Four years in Upper Burma

by W. R. Winston

We managed to make a stage of six miles before it was daylight, and pushed on the next stage of fifteen miles farther without stopping. There we halted at one of the establishments constructed at every stage along this route, to accommodate troops and convoys, on the march to the military and police stations on the frontier. It consisted of long rows of temporary bamboo barracks, and a bamboo shed for the officers. There was a Burmese police guard close by. How regularly and irreproachably that Burman constable shouldered his rifle, and did his “sentry go,” while we were looking on! Here we halted for our midday meal and a short rest. It is wonderful with what dexterity your native servant, availing himself of almost no facilities for cooking, can produce you a savoury breakfast on the march. Three stones or bricks to support the kettle, and the same for the frying-pan, are all he requires for a fireplace, and a few sticks and bits of bamboo out of the jungle are enough for a fire. In the afternoon we did another twelve miles, making thirty-three miles that day, which was rather more than the cartman would have driven his bullocks, if it had not been that the next day was Sunday, the day of rest. The weather was lovely, being the best time of the year for a journey. It was not much hotter in the day than a warm summer day in England; the nights and mornings were chilly.

At Pyinchaung we halted on the Saturday night, again putting up in the temporary military lines. The route we had taken was not a road, as we understand roads in England, but, strictly speaking, more of a track, fairly passable in dry weather for carts, but almost impracticable after heavy rains. Good metalled roads are a luxury we have not seen much of as yet in Upper Burma, but we shall get them in course of time. On the Sunday we rested, and spent some time amongst the villagers, distributing tracts and preaching. Here we had the misfortune to lose our two ponies. Mr. Bestall, pitying them, that there was so little grass to eat in the rest-house enclosure, opened his kind heart, and the gate at the same time, and let them out to graze, giving them in charge to the cartman to look after. He followed them for awhile, and then, native-like, came back without them. We went in search of them, but never saw them again that journey. They strayed for many miles, and it was a month before they were brought back. It speaks well for the hold the English now have on the country, and the great diminution of crime, that search was made in all the district round, and they were returned by the police, as we felt sure they would be. We had to borrow for the rest of the way.

An eloquent reminder of the troublous times we had then barely passed through, was the little police fort close by the rest-house, constructed on the top of a ruined pagoda, where there was a view of the country for some distance round. During the first three or four years of British rule places like this had to be selected wherever practicable, and made strong enough to stand a rush by dacoits, and a careful watch had to be kept. The little bamboo house was perched right on the top of the steep mound of ruined brickwork, a wall breast high was erected round it, and with a few resolute men, well armed, inside, it would not have been easy to take. The rest-house at Pyinchaung, looking westward, overlooked a most lovely valley of great extent and fertility, through which we had now to pass. This valley looks as if it might have been at one time the bed of a mighty river, but the stream is now contracted to a very narrow span, and the alluvial soil of this rich valley is a veritable land of plenty. I never saw a region more lovely with “the fairer forms that cultivation glories in” than the Yaw valley then appeared. Whilst crossing this great valley we rode through fields of maize, and another tall grain, a kind of millet, far above our heads, with rice fields here and there, and abundance of pumpkins, beans and other vegetables, the ponies snatching an occasional bite at the sweet juicy stems and leaves of the millet, which they are so fond of. Carts in great numbers passed us, drawn by well-fed, plump oxen, and mostly laden with the leaves which envelop the maize cobs, all laid straight and packed neatly in bundles. The maize crop had nearly all been reaped, and these leaves of the Yaw valley maize, not the grain itself, form the most valuable product of the crop, and are largely sold all over Burma for the purpose of enveloping Burmese cigars.

The people of this district all looked fat and well fed. There was abundance of cattle, and the inhabitants of that region seemed to want for nothing in a material point of view. Fifteen miles from Pyinchaung we reached Pauk, a small Burmese town, the headquarters of the township officer, a police officer, and a lieutenant in charge of a detachment of Madras troops. They were all very young Englishmen, two of them apparently not over twenty-five, and it might have seemed odd at first sight to see such young men in such responsible positions. But suddenly having to find a sufficient staff of officials, to rule over a country as large as France, has involved engaging the services of many young men, for they must enter upon their duties young to be properly trained for the work; and it is a notable fact that the great work of pacifying and restoring to order Upper Burma has been chiefly the work of very young men. The civil officer is a magistrate, and has to try such cases as are within his jurisdiction, to collect the revenue through his native subordinates, to keep his eye on everything in general, and to keep the Deputy Commissioner of the district informed of all that is going on, to initiate whatever is needful for the well-being of the community, and to act the part of a father to the people of his township, which is as large, though not so populous, as an English county. The police inspector is responsible for the maintenance of order, and the pursuit and arrest of criminals; and the military may at any time be called out to take the field, and try conclusions with some dacoit band that has gathered in force. As far as I could judge they all seemed very fit for the work they had to do.

Only a year or so before, this township of Pauk was in an exceedingly disturbed state, by reason of dacoit bands; and if things had not greatly improved, we could never have travelled unprotected through it as we did. It is to the credit of these young men, and the troops and police under them, that things are so peaceable now. We saw at Pauk the same abundant evidences of prosperity and improvement, that are visible everywhere throughout the country, not only in the erection of a new court house and public Government office, and many private houses, but still more in the great improvements made about the town, in the improvement of the roads, and most of all in the construction of a new bazaar, which the township officer showed us through with pardonable pride, and in which a great deal of business was going on.

Having stayed in Pauk the night, we were off the next morning early, forded the river, travelled a stage, and rested for our midday meal in a monastery. This is no uncommon thing in Burma; we had occasion to do so several times on this journey. There is hardly a village without its monastery, one or more, always the best building in the place, and kept very clean; and it generally happens, as in this case, that there are some vacant buildings used as rest-houses by chance travellers. We always found the monks affable and pleasant to meet, quite chatty, with a kind of friendly familiarity entering at once into conversation, and evidently not having the slightest objection to seeing us about the premises. We, on our part, reciprocated these advances, and made things pleasant all round.

Thus we travelled on from day to day, as fast as our bullocks could make the journey, which was very slowly indeed. As we could gain nothing by going ahead of our cart, we were obliged to spend the spare time as best we could. My companion, having a gun, and being a good shot, managed to get something every day, which, in the entire absence of the butcher’s shop, was very acceptable for the larder. We had either a hare, wild pigeons, jungle fowl, partridges, or something. Game is abundant on the route, and in the jungle you have no fear of encroaching on anybody’s preserves.

I suppose there are few places in the world now, however remote, where an Englishman is not constantly meeting with some wandering specimens of his countrymen; and even in the wildest recesses of the jungles of Upper Burma, you are liable to the discovery that the genus Englishman includes the species gentleman and the species snob. We had a curious illustration of this. Arriving one evening, long after dark, about eight o’clock, at a roadside rest-house, built by the Public Works Department for the common use of English travellers, we found a gentleman whom I will call Captain X. He was travelling in charge of a large military convoy of elephants, ponies and other baggage animals, carrying up supplies to one of the distant military stations in the Chin country. He and a junior companion were in possession of the comfortable, spacious, three-roomed bamboo rest-house, where there would have been ample accommodation for us as well, with our scanty travelling kit, in the third room, which they were not using; and they had really no more right to monopolise the whole than we had. However, they were in possession; and on our presenting ourselves at the door, Captain X. never so much as asked us to step inside, never attempted even to ascertain who we were, or to enter at all into conversation with us, but simply directed our attention to a dirty, shabby bamboo shed at the lower part of the compound, built for natives, and at that moment quite full of Burman coolies, who, he cheerfully assured us, would readily “nip out” and make room for us, if we asked them. Some people’s idea of the purpose of other people seems to be that they were meant by Providence to “nip out” and make way for them! Gathering from his manner that he did not mean us to have the use of the vacant room at the rest-house, or to show the slightest courtesy in any way, we betook ourselves to the said outbuilding. The courteous Burmans squeezed themselves into smaller space, and left us enough room to spread our rugs on the bamboo floor, and we managed to put up for the night. I am glad to say that this kind of discourtesy is very uncommon indeed abroad. In all my experience of many years in Ceylon and Burma, I have never met with such scant civility from a fellow-traveller in the jungle, but always something more in accordance with the circumstances.

A striking contrast to this was the gentlemanly conduct of Lieutenant T., whom we happened to meet in a similar way at a rest-house on the return journey. He was in possession, too, before we arrived, and though that rest-house only consisted of one room, which he was occupying, he most kindly pressed us to share it with him. This, however, we would not do, but decided to occupy a zayat which we found vacant close by. We entered into conversation, and shortly after, when we took leave of him for the night, we found that, finding our cart had not arrived, and that our supper would have been long delayed, he had sent his servant boy round with enough supper for both of us, and a candle by the light of which to eat it! Lieutenant T. is a brave man, and has made quite a name in connection with the rough military and civil work of the last few years, amongst the tribes of the western frontier. He has been, as we were elsewhere informed, in thirteen engagements; and he was at that time returning to his distant appointment on the hills, from an event which must have been to him, as a soldier, the proudest moment of his life, when the general decorated him, in the presence of all the troops of the station assembled on parade, with the Distinguished Service Order. It was currently reported by his brother-officers that it would have been the Victoria Cross, had he not been in command of the detachment on the special occasion, and as the writer of the despatch, he chivalrously gave the praise to another.

I could not but observe this, as another instance, showing that true bravery is usually associated with true modesty, and all other gentlemanly qualities.