An Australian in China Part 17

At a native village called Schehleh there is a likin-barrier. The yellow flag was drooping over the roadway in the hot sun. The customs officer, an amiable Chinese Shan, invited me in to tea, and brought his pukai for me to lie down upon. Like thousands of his countrymen, he had played for fortune in the Manila lottery. Two old lottery tickets and the prize list in Chinese were on one wall of his room, on the other were a number of Chinese visiting cards, to which I graciously permitted him to add mine.

Soldiers accompanied me from camp to camp, Chinese soldiers from districts many hundreds of miles distant in China. Some were armed, some were unarmed, and there was equal confidence to be reposed in the one as in the other; but all were civil, and watched me with a care that was embarra.s.sing.

At the first camp beyond Schehleh the gateway was ornamented with trophies of valour. From two bare tree-trunks baskets of heads were hanging, putrefying in the heat. They were the heads of Kachin dacoits.

And thus shall it be done with all taken in rebellion against the Son of Heaven, whose mighty clemency alone permits the sun to s.h.i.+ne on any kingdom beyond his borders. Kachin villages are scattered through the forest, among the hills. You see their native houses, long bamboo structures raised on piles and thatched with gra.s.s, with low eaves sloping nearly to the ground. In sylvan glades sacred to the _nats_ you pa.s.s wooden pillars erected by the roadside, rudely cut, and rudely painted with lines and squares and rough figures of knives, and close beside them conical gra.s.s structures with coloured weatherc.o.c.ks. Split bamboos support narrow shelves, whereon are placed the various food-offerings with which is sought the goodwill of the evil spirits.

The Kachin men we met were all armed with the formidable _dah_ or native sword, whose widened blade they protect in a univalvular sheath of wood.

They wore Shan jackets and dark knickerbockers; their hair was gathered under a turban. They all carried the characteristic embroidered Kachin bag over the left shoulder.

The Kachin women are as stunted as the j.a.panese, and are disfigured with the same disproportionate shortness of legs. They wear Shan jackets and petticoats of dark-blue; their ornaments are chiefly cowries; their legs are bare. Unmarried, they wear no head-dress, but have their hair cut in a black mop with a deep fringe to the eyebrows. If married, their head-dress is the same as that of the Shan women--a huge dark-blue conical turban. Morality among the Kachin maidens, a missionary tells me, is not, as we understand the term, believed to exist. There is a tradition in the neighbourhood concerning a virtuous maiden; but little reliance can be placed on such legendary tales. Among the Kachins each clan is ruled by a Sawbwa, whose office "is hereditary, not to the eldest son, but to the youngest, or, failing sons, to the youngest surviving brother." (Anderson.) All Kachins chew betel-nut and nearly all smoke opium--men, women and children. Goitre is very prevalent among them; in some villages Major Couchman believes that as many as 25 per cent. of the inhabitants are afflicted with the disease. They have no written language, but their spoken language has been romanised by the American missionaries in Burma.

We camped within five miles of the British border at the Chinese fortlet of Settee, a palisaded camp whose gateway also was hung with heads of dacoits. A Chinese Shan was in command, a smart young officer with a Burmese wife. He was active, alert, and intelligent, and gave me the best room in the series of sheds which formed the barracks. I was made very comfortable. There were between forty and fifty soldiers stationed in the barracks--harmless warriors--who were very attentive. At nightfall the tattoo was beaten. The gong sounded; its notes died away in a distant murmur, then brayed forth with a stentorian clangour that might wake the dead. At the same time a tattoo was beaten on the drum, then a gun was fired and the noise ceased, to be repeated again during the night at the change of guard. All foes, visible and invisible, were in this way scared away from the fort.

Hearing that I was a doctor, the commandant asked me to see several of his men who were on the sick list. Among them was one poor young fellow dying, in the next room to mine, of remittent fever. When I went to the bedside the patient was lying down deadly ill, weak, and emaciated; but two of his companions took him by the arms, and, telling him to sit up, would have pulled him into what they considered a more respectful att.i.tude. In the morning I again went to see the poor fellow. He was lying on his side undergoing treatment. An opium-pipe was held to his lips by one comrade, while another rolled the pellet of opium and placed it heated in the pipe-bowl, so that he might inhale its fumes.

In the morning the officer accompanied me to the gate of the stockade and bade me good-bye, with many unintelligible expressions of good will.

His eight best soldiers were told off to escort me to the frontier, distant only fifteen li. It was a splendid walk through the jungle across the mountains to the Hongmuho. We pa.s.sed the outlying stockade of the Chinese, and, winding along the spur, came full in view of the British camp across the valley, half-way up the opposite slope. By a very steep path we descended through the forest to the frontier fort of the Chinese, and emerged upon the gra.s.sy slope that shelves below it to the river.

There are a few bamboo huts on the sward, and here the Chinese guard left me; for armed guards are allowed no further. I was led to the ford, my pony plunged into the swift stream, and a moment or two later I was on British soil and pa.s.sing the Sepoy outpost, where the guard, to my great alarm, for I feared being shot, turned out and saluted me. Then I climbed up the steep hill to the British encampment, where the English officer commanding, Captain R. G. Iremonger, of the 3rd Burma Regiment, gave me a kind reception, and congratulated me upon my successful journey. He telegraphed to headquarters the news of my arrival. It was of no earthly interest to anybody that I, an unknown wanderer, should pa.s.s through safely; but it was of interest to know that anyone could pa.s.s through so easily. Reports had only recently reached the Government that Western China was in a state of disaffection; that a feeling strongly anti-foreign had arisen in Yunnan; and that now, of all times, would it be inexpedient to despatch a commission for the delimitation of the boundary. My quiet and uninterrupted journey was in direct conflict with all such reports.

The encampment of Nampoung is at an elevation of 1500 feet above the river. It is well exposed on all sides, and has been condemned by military experts. But the law of fortifications which applies to any ordinary frontier does not apply to the frontier of China, where there is no danger whatsoever. The palisade is irregularly made, and is not superior, of course, to any round the Chinese stockades.

The houses are built of bamboo, are raised on piles, and thatched with gra.s.s. A company of the 3rd Burma Regiment is permanently stationed here under an English officer, and consists of 100 men, who are either Sikhs or Punjabis, all of splendid stature and military bearing. A picket of six men under a non-commissioned native officer guards the ford, and permits no armed Chinese to cross the border.

There are numbers of transport mules and ponies. In the creek there are plenty of fish; the rod, indeed, is the chief amus.e.m.e.nt of the officers who are exiled on duty to this lonely spot to pa.s.s three months in turn in almost uninterrupted solitude. There is a telegraph line into Bhamo, and it is at this point that connection will be made with the Imperial Chinese Telegraphs.

At the ford from fifty to one hundred loaded pack-animals, mostly carrying cotton, cross into China daily. A toll of six annas is levied upon each pack-animal, the money so collected being distributed by the Government among those Kachin Sawbwas who have an hereditary right to levy this tribute. The money is collected by two Burmese officials, and handed daily to the officer commanding. No duty is paid on entering Burma. Chinese likin-barriers begin to hara.s.s the caravans at Schehleh.

Beautiful views of the surrounding hills, all covered with "lofty forest trees, tangled with magnificent creepers, and festooned with orchids,"

are obtained from the camp. All the country round is extremely fertile, yielding with but little labour three crops a year. Cultivation of the soil there is none. Fire clears the jungle, and the ashes manure the soil; the ground is then superficially scratched, and rice is sown.

Nothing more is done. Every seed germinates; the paddy ripens, and, where one basketful is sown, five hundred basketfuls are gathered. And the field lies untouched till again covered with jungle. Thus is the heathen rewarded five-hundred-fold in accordance with the law of Nature which gives blessing to the labour of the husbandman inversely as he deserves it.

In the evening the officer walked down with me to the creek, where I bathed in the shadow of the bank, in a favourite pool for fis.h.i.+ng. As we crossed the field on our return, we met the two Burmese tribute-gatherers. They had occasion to speak to the officer, when, instead of standing upright like a stalwart and independent Chinaman, they squatted humbly on their heels, and, resting their elbows on their knees in an att.i.tude of servility, conversed with their superior. How different the Chinaman, who confesses few people his superior, and none of any race beyond the borders of China!

From Nampoung to Bhamo is an easy walk of thirty-three miles. This is usually done in two stages, the halting place being the military station of Myothit, which is fourteen miles from Nampoung. On leaving Nampoung, an escort of a lance-corporal and two soldiers was detailed to accompany me. They were Punjabis, men of great stature and warlike aspect; but they were presumably out of training, for they arrived at Myothit, limp and haggard, an hour or more after we did. There is an admirable road through the jungle, maintained in that excellent order characteristic of military roads under British supervision. My Chinese from time to time questioned me as to the distance. We had gone fifteen li when Laotseng asked me how much farther it was to Santien (Myothit). "Three li," I said. We walked ten li further. "How far is it now?" he asked. "Only five li further," I replied, gravely. We went on another six li, when again he asked me: "Teacher Mo, how many li to Santien?" "Only eight more li," I said, and he did not ask me again. I was endeavouring to give him information in the fas.h.i.+on that prevails in his own country.

At Myothit we camped in the dak bungalow, an unfurnished cottage kept for the use of travellers. The encampment is on the outskirts of a perfectly flat plain, skirted with jungle-clad hills and covered with elephant gra.s.s. Through the plain the broad river Taiping flows on its muddy way to the Irrawaddy. One hundred sepoys are stationed here under a native officer, a Sirdar, Jemadar, or Subadar (I am not certain which), who called upon me, and stood by me as I ate my tiffin, and, to my great embarra.s.sment, saluted me in the most alarming way every time my eye unexpectedly caught his. I confess that I did not know the gentleman from Adam. I mistook him for an ornamental head-waiter, and, as I regarded him as a superfluous nuisance, I told him not to stand upon the order of his going but go. I pointed to the steps; and he went, sidling off backwards as if from the presence of royalty. Drawing his heels together, he saluted me at the stair-top and again at the bottom, murmuring words which were more unintelligible to me even than Chinese.

During the night our exposed bungalow was a.s.sailed by a fearful storm of wind and rain, and for a time I expected it to be bodily lifted off the piles and carried to the lee-side of the settlement. The roof leaked in a thousand places, rain was driven under the walls, and everything I had was soaked with warm water.

Next day we had a pleasant walk into Bhamo, that important military station on the left bank of the Irrawaddy. We crossed the Taiping at Myothit by a bridge, a temporary and very shaky structure, which is every year carried away when the river rises, and every year renewed when the caravans take the road after the rains.

Bhamo is 1520 miles by land from Chungking; and it is an equal distance further from Chungking to Shanghai. The entire distance I traversed in exactly one hundred days, for I purposely waited till the hundredth day to complete it. And it surely speaks well of the sense of responsibility innate in the Chinese that, during all this time, I never had in my employ a Chinese coolie who did not fulfil, with something to spare, all that he undertook to do. I paid off my men in Bhamo. To Laotseng I gave 400 cash too many, and asked him for the change. At once with much readiness he ranged some cash on the table in the form of an abacus, and, setting down some hieroglyphics on a sheet of paper, he worked out a calculation, by which he proved that I owed _him_ 400 cash, and, therefore, the accounts were now exactly balanced. For my own expenses I gave him 1175 cash in Tengyueh and 400 more in Bhamo, so that my entire personal expenses between two points nine days distant from each other were rather more than _3s._ My entire journey from Shanghai to Bhamo cost less than _20_ sterling, including my Chinese outfit. Had I travelled economically, I estimate that the journey need not have cost me more than _14_. Had I carried more silver with me, I would still further have reduced the total cost of my tour. The gold I bought in Yunnan with my surplus silver, I sold in Burma for 20 per cent. profit, the rupees which I purchased in Tengyueh for _11d._ were worth _13d._ in Bhamo. For some curios which I purchased in the interior for _2 5s._ I was offered when I reached civilisation _14_. Without doubt the journey across China is the cheapest that can be done in all the world.

I was sorry to say good-bye to my men, who had served me so faithfully.

And I cannot speak more highly of the pleasure of my journey than to declare that I felt greater regret when it was finished than I ever felt on leaving any other country. The men all through had behaved admirably, and it is only fair to add that mine was the common experience of travellers in far Western China. Thus a very great traveller in China and Thibet (W. W. Rockhill), writing in the _Century_, April, 1894, on the discomforts of his recent journey, says:

"But never a word of complaint from either the Thibetans or my Chinese.

They were always alert, always good-tempered, always attentive to me, and anxious to contribute to my comfort in every way in their power. And so I have ever found these peoples, with whom I am glad to say, after travelling over 20,000 miles in their countries, I have never exchanged a rough word, and among whom I think I have left not one enemy and not a few friends."

Two days after their arrival in Bhamo my three men started on their return journey to Talifu. They were laden with medicines, stores, newspapers, and letters for the mission in Tali, which for months had been acc.u.mulating in the premises of the American Mission in Bhamo, the missionary in charge, amid the multifarious avocations pertaining to his post, having found no time to forward them to their destination to his lonely Christian brother in the far interior. And, had I not arrived when I did, they could not have been sent till after the rains. A coolie will carry eighty pounds weight from Bhamo to Tali for _12s._; and I need hardly point out that a very small transaction in teak would cover the cost of many coolies. Besides, any expenditure incurred would have been reimbursed by the Inland Mission. My three men were pursued by cruel fate on their return; they all were taken ill at Pupiao. Poor "Bones" and the pock-marked coolie died, and Laotseng lay ill in the hotel there for weeks, and, when he recovered sufficiently to go on to Tali, he had to go without the three loads, which the landlord of the inn detained, pending the payment of his board and lodging and the burial expenses of his two companions.

CHAPTER XXIII.

BHAMO, MANDALAY, RANGOON, AND CALCUTTA.

The finest residence in Bhamo is, of course, the American mission.

America n.o.bly supports her self-sacrificing and devoted sons who go forth to arrest the "awful ruin of souls" among the innumerable millions of Asia, who are "peris.h.i.+ng without hope, having sinned without law."

The missionary in charge told me that he labours with a "humble heart to bring a knowledge of the Saving Truth to the peris.h.i.+ng heathen among the Kachins." His appointment is one which even a worldly-minded man might covet. I will give an instance of his methods. This devoted evangelist told me that a poor woman, a Kachin Christian, in whose welfare he felt deep personal interest, was, he greatly feared, dying from blood-poisoning at a small Christian village one hour's ride up the river from Bhamo; and he had little doubt that some surgical interference in her case would save her life. I at once offered to go and see her. I had received great kindness from many American missionaries in China, and it would give me great pleasure, I said, if I could be of any service.

The missionary professed to be grateful for my offer, but, instead of arranging to go that afternoon, named seven o'clock the following morning as the hour when he would call for me to take me to the village.

At the time appointed I was ready; I waited, but no missionary came.

There was a slight drizzle, sufficient to prevent his going to the sick woman but not sufficient to deter him from going to market to the Irrawaddy steamer, where I accidentally met him. So far from being abashed when he saw me, he took the occasion to tell me what he will, I know, pardon me for thinking an inexcusable untruth. He had written, he said, to the poor woman telling her, dying as he believed her to be, to come down to Bhamo by boat to see me.

In Bhamo I stayed in the comfortable house of the Deputy Commissioner, and was treated with the most pleasant hospitality. To my regret, the Deputy Commissioner was down the river, and I did not see him. He is regarded as one of the ablest men in the service. His rise has been rapid, and he was lately invested with the C.I.E.--there seems, indeed, to be no position in Burma that he might not aspire to. In his absence his office was being administered by the a.s.sistant Commissioner, a courteous young Englishman, who gave me my first experience of the Civil Service. I could not but envy the position of this young fellow, and marvel at the success which attends our method of administering the Indian Empire. Here was a young man of twenty-four, acting as governor with large powers over a tract of country of hundreds of square miles--a new country requiring for its proper administration a knowledge of law, of finance, of trade, experience of men, and ability to deal with the conflicting interests of several native races. Superior to all other authorities, civil and military, in his district, he was considered fit to fill this post--and success showed his fitness--because a year or two before he had been one of forty crammed candidates out of 200 who had taken the highest places in a series of examinations in Latin, English, mathematics, &c. With the most limited experience of human life, he had obtained his position in exactly the same way that a Chinese Mandarin does his--by compet.i.tive examination in subjects which, even less than in the case of the Chinese, had little bearing upon his future work; and now, like a Chinese Mandarin, "there are few things he isn't."

On the face of it no system appears more preposterous; in its results no system was ever more successful. The a.s.sistant Commissioner early learns self-reliance, decision, and ability to wield authority; and he can always look forward to the time when he may become Chief Commissioner.

There is a wonderful mixture of types in Bhamo. Nowhere in the world, not even in Macao, is there a greater intermingling of races. Here live in cheerful promiscuity Britishers and Chinese, Shans and Kachins, Sikhs and Madrasis, Punjabis, Arabs, German Jews and French adventurers, American missionaries and j.a.panese ladies.

There are many ruined paG.o.das and some wooden temples which, however, do not display the higher features of Burmese architecture. There is a club, of course; a polo and football ground, and a cricket ground.

Inside the fort, among the barracks, there is a building which has a double debt to pay, being a theatre at one end and a church at the other, the same athletic gentleman being the chief performer at both places. But, at its best, Bhamo is a forlorn, miserable, and wretched station, where all men seem to regard it as their first duty to the stranger to apologise to him for being there.

The distinguished Chinese scholar and traveller, E. Colborne Baber, who wrote the cla.s.sic book of travel in Western China, was formerly British Resident in Bhamo. He spoke Chinese unusually well and was naturally proud of his accomplishment. Now the ordinary Chinaman has this feature in common with many of the European races, that, if he thinks you cannot speak his language, he _will_ not understand you, even if you speak to him with perfect correctness of idiom and tone. And Baber had an experience of this which deeply hurt his pride. Walking one day in the neighbourhood of Bhamo, he met two Chinese--strangers--and began speaking to them in his best Mandarin. They heard him with unmoved stolidity, and, when he had finished, one turned to his companion and said, as if struck with his discovery, "the language of these foreign barbarians sounds not unlike our own!"

In Bhamo I had the pleasure of meeting the three members of the Boundary Commission who represented us in some preliminary delimitation questions with the Chinese Government. A better choice could not have been made.

M. Martini, a Frenchman, has been twenty years in Upper Burma, and is our D.S.P. (District Superintendent of Police). Mr. Warry, the Chinese adviser to the Burmese Government, is one of the ablest men who ever graduated from the Consular Staff in China; while Captain H. R. Davies, of the Staff Corps, who is on special duty in the Intelligence Department, is not only an exceptionally able officer, but is the most accomplished linguist of Upper Burma. These were the three representatives.

I sold my pony in Bhamo. I was exceedingly sorry to part with it, for it had come with me 800 miles in thirty days, over an unusually difficult road, at great variations of alt.i.tude, and amid many changes of climate.

And it was always in good spirit, brave and hardy, carrying me as surely the last twenty miles as it had the first twenty. Yet, when I came to sell it, I was astonished to learn how many were its defects. Its height, which was 12.3 in Nampoung, had shrunk three days later to 11.3 in Bhamo. This one subaltern told me who came to look at the pony with the view, he said, of making me an offer. Another officer proved to me that the off foreleg was gone hopelessly; a third confirmed this diagnosis of his friend, and in a clinical lecture demonstrated that the poor beast was spavined, and that its near hind frog was rotten, "as all Chinese ponies' are," he added. One of the mounted constabulary, a smart officer, fortunately discovered in time that the pony was a roarer; while the Hungarian Israelite who lends help on notes of hand, post-obits, personal applications, and other insecurities, and is on terms of friendly intimacy with most of the garrison, when about to make an offer, found, to his great regret, that the pony's hind legs were even more defective than the fore. The end of it was that I had to sell the pony--for what it cost me. I am indebted to the Reverend Mr.

Roberts, of the American Baptist Mission, for helping me to sell my pony. Mr. Roberts has a pious gift for buying ponies and selling them--at a profit. He offered me 40 rupees for my pony. I mentioned this offer at the Bhamo Club, when a civilian present at once offered me 50 rupees for the pony; he did not know the pony, he explained, but--he knew Roberts.

In a steamer of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company I came down the river from Bhamo to Mandalay. When I left the Commissioner's bungalow, the entire staff of the establishment and of some neighbouring bungalows a.s.sembled to do me honour, creeping up to me, and with deep humility carrying each an article of my possessions from my room down to the porch. There were the _dhobie_ and _bearer_, the waterman with his goatskin waterbag, the washerman who washed my blue Chinese garments as white as his own, the _syce_ who did not collect gra.s.s, the cook who sent me ten bad eggs in three days, and the Christian Madrasi, the laziest rascal in Bhamo, who early confessed to me his change of faith and the transformation it had effected in the future prospects of his soul. There was the Burmese watchman, and the English-speaking Burmese clerk, and the coolie who went to the bazaar for me, and many others.

They lined the stairs as I came out, and placed their hands reverently to their foreheads when I pa.s.sed by. It was pleasant to see such disinterested evidence of their good will, and my only regret was that I could not reward them according to their deserts. But to the Chinese coolie who was grinning to see my paltry outfit carried by so many hands, and who gathered together all I possessed and swung off with it down past the temples to the steamer landing in the native city, I gave a day's pay, and cheerfully--though he then asked for more.

In Mandalay I was taken to the club, and pa.s.sed many hours there reading the home papers and wandering through its gilded halls. Few clubs in the world have such a sumptuous setting as this, for it is installed in the throne-room and chambers and reception-halls of the palace of King Theebaw.

In the very centre of the building is a seven-storeyed spire, "emblematic of royalty and religion," which the Burmese look upon as the "exact centre of creation." The reception-hall at the foot of the throne is now the English chapel; the reading-room with its gilded das where the Queen sat on her throne, with its lofty roof, its pillars of teak, and walls all ablaze with gilding, was the throne-room of Theebaw's chief Queen.

Mandalay is largely Chinese, and on the outskirts of the city there is a handsome temple which bears the charming inscription, so characteristic of the Chinese, "enlightenment finds its way even among the outer barbarians."

There is a military hospital with two nursing sisters, highly trained ladies from Bart.'s. Australians are now so widely distributed over the world that it did not surprise me to find that one of the two sisters comes from Melbourne.

From Mandalay I went by train to Rangoon, where I lived in a pretty villa among n.o.ble trees on the lower slope of the hill which is crowned with the famous golden paG.o.da, the "Shway-dagon," the most sacred temple of Indo-China. We looked out upon the park and the royal lake. I early went to the Intelligence Department and saw Major Couchman. In his office I met the chief Chinese interpreter, a Chinaman with a rare genius for languages. He is a native of Fuhkien province, and, of course, speaks the Fuhkien dialect; he knows also Cantonese and Mandarin. In addition, he possesses French, Hindustani, Burmese, Shan, and Sanscrit, and, in an admirable translation which he has made of a Chinese novel into English, he frequently quotes Latin. Fit a.s.sistant he would make to Max Muller; his services command a high salary.