From Edinburgh to India & Burmah

by W. G. Burn Murdoch

Our steamer looked pleasantly homelike, lying a yard from the shore. The purdahs were up and showed the lamp-lit table on deck, set for dinner, and flowers, books and chairs, a cosy picture. The light was reflected in the grey river, and waved slightly in the ripple of the current from the anchor chain. A cargo steamer, forsooth! a private yacht is the feeling it gave.

There are only two passengers besides ourselves, a Mr and Mrs S. With the master and mate we make six at dinner, and the concert after, in which the first mate plays piano accompaniments to all the chanties we can scrape together—"Stormy Long,"—"Run, let the Bulgine Run,"—"Away Rio:" cheerful chanties like "The Anchor's Weighed," with its "Fare ye well, Polly, and farewell Sue," and sad, sad songs of ocean's distress, like "Leave her, Johnnie; Its time to leave her." Neither the master nor mate have seen salt water for many a day, but I know their hearts yearn for the wide ocean and tall ships a-sailing; for all the beauties of all the rivers in the world pale beside the tower of white canvas above you, and the surge and send of a ship across the wide sea.

… 23rd February.—Kyonkmyoung—not pronounced as spelt, and spelling not guaranteed. We spent the night at above village. Now we are passing a wooded shore, and two remarkable pagodas side by side, like two Italian villas, with flat roofs and windows of western design, each has a white terrace in front with a small pagoda spire, and in the trees there are many white terraces and steps up to them from the river's edge.

… The up-river mail has passed us, it had been delayed on a sandbank; we ship an American family party from it. Having lost some hours on the sandbank, they cannot now proceed up the river to Bhamo, as they had intended, so they returned with us to Mandalay. The first gangway plank was hardly down when they were ashore and away like a bullet, with a ricochet and a twang behind; a Silver king, they say, and a future president!—How rapidly Americans travel, and assimilate facts, and what extraordinary conclusions some of them make.

We slow-going Scots hang on at Mandalay for a little. We have not half seen the place, and wish to spend hours and hours at the pagoda, watching the worshippers there, and trying, if possible, to remember enough expressions and forms and colours to use at home. Our fellow passengers, Mr and Mrs S., elect to stay on board. They have some days to spare, waiting for a down-river steamboat, wisely preferring that, to the bustle through to Rangoon in the train.

… Mr S. is playing the piano, G. and I are painting, Mrs S. sewing, and all the morning, from the lower deck, there comes the continual chink of silver rupees, where Captain Robinson and his mate are settling the trade accounts of the trip, blessing the Burmese clerk for having half a rupee too much; funny work for men brought up to "handle reef and steer."

Three steamers, similar to our own, with flats, lie alongside the sandbank, all in black and white, with black and red funnels and corrugated iron roofs, and "Glasgow" painted astern. Bullock-carts bump along the shore in clouds of dust, and the bales come and go, and trade here is still really picturesque; there are no ugly warehouses or stores, and everything is open and above board—just, I suppose, as trade went on in the days of Adam or Solomon.

Went to the railway station, we were obliged to do so. We must leave the river to get down to Rangoon and Western India, to catch our return P. & O. from Bombay. We have decided to return by the north of India, and not by Ceylon, though we are drawn both ways. Ceylon route by steamer all the way, seems so much easier for tired travellers, than going overland in trains; but what would friends at home say if we missed Benares, Agra, and Delhi.