Somewhat back from the wharves, yet within earshot of the cadenced song of stevedores and coal-heavers, stand two shaded bungalows, well-known among the inhabitants of the metropolis of Burma. The larger is the Sailors’ Home, the less important the Seamen’s Mission. Rangoon, it transpired, was suffering a double visitation of beachcombers and the plague. The protest of the managers of both mariners’ institutions, that they were already “full up with dead ones,” gave us small grief. For were we not sure of admission to a more interesting residence? But there was real cause for wailing in the assurance of the cosmopolitan band who listened to the tale of our “get-away” from Calcutta, that we had fallen on one of the least auspicious ports in the Orient.
There was work ashore for all hands, white or brown, for the servants of the plague doctors had daubed on house-walls throughout the city the enticing offer:—“Dead Rats—Two pice each.” But even the penniless seamen, who had learned during long enforced residence in the Burmese capital that their services were useful in no other field, scorned to turn terriers.
It was my bad fortune to reach Rangoon a bit too late to be greeted by an old acquaintance.
“Up to tree day ago,” cried one of the band at the Home, “dere was one oder Yank on der beach here, ja. Min he made a pier’ead yump by er tramp tru der Straits.”
“That so?” I queried.
“Aye,” put in another of the boys, “’e was a slim chap with a bloody lot of mouth, always looking fer a scrap, but keepin’ ’is weather-eye peeled fer the Bobbies.”
“Bet a hat,” I shouted, “that I knew him. Wasn’t his name Haywood?”
“Dick ’Aywood, aye,” answered the tar; “leastway that was the ’andle ’e went by. But ’e’s off now fer good, an’ bloody glad we are to be clear of ’im.”
We struck off through the city, taking leave of Rice before the door of the first European official whose beneficence he chose to investigate. The native town, squatting on the flat plain along the river, was reminiscent of the Western world. Its streets were wide and parallel, as streets should be, no doubt, yet lacking the picturesqueness of narrow, meandering passageways, so common elsewhere in the Orient. Sidewalks were there none, of course. Pedestrians mingled with vehicles and disputed the way with laden animals and human beasts of burden. Before and behind, on either side, as far as the eye could see, stretched unbroken vistas of heterogeneous wares and yawning shopkeepers. For to the Burman no other vocation compares with that of merchant. A flat city it was, with small, two-story hovels for the most part, above which gleamed a few golden pagodas.
In the suburbs the scene was different. Vine-grown bungalows and squat barracks littered a rolling, lightly-wooded country that sloped away to a clear-cut horizon. Here and there shimmered a sun-flecked lake; along umbrageous highways strolled khaki-clad mortals with white faces and a familiar vocabulary. High above all else, as the Eiffel tower over Paris, soared the pride of Burma, the Shwe Dagón pagoda.