The climate and social conditions do affect Europeans also. This is manifest in very many ways. From having servants to do the necessary work for them, they easily drift into the habit of leaning back in an easy-chair, and calling “boy” for everything they want, from a drink of water to a toothpick. I saw an extreme case. A young Scotchman, just out of the office in the evening, went to the Royal Lakes and called for his boat. His servant dutifully brought it to the low platform; waiting the pleasure of his master. The young man turned him slowly round and sat down in the boat, but left his legs stretched on the platform. The servant went out and lifted one leg in, and the other leg likewise. When the whole man was in he pushed the boat off the shore, and the master took lazily to the oars!
The habit of being waited upon in everything tends to develop the domineering habit among almost all people. Little children often fairly drive the servants about as they assert their pettishness. Grown-up people often act as spoiled children in the same way. A young man who comes from Europe from conditions where he had to do every kind of work himself, soon learns to order his servants around with more pomp than any born lord. The tendency of this kind trends also to extravagance in living. It is so common for men getting a good salary to live beyond their means. It is a common thing when an officer on good salary dies, for his friends to take up a public subscription for his widow, who will often be found to be without support of any kind.
In these respects, the climate and the environment are seductive. The sterling simplicity that makes Westerners great is easily frittered away in the East. Men go in for display. They keep what they call “establishments.” They are much given to drink. Too often they debauch. It is certain that a young man runs far more risk in this tropical climate of making moral shipwreck than in Europe or America. Take away his moral props with which he is surrounded at home, and he quickly forms alliances to his own heart. Concubinage is very common. At first the youth is ashamed of this relation, but later he is likely to flaunt this sin in the face of all men. He sometimes acts as if he were perfectly reckless of moral consequences. The good name he brought to the country and his own loved ones at home are forgotten. It is a common saying, “He left his morals at the Suez Canal.”
But while this is true as a tendency, it is the joy of the writer to emphasize the fact that not a few men, young men, come from Europe to the tropics and keep themselves pure and noble in the midst of all that is seductive in climate or society. I have known a goodly number of such, and count them among the most genuinely noble men that I have met. There are men of many years in the country whose moral worth has grown with a steady growth as the years have gone forward, and have made themselves a name that is a rebuke to every dishonorable or unclean life, and a tower of strength for themselves, and a mighty bulwark against popular evils that degrade their fellow-countrymen. These men, with their time, business sense, and their money, are always actively on the side of right and righteousness. No people have had more such friendships in India than the Methodist missionaries. I have been specially honored with a wide acquaintance with such noble men.
CHAPTER VII
Characteristics of the Races of Burma
The cosmopolitan character of the population of Rangoon has been given, and it is only necessary to add that all towns near the sea and on the railways have the same intermingling of foreign and native peoples. But there is a much greater preponderance of those races which are at home in Burma. As you go inland, of all the immigrants the most ubiquitous is the Chinese.
The Burmese are easily the chief people of Burma over any other race, native or immigrant, in any part of Burma. Indeed, they rank high among all peoples of Asia. I am aware that when I exalt the Burman, I invite the criticism of the champion of other races. It is a common observation that missionaries especially come to champion the worth and virtues of the peoples among whom they labor, and perhaps estimate them above their value, as compared with other races. This trait is worth something to the world in that it brings to the front one class of optimists of the value of men as they are, or of what they shall be. When any man loses faith in any race, he can no longer be of signal service to that race.
In rating the Burmese people highly, I am not aware of being prejudiced in their favor by reason of exclusive association. Our mission work has brought us into contact with nearly all the races in Burma. As a result of our experience, the Burman must be given a place second to none. Personally, I believe he has more to be said in his favor than any other Asiatic race of which I have any knowledge.
I know it will be said that he is lazy and unreliable. The former accusation is well-nigh universal. To undertake even to qualify this charge of indolence is a large task; but still I am ready to say something for the Burman’s industry. It is admitted that several of the races of India are ploddingly industrious. The Burman’s industry is less continuous, but I think not less genuine. He has more festivals and idle days, but he certainly works rapidly, and for long hours, when he works.
This is especially true of the cultivator. He is in the field a little after daylight, and with only a short time of rest at midday he works on till dark. In harvesting time he does the same. One evening when darkness had fallen I was going up a tidal creek in a boat making my way to the village of Naunguyi, when my attention was attracted by sounds on the bank, and looking up I could see outlined against the sky two Burmans loading a cart with rice sheaves. It would have been too dark to see them if we had all been on a level. These men had been working since daylight. During the threshing time the work is often kept going on the threshing floors till midnight. Now I am persuaded that men naturally indolent do not work in this way. In clerkships, and as subordinate officials, they do not compare unfavorably with other Asiatic races; while the Burmese women are notably industrious, whether in the village, or in the bazar in the cities.