Chenguza had gone to Keoptaloum, a place on the banks of the Irawadi, about thirty miles from Ava, to celebrate a festival. As he was never regular in his time of going in or out, no one could tell when he would return; indeed, he was often late. Having obtained a royal dress, Momien presented himself at the portal shoedogaa, and demanded admission. But the haste of the conspirators betrayed them to the sentinel, who, opening the wicket, and then attempting to close, called out, “Treason!” However, it was too late, the guards were cut down, and the gate thrown open to the assailants. These, together with a body of men placed in ambuscade, occupied all the approaches to the palace, and kept it in a complete state of blockade. The various court officials, on the approach of the rebels, shut themselves up within the inclosures of the palace. Consternation and fright prevailed through the city all the night; the assailants were expected to attack them, but, in conformity with the Eastern and American custom, they did not attack the place till the morning, when they then blew open one of the palace-gates. They were gallantly met, however, by the guard, commanded by an Armenian, named Gabriel, who caused no small havoc among them, by three discharges of artillery from the guns on the top of the gate. However, the conspirators were too strong, or the defenders too uncertain as to whom they might be contending with, to withstand them long. Gabriel was killed by the thrust of a spear, and then his party fled. Thus Momien obtained a speedy and decisive victory, little dreaming of the speedy fate that awaited him!
Chenguza was now proclaimed an outlaw, and an armed force was detached to arrest him. But he had received timely notice of the fall of his administration, and, leaving all his court behind, escaped to Chagaing, were he was immediately besieged. Chenguza at first thought of defending himself; but finding that he was deserted by those on whom he placed his chief reliance, after a resistance of four days the resolution failed, and he determined on flying to the Cassay country, there to throw himself on the protection of the Munnipoora Raja. This intention he privately communicated to his mother, the widow of Shembuan Praw, who resided in his palace in the city of Ava. Instead of encouraging her son to persevere in so pusillanimous a resolve, she earnestly dissuaded him from flight; urging that it was far more glorious to die even by ignoble hands, within the precincts of his own palace, than to preserve life under the ignominious character of a mendicant fed by strangers, and indebted for a precarious asylum to a petty potentate. Chenguza yielded to his mother’s counsel, and preferring death to a disgraceful exile, caused a small boat to be privately prepared, and kept in readiness at the gaut or landing-place; disguising himself in the habit of a private gentleman, and attended only by two menials, he left Chagaing by break of day and embarking, rowed towards Ava, on the opposite shore. When the boat approached the principal gaut, at the foot of the walls, he was challenged by the sentinels on duty; no longer desirous of concealing himself, he called out in a loud voice, that he was “Chenguza Namdogy-yeng Praw;—Chenguza, lawful lord of the palace.” A conduct at once so unexpected and so resolute, struck the guards with astonishment, who, either overawed by his presence, or at a loss how to act for want of instructions, suffered him to proceed unmolested; the crowd, also, that so extraordinary a circumstance had by this time brought together, respectfully made way for him to pass. Scarcely had he reached the gate of the outer court of the palace, when he was met by the Attawoon, father of the princess whom he had so inhumanly slain; Chenguza, on perceiving him, exclaimed, “Traitor, I am come to take possession of my right, and wreak vengeance on mine enemies!” The Attawoon instantly snatched a sabre from an attendant officer, and at one stroke cut the unhappy Chenguza through the bowels, and laid him breathless at his feet. No person was found to prevent or avenge his death; he fell unlamented, as he had lived despised.[246] Such was the end of a monarch, accelerated, probably, by his own daring, which we cannot call heroism, but desperate madness.
Men-ta-ra-gyee, in the forty-fourth year of his age, at a period of life at which men have generally acquired stability of character and estimation, ascended the throne of his father, the Devoted to Buddha, whose spirit seems to have lived on in the bosoms of some of his families. But this king, under the fatal curse that seems to give the race of Alompra no rest, had no quieter reign than any of his predecessors. “Kings,” observes the ingenious writer Symes, “have other enemies to guard against, than avowed foes or rival competitors; the wild maniac or fanatical enthusiast, often under the influence of frenzy, directs the poignard to the breasts of monarchs. The Birman king had but a short time enjoyed the crown, when he had nearly been deprived of his life and diadem by a person of this description. Magoung, a low-born man, unconnected with, and it is said, without the privacy of any person of condition, who had always been remarkable for the regularity of his actions, and a gloomy cast of thought, had influence enough to form a confederacy of one hundred men as visionary and desperate as himself. This troop bound themselves in secrecy and fidelity to each other by an oath; their object was to take away the life of the king; but to answer what end, or whom they designed to elevate, is not ascertained. These desperadoes, headed by Magoung, at daybreak in the morning, made an attack on the palace. The customary guard over the king’s dwelling consists of seven hundred, who are well appointed and kept about on duty. Notwithstanding that, the attempt had nearly succeeded: bearing down the sentinels, they penetrated into the interior court, and the king escaped, from the casual circumstance of being in the range of apartments belonging to the women, which he was least accustomed to frequent. His guards, who at first shrunk from the fury of the onset, quickly rallied; their courage and numbers overpowered the assassins; and Magoung was slain, with all his associates, within the precincts of the palace.”[247]
Another insurrection speedily followed. A fisherman of the name of Natchien, a Peguer of Rangoon, proclaimed himself the deliverer of the Peguers, and called upon that nation to rise against the Burmans. He succeeded in raising a tumult, in which some of the officials of the Rhoom were slain; however, the matter was soon put down by the Peter Laurie of the town, and an examination implicated some five hundred of the inhabitants of Rangoon, who were executed. This was the last attempt made by the Peguers to throw off the Burman yoke. From this time forward his actions seem to have been offensive rather than defensive. In 1783 he commenced a war with the independent kingdom of Arakhan, which he subdued, and added to his dominions. In 1786 he made an incursion into Siam, and secured himself in the possession of Tavoy and Mergui. In 1810 he fitted out an enterprise against Junk Ceylon, an island belonging to the Siamese, and to which they were all so unwilling to go.[248] But from this place he was subsequently expelled by the enemy, and many of the Burmans were sent to Bangkok as slaves. This king, after a long, glorious, and cruel reign, of which a considerable part was directed against the priests, expired in his eighty-first year, at the beginning of 1819.
It may here be not uninteresting to give some account of the city of Ava, the capital of Burmah, whence the kingdom has sometimes been so called.[249] It lies in lat. 21° 50’N., long. 96° E., and was made the capital of the country for the third time in 1822. The original name of the place is Augwa, corrupted in Awa and Ava; but in public writings it is always named Ratnapura, the City of Gems. Montmorency has given a description of the place, which I epitomize.
The city of Ava is surrounded by a brick wall fifteen and a half feet high, and ten feet thick; there are innumerable embrasures at about the distance of five feet from each other. The south and west faces of the town are defended by a deep and rapid torrent, called the Myit-tha, leading from the Myit-ngé, which is not fordable. On the east the Myit-ngé forms a considerable part of the defence. The Irawadi, opposite Sagaing and Ava, is 1,094 yards broad. The circumference of Ava is about five and a half miles, excluding the suburbs. “In general,” says Crawfurd, “the houses are mere huts, thatched with grass. Some of the dwellings of the chiefs are constructed of planks, and tiled, and there are probably in all not half a dozen houses constructed of brick and mortar. Poor as the houses are, they are thinly scattered over the extensive area of the place, and some large quarters are, indeed, wholly destitute of habitations, and mere neglected commons. Including one large one in the suburb, lying between the town and the little river, there are eleven markets or bazaars, composed as usual of thatched huts or sheds: the three largest are called Je-kyo, Sara-wadi, and Shan-ze.”[250] The temples are very numerous, and present a gorgeous appearance from a distance, “far from being realized,” according to Crawfurd, “on a closer examination. Some of the principal of these may be enumerated: the largest of all is called Lo-ga-thar-bu, and consists of two portions, or rather two distinct temples; one in the ancient, and the other in the modern form. In the former there is an image of Gautama, in the common sitting posture, of enormous magnitude. Colonel Symes imagined this statue to be a block of marble; but this is a mistake, for it is composed of sandstone. A second very large temple is called Angava Sé-kong; and a third, Ph’ra-l’ha, or ‘the beautiful.’ A fourth temple, of great celebrity, is named Maong-Ratna. This is the one in which the public officers of the government take, with great formality, the oath of allegiance. A fifth temple is named Maha-mrat-muni; I inspected an addition which was made to this temple a short time before our arrival. It was merely a Zayat or chapel, and chiefly constructed of wood: it, however, exceeded in splendour everything we had seen without the palace. The roof was supported by a vast number of pillars: these, as well as the ceilings, were richly gilt throughout. The person, at whose expense all this was done, was a Burman merchant, or rather broker, from whom we learnt that the cost was forty thousand ticals, about £5,000 sterling. When the building was completed, he respectfully presented it to his majesty, not daring to take to himself the whole merit of so pious an undertaking.”[251] The reader may bear in mind the similarity between these temples and those of the Peruvians.
CHAPTER III.
1760-1824.
British intercourse with Ava—Alves’s mission—Symes’s mission—Canning—King Nun-Sun—Rise of the Burman war—Its origin in official aggression—Evacuation of Cachar.