CHAPTER XVI.
THE CYCLING FEVER BREAKS OUT IN RANGOON—PRIZE FIGHTING UNDER REMARKABLE RULES—ACROSS THE BAY OF BENGAL TO CALCUTTA.
Cycling in Burmah proved extremely monotonous, and the dullest of all the dreary rides we experienced were here. Nowhere was there a variety of scene or change from the level valley, with its dusty, winding roads stretching out under the blistering tropical sun. The air was ever stifling hot; it smarted our dilated nostrils; seemed to stuff our gasping lungs and blister the backs of our hands and necks, and a ride of three hours at a stretch caused us to relax into a sort of stupor, from which we could only arouse ourselves by repeated efforts. Had we reached Burmah during the fall of the year, we could have made good progress, but now tedious delays, entirely beyond our control, hampered us, and we had to face not only the famine and plague-infested land, but the white man’s greatest enemy, the summer sun, which, in its molten glare, kept the temperature above 100, night and day, making death and heat apoplexy quite as possible as from the epidemic of cholera and bubonic fever. We left Mandalay at daybreak on March 1, and started over the dusty roads to Rangoon, 400 miles south. Mandalay had been the point which we had selected to observe the characteristics and customs of the natives, and, unlike the efforts put forth in the same channel in China, we found the duties pleasant and fraught with happy little incidents. Burmans resemble the Japanese to a certain extent; not so cleanly, energetic, intelligent or independent, but possessing the same admirable faculty of being happy, smiling and self-complacent under circumstances which would fill any other being’s soul with pessimistic vagaries. Farming, carpentry and carving appear to be the only occupations left them, for everywhere was seen the submissive black who followed the rush of England into the land of milk and honey and rice and rubies.
“Othello’s occupation gone” is true of the Burman. Blacks are the scavengers, sweepers, table servants, cooks, butlers, porters, coachmen, tailors and merchants. Eurasians, the half-castes, whose yellow skin and coarse black hair betray their early English ancestors, and the blacks are selected to act as clerks, hospital attendants, telegraph operators and railroad clerks. “Baboo,” the English and natives call them, and, if another letter had only been added to the name, the term would have been quite appropriate. With all these occupations lost to him, the native still appears to do well, always in silk and spotless muslin, smoking incessantly cigarettes or huge cheroots, which scatter sparks like a working fire engine. The women of the Indian races act as laundresses, nurses and maids. Thus, with almost all the natural trades and occupations taken by invaders, little is left for the Burman but the profession of thief and thief-catcher, both synonymous in Burmah, where a policeman is feared not for his authority, but for the blackmailing such office permits him to levy upon wrong-doers and innocent upon whom suspicion rests.
We had many companions on the road to Rangoon. On every side were Burmans on foot, on horse, and in the low-roofed box-like carts, which creaked and groaned as the gentle, curved-horned beasts drew them along. We passed Indians who walked hand-in-hand, and Chinese gardeners who swung along at a rapid pace, though their backs were bowed with the weight of fresh vegetables. Bicycles did not seem to attract much attention in the motley throng, the only persons acting as though our presence was unusual being the women bathing around the stone-topped wells, and they only because the icy waters that dashed and poured over their bodies had caused the only garment they wore, a short, scant skirt, to cling closely to their limbs, revealing every outline of symmetrical figures.
THE BICYCLE SURPRISES THE BURMANS.—(See Page [81].).
The craze for wheeling had just reached an interesting stage in Rangoon at the time of our visit. The demand for machines exceeded the supply, and as a result there was to be seen every morning and evening the most interesting parade of antiquities ever witnessed outside of a bicycle show. American machines of modern make were a close second to the new English product, but wheels entitled to the utmost respect due to old age formed the creaking, groaning majority. The riders, too, were curious, the Europeans first in numbers, Eurasians second, and the Indian-Chinese-Burman, the mongrel of all Asia, making up the balance. The positions, too, some of the riders assumed were remarkable. The “hump” had not reached the far East, the rat-trap pedal and toe-clip were unknown, and with handle-bars wide as the horns of a Texas steer, seats suspended on coil after coil of spring, low and set far back over the rear wheel, the tread eight and ten inches wide, the riders reversed the “hump” and appeared to be sitting on the dorsal vertebra, pumping much as a bather swimming on his back. There were many places of historical interest in and around Rangoon, and as all points were available by cycle, our good old wheels were kept busy. The turning point of our morning spins, the teak lumber yards, permitted sights which would delight the little folks at home as much as they secured the attention of tourists here. Elephants, great, huge, dirty fellows, void of all the tinsel trappings of the circus, were the attraction, as daily they performed the most arduous labor which in America is done by cranes and derricks. In harness of chains, the beasts drew enormous logs from the river to the carriage at the saws, and with ropes wound around their trunks they dragged the rough slabs into a yard and piled them in precise heaps. With trunk coiled as a cushion against their tusks, they pushed enormous pieces of timber into the proper places, each piece being placed in exact position, with the ends carefully “trimmed.” Gentle and meek as the laborers are in appearance, as, with flapping ears and timid little eyes, they obey their commands, they sometimes become mutinous. In the McGregor yard, which we visited one morning, we were shown one of the largest and best workers of the herd, who had just been released from “jail.” He had been in confinement four months, laden with chains, deprived of delicacies, and treated as a criminal, simply because he had wantonly walked upon and then tossed his keeper into the air. The beast apparently realized the disgrace which had been heaped upon him, for he obeyed his new master without even pausing to blow dust on his back or plaster his huge sides with cooling, fly-proof mud.
With the advent of English rule in Burmah, native athletic sport degenerated, and became supplanted in time by horse races of most corrupt nature. When I state that the racing is corrupt I have but to cite two instances which occurred at the meeting of the Mandalay Club during our visit to that city. A captain in Her Majesty’s army placed 3,000 against 1,000 rupees that a certain horse, which we will designate as A, would win over the field presenting two horses, B and C. Of the latter, C was clearly outclassed, consequently the race was between A and B. You may judge of the bookmakers' surprise when they learned in the afternoon that the gallant captain was to ride B, the horse he had bet against. The race had but one possible outcome, A won. Another race was started and finished in absolute darkness. No lights were used on the tracks, the horses were dark in color, and the jockeys the same, but the judge readily named the winner, and the bookmakers lost again.