We begin to think thicker clothing would not be amiss—but a quick walk on shore makes one's blood go merrily. We decided to come here again with some sort of a house on a keel of our own, and stop and shoot here and there, and paint; perhaps drift down river from Bhamo through the defiles, with sport wherever one wanted it—four kinds of deer, elephant, jungle fowl, francolin, snipe, geese, duck, possibly leopard or tiger, and a few miles inland there are rhino and gaur—there's a choice!—and I'd have a net too—four weeks out, by "Henderson" or "Bibby," four here, and four back—I wonder if my presence could be spared at home.
Mimbu.—Here are splendid trees, like those in Watteau's pictures, on the top of the banks, their foliage drooping over cottages. These are very neatly built on teak-wood legs. You can see into some of them through the bamboo walls and floors, and see touches of rich colour in their brown interiors—ladies in emerald silk and powdered faces, jet black hair and white torch cheroot, and, perhaps, the goodman coming in, in green cloth jacket, pink round his hair, and say, a crushed strawberry putsoe down to the middle of his sturdy brown calves.
A number of Burmese get off here. Up the sandy bank are collected about fifty carts. The bullocks in them are finely bred, and are coloured like fallow deer, and look fat and well-cared for. The carts are sand-coloured and sun-bleached, with great thick wheels, and the contrast of the dainty passengers—women and children with neat packages—getting into these is very pleasant. The men busy themselves yoking the oxen; they are dressed in bright silks and cottons, several have M'Pherson tartan putsoes. A mother lifts her butterfly-coloured children into the clean straw and gets in herself, and the eldest daughter, with white jacket and prettily-dressed hair, steps in demurely, tucks up her knees in her exquisite plum-coloured silk skirt, and away they go in dust and sun and jollity—verily, I do believe, that Solomon in his very Sunday best was not a patch to one of these daintly dressed figures.…
I walk along the country road and have a glimpse of the white and gold of a pagoda, and a glimpse of the river through tree trunks in shadow, and wish the steamer's horn for recall would not sound for many days.
21st January.—Past Mimbu—sands wide and whitey-grey. There are white cirri on blue—sky and sand repeated on the river's surface. At the ends of the sand-spits are waders—oyster catchers I vow—one might be at Arisaig in a splendid June instead of the Irrawaddy in January.… Long rafts of teak logs pass us occasionally, drifting slowly down with the current. The three or four oarsmen, when they see us, run about over the round logs and give a pull here and a pull there at long oars, and try to get the unwieldy length up and down stream; they wear only a waist cloth, and look so sun-bitten; there is but one tiny patch of shadow in the middle of their island under a lean-to cottage of matting, with a burgee on a tall bamboo flying over it. Our wash sends their dug-out canoe bobbling alongside their raft, and splashes over and between the logs, and the raftsmen have to bustle to keep their herd together, and we pass, and they go and dream, of—well I don't know what; that's the worst of being only a visitor in a country—without the language, you can only guess what the people think by their expressions.
We drop anchor off Yenangyaung. There are sandy cliffs here, riddled with holes made by blue rock-pigeons (?)—more shooting going a-begging! And there is a bungalow on a sandy bluff, and picturesque native craft lie along the sandy shore, altogether rather a sandy place. The oil works don't show from the river very much[27]. The Jacobs' party get off here. Mr Jacobs manages this particular source of Burmah's wealth. They go ashore in a smart white launch.
Crude oil production of Burmah in 1904—116 million gallons, of which 73 million came from Yenangyaung. In 1902 the Burmese oil fields yielded nearly 55 million gallons, valued at the rate of 250 gallons for a sovereign—Del Mar's "Romantic East."
There is the wreck of a river steamer on a sandbank off Yenangyaung, its black ribs lie about like the bones of disintegrated whale; it is not pleasant to look at. She went on fire, and about 200 Burmans were drowned, and no one would save them, though there were many canoes and people within three hundred yards. A Scotsman could only get one boat's crew to go off, and they saved the captain and others, the rest jumped overboard and were drowned. Burmese are said to be good swimmers, but I have not so far seen a Burman swim more than two or three strokes, though I see hundreds bathing every day. The Chittagong Indians who form our crew swim ashore with a line every time we tie up, and they are about the worst swimmers I have ever seen; they jump in on all fours and swim like dogs or cattle. In this case of the drowning people, the lookers on would say it was not their affair, just as they would, with the utmost politeness, if you chose to worship in a way different from them; a reductio ad absurdum, from the point of view of those in the water, of a very charming trait. The Burman is naturally brave, but his philosophy is that of the Christian Socialist, it is not his creed to be heroic, or to take life, or thought for the morrow; and if a man smites him on the cheek, though he may not actually turn the other, he doesn't counter quick enough in our opinion—doesn't know our working creed—"Twice blest is he whose cause is just, but three times blest whose blow's in first;" so we took his country—and make it pay by the sweat of our brows—poor devils.
We are steaming now north by east, a very winding course, for the water is shallow though the river is wide. At high water season I'd think there must be too much water for appearance sake—it must feel too wide for a river and too narrow for the sea.