Being moreover numerous and very steep, a fall would have resulted in broken bones. The natives could run up and down them barefooted like so many cats; and were inwardly amused, no doubt, at our awkwardness, though far too polite to betray such unseemly exuberance in the presence of the “Lord-High-Chief-Commissioner!”
A most unusual combination of excellent soil and climate, assisted by so perfect and unique a system of irrigation, stamped the valley as a place of productiveness out of the common.
In those days, the country at large enjoyed a considerable reputation for tobacco, which, when cured, was remarkable for its dark colour and somewhat rank flavour.
I preferred it, however, to what “Trichys” were made of; though I only smoked the cigars when better were unavailable. The price was sufficiently tempting to decoy many, and to the officers of the ship in which I went out, I forwarded several thousand of them at the apparently improbable cost of a rupee a hundred.
It would be idle to add that the price rose rapidly soon after our occupation of the country, as everything invariably does in those places that we merely frequent!
In 1852, Pegu ponies cost Rs. 30; in 1858, Rs. 300 were asked and given. The fact is, both were novelties; and what Englishman will not pay a ruinous price for a novelty! I am of opinion that tobacco was not indigenous to Burmah, for the history of that important plant points rather to a western origin and a gradual spread eastward; while, with the single exception of the Manilla, it deteriorates the further we advance in the latter direction.
A Manilla is, I confess, a choice article; but compared with the genuine Havannah, the difference is as great as that between a Stilton and a Dutch cheese. Climate and curing are certainly important factors; but, even in perfection, they cannot compensate for certain qualities in the soil, found only in the west.
Nevertheless, this valley yielded at any rate the best to be had in a country where men, women and children, who cannot get tobacco, smoke an article composed of very fine chopped wood wrapped in a leaf.
Of grain, the principal was rice, a larger and coarser variety than that found in India or at Akyab; but we had no opportunity of seeing it in the fields, as it had long been cut, and they were irrigating for other crops.
It is the crop of which the Scripture saith, “Cast thy bread on the waters, and it shall be found after many days.” The ploughman, with his primitive scarifier and his pair of buffaloes, stirs the mud, while the sower flings the seed broadcast in his wake. Ere long a green film is perceptible at the surface; next come the blades and clusters of flowers on single stalks; finally, the water dries up and the crop ripens.