Burmah and the Burmese

by Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie

“The country,” he tells us,[5] “now displayed an aspect different from any we had yet seen; the surface was broken into small separate hills, entirely barren and destitute of vegetation, except some stunted bushes that grew on the declivities, and in the dells, and a few unhealthy trees immediately in the neighbourhood of the villages: the clay was discoloured, and had the appearance of red ochre. We were informed, that the celebrated wells of petroleum, which supply the whole empire, and many parts of India, with that useful product, were five miles to the east of this place. The Seree brought me a piece of stone, which he assured me was petrified wood, and which certainly had much the appearance of it. In walking about, I picked up several lumps of the same, in which the grain of the wood was plainly discernible; it was hard, siliceous, and seemed composed of different lamina. The Birmans said it was the nature of the soil that caused this transmutation; and added, that the petrifying quality of the earth at this place was such, that leaves of trees shaken off by the wind were not unfrequently changed into stone before they could be decayed by time. The face of the country was altered and the banks of the river were totally barren; the ground was superficially covered with quartz gravel, and concreted masses of the same material were thickly scattered. The mouth of the creek was crowded with large boats, waiting to receive a lading of oil; and immense pyramids of earthen jars were raised within and around the village, disposed in the same manner as shot and shells are piled in an arsenal. This place is inhabited only by potters, who carry on an extensive manufactory, and find full employment. The smell of the oil was extremely offensive; we saw several thousand jars filled with it ranged along the bank; some of these were continually breaking, and the contents, mingling with the sand, formed a very filthy consistence.”

On the colonel’s return, however, he and Dr. Buchanan rode over to the wells; and their account of their visit is too interesting to be omitted here:[6]—

“The face of the country was cheerless and sterile; the road, which wound among rocky eminences, was barely wide enough to admit the passage of a single cart; and in many places the track in which the wheels must run was a foot and a half lower on one side than the other: there were several of these lanes, some more circuitous than others, according to the situation of the small hills among which they led. Vehicles, going and returning, were thus enabled to pursue different routes, except at particular places where the nature of the ground would only admit of one road: when a cart came to the entrance of such a defile, the driver hallooed out, to stop any that might interfere with him from the opposite side, no part being sufficiently wide for two carts to pass. The hills, or rather hillocks, were covered with gravel, and yielded no other vegetation than a few stunted bushes. The wheels had worn ruts deep into the rock, which seemed to be rather a mass of concreted gravel than hard stone, and many pieces of petrified wood lay strewed about. It is remarkable, that wherever these petrifactions were found the soil was unproductive, and the ground destitute of verdure. The evening being far advanced, we met but few carts; those which we did observe, were drawn each by a pair of oxen, of a length disproportionate to the breadth, to allow space for the earthen pots that contained the oil. It was a matter of surprise to us how they could convey such brittle ware, with any degree of safely, over so rugged a road: each pot was packed in a separate basket and laid on straw; notwithstanding which precaution, the ground all the way was strewed with the fragments of the vessels, and wet with oil; for no care can prevent the fracture of some in every journey. As we approached the pits, which were more distant than we had imagined, the country became less uneven, and the soil produced herbage: it was nearly dark when we reached them, and the labourers had retired from work. There seemed to be a great many pits within a small compass: walking to the nearest, we found the aperture about four feet square, and the sides, as far as we could see down, were lined with timber; the oil is drawn up in an iron pot, fastened to a rope passed over a wooden cylinder which revolves on an axis supported by two upright posts. When the pot is filled, two men take the rope by the end, and run down a declivity, which is cut in the ground to a distance equivalent to the depth of the well: thus, when they reach the end of the track the pot is raised to its proper elevation; the contents, water and oil together, are then discharged into a cistern, and the water is afterwards drawn off through a hole in the bottom.”

It is impossible to read this, without stopping to smile at the backwardness of the people, who, having invented all the machinery for a well, should still remain at that distance from the application of this discovery, as to resort to such a complicated and cumbersome arrangement, as cutting a trackway equal in length to the depth of the well! How easy to have applied the winch and coiled the rope, as other nations as far back in civilisation have done, in the way with which we are acquainted! But it is such little hitches that impede a nation’s progress![7] But to continue the narrative of the envoy.

“Our guide, an active, intelligent man, went to a neighbouring house and procured a well-rope, by means of which we were enabled to measure the depth, and ascertained it to be thirty-seven fathoms; but of the quantify of oil at the bottom we could not judge. The owner of the rope, who followed our guide, affirmed, that when a pit yielded as much as came up to the waist of a man, it was deemed tolerably productive; if it reached to his neck, it was abundant; but that which rose no higher than the knee was accounted indifferent. When a well is exhausted, they restore the spring by cutting deeper into the rock, which is extremely hard in those places where the oil is produced. Government farms out the ground that supplies this useful commodity; and it is again let to adventurers, who dig wells at their own hazard, by which they sometimes gain and often lose, as the labour and expense of digging are considerable. The oil is sold on the spot for a mere trifle; I think two or three hundred pots for a tackal, or half a crown. The principal charge is incurred by the transportation and purchase of vessels. We had but half gratified our curiosity, when it grew dark, and our guide urged us not to remain any longer, as the road was said to be infested by tigers, that prowled at night among the rocky uninhabited ways through which we had to pass. We followed his advice, and returned, with greater risk, as I thought, of breaking our necks from the badness of the road than of being devoured by wild beasts. At ten o’clock we reached our boats without any misadventure.”

Captain Hiram Cox, the British resident at Rangoon in 1796-7, describes the town of Re-nau-khyaung, or as he spells it, Ramanghong, meaning the town through which flows a river of earth-oil, as “of mean appearance; and several of its temples, of which there are great numbers, falling to ruins; the inhabitants, however,” he continues, “are well dressed, many of them with golden spiral ear ornaments.”[8] Altogether the town or village, and its environs, are as bleak as bleak can be, if we may trust the description. We shall hereafter return to the consideration of the Petroleum trade as a source of revenue to the government.

The most important place about this portion of the course of the Irawadi is Prome, a city which we shall hereafter have to mention as one of those celebrated in the ancient history of the country; we will therefore omit further notice of it here. Exclusive of the Delta of the Irawadi, to which we must now turn our attention, there is very little low land in the Burman territory. Like the Delta of the Nile it is exceedingly fruitful, and it produces abundant crops of rice. It is, too, the commercial highway of the land.

Malcom, who travelled in the country, expresses his astonishment at the number of boats ever passing up and down the river. It would seem that the navigation is very tedious; for, according to the same traveller, the boats are generally from three to four months ascending from the Delta to the city of Ava.[9]

The Irawadi finally embouches into the Bay of Bengal by several mouths, of which the chief are, the Bassein river, the Dallah, the Chinabuckeer, and the Rangoon or Syriam river.