I have known a regiment up to its full strength so ravaged by these complaints as not to be able to muster a hundred effective bayonets after a few months’ residence in a certain part of the country. The annual incineration of Rangoon therefore possessed a redeeming feature, and was certainly a “thing of beauty” while it lasted.
Late one evening, in the month of April, the garrison was roused from its wonted propriety by what appeared to be a very heavy discharge of artillery and musketry in the immediate neighbourhood, and the commanding officer was on the point of calling the troops to arms, when some one discovered the origin of the alarm—the yearly fire! The flames literally ran along the streets faster than the natives could run themselves—the reports being due to the bursting of sections of bamboo; and the scene resembled (I ask pardon for seeking my illustrations in such commonplace sources), a Benefit display of fireworks at the Crystal Palace, at the moment when the large set-piece is ignited. It burned itself out, simply because there was nothing else left to feed upon; nothing but charred remains, the outcome of a very short reign of terror.
History, sacred and profane, alludes to a bird, sacred to the dread Osiris, the All-seeing and Many-eyed, that was said to pay a periodical visit to the land of the Pharaohs. The most credited account concerning the bird is that, on burning itself, a similar creature sprang from its ashes, and, from its hiding-place in the surrounding tamarisk, continued to watch over the sacred burial-place. A very phœnix was Rangoon; it rose up on its own ashes rejuvenated and vigorous; no harrowing accounts ever reached us of loss of life or even serious injury; all went on as before, with increased energy, until new bamboos had supplied the place of old ones.
Equally singular were the circumstances attending the outbreak of the “monsoon,” which burst upon us, less to our delight than to that of the vegetable and insect world. The change was startling. One day, the baked ground, as hard and bare as a rock, with only a stray blade of grass struggling for existence; creation groaning, exhausted, expectant. Then a change comes over its dream; there is a terrible and steady downpour; ere twenty-four hours have elapsed, the new blades of grass can be seen peeping out; there are innumerable insects on the wing, and millions of frogs are croaking in the marshes. The evening before I had passed a dried-up tank of large dimensions, the bottom of which was deeply fissured in every direction, and to all appearances as destitute of life as the Great Sahara. The next day it was full to the brim, and huge fish were leaping out of the water in evident delight at being released from their long and enforced captivity.
The rain had descended, the mud was softened, and its inmates, wriggling forth, took to their more natural element and mode of locomotion. Instances of dormant vitality we know to be common among seeds and insects; wheat found in an Egyptian mummy-case many centuries old has germinated freely; seeds of trees buried for ages have done the same, and those also of fruit found in a skeleton, that must have lain incarcerated since the beginning of the Christian era. The chrysalis stage of insects is too well known to need comment. But such a suspension of vitality in creatures like fish, whose organization demands continual aeration of the blood through gills, is somewhat strange, and runs considerable risk of being branded as a traveller’s tale. I confess to having felt startled on my first acquaintance with these mud-fish. Many months of freedom could now be looked forward to; then again the daily decrease in depth; wriggling into the mud; diminution of vitality; and finally, loss of consciousness. Truly, a strange existence!
CHAPTER VI.
THE TEACHINGS OF BUDDHA.
“For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight;
He can’t be wrong whose life is in the right.”
The discussion of a national religion is always a delicate task, but, having so far considered only the physical and political aspect of the Burmese, I feel that I may no longer avoid giving some account of their conception of the universe and the Hereafter, matters with which, truth to tell, they were wont to trouble themselves less than any other Eastern nation with which I ever came in contact.
I shall endeavour to convey some idea of their attitude towards their great teacher, Buddha; and I think that the reader will share my opinion that the absence of that fanaticism, so characteristic of the natives of Hindostan, is a blessing to rulers and ruled alike.