My next objective was the old capital of Pagan, on the left bank of the Irrawaddy, below Mandalay. I spent three days there, exploring the wonderful ruins of innumerable pagodas and monasteries which are all that remain of a city that was once not only the capital of a powerful kingdom but also one of the leading centres of learning and religion in south-eastern Asia. The secular buildings have nearly all disappeared, but the remaining ruins possess many features of the greatest interest to archæologists. I could trace no sign of Chinese influence in the architecture and decoration of this dead and vanishing city, though it is alleged—on doubtful authority—that the conquering Chinese arms did once at least penetrate as far as Pagan. Here, as elsewhere in Burma, the Chinese invasions do not appear to have left any lasting results or to have affected in any way the art of the country.[374]
VIEW AT PAGAN, IRRAWADDY RIVER, BURMA.
EUROPEANS IN BURMA
Leaving Pagan I continued my journey down the Irrawaddy, and reached Rangoon on 15th July.
The conviction that a tour through Burma must leave in the minds of most Europeans is that the country is to be congratulated on its people and that the people are to be equally congratulated on their country. That Burma itself is one of the fairest of lands, every traveller can see for himself; and so far as I could judge from my own short experience and from what was told me by sympathetic British residents, the Burmese are perhaps the most cheerful, generous and hospitable, and on the whole the most attractive people in Asia. But one very commonly hears them also characterised as frivolous, incorrigibly lazy, thriftless, superstitious, untruthful, and lacking in courage and tenacity of purpose. Many European travellers and others have come to the conclusion that these sad deficiencies in the Burman's character are gradually bringing about the ruin and extinction of his race. They point to the fact that the population of Rangoon is far less than half Burman; that Chetty money-lenders, cooks and labourers from Madras, and Chinese merchants and shopkeepers, are gradually monopolising the industry of the country, while the Burman looks on with apathy at his own displacement from the fields, kitchens, shops and counting-houses in which his Indian and Chinese rivals wax rich and fat. In many European houses—perhaps in Lower Burma the great majority—there is not a single Burman servant, all the duties of cook, coolie, table-servant and valet being discharged by suave, noiseless and obedient natives of India. The only people who seem to be able to attract Burmese servants, and keep them for any length of time, are members of the Civil Service, who, with their knowledge of the language and familiarity with the national customs and ideals, are better able than any other aliens to sympathise with the Burman in his joys and sorrows, his likes and dislikes, and to understand something of his point of view. They make good masters, and earn their reward in retaining the services of loyal and attached Burmese servants. Of course there are many non-official Europeans who, with the instincts of gentlemen, treat their dependents quite as well and sympathetically as any one; while among the civil servants there are no doubt many who from the beginning to the end of their career in Burma never shake off the feeling of antipathy to the Oriental—coupled, probably, with a strong sense of racial superiority—which they had when they first came out to the East. But these exceptional cases only prove the rule; and it is strong testimony to the intrinsic worth of the Burman's character that the more thoroughly he is understood the more he is liked by those best qualified to judge. The versatile traveller who "does Burma" in the course of his round-the-world tour, and fills a notebook with comments on the character of the Burmese as a result of what he hears at the dinner-tables of Rangoon, would do well to exercise caution before he gives his notebook to the world. Do not some of us in China well know how prone the tourist is to echo the too-often ignorant and one-sided views about the Chinese that he may have heard expressed in the clubs and drawing-rooms of Hongkong and Shanghai? It seems that the situation in Burma is not dissimilar.
THE BURMESE CHARACTER
I should be courting a well-deserved retort if I were now to attempt, in a few irresponsible pages, a complete character-sketch of the Burman as he appeared to me during my too-brief sojourn in his beautiful country. Instead of doing so I will content myself with recommending the reader who is interested in Burma but cannot visit it to read and read again the books that have been written by such well-informed and sympathetic writers as Sir George Scott, Mr Fielding Hall and Mr Scott O'Connor. It is satisfactory to know from one of these writers that the Burmese are by no means likely to be crowded out of their own country by such vigorous workers as the Madrasis and Chinese. The immigration of these people enriches the Burman instead of impoverishing him. It enables him to withdraw from work which he cordially dislikes, and to devote himself to the tilling of his rice-fields, and to live the free life—and it is by no means an idle one—that he best loves. The Burmese are showing no signs of approaching extinction; on the contrary, they are multiplying with rapidity.[375] The Burmese, says Mr Fielding Hall, are "extremely prosperous now. There is less poverty, less sickness, less unhappiness than among any people I have seen East or West. If there ever was a people about whom pessimism sounded absurd, it is about the Burmese."[376] If there is, however, one characteristic of the Burman which appears to be beginning to show signs of decay—let us hope it is change rather than decay—it is his artistic sense. His art, like the art of India and Ceylon, is, it seems, becoming demoralised. But that is not due to the example or competition of any Oriental race; it is a result—be it said to our shame—of the English conquest. As regards the common accusation that the Burman is untruthful, it appears to me that Mr Fielding Hall has effectually disposed of this in the book from which I have just quoted. He points out that because a Burman often lies to a European—whom he can hardly help regarding as an unsympathetic alien—that does not imply that he is a liar by nature. "Every man has many standards. He has one for his family, one for his friends, one for his own class, one for his own nation, and a last for all outsiders. No man considers a foreigner entitled to the same openness and truth from him as his own people.... The only way to estimate a people truly is to know how they treat each other, and how they estimate each other.... I should say, from what I have seen, that between Burman and Burman the standard of honesty and truth is very high. And between European and Burman it is very much what the European chooses to make it."[377] These remarks, I may add parenthetically, would apply with equal force to the relations between Europeans and Chinese.