Passing Kyouk-Phyao and several other places, we came to a small island not far from the mainland, inside which our adventurous captain had a mind to take the vessel. Although this was not the orthodox course, and attended, moreover, by considerable risk, we had unlimited faith in our navigator, and were consequently pleased with the idea.
The venture proved more arduous than he had anticipated, necessitating the utmost caution and constant heaving of the lead. The water was so clear that I could in many places see the rocks and seaweed, among which great fish were darting in the utmost consternation at the appearance of such a leviathan.
In consequence of the many inevitable turns and twists, our progress was of the slowest. In some places we were almost close enough to have leapt ashore, if so minded; and to any one watching from the bows, and forgetting the pranks played by refraction, it seemed as if we must strike the rocks every moment. The island, which presented but a tangled mass of vegetation, the abode of birds above and reptiles below, was undeniably pretty; not sufficiently so, however, to risk a steamer, and we were not sorry when we once more emerged into deep water.
The idea of thus going out of our way and courting danger emanated from the captain, a man of great determination and courage, who, being fearless at sea himself, never bestowed much consideration in this respect upon the “landlubbers” entrusted to his care, though his kindness and attention in everything else were unequalled.
This reliance on his own judgment was unbounded, too much so indeed to the shipowners’ way of thinking; and for the many years during which he commanded certain sailing-vessels in which speed was essential, he maintained the reputation of being the most “carrying on” man in the service; but the cost of wear and tear of spars and other paraphernalia must have been enormous.
Some time after leaving the island we steamed up the Irrawaddy, and I again beheld the town of Rangoon, which, since the time when I had landed there fresh from England six years previously, had grown beyond all recognition. An embankment had sprung up along the face of the river, behind which were substantial buildings of all kinds—residences, banks, warehouses, every sign, in short, of brisk trade and increasing prosperity.
I at once went ashore, anxious to see if anything remained of the old stockade and the old quarters; alas! a severe epidemic of cholera was at its height, and we were not permitted to penetrate further than the frontage of the river.
I had, however, the unexpected pleasure of shaking hands with the Commissioner, and should have dined with him, but for the fear of carrying infection on board. He was but little altered; the same winning smile and the same drawn pale face as of yore.
Sitting on deck that evening and listening to the ripple of the water as it flowed by us, I could not help wondering how it would have fared with me, but for that fever, which drove me from the country. I should without a doubt have possessed a long array of figures denoting rupees at my banker’s, whereas I could now muster but my pay; I should also have been spared the losses and miseries of the mutiny, and separation from a wife, but two months after marriage, on whose account I had to borrow money, that I might keep her comfortably at home until the country had settled down again. In all probability I should even now have been busy in the very place I was now gazing on in the pale light of a fitful moon, and should at any rate have been in a position to retire many years before I actually did, from a land in which I could no longer take the slightest interest. The light had become feeble in the extreme; and a mocking fate has ever laughed at my frantic efforts to make it flare up again. One by one, I am laying my darlings in the cold earth; had I remained, a mound of earth would have sufficed to cover my own remains; and, as far as this life is concerned, that might have been for the best!
The event of that dire scourge augured unfavourably for the sanitary arrangements of the place, or for the result of interfering with a virgin soil hitherto covered with vegetation. During my two years of knocking about in the country, I had to deal with plenty of fever and dysentery, but not a single case of cholera ever came under my notice, either in natives—Burmese, Madrassees, Punjaubees, or any other -ees—or among the Europeans. The Burmese left sanitation to nature; but then they were unquestionably stronger than any other race that ever came within my experience; enjoying singular freedom from deformities, blemishes and malignant growths, and more than the average immunity from contagious diseases, at all events until the conquerors mixed with them.