Eight Lectures on India

by Halford John Mackinder

|5.
Chinese Junk in the Rangoon River.| After a probably rough passage, we approach the low-lying shore of the great delta of the Irawaddy river, and enter that branch of it which is known as the Rangoon river. A stray Chinese junk reminds us of the fact that we are entering Indo-China, and of the trade relations of Burma with Singapore and the regions of the Far East. Burmese rice is sent to China, the Malay States, India, East Africa, and Europe. Rangoon depends for her commerce mainly on the rice harvest. In recent years, famines in India have been mitigated by rice exported from Rangoon.

|6.
Map of Burma.| As we steam up the river for some miles inland, let us consider, with the help of a map, the main features of the geography of the land which we are about to visit. In this map is shown nearly the whole of the great southeastward peninsula of Asia. The areas which are coloured green are lowland, those which are yellow are upland, and the brown signifies highland and mountain. A ridge of highland, broken only at two or three points, runs southward through the centre of the map, separating Burma and the river basins of the Indian Ocean from Siam and the river basins of the Pacific Ocean. This great divide of the drainage is continued beyond the southern edge of the map through the Malay Peninsula for some distance. It ends near Singapore in the southernmost point of Asia, only one degree north of the Equator.

In Burma, parallel with the dividing range, are three other ridges, striking southward side by side. These separate three valleys, through which flow severally the Salween, Sittang, and Irawaddy rivers. The valley of the Salween, as the yellow and brown colours upon the map indicate, is less deeply trenched between its bounding ranges than are the other two valleys. As we should therefore expect, the Salween river has a steeply descending course broken by rapids, and is of small value for navigation. At its mouth is the port of Moulmein. The valley of the Sittang, which is a short river, prolongs the upper valley of the Irawaddy, which latter river makes a great westward bend at Mandalay, and passes by a transverse passage right through one of the parallel mountain ridges. Beyond this passage it bends southward again, accepting the direction of its tributary, the Chindwin river. The great port of Rangoon is placed on a tidal channel at the eastern edge of the Irawaddy delta. The railway from Rangoon to Mandalay runs through the Sittang valley and does not follow the Irawaddy. There is navigation, however, by the Irawaddy past Pagan and Mandalay northward to Bhamo, which is close to the Chinese frontier. The coastal plain of Burma is known as Arakan where it runs northward from the Irawaddy delta, and as Tenasserim where it runs southward from that delta along a coast beset with an archipelago of beautiful islands. The delta itself bears the name of Pegu, or Lower Burma; while the region round Mandalay is Upper Burma.

|7.
Plan of Rangoon.| We are in the Rangoon river. A tall, pointed pagoda appears on a hill to the right, and presently, as the channel bends to the west, we approach the busy commercial front of Rangoon city, surmounted by the golden spire of the great Shwe Dagon Pagoda.

|8.
Shwe Dagon Pagoda, from across the Royal Lakes.| |9.
The Shwe Dagon Pagoda, Rangoon.| |10.
Images of the Sitting Buddha.| |11.
Earning Merit at the Shwe Dagon Pagoda.| Rangoon, apart from its chief Pagoda, is a modern city. Fifty years ago it was a village. To-day it has a quarter of a million people. A wharf-fronted road, the Strand, follows the shore of the main river for several miles. Up the Pegu tributary to the east for several other miles are many rice mills with tall chimneys throwing out black smoke. The harbour is busy with shipping. There are great timber yards, and there are oil mills, for the products of Burma are, first and foremost, rice, and then timber, especially great logs of teak—harder than oak, and then petroleum. Back from the Strand is a well kept town, with broad streets at right angles, though as yet there are few really impressive buildings to compare with the public buildings of Madras. There is a beautiful group of lakes, the Royal Lakes, set in wooded public grounds, and across these is the finest view of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda, like a great hand-bell placed on a low hill. This pagoda is said to be the most frequented in the Buddhist world, for it has as relics eight hairs of Gautama, the founder of the Buddhist religion. It began some two thousand years ago as a small village fane. In successive ages the original structure has been encased afresh and afresh, until as the result of work done in the days of Queen Elizabeth, the great pagoda was completed which is now the glory of Rangoon. It rises to a height of nearly 400 feet, and is solid, there being no chamber within. The brickwork of which it is built makes a series of steps or ledges, so that it would be possible to climb for some distance up the spire. The whole is plated with gold-leaf, and the gilding is constantly renewed by pious devotees, who thus earn merit. The word “Shwe” in the name of this pagoda signifies golden. On the summit is a “hti,” or umbrella, of exquisite workmanship and material. It is said to have cost sixty thousand pounds. In the vane are 5,000 gems—diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. The base of the pagoda is surrounded first by shrines of varying sizes, and then by a flagged courtyard, which again is fringed with canopies and halls opening towards the pagoda, with many carved screens and arches, and innumerable shrines and altars, and images of Gautama. Flights of steps roofed over with teak descend from the courtyard, and one of the lower entries is guarded by great grotesque figures, partly lion and partly griffin, made of plastered bricks. We see one of them in this view. Then we have two very interesting pictures: the one represents three images of the Sitting Buddha from one of the shrines on the flagged courtyard at the foot of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda, and the other shows a pilgrim “earning merit” by putting gold leaf on to the pagoda itself.

|12.
The Sule Pagoda, Rangoon.| There is another considerable pagoda in the city, the Sule Pagoda. We have it here, with a corner of a building adjacent of European architecture, the Municipal Offices. Observe the watering of the streets by hand labour.

|13.
A Typical Burman.| |14.
Burmese Gambling, Rangoon.| The Burmese are a short, sturdy people, merry and happy, and akin rather to the Japanese in temperament than to the people of the Indian Peninsula. The features of their faces are obviously Mongolian. They have the oblique eyes of the Chinaman. Here is a typical Burman with a rose coloured wrap round his head. The Burmese women, whose praises have been sung through the world, are dainty and, according to a more or less Chinese standard, not infrequently beautiful. They love to clothe themselves in silks of brilliant and delicate hue. Excessive industry is certainly not a failing of the race, yet there are no poor. We have here a group of Burmese gamblers at Rangoon. The theatres play all night and the spectators go home by daylight. The “pwe,” or show, consists invariably of three parts—a prince, a princess, and a clown; it may be compared with our traditional harlequinade. Both Indians and Chinese are migrating to Burma in great numbers, but agricultural work is still chiefly in native hands.

|15.
Elephants lifting Teak.| |16.
Elephants Pushing Teak.| |17.
Tusker Elephant.| |18.
Tusker Elephant lifting Teak.| |19.
The Same.| One of the most curious and typical sights of Rangoon is that of elephants manipulating the great logs of teak wood in the timber yards. The logs are cut in the forests of the north of Burma, and are floated for hundreds of miles down the Irawaddy in large rafts, until they are stranded at a creek near Rangoon, called Pazundaung. Elephants are then employed for the purpose of moving and piling up the logs. The male elephant is very powerful and has strong tusks, on which he carries the logs, preventing them from falling with his trunk, but the female elephants are not so strong, and do not as a rule lift the logs off the ground, but merely drag them, or push them with the head. We have here two cow elephants, the one forty years old and the other seventy. We have them here again, one of them at the command of her rider pushing the logs forward with her head. In the next scene is a male elephant with tusks. He is fifty years old, and we realise his power in the next two views, where we see him poising on his tusks a great tree trunk. These huge animals are fed entirely on a grass which grows along the banks of the Irawaddy not far from Rangoon. Machinery is now taking the place of elephants in the timber yards, and Rangoon is, therefore, likely to lose one of its most interesting sights.

|20.
A Rice Mill, Rangoon.| |21.
The Same.| While we are on the river front let us glance also at a rice mill, where a process equivalent to thrashing is carried out, the grain being separated from the husk. The black smoke is from the paddy husks used to supply the motive power of the mill. Paddy, or unthrashed rice, is mostly brought to Rangoon by water, though more than a million and a half tons now come annually by rail. After the milling process is complete, the rice is packed into bags for shipment all over the world.

|22.
A Burmese Railway Train.| We will take train and run by the Burmese Sittang Railway over the broad levels of the delta, passing through fields from which the paddy has recently been cut. Only the ears are lopped off, and the straw is burnt as it stands. The Burmans are mostly yeomen, each owning his cattle and doing his own work in the field. Beyond Pegu we follow the Sittang River, with hill ranges low on the eastern and western horizons, until we come to Mandalay, once capital of the independent kingdom of Upper Burma. This kingdom was annexed to India in 1885 at the conclusion of the third Burmese war. Mandalay is the last of three capitals a few miles apart, which at different times in the past century have been the seat of the Burmese kings. Amarapura, a few miles to the south, was the earliest, and Ava, a few miles to the west, was the capital from 1822 to 1837.