The Boy Travellers in the Far East, Part Third / Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey to Ceylon and India; With Descriptions of Borneo, the Philippine Islands and Burmah

by Thomas Wallace Knox

A BURMESE TEMPLE.

There were crowds of natives in gaudy costumes, and nobody seemed to be actively employed. One man who spoke a little English offered to conduct the party around the place, and his offer was readily accepted. He led the way to a temple or pagoda with a curious arrangement of terraces and peaked roofs that can only be described by a picture. There was a good deal of gilding and yellow paint in the ornamentation of the building, and on the corners of the terraces there were staffs or poles with bells that jingled in the wind. As before stated, the large bells in Burmah have no tongues, and are rung by sticks of timber swung against them, but the small ones that hang on the roofs of the temples are better off. When the breeze is blowing they keep up a perpetual tinkle by no means unpleasant.

The entrance was up a marble staircase at one corner of the lowest terrace, and there was a similar stair at the opposite corner. Each of the entrances was guarded by fierce griffins, like those already described at Rangoon, and the carving was by no means of an ordinary character. The wood-carving on the ornamental parts of the building was generally well done, and the boys spent some time in examining the various designs. They climbed to the top of the edifice and looked down on the roofs of the lower buildings that surrounded it; some of these were the residences of the priests that had charge of the temple, and others were intended as lodging-houses for strangers who came there to worship, and intended to spend several days in the place. The priests were in yellow robes, like those of Bangkok, and their general appearance was much the same. The architecture of the temples, and certain parts of the worship of the Burmese, have no resemblance to the Siamese forms, but the principles of the religions are identical. Buddha is the divinity in the one country as in the other.

The steam-whistle called our friends back to the boat, and in a little while they were heading up the river once more. As they turned a bend above Myanaong, the captain pointed to a plain that stretched away for several miles along the bank of the river, and was backed by a dense forest.

"On that plain," said the captain, "I saw a fine example of the superiority of the European mode of warfare over that of these sleepy Orientals. I have already told you how we overset a fleet of their war-boats without endeavoring to do so, and now I'll tell how we dispersed an army of several thousand men in about five minutes:[5]

"The steamer that I was on during the second Burmese war was ordered to come up the river to prevent any re-enforcements going to the Burmese in Rangoon before we assaulted the place. Just before reaching this point we heard the sound of gongs and trumpets; it grew louder and louder, and we slowed our engines and crept gently along. Soon we discovered a great flashing and sparkling all over the plain, and from the mast-head we made out that an army was marching to the relief of Rangoon.

"Three 'woons,' or governors of as many districts, were leading the army, and it was a gorgeous array of elephants, horses, wagons, gongs, flags, trumpets, brass trappings, and all 'the pomp and circumstance of glorious war.' The three woons were on as many elephants in the front rank, seated on gilded howdahs, and shaded by gold umbrellas. Their servants knelt behind them with fans and betel-boxes, and the driver on each elephant's neck was flourishing his wand as though proud of the honor of directing the stately beast who carried a woon. Then came five elephants drawn out in a line, and laden with servants and baggage, and then twelve elephants bearing the sons and nephews of the woons, together with the staff-officers. Next came the horsemen, three or four hundred strong, and behind them the beaters of gongs and cymbals, with the blowers of trumpets; then followed the infantry, and then the wagons and the camp-followers, making a long, irregular column that stretched far away to the forest.

"It was a grand spectacle, and it seemed a pity to interfere with it, but in war we cannot give way to sentiment. They did not see the steamer, and were evidently not aware of her presence; the first intimation of it was given by our gunners, who dropped a couple of shells right in the midst of the elephants, and followed them with two or three more. Then the steam-whistle was blown, and a rocket was sent flying over the heads of the woons.