Life and Travel in Lower Burmah: A Retrospect

by C. T. Paske

The natives looked with undisguised amazement on our cavalry and artillery horses: to begin with, the process of mounting sorely puzzled them. Later on, when it was decided to weed them out, a few, sold by auction, came into the possession of ambitious and adventurous Burmese, one of whom I watched with great amusement in his fruitless endeavours to mount. The climax was reached when, in despair, he tied the animal to one of the posts of his verandah, and climbing over the railing from inside, lowered himself into the saddle. Delighted beyond measure at the success of his stratagem, he cautiously proceeded to “cast adrift,” and doubtless enjoyed a famous ride, of which the element of excitement was by no means the least attraction.

There was a peculiar kind of football in which these people excelled, which in so far resembled our own “Association” that the use of the hands was strictly forbidden. There, however, the resemblance ceased: the ball, about the size of those used at croquet, was constructed of strips of cane, and consequently very light; some thirty players would form a large circle, and would keep the ball going from one to another, with toes, heels, and knees, with wonderful skill and accuracy.

But the most striking of their national amusements was the theatrical performance known as a “Pooay,” which was given in a kind of large “Punch and Judy” show.

Seats were literally taken early; that is to say, every one brought a brick, deposited the same according to fancy, and forthwith squatted upon it.

The dramatis personæ were dolls dexterously manipulated by a complicated arrangement of wires, while the men behind proved no mean ventriloquists; the performance, too, was as lengthy as it was excellent, for I have seen the audience assemble of an evening, and break up when I have passed that way again next morning!

Any clever joke would be received with uproarious mirth, and—let the reader be lenient in his judgment of these poor, untaught savages!—the broader the allusion, the more they relished it.

Comparisons are, as a rule, odious, but the pharisaical suppression of many native Burmese modes of recreation gives rise to reflections that will find expression ere long in the outcry of an injured people. We lay the flattering unction to our souls that we are not as others; we, forsooth, forbid the natives to bet and gamble. Why can we not at least have the honesty to admit that we hold India and Burmah solely and entirely for the sake of the “loaves and fishes,” without descending to cant about our duty as the pioneers of a religion with which such races can have but little real sympathy, and a civilization that—if, indeed, it be nothing worse—is at least no improvement on their present state?

The new arrival is at once struck by the large number of places of worship scattered broadcast over the country. They generally culminate in a pagoda, a wonderful tapering structure, very solidly built, and covered from the base upwards with gold-leaf, while the apex is generally surmounted by an umbrella, the insignia of royalty, or some other fantastic device. They were built in honour of Buddha, the labour and material being voluntary gifts of the people. If offerings of produce could be relied on as a measure of their devotion, then were the Burmese an essentially religious people. Plantains, boiled rice, curiously concocted native dishes, flowers, umbrellas—all were presented in profusion, and all—not excepting the more perishable portion of even the umbrellas—were disposed of by swarms of crows, the more adventurous of which pounced upon the good things while the worshippers were still busy with their devotions.

Of the many wondrous natural phenomena that so puzzle us Europeans in the far East, the extraordinary instinct possessed by vultures and other birds of prey is by no means the most inconsiderable. But a few moments need elapse after a bullock falls dead on the march, and one already sees black spots not far above the horizon, which soon prove to be vultures making straight for the carcase with unerring precision. Naturalists are divided in opinion as to whether this extraordinary power of perception owes its origin to some unusual development of the sense of vision, or to an equally unintelligible transcendency of the olfactory organs: one fact, I believe, speaks strongly in favour of the former hypothesis, and that is, that the birds as often as not approach from windward.

The numerous roadside temples offered unlimited opportunities for “looting,” the panacea for all military hardships; though the occasions were indeed better than the prizes, which consisted for the most part of images of Gautama covered with gold and silver foil.