Chapter XXII: Burmah, or Farther India (2)

Miss Haswell belongs to a family of missionaries. Her father and mother were companions of Judson, and the children are in one way and another devoted to the same work. She has a school for girls, which is said to be the best in Burmah. The Chief Commissioner at Rangoon spoke of it in the highest terms, and makes special mention of it in his Report. She told us with great modesty, and almost with a feeling of shame, of the struggle and mortification with which she had literally "begged" the money for it in America. But never did good seed scattered on the waters bear richer fruit. If a deputation from all the Baptist churches which contributed to that school could but pay it a visit, and see what it is doing, it would never want for funds hereafter.

Burmah is a country which needs all good influences--moral and religious. It needs also a strong government, just laws rigidly enforced, to keep peace and order in the land. For though the people are so gay and merry, there is a fearful degree of crime. In Maulmain there is a prison, which holds over a thousand prisoners, many of whom have been guilty of the worst crimes. A few days since there was an outbreak, and an attempt to escape. A number got out of the gate, and were running till they were brought up by shots from the military. Seven were killed and seven wounded. I went through this prison one morning with the physician as he made his rounds. As we entered a man was brought up who had been guilty of some insubordination. He had once attempted to kill the jailer. The Doctor inquired briefly into the offence, and said, without further words: "Give him fifteen cuts." Instantly the man was seized and tied, arms extended, and legs fastened, so that he could not move, and his back uncovered, and an attendant standing off, so that he could give his arm full swing, gave him fifteen cuts that made the flesh start up like whip-cord, and the blood run. The man writhed with agony, but did not scream. I suppose such severity is necessary, but it was a very painful sight. In the hospital we found some of the prisoners who had been concerned in the mutiny. The ringleader had been shot in the leg, which had been amputated. They had found that the ways of transgressors were hard.

Continuing our walk, we went through the different workshops, and saw the kinds of labor to which the men were put, such as making chairs of bamboo, weaving cloth, beating cocoanut husks to make stuff for mattresses, carving, making furniture, blacksmithing, &c. The worst offenders were put to grinding corn, as that was a species of labor in which they had no tools which could be used as deadly weapons. The men in this ward--perhaps a hundred in number--were desperate characters. They were almost all highway robbers, Dacoits, bands of whom have long been the terror of the country. They all had irons on their ankles, and stood up to their tasks, working with their hands. I was not sorry to see "their feet made fast in the stocks," for in looking into their savage faces, one could but feel that he would rather see them in chains and behind iron bars, than meet them alone in a forest.

But I turn to a more agreeable spectacle. It is sometimes more pleasant to look at animals than at men, certainly when men make beasts of themselves, and when, on the other hand, animals show an intelligence almost human. One of the great industries of Burmah is the timber trade. The teak wood, which is the chief timber cut and shipped, is very heavy, and requires prodigious force to handle it; and as the Burmese are not far enough advanced to use machinery for the purpose, they employ elephants, and bravely do the noble beasts perform their task. In the timber yards both at Rangoon and at Maulmain, all the heavy work of drawing and piling the logs is done by them. I have never seen any animals showing such intelligence, and trained to such docility and obedience. In the yard that we visited there were seven elephants, five of which were at that moment at work. Their wonderful strength came into play in moving huge pieces of timber. I did not measure the logs, but should think that many were at least twenty feet long and a foot square. Yet a male elephant would stoop down, and run his tusks under a log, and throw his trunk over it, and walk off with it as lightly as a gentleman would balance his bamboo cane on the tip of his finger. Placing it on the pile, he would measure it with his eye, and if it projected too far at either end, would walk up to it, and with a gentle push or pull, make the pile even. If a still heavier log needed to be moved on the ground to some part of the yard, the mahout, sitting on the elephant's head, would tell him what to do, and the great creature seemed to have a perfect understanding of his master's will. He would put out his enormous foot, and push it along; or he would bend his head, and crouching half way to the ground, and doubling up his trunk in front, throw his whole weight against it, and thus, like a ram, would "butt" the log into its place; or if it needed to be taken a greater distance, he would put a chain around it, and drag it off behind him. The female elephant especially was employed in drawing, as having no tusks, she could not lift like her big brothers, but could only move by her power of traction or attraction. Then using her trunk as deftly as a lady would use her fingers, she would untie the knot or unhitch the chain, and return to her master, perhaps putting out her trunk to receive a banana as a reward for her good conduct. It was a very pretty sight, and gave us a new idea of the value of these noble creatures, and of the way in which they can be trained for the service of man, since they can be not only made subject to his will, but taught to understand it, thus showing equal intelligence and docility.

After a day or two thus pleasantly passed, we went on board the Malda (which had finally got over the bar and come up to Maulmain), and dropped down the river, and were soon sailing along the coast, which grows more beautiful as we steam southward. We pass a great number of islands, which form the Mergui Archipelago, and just now might be off the shores of Greece. Within these sheltered waters is Tavoy, from which it is proposed to build a road over the mountains to Bangkok in Siam. There has long been a path through the dense forest, but one that could only be traversed by elephants. Now it is proposed to have a good road, the expense to be borne by the two kingdoms. Is not this a sign of progress, of an era of peace and good will? Formerly Burmah and Siam were always at war. Being neighbors and rivals, they were "natural enemies," as much as were France and England. But now the strong English hand imposes peace, and the two countries seek a closer connection. The road thus inaugurated will bind them together, and prove not only an avenue of commerce but a highway of civilization.

At Penang we enter the Straits of Malacca, on one side of which is the Malayan Peninsula, and on the other the island of Sumatra, which is larger than all Great Britain, and where just now, at this upper end, the Dutch have a war on their hands. Penang is opposite Acheen, and the Malays, who are engaged in such a desperate resistance to the Dutch, often cross the Straits, and may be seen at any time in the streets of the English settlement. Perhaps it is but natural that the English should have a sympathy with these natives, who are defending their country against invaders, though I do not perceive that this makes them more ready to yield the ground on their own side of the Straits, where just now, at Perak, they have a little war of their own. To this war in Acheen I may refer again, when I come to write of the Dutch power in Java.

Bayard Taylor celebrates Penang as "the most beautiful island in the world," which is a great deal for one to say who has travelled so far and seen so much. I could not be quite so enthusiastic, and yet I do not wonder at any degree of rapture in one who climbs the Peak of Penang, which commands a view not only of the town and harbor below, but of other islands and waters, as well as of mountains and valleys in the interior, which are a part of Siam. Turning seaward, and looking down, this little island of Penang appears as the gem of the scene--a mass of the richest tropical vegetation, set in the midst of tropical seas.

We were now in the tropics indeed. We had been for weeks, but we had a more "realizing sense" of it as we got into the lower latitudes. The heat grew intense as we approached the Equator. One after another we laid aside the garments of the colder North, and put on the lightest and thinnest costume, till we did not know but our only relief would be that suggested by Sydney Smith, "to take off our flesh and sit in our bones." With double awnings spread over the deck, and the motion of the ship stirring the air, still the vertical sun was quite overpowering. We were obliged to keep on deck day and night, although there was ample room below. As there were but eight passengers in the cabin, each had a state-room; but with all this space, and portholes wide open, still it was impossible to keep cool. An iron ship becomes so heated that the state-rooms are like ovens. So we had to take refuge on deck. Every evening the servants appeared, bringing our mattresses, which were spread on the skylight above the cabin. This was very well for the gentlemen of our company, but offered no relief of coolness for our only lady passenger. But a couple of gallant young Englishmen, who with us were making the tour of the world, were determined that she should not be imprisoned below, and they set up on deck a screen, in which she was enclosed as in a tent; and not Cleopatra, when floating in her gilded barge, reclined more royally than she, thus lifted up into the cool night air. Then we all had our reward. The glory of the night made up for the fervors of the day. From our pillows we looked out upon the sea, and as the hot day brought thunderstorms, the lightning playing on the distant horizon lighted up the watery leagues around, till it seemed as if we were

"Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on the wide, wide sea,"

floating on in darkness over an unfathomable abyss. At other times the sea was luminous with the light which she carries in her own bosom. These Southern seas are full of those marine insects which shine like glow-worms in the dark; and when the waters were calm and still, when there was not a ripple on the bosom of the deep, we leaned over the stern of the ship to watch the long track of light which she left in the phosphorescent sea. But brighter than this watery illumination was the sky above, which was all aglow with celestial fires. We had long become familiar with the Southern Cross, which we first saw in Egypt on the Nile, near the First Cataract. But then it was just above the horizon. Now it shone in mid-heaven, while around it were gathered the constellations of the Southern hemisphere. I have seen the stars on the desert and on the sea, but never anything before that quite equalled these nights on the Equator.

But our voyage was coming to an end. We had already been twice as long on the Bay of Bengal as in crossing the Atlantic. It was the last day of March when the captain of the ship came to me, as I was standing on deck, and said: "Do you see that low point of land, with the trees upon it, coming down to the water? That is the most Southern point of Asia." That great continent, which we saw first at Constantinople, and had followed so far around the globe, ended here. An hour afterward, as we rounded into Singapore, a hand pointed Eastward, and a voice at my side said: "Uncle, there's the Pacific!" She who spoke might perhaps have said rather, "There are the China Seas," but they are a part of the great Ocean which rolls its waters from Asia to America.

Singapore is on an island, at the very end of the peninsula, so that it may be called truly "the jumping-off place." On this point of land, but a degree and a half from the Equator, England has planted one of those colonies by which she keeps guard along the coasts, and over the waters, of Southern Asia. The town, which has a population of nearly a hundred thousand, is almost wholly Chinese, but it is the English power which is seen in the harbor filled with ships, and the fort mounted with guns; and English taste which has laid out the streets and squares, and erected the public buildings. This might be called the Island of Palms, which grow here in great profusion--the tall cocoanut palm with its slender stem, the fan palm with its broad leaves, and many other varieties which mantle the hillsides, forming a rich background for the European bungalows that peer out from under a mass of tropical foliage.

Whoever goes around the world must needs pass by Singapore. It is the one inevitable point in Asia, as San Francisco is in America. One is sure to meet here travellers, mostly English and American, passing to and fro, from India to China, or from China to India, making the Grand Tour. So common are they that they cease to inspire as much awe as Marco Polo or Capt. Cook, and have even received the nickname of "globe-trotters," and are looked upon as quite ordinary individuals. Singapore is a good resting-point for Americans--a convenient half-way house--as it is almost exactly on the other side of the globe from New York. Having "trotted" thus far, we may be allowed to rest, at least over Sunday, before we take a new start, and sail away into the Southern hemisphere.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] This book furnishes a good illustration of the incidental service which missionaries--aside from the religious work they do--render to the cause of geography, of science, and of literature. They are the most indefatigable explorers, and the most faithful and authentic narrators of what they see. Its full title is: "BURMAH: its People and Natural Productions; or Notes on the Natives, Fauna, Flora, and Minerals, of Tenasserim, Pegu, and Burmah; With systematic catalogues of the known Mammals, Birds, Fishes, Reptiles, Insects, Mollusks, Crustaceans, Anellides, Radiates, Plants, and Minerals, with vernacular names." In his preface the writer says:

"No pretensions are made in this work to completeness. It is not a book composed in the luxury of literary leisure, but a collection of Notes [What is here so modestly called Notes, is an octavo of over 900 pages] which I have been making during the twenty years of my residence in this country, in the corners of my time that would otherwise have been wasted. Often to forget my weariness when travelling, when it has been necessary to bivouac in the jungles; while the Karens have been seeking fuel for their night-fires, or angling for their suppers in the stream; I have occupied myself with analyzing the flowers that were blooming around my couch; or examining the fish that were caught; or an occasional reptile, insect, or bird, that attracted my attention. With such occupations I have brightened many a solitary hour; and often has the most unpromising situation proved fruitful in interest; for 'the barren heath, with its mosses, lichens, and insects, its stunted shrubs and pale flowers, becomes a paradise under the eye of observation; and to the genuine thinker the sandy beach and the arid wild are full of wonders.'"

[10] Dr. S. Wells Williams, who was familiar with Buddhism during his forty years residence in China, says ("Middle Kingdom," Vol. II., p. 257):

"The numerous points of similarity between the rites of the Buddhists and those of the Romish Church, early attracted attention, ... such as the vow of celibacy in both sexes, the object of their seclusion, the loss of hair, taking a new name and looking after the care of the convent. There are many grounds for supposing that their favorite goddess Kwanyin, i. e., the Hearer of Cries, called also Holy Mother, Queen of Heaven, is only another form of Our Lady. The monastic habit, holy water, counting rosaries to assist in prayer, the ordinances of celibacy and fasting, and reciting masses for the dead, worship of relics, and canonization of saints, are alike features of both sects. Both burn candles and incense, and bells are much used in their temples: both teach a purgatory, from which the soul can be delivered by prayers, and use a dead language for their liturgy, and their priests pretend to miracles. These striking resemblances led the Romish missionaries to suppose that some of them had been derived from the Romanists or Syrians who entered China before the twelfth century; others referred them to St. Thomas, but Premare ascribes them to the devil, who had thus imitated holy mother church in order to scandalize and oppose its rights. But as Davis observes: 'To those who admit that most of the Romish ceremonies are borrowed directly from Paganism, there is less difficulty in accounting for the resemblance.'"

The following scene in a Buddhist temple described by an eye-witness, answers to what is often seen in Romish churches:

"There stood fourteen priests, seven on each side of the altar, erect, motionless, with clasped hands and downcast eyes, their shaven heads and flowing gray robes adding to their solemn appearance. The low and measured tones of the slowly moving chant they were singing might have awakened solemn emotions, and called away the thoughts from worldly objects. Three priests kept time with the music, one beating an immense drum, another a large iron vessel, and a third a wooden bell. After chanting, they kneeled upon low stools, and bowed before the colossal image of Buddha, at the same time striking their heads upon the ground. Then rising and facing each other, they began slowly chanting some sentences, and rapidly increasing the music and their utterance until both were at the climax of rapidity, they diminished in the same way until they had returned to the original measure.... The whole service forcibly reminded me of scenes in Romish chapels."

[11] Dr. Haswell died a few months after we left Burmah.