“The King is still drinking.” No one thing has ever been said oftener of any one monarch than that was said of the notorious Theebaw, King of the Burmans, Suzerain of Mandalay, King of the Rising Sun, Lord of the White Elephant, the Golden Umbrella, and Lord of Earth and Air. If one tithe of what has been during the last twenty years written about King Theebaw is true, if a fraction of what they now say in Burmah of him is true, why then a worse monarch never sat in absolute power upon a barbaric throne.
It is a strange fact that the Burmese—the pleasantest, most easy-going of all nations—were ruled for centuries by a cruel bloodthirsty dynasty. The predecessor of Theebaw, King Mengdon, seems to have been rather gifted, but he was shifty and treacherous. King Theebaw—unless Christian literature has wronged him as it never yet wronged heathen prince—had every bad quality and no one redeeming one. His orgies, his debauches, the stories of his “posture girls,” are unequalled in the chronicles of a continent of which many lurid things have been written.
Things were certainly fast and furious while Theebaw ruled Mandalay. But I doubt if King Theebaw ever did rule at Mandalay. Queen Soo-pyah-lat was the veritable potentate; she ruled Theebaw. He had an abundance of wives, but when he showed any special favour to any wife other than Soo-pyah-lat, she promptly had that other wife trampled to death by the royal elephants, or killed in some other equally pleasant way. Then she would, most probably, take King Theebaw in their state barge for a little post-dated lune de miel. Theebaw seems never for an instant to have resented, disputed, or resisted Soo-pyah-lat’s supremacy. It was Queen Soo-pyah-lat who hated the British with an intensity beside which ordinary Asiatic hatred was nothing. It was Queen Soo-pyah-lat who forced Theebaw to hold out against the English forces, long after resistance was worse than vain. On the first of January 1886 King Theebaw, was finally and absolutely overthrown; but before that date he had caused England much anxiety and his patient subjects great misery.
How often have the eyes of all England been turned toward that wonderful palace at Mandalay; and almost invariably the wires flashed to the nations this message: “The King is still drinking.” Yes, the king was still drinking. Before his gin-filmed eyes swayed the lithe forms of the flower-decked “posture girls,” and the palace yard ran blood—the blood of many victims. Wonderful Burmese carvings glimmered and glinted on the palace walls, and the big gems rose and fell on the bad queen’s breast.
To me there is something very pathetic about the story of King Theebaw. He was born to a great opportunity. He became the ruler of a most charming people, the absolute master of as interesting and as beautiful a country, and as productive, as any on the globe. And his manhood went down beneath a bad woman’s jewelled foot—he sold his kingship for a hogshead of grog; and wherever his name was spoken, men said with disgust, “The King is still drinking.”
When Theebaw ascended the throne in 1878, an eminent Englishman wrote of him:—“He is little over twenty. He is a tall, well-built, personable young man. He is very fair in complexion, has a good forehead, clear steady eyes, and a firm but pleasant mouth. His chin is full and somewhat sensual-looking, but withal he is a manly frank-faced young fellow, and is said to have gained self-possession and left the early nervous awkwardness of his new position with great rapidity.”
Ah, what a different appearance he presented when he was dethroned in 1886! In eight short years he had committed or countenanced atrocities that entitle his name to be bracketed with the names of Nero and Caligula.
It is happy for Burmah that Theebaw and Soo-pyah-lat are gone for ever. The industrious, happy natives eat their morning, noon, and evening rice under a gentler, if an alien, rule. But what pictures they must have made in the days and nights of all their glory—the weak bad king and his strong bad queen!
Think of them in their state barge. It was a picture in itself. Great golden gods gleamed and glowered on the segregated prow. One of these indescribable metallic majesties rode upon a grotesque golden horse; and gods and horse had for eyes jewels of incredible size. Upon the deck was a house of precious woods. It rose pagoda-like, and was crowned with a big gem which, fastened to a strong, slender wire, flashed, above the barge, like a heaven-sent star. Rare journeys they must have had up and down the lovely Burmese rivers. There are three great rivers in Burmah. They rise in the high mountains, where the snows never melt, and they take their wonderful course to the Indian Ocean. Trees crowd on their banks,—trees that are golden and red and purple with fruit, and yellow and white with blossom. The scents of mangoe and pine mingle with the fainter perfumes of the orange and papaya and plantain. Wild asparagus lifts its slim feathers everywhere. Yams and sweet potatoes grow in wild plenty. Down to the river’s edge for drink come huge elephants and the fierce one-horned rhinoceros. Sleek leopards and striped tigers fight with the wild hog, and hunt the Indian roe and the axis. Wild-cock, quail, pheasant, and partridge scurry among the scented under-bush; and great peacocks spread their wonderful fans amid flowers that are brighter.
Small wonder if Theebaw and Soo-pyah-lat loved to drift up and down those wonderful rivers.