out to us persuasively to buy from them. On the whole the place is clean, and there is no bazaar smell, only a certain sharp wood-smoke flavour and the scent of many flowers. But at the foot of every white column are horrible deep-red stains that look as if some little animal had been slaughtered there. It is not so bad as that. You remember we saw a man whose mouth was stained red with chewing betel-nut, which he did in the same way that some of the roughest men in England chew tobacco? These are the stains of that betel-nut, for nearly everyone here has the nasty habit.
Up the steps we pa.s.s, higher and higher, and come out on to a great platform which looks like a street, for it is lined with buildings on all four sides and in the middle too; but rising above those in the middle is the great paG.o.da, the Shwe Dagon,--_shwe_ means golden,--and this is the most wonderful thing in Burma.
It is so wide at the base that it takes quite a long time to walk round it, and then it goes up in a bell-like curve, tapering to a steeple little less than the height of St. Paul's Cathedral. At the very top of all, so high that we can only see it by cricking our necks, is an iron cage called a _htee_, meaning ”umbrella,” decorated with swinging bells.
Listen for a moment and perhaps you can hear them as the wind sways them about. No, the air is too still to-day. Deep in the innermost chamber of the paG.o.da are no less than eight hairs of Buddha, besides other relics of other Buddhas who lived before the last.
The marvel of it is that this great monument is pure gold from top to bottom. Much of it is covered with thin plates of real gold, and the rest, yards and yards of it, is plastered with gold-leaf.
Did you see that red glint from the top as the sun caught the htee at an angle? That was probably a real ruby, for it flashed out like a sword blade. There are many real stones set up there, and the htee alone cost 50,000!
Coming back to earth, look at the glitter on all these shrines that line the platform on both sides. Though it looks like a street it isn't really, for there are no houses, only shrines and temples. That one close to us is dazzling to look at. No, those blue and red flashes are not from real jewels; examine them and see. The shrine is encased with little pieces of looking-gla.s.s, some red and some blue and some plain, all fitted in together like mosaic.
The next is made of the wonderful carved woodwork the Burmans do so well, and it is gilded all over; for my own part I prefer the dark teak ungilded, but still this looks very handsome among the rest. That tall post like a flagstaff, with streamers flying from it, is a praying-post; can you make out the figure like a weather-c.o.c.k at the top? It is a goose instead of a c.o.c.k, and doesn't tell the direction of the wind. It is the sacred goose. The brilliance of all this detail takes one's breath away. On every side we see the people wors.h.i.+pping, and yet it is not a festival day, for then we should hardly be able to move for the crowds on the platform--where there are tens now there would then be thousands. The wors.h.i.+ppers drop down quite simply on the pavement before a favourite shrine and hold up their hands toward it, sometimes with an offering of flowers in them, or even a big taper. There is a woman pa.s.sing smoking a monstrous ”green” cigar. It is a huge thick roll of light-coloured stuff like shavings, about as long as your arm from elbow to wrist, and as thick as a man's finger. She has to open her little round mouth wide to get the end in. It is not filled with pure tobacco, but a chopped mixture of all sorts; even you could smoke it without any harm. Why yes, women smoke here almost all day, and children too. They do say the mothers give the babies-in-arms a whiff, but I haven't seen that myself!
Set up everywhere are coloured umbrellas with fringes of coloured beads, as large as those used for tents on lawns sometimes. We peer into numberless shrines as we pa.s.s and see Buddhas of every sort peeping at us out of the dim interiors; there are Buddhas of bra.s.s, Buddhas of marble, Buddhas of alabaster, Buddhas coated with white paint, and Buddhas covered with gold. Most of them are seated, always exactly in the same position as the one we saw far away in Ceylon. This is supposed to signify Buddha as he sat under the Bo tree meditating.
Others show him standing with one hand upraised, and this is to show Buddha as he was when teaching, and others are lying down, but these are the least common. They are supposed to show Buddha when he pa.s.sed into eternal calm.
Pink is by far the favourite colour for the people's clothes, and it is very vivid, like the colour seen in striped coco-nut cream, but white is also much worn, and there is some yellow in orange shades. Many of the Burmese wear a s.h.i.+rt of maroon check, just like a check duster; these are their workaday clothes, on festivals they generally manage to come out in silks.
Come round now to the back of the shrines that line the platform on the outer side, here there is another open s.p.a.ce, and on it are bells as large as church bells; they hang between two posts. Take up one of those deer's horns lying beside that one and stroke it hard. It gives out a clear musical note. Try now the piece of wood, that sounds different.
Everyone who pa.s.ses stops to strike one or the other of the bells, they want to call the attention of the ”good nats,” or spirits, to the fact that they are at the paG.o.da! In this shed is an enormous bell large enough to hold half a dozen men. I don't think you'll be able to make much effect with a deer's horn on that. It is the third largest in the world, and once was in the bottom of the Rangoon River, for the English were carrying it away when it toppled over and sank. Engineers tried to raise it, but failed, because of its enormous weight; but the Burmans, after some time, were allowed to try, and somehow managed to succeed, and not only so, but they hauled it right up here! It does look as though there were something weird about its positive refusal to be carried away!
Along the edge of this part of the paG.o.da are a number of wooden platforms raised a foot or two from the ground, for the use of those who come from long distances, and on them many families are lying or sitting. On one sits a tiny boy with a quizzical intelligent little face. His top-knot sticks up like an out-of-curl feather. Beside him is a still smaller mite who cannot be more than two; he has little silver bangles on his fat wrists and ankles, and a strip of cotton rolled round his dumpy body, while papa and mamma and numerous aunts are seated on the platform behind gravely smoking.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ON THE PLATFORM OF A PAG.o.dA.]
I stop to light a cigarette close to this family, and in an instant the elder lad holds out his hand timidly. Just to see what he will do I give him a cigarette; he takes it with a self-possessed courtesy and looks at me, politely waiting for a light. I hand him the box and he strikes a match and bows a little as he returns it; even the children have excellent manners. Drawing in a great whiff of smoke he sends it out through his little round nose in keen enjoyment. But the fat baby has suddenly become alive to what is going on, and crawling on the top of his brother clamorously demands a smoke more loudly than if he were asking for sweets. The bigger boy hands him the cigarette. He knows quite enough not to put the lighted end in his mouth, and in a second is puffing so vigorously that the cigarette burns away like a furnace; when his brother sees this he makes a desperate effort to recover it, but the fat baby pushes him off with one hand, while he clings to the cigarette with the other, and, turning away his head, smokes harder than ever.
We are both reduced to fits of laughter by this time, and the family on the platform are enjoying the joke too. Seeing that there are likely to be difficulties, I solve them by producing another cigarette for the elder boy, and the fat baby is left in full possession of the first one.
The last sight we have of him is as he violently resists a grown-up sister who is trying to take away the stub!
CHAPTER XXII
THE KING'S REPRESENTATIVE
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GOVERNMENT SERVANT.]
We are lucky! No sooner have we returned to the hotel than a gorgeous man, over six feet high, dressed in white, with a red sash, in which is stuck a ta.s.selled dagger, greets us. He is a _chupra.s.sie_, or messenger, and has come from Government House with a note inviting us to a garden-party there this afternoon. What a day of it! This is the result of my having been up there yesterday to write our names in the book kept for the purpose, while I left you to rest. That is the way people do here instead of leaving cards, so that His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor may know who has come to the country. I thought perhaps he would take some notice of us, because his younger brother was my great friend at the 'Varsity, but this is very prompt. I am glad you will have a chance of seeing something of Government House, as most people in England have not an idea how things are run here. Burma is counted as one of the provinces of India, and is under the Viceroy of all India, but within his own borders the Lieutenant-Governor is the ruler and representative of the King.
It is about four o'clock, when, having had a rest and made ourselves as smart as we can, we crawl up the long drive leading to Government House in one of the ridiculous small ticca-gharries which are the only conveyances one can get.