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CHAPTER V
ON THE FRONTIER

Early in 1881 I went for a very short term to Myaung-my̆a, in the Delta. The subdivisional officer having suddenly broken down, I was sent to superintend the taking of the Census. At Myaung-my̆a, newly constituted the headquarters of a subdivision, there was no house. I lived in a zayat near the Court. Myaung-my̆a is now the chief town of an important district, with a Deputy Commissioner as well as a Divisional and District Judge. Having finished the Census, I went to Bassein, riding most of the way over bare rice-fields. Everywhere I was received with the generous hospitality characteristic of the Burmese people, and I made many pleasant acquaintances among Thugyis and villagers. One village headman lives in my memory, a stalwart Karen who in his youth had been the champion boxer at the Court of Mandalay. He said so, and he ought to know. Probably his position was not one of high eminence; Burmese and Karen boxing is a mild game. The challenger leaps into the ring; slapping his chest, he dances round, bidding all come on. It is one of the rules of the game that the players should be equally matched in size and weight. With much difficulty a competitor is found to fulfil the requirements and accept the challenge. At last preliminaries are arranged, and the boxers face each other in the ring. They may kick, and they may slap with open hand, but not with closed fist. As soon as a drop of blood is drawn from the slightest scratch, the fight is at an end. Gloves are not worn. This may sound barbarous, and should be exciting; as a matter of fact, it is very harmless and extremely dull. In my experience, Karens are better at the game than Burmans.

For the rest of my time as subdivisional officer, I stayed at Bassein as the guest of Colonel William Munro, the Deputy Commissioner, an officer of the old school who had spent his life in Burma. Colonel Munro made use of the aptitude presumed to have been acquired in the Secretariat during the past year and set me to write all his annual reports on the sole basis of the figures in the appended statements.

My next charge was the frontier subdivision of Mye-dè in the Tha-yet-my̆o district. The headquarter town was Allan-my̆o, called after Major Allan who was Quartermaster-General when the frontier was demarcated. Allan-my̆o lies on the Irrawaddy, just over five miles north of Tha-yet-my̆o,⁴⁶ the district headquarters. The distance had to be more than five miles, or travelling allowance for the journey would have been inadmissible. Above Allan-my̆o were the villages of Myedè and Mobôn. Long ago were two young Princes, blind. It was foretold that if they went down the Irrawaddy they should recover their sight. So they set out on a raft. Presently, at a place where they landed, they perceived a glimmering of the sky and exclaimed: “Mo-bôn; there is the sky above.” A few miles farther on, landing again, they saw the ground on which they stood, and cried: “Mye-dè; there is the earth beneath.” Thus was the prophecy fulfilled and the places received their names. Six miles north of the flagstaff on the fort at Myedè, then no longer a place of arms, was the starting-point of the frontier-line laid down by Lord Dalhousie’s personal direction.

The subdivision was a compact area of about a thousand square miles. A comparatively barren land, fringed by hills of no great height, intersected by many watercourses, now beds of dry sand, anon rushing torrents. These mountain-streams come down with sudden violence. Often returning from a walk or ride, one sat awaiting the subsidence of a river bubbling over a sandy bed where an hour or so before one had passed dry-shod. Sad stories were told of travellers cut off in mid-stream by a rapid flood and forced to spend the night on a diminishing islet of sand. As a rule these chaungs⁴⁷ were not too deep to ford on pony-back, though as often as not the pony created a painful diversion by sitting down unexpectedly and wallowing in the waves. In these northern wilds were no teeming rice-fields, no fat fisheries. The people were poor and unsophisticated, raising scanty rice-crops with the aid of primitive irrigation works, earning a precarious livelihood by boiling cutch (catechu) or cultivating taungya⁴⁸ on the hillsides. One valuable crop they had, sessamum (hnan); but the farmer could not reckon on a good hnan season every year. Scattered among the hills were villages of tame Chins who had drifted down from their own land in the distant north-west of Upper Burma. Here were to be seen women with faces tattoed in close blue lines, according to legend a precaution against the too demonstrative admiration of their Burmese neighbours. The effect was singularly unbecoming, and already the younger women were organizing successful resistance. Chins were excellent settlers, careful and frugal cultivators, their villages models of neatness and cleanliness as compared with Burmese villages similarly situate. Much as I love Burmans, I cannot honestly commend the state of their villages. Fenced in as a protection against dacoits, the houses closely jammed together with no respect for order; the paths, especially at the gateways, trodden into pulpy masses of mud by the trampling oxen; the ground-floor of each hut a pen where cattle are installed each night; a Burmese village is an insanitary though often picturesque abode. Even the odours seem to me less fragrant and pleasing than to some more enthusiastic votaries. In the simple agricultural conditions of this primitive community, the revenue work was very light. The only trouble arose from disputes about irrigation and rights to water. Bench work in criminal matters was not excessive, and most of the civil cases were tried by the My̆o-ôk (township officer). There was ample leisure for travelling. All the touring was done on Burman ponies, strong and willing little creatures, averaging about 12½ and never exceeding 13½ hands. At that time it was an article of faith that horses, or even ponies of Waler or Arab or country-bred classes, could not live in Burma. We have learnt better in recent years. Most of the riding was along jungle paths through in-tree forest on sandy soil, quite good going even in the rains; but there were craggy bits in the hills and quick-sands in the streams. Touring in Burma has always been less luxurious than camp-life in India. We travelled at every season of the year, carrying no tents, but finding abundant shelter in monasteries and zayats, or in frequent police-stations. Everywhere monks and villagers were hospitable and friendly. Circle Thugyis flourished, men who held office in succession to a long line of forefathers. Save in one respect, the people did not seem to have many criminal tendencies. It was natural to see the stocks near the village gate; it would have been surprising to see them occupied.

We marched with Sinbaungwè in Upper Burma. The border was marked by stone pillars at set intervals and by an actual line cut in the turf, which had to be inspected periodically and kept in visible repair. Along the frontier at intervals of four or five miles was a series of police posts. Picture a quadrangular enclosure girt by a kya-hlan⁴⁹ of stout bamboos interwoven with a bristling array of bamboo-spikes, quite an efficient protection against a rush if the heavy wooden gate was closed. Beside the gate stood a watch-tower. In the midst was a station-house and office, with a barred wooden cage for prisoners. Round this were grouped the small but sufficient houses of the constables and native officers. The posts were garrisoned entirely by local Burmans armed with das⁵⁰ and muskets. The policeman of those days was a picturesque person, in Burmese dress, of a pattern to some extent dependent on the taste of the Superintendent. A red-striped paso or lôngyi⁵¹ marked the servant of the Queen. He wore his hair long, surmounted by a gaungbaung,⁵² and was not expected to pose as a Gurkha sepoy. With all his many and pleasing virtues and vices, one quality his warmest admirers have never claimed for the average Burman, respect for discipline. You may drill Burmans till they look as smart as soldiers of the line, and you can teach them to shoot excellently. But so far it has not been found possible successfully to train them in habits of discipline and method. It was, therefore, never a surprise, though it excited clamorous if unreasonable wrath, when, on reaching a police post a few hundred yards from the frontier, one found the great gate ajar, the watch-tower empty, and the sentry either absent on his own more or less lawful occasions, or peacefully sleeping with his musket by his side. This was well enough in quiet times, but when the war came the result was seen in the desertion of the frontier posts, and their destruction by roving bands of dacoits.

The frontier-line started from a pillar on the bank of the Irrawaddy, on a spot visited by the great Governor-General himself. Hard by, on each side of the boundary, was a telegraph office. Though the wires ran from Rangoon to the border, and from the border to Mandalay, there was not sufficient comity between the Governments to allow the line to be linked. Every message to and from Upper Burma had to be carried by hand across the intervening space of a few yards and resignalled. Our telegraph office was the place where the subdivisional officer met the Wun⁵³ of Sinbaungwè for the discussion of frontier affairs. With that official, who was of about the same standing as myself, my relations were somewhat stiff, civil but hardly cordial. It is a mistake to suppose that the relations between Europeans and Burmans are less intimate now than in earlier days. Twenty years later, in similar circumstances, I should certainly have asked the Wun to breakfast or dinner. Then, our meetings were rigidly formal and official. The Wun used to annoy me by coming into the room wearing Burmese shoes, a studiously discourteous act.⁵⁴ I could think of no better retort than to keep my hat on during the interview. I dare say it was unworthy, but I think it was human to feel a thrill of satisfaction when, four or five years later, my old friend Maung Lat came to me in my office in Mandalay crouching on the ground in the Burmese attitude of respect. Maung Lat was a handsome man, of the usual type of Burmese district officials. After the annexation he took service under our Government and became a My̆o-ôk. He did good work, and felix opportunitate mortis, died before he was found out. At our meetings at Myedè, cattle-driving raids across the frontier were among the most frequent subjects of discussion. This was the darling sin of adventurous spirits on each side of the border. In a country where cattle are the most valuable of the farmer’s possessions, cattle theft is one of the crimes which most sorely vexes the magistrate’s righteous soul, and is most rigorously punished. All possible steps were taken to suppress it, and offenders were visited with stripes and imprisonment. Yet one could not help recognizing that to drive whole herds of oxen across the border, to evade police posts, to carry the spoil by unfrequented paths through the heart of our districts till it could be sold many miles away, perhaps in a cattle-market under the eyes of officials, was an attractive and exciting adventure. On the whole, our men had the worst of the game. If they were caught driving cattle from across the frontier, they were punished as if they had committed the offence in British territory, while cattle-thieves from Upper Burma who got over the line with their plunder were seldom brought to justice. Hence many wrangles with Maung Lat. Once only I really had the best of the encounter. I bluffed him into handing back to me on the spot a man who had been seized on our side and carried off to Sinbaungwè. At the time the incident seemed to me of international importance.

The man who had set his stamp on the subdivision was my friend Mr. Burgess, who spent there the first seven years of his service, greatly to the benefit of himself and of the people. He made roads, kept the peace, and impressed the countryside by his zeal for justice and good order. Even in those dark days, before the light of a Decentralization Commissions had shone, needless transfers seem to have been avoided. The township officer, my old and valued friend and colleague, Maung Tet Py̆o, held his charge for many years. He was an official of the very oldest school, not very learned, with only a working knowledge of codes, but thoroughly acquainted with every inch of his township, and with every man, woman, and child of his people. He had, of course, no English. I doubt if he was ever required to pass a departmental examination. His handwriting was so bad that my Burmese clerks often had to come to me to decipher it. Maung Tet Py̆o was a man of courage and energy, who somewhat shocked the straighter sect of Buddhists by being an ardent sportsman. Burmans told with admiration that he shot birds on the wing. He filled the measure of his days, was decorated, and many years after his retirement died honoured and lamented. Curiously enough, though so nearly illiterate, he will probably be remembered as the compiler of a book on the “Customary Laws of the Chins,” a treatise which attracted the attention of Mr. Jardine,⁵⁵ the Judicial Commissioner, and was translated under his direction. The manuscript was beautifully written out by my clerk, Maung Po, afterwards a My̆o-ôk, one of my many Burmese friends, who, I suspect, was responsible for more than the transcription.

At Tha-yet-my̆o, then a military station of some importance, were half the 43rd Regiment, still on this side of the frontier, the 44th Regiment, two battalions of Madras Infantry, and guns. The fort, north of the town, was duly garrisoned. At Allan-my̆o we had a detachment of British infantry in barracks on the hills east of the station. The civil officers were the Assistant Superintendent of Police, the late Mr. B. K. S. MacDermott, afterwards in the Commission, best of comrades and good fellows, and the Assistant Engineer, Mr. H. W. James, now Superintending Engineer. A small Customs Office was maintained for the registration of inland trade. The subdivisional officer was Collector of Customs, without fee or reward. In that capacity he had the use of the Customs boat, a stout English gig, very convenient for crossing the river, here about two miles wide. I have often seen, by the way, an elephant swim across with just enough of his head above water to seat the mahout.⁵⁶ At Allan-my̆o there was a decent little house, close to the river-bank. When the Irrawaddy rose, the room on the ground-floor was generally flooded. At the beginning of the rains this room used to be invaded by swarms of tiny land-crabs, more pleasing visitors than scorpions. Sometimes for a few days the whole town was under water, and we went about in boats.

Myedè, traversed by the Pegu Yoma, was pleasanter, but less healthy, than the Delta. Here I had an attack of malarial fever, of no great severity, which left me subject to a recurrence for the next fourteen years or so. After that it seemed to be worn out. We had also in my time a dreadful outbreak of cholera throughout the subdivision. Deaths were reckoned by scores, and villages were almost depopulated. Riding to visit the infected parts, we expected to find the dead lying unburied in streets and houses; happily the expectation was not literally fulfilled.

Speaking from my personal experience, I regard Burma as a healthy country as compared with other regions of the tropics. Much depends on the comfort in which one lives. The very bad name which Burma no doubt has acquired is due to a great extent to the rapid succession of the three Burmese Wars. After each of these wars, troops, military and civil officers, and police suffered many hardships and privations, bivouacking under the stars, and often irregularly fed. In these conditions sickness ensued, and much mortality and invaliding. For people properly housed and assured of a square meal at the right time, Burma is healthy enough. For those who work all the year round in the jungles of Upper Burma, it is rather sickly. On the whole, Lower Burma, except Arakan and the tracts bordering on the Yomas, is healthier than Upper Burma. Cholera and plague are not peculiar to Burma, and are not more deadly than in other parts of India.

Of the wealth of insect-life much has been written. Besides mosquitoes, ants, white, red, and black, flying and merely creeping, abound in copious variety. Once at least they stopped a ball at Government House, flying in hosts, dropping their wings and therewith their bodies, and reducing the floor to a mucous mass. For me, at Allan-my̆o, others of their species eviscerated all my books during my brief absence. At the beginning of the rains strange creeping, crawling, flying things, slimy things with legs, appear in swarms. The centipede makes his nest in your sponge; the scorpion lurks in your boot. Snakes, too, are fairly numerous and of many kinds, from the hamadryad who chases the wayfarer, to the Russell’s viper who lies dormant in his path, and when trodden on turns like any worm. Apart from these disadvantages, I have no complaint to make of Burma as a country to live in.

While discussing these generalities, I may say a few words about the climate. Naturally, in so large an extent of country, this is subject to considerable variations. The Delta is hot and steamy with an abundant never-failing rainfall, and no cold weather to speak of. Much of Upper Burma is an arid plain, with frequent hills, hot and dry, but relieved by a pleasant cold season. Even here we do not seem to get the constant stifling heat, day and night, of which we hear in the plains of Northern India. I suppose some people find the heat trying. An old friend of mine had the habit after dinner of calling his neighbour’s attention to a picture on the wall, while he surreptitiously emptied his finger-bowl down his (own) neck. In Mandalay for some months of the wet season (not so very wet) a tearing wind rages, and is apt to shatter one’s nerves. In Lower Burma the persistent rainfall is impressive. People who have lived there hardly notice that it ever rains in England. But it seldom pours both morning and evening. Generally it is possible to get out for exercise either at dawn or at close of day.

To return to my subdivision. By an arrangement which seems anomalous, but which worked well enough, for a substantial part of my sojourn in Myedè I was also Cantonment Magistrate at Tha-yet-my̆o. The Commanding Officer most kindly supervised the establishment which dealt with hedges and ditches. My duty was to try civil and criminal cases, keep the accounts, and attend the periodical meetings of the Cantonment Committee. These were friendly gatherings where, unless the secretary officiously intervened, many pleasant stories whiled away the tedious hours. If I worked very hard, my duties on an average occupied about five or six hours a week, for which I drew an allowance of Rs. 200 a month. I spoil no one’s market by revealing the existence of this fat sinecure; the stipend was reduced by an economical Commission in 1887, and has since been abolished. My Deputy Commissioners were Colonel Horatio Nelson Davies, who had been Sir Arthur Phayre’s secretary, my friend R. H. Pilcher, and Captain (now Colonel) W. F. H. Grey, from all of whom I received much kindness. Nor can I forbear to mention the hospitality of Captain William Cooke,⁵⁷ whose house was always open to me, and with whom the friendship begun in those distant days still flourishes. The chaplain, the Rev. J. D. Briscoe, one of the best of men, was also among my allies. He died, most sincerely mourned, in the flower of his age, I believe from the effects of asceticism practised from no doctrinal motives, but for the sake of example to the soldiers among whom he worked.

Some excitement was caused by the coming of a Burmese embassy accredited to the Viceroy. Among them was the Kyaukmyaung Atwin-Wun,⁵⁸ son-in-law, of the Taingda Mingyi, whom afterwards I knew well at Mandalay. Mr. Pilcher, who was deputed to accompany them to Simla, had met them all frequently when Assistant Resident at the Burmese Court. But though he was distinguished from his fellows by a flowing beard, they declined to recognize him, professing that in their eyes all kalas were alike. Robert Pilcher had other attributes besides his beard which might have commended him to Burmese officials. His knowledge of their language was scholarly and profound, while his sympathy with the people was infinite. Nothing that concerned them was alien from him. An instance may be given. Once in after-years he was with a column on march. Halting the column, he sat down by the wayside to get some information from a Burman passer-by. Presently the patient Commanding Officer asked gently if the information had been extracted. “I am so sorry,” was the reply; “I forgot all about it. He was telling me such an interesting story about his aunt.” The Mission was hospitably received and entertained at Simla, but returned without having effected any useful purpose. Which reminds me of the Burman schoolboy who, asked to translate mortuus est re infectâ, ventured to reply: “He died of an infectious disease.”

But by far the most thrilling incident of my stay at Allan-my̆o was the visit of Sir Frederick Roberts. He came as Commander-in-Chief of the Madras Army, the troops in Burma being in the Madras command.⁵⁹ Attended by his staff, among whom were General Godfrey Clerk,⁶⁰ Captain Neville Chamberlain,⁶¹ and Captain G. Pretyman.⁶² His Excellency came to inspect the frontier stations, and marched from Allan-my̆o to Toungoo across the Yôma,⁶³ which parts the Tha-yet-my̆o and Toungoo districts. Fresh from the glories of Afghanistan and the march to Kandahar, though then but midway in his illustrious career, Sir Frederick Roberts was a hero in all men’s eyes. It was my happy lot to make arrangements for his march and to accompany him through my subdivision. Thus as a young man I had the privilege of experiencing the unrivalled charm and personal attraction or this great soldier. To the end of my days in the East I have seen the eyes of old native officers light up at the mention of Lord Roberts Sahib. Not Nelson himself inspired more affection and enthusiasm in officers and men who served and followed him.

At the close of this year, being sent to represent the Tha-yet-my̆o District, I saw the first of many Viceroys who visited Burma, Lord Ripon. I need hardly say that I was too junior to be brought into immediate contact with His Excellency or his staff. Mr. Primrose⁶⁴ was private secretary, and Major Evelyn Baring,⁶⁵ Finance Member, was of the Viceroy’s party. The most obvious result of Major Baring’s visit was the stoppage of most of our remunerative jail industries. The order for discontinuance was of general application throughout India; Burma, still an unsophisticated place, under a ruler who had learned to obey, was the only Province which made a serious effort to carry the order into effect. The usual festivities were held in honour of the Viceroy’s visit, a ball, a levée, and a garden-party. The most picturesque incident that lingers in my mind is the posting of venerable Burmese officers, in fur coats, clasping to their breasts silver-mounted das, in the corridors of Government House, as a-thet-daw-saung⁶⁶ to Their Excellencies.

At Tha-yet-my̆o, for the first and last time, and only for a few days, I held charge of a district as acting Deputy Commissioner. For various reasons there was a temporary lack of senior officers in the district. For a short period I was not only Deputy Commissioner, but also Cantonment Magistrate, Superintendent of Police, and Superintendent of the Jail. I did not succeed in drawing the pay of all these offices.