BY DAVID GILMORE.
I believe I was the first man to ride a bicycle in Rangoon. I know I was the cause of much wonder to the natives, who would stare in open-eyed astonishment to see a white man scorching by on a little iron carriage with two wheels. When I chanced to dismount, they would gather around and take a look at the machine, finger the tires, ask how much it cost, and finally grunt out some such remark as "Teh goundy, naw?"—Pretty good, isn't it? It was pleasant to be the centre of all this admiration, but not so pleasant when I turned the admiration into amusement by coasting boldly down a steep hill, making a sharp turn just in time to avoid a deep ditch, and driving full speed into a most unyielding fence. It is peculiarly mortifying to be laughed at by those whom you regard as your social inferiors.
When I arrived in Rangoon, it was just after the "dacoit times." Dacoits are the highway-robbers of India. They work in gangs, and travel over the country plundering, murdering, and sacking and burning the villages in the jungle. They carry guns when they can get them; but as the English are very careful to confiscate guns found in the possession of natives, the dacoits are generally armed with dahs, as the Burmese swords are called.
Shortly before I arrived in Burmah, the country had been infested with dacoits, so that even in the outskirts of Rangoon houses were barricaded at night, and the employment of private watchmen, always common in Burmah, became almost universal. By the time I arrived there, however, the gentle custom of dacoity had been pretty thoroughly broken up. Now and then a lonely village in the jungle might be looted and burned, or an English official living in some remote town might be murdered, but we who lived in Rangoon were safe. No dacoit dared to show himself there. At least, so I was assured.
Now I had a sweetheart in those days; and have her still—no less sweet now that she shares my home. But then she lived in Kemendine, a considerable village about two miles from my own home in Rangoon. I believe that technically Kemendine lies within the municipal limits of Rangoon, but practically it is a separate community, being cut off from Rangoon proper by a considerable stretch of unimproved land. Kemendine is distinctively a native community, having a large population of Burmans, but not half a dozen white inhabitants.
I was in the habit of using my bicycle when I went out to spend an evening with my fiancée. The road was lonely, but I considered it perfectly safe.
One night, after the good-byes had been said, I started for home a little after nine o'clock. A minute or so of easy pedalling brought me to the railway track which bounded Kemendine village. The gates at the crossing were closed, in anticipation of the Prome mail-train, which was due there in a quarter of an hour. I dismounted while the Hindoo gateman opened the gates just enough to let me through. Then I walked my wheel across the track and remounted, receiving, as I rolled away, the beautiful Oriental salutation, "Salaam, sahib"—Peace be with you, sir—a pious wish strangely in contrast with the scene which was almost immediately to follow.
On crossing the railway tracks I had left behind me the lights in the village street, and the road before me was illuminated only by the waning moon, which had just risen, affording me light enough to pick my way, though not as much as I wanted before I got safely home. On my left was the Burmese cemetery, on my right the ample grounds of a kyaung—a Buddhist monastery. Of these two, the proximity of the latter was much the more legitimate cause of anxiety, as the indiscriminate hospitality of the kyaungs makes them favorite lurking-places for bad characters. But all I thought about the kyaung just then was that the bells of its pagodas jingled sweetly in the night wind. About half-way down the hill the road turned at right angles from the cemetery, and skirted along the other side of the kyaung. On the left was a little village called Shan-zu. It was as still as the grave; the villagers were evidently all asleep. Here the road began to be bordered with bushes and bamboos, which grew denser as the road left the kyaung and the village behind and began to cross the waste-land between Kemendine and Rangoon. At the foot of the hill the road passed over a little bridge.
Of course I didn't coast down the hill, lest I should come to grief at the corner. But after turning the corner the road lay straight before me clear into the town, and I let my machine go, keeping my feet on the pedals, however, that I might have control of the wheel in case anything should happen.
