BURMESE TEMPLE.
The Burmese delta (a network of intercommunicating waters from the Indian border-ranges to the banks of the Salween near the Siamese frontier) has some fourteen outlets, but most of these are obstructed by sandbars and coral-reefs. Bassein and Rangoon are the seagoing ports. The latter is a large city of over one hundred thousand inhabitants, and now ranks third in commercial importance in the Indian empire. This plain from the coast to Prome is subject to periodical inundations and is exceedingly productive. It is a great rice-district. Below the northern frontier of British Burmah the Irawaddy is nearly three miles broad. In the neighborhood of Prome the face of the country changes. Ranges of lofty mountains approach nearer and nearer, and finally close in on the stream, the banks becoming precipitous and the valley narrowing to three-quarters of a mile. Above the latitude of Ava the whole region is intersected by mountains, and not far from Mandalay, the capital of Upper Burmah, is their lowest defile. The banks at this point are covered with dense vegetation and slope down to the water’s edge. Still ascending the river, before reaching Bhamo one enters an exceedingly picturesque defile, the stream winding in perfect stillness under high bare rocks rising sheer out of the water. The current of the upper defile above Bhamo is very rapid, and the return waters occasion violent eddies. When the water is at its lowest no bottom is found even at forty fathoms.
For centuries the Irawaddy has furnished the sole means of communication between the seaboard and interior. The Irawaddy Flotilla Company, started in 1868, employs over one thousand hands, and sends twice each week magnificent iron-clad steamers with large flats attached to Mandalay. The time-distance between the two capitals is greater than from New York to Liverpool. Smaller vessels go on to Bhamo. The native craft are estimated at eight thousand. The rapid increase of trade along this river attracts colonists and has greatly enriched British Burmah.
Bhamo, on the left bank, near the confluence of the Taping and close to valuable coal-mines, is within a few miles of the Chinese frontier. The old trade-route noted by Marco Polo is still in use, but the ranges to be crossed, the great cost of land-carriage, together with the dangerous neighborhood of the Kachyen banditti, render the road of limited avail for trade-purposes beyond the fertile Taping valley. The China Inland Mission and the American Baptists have stations at Bhamo.
The Rangoon-Prome railroad was opened in 1878. The Rangoon-Toungoo line will be in use this year, following the Sittang valley to the borders of Siam. British capitalists have now under contemplation a road crossing from Maulmain to Cheung Mai, a distance of about one hundred and sixty miles, with only one comparatively low hill-chain east of the Salween River. A terminus at Cheung Mai would create an increased traffic, leading to a further extension viâ Kiang Kung to Szmao on the Yunnanese frontier, a distance roughly estimated at two hundred and forty miles, with no intervening mountain-system. Although as yet untraveled by European exploration, this track is in use by the native caravans, and the projected railroad will open a most important exchange market with millions of well-to-do, industrious inhabitants, occupying some of the richest mining and agricultural districts of Southern Asia.
The official census report of Burmah states: “There is possibly no country in the world whose inhabitants are more varied in race, customs and language. There are said to be as many as forty-seven different tribes in the narrow boundaries of the two Burmahs, but these may be classed under four—Peguans, Burmese, Karens and Shans or Laos. The Peguans seem to have first occupied the country. The Burmese followed, and took possession of the plains and valleys of Upper and Lower Burmah. Their language is used in the English courts of justice, and is probably destined to be the prevailing language of the country. The Laos, occupying the north-eastern plateaux skirting the Chinese border, are from a great trunk of uncertain root which appears to have been derived originally from Yunnan, where the main stem still retains its primitive designation of La’o—a name commonly exchanged for ’shan’ in the language of the modern Burmese and English writers. The Karens, scattered along the Siamese frontiers, are various tribes having their own customs, dialects and religion. They have a tradition that when they left Central Asia they were accompanied by a younger brother, who traveled faster, went directly east and founded the Chinese empire. Before the British acquired Lower Burmah these simple mountaineers were subjected to brutal persecutions. So late as 1851 the Burmese viceroy told Mr. Kincaid that he ‘would instantly shoot the first Karens he found that could read.’”
The Karens live among the vast forests, now in one and anon in another valley, clearing a little patch for rice-fields and gardens, their upland rice and cotton furnishing food and clothing and the mountain-streams fish in abundance. They seldom remain more than two seasons in one spot, and all through the jungles are found abandoned Karen hamlets, where rank weeds and young bamboo-shoots supplant the cultivated fields.
II. THE SECOND BASIN—SIAM.
The river Menam (or Meinam) is formed by the union of streams from the north. About halfway in its course mountains close upon the river, which passes from the upper plateaux of Laos into the valley of Siam proper through some of the finest mountain-scenery in the world.