AN OFFICER'S DIARY OF A TWO MONTHS BOAT
EXPEDITION IN BURMAH.
Part I
Part II
Part III
September 11 — Anchored for an hour in slack water, for breakfast; under
way again till 12. Had dinner cooked; ship's fare, with plantains, and a glass
of brandy or rum and water, with a pipe, or cheroot to follow, became the order
of the day. Rest from the greatest ardour of the sun for a couple of hours, and
then under way again, to anchor awhile at five for tea and pipes, and then away
again; "hands up anchor" for the rest of the night till early
morning, in these sleep-forsaken regions, where even the "fat-boy" of"Picwick" would find his aptitude for slumber of no avail. Night
falls quickly here, with as little twilight as at some seasons one finds in
North America, when night immediately succeeds the disappearance of the sun;
however, every bough and spray along the river banks, on either side, are tufts
of glittering coruscations with the fireflies.
September 12th, — The fleet of native canoes are still hanging on close in
our wake, anchoring when we anchor, and getting under way, by day or night,
with us, never a stone's throw from us, most anxious looking, and watching
every turn of the stream, as if each moment they expected some denouement. The
banks abound in plantains, to which we help ourselves from out of the boats as
we pass on, as well as large white grub, which, in abundance, the natives
brought off to us, the delicacy evidently of the season, but un-native-like
would take no pay, lest for dealing with us they should be ransacked and
maltreated by the King of Ava's people. This day passed much like yesterday for
the remainder. On Sunday morning we had a most delightful sail, as beautiful as
could be through the most luxuriantly clad country; the river banks variegated
with curious trees, and flowering parasitic shrubs of every shape and size, and
hue, and now and then an open paddy plain of surpassing verdure, with a
comfortable looking Bamboo bungalow or two, dotted here and there in the
recesses of the chameleon-hued foliage, the very beau ideal as snug
contentment; but, alas! we soon found out that the hand of the despoiler had
been most ruthlessly at work, in just such another place, a little higher up
the river, the "Red right hand" of devastating war. We are now put of
the "Panalan" Creek, which is as yet intact. Fish of the largest size
seem to be here abundant, somewhat in shape like the cat-fish of the
Mississippi, jumping on all sides of the stream. This being Sunday, we had the
Flotilla anchored in the forenoon, in a line abreast the principal village, and
dressed ourselves in frock coats, the men in white shirts and duck trousers,
Divine Service was extemporized for the first time at the head of the mousquito-filmed
Panalan Creek, a name remembered, I warrant, with an uneasy buzzing sense of
tingling in the ear to this day by many a brave fellow, whom more powerful
enemies could not succeed in daunting; though now all out prostrated by their
ceaseless tiny torments; verily in them the Burmese had efficient allies
against their European invader whilst the fire-flies pointed out to us the
devious way along the river at night. Here to-day, at the head of this Panalan
Creek, we dipped our oars for the first time since we started in the waters of
the Irrawaddi proper, which is decidedly a noble, wide, expansive river fit, as
is destined at some future day, to carry on its swelling bosom the teas and
silks of far "Cathay" — the trade of Imperial China (despite the
exclusiveness of imperious Chinese Emperors) from China confines, through a
British province to a British port, for easy shipment to Great Britain's self.
In this way we shall want no costly little wars with China ; no treaty signed
with Chinamen, signed only to be broken, the moment our men of war are hull
down on the horizon from out of the sight of subtle, lying Chinamen; no deadly
occupation of more filthy Chinese ports or capitals, but with the inland
people, by the head waters of the Irrawaddi and Tang-tse-Kiang, to the heart of
China; with the Chinese people we can then most fairly trade on terms of easy
mutual reciprocity. However, to retrace our course, this river is nearly two
miles here, I'd say, from side to side, embosomed in heavy, park-like timber,
ash, evergreen oak, teak, and chesnut, &c., with intervening patches of
laurels, sugar-cane, bamboo, and smaller shrubs. Here we got a welcome lift
(the stream being very rapid, so much so that our boats even close in shore,
hung sometimes for an hour in the same spot, uncertain as 'twere, whether to
forge ahead or drop astern, so nicely balanced was the might of sail, and
double-banked sturdy oar against the force of the contrary current), a very
welcome lift indeed we had, by being towed for some miles by a passing Indian
steamer going up the river with troops, and with her proceeded up the stream
till the afternoon, passing on either side several very picturesque villages on
our way, and a very rich and pretty, though flat country. Aboard this steamer
we were enabled to stretch at full length for the first time for several days,
our wearied, cramped-up limbs; and gladly exchanging the boat's stem sheets for
the roomy deck, enjoyed a sound refreshing sleep between the guns, a luxury
whose extent such voyageurs alone can truly value. Refreshed in brain and limb
by a few hours rest, we re-embarked aboard our boats towards evening, and
casting off, struck out across the rapid mid-stream for the port bank, where
there came in view a fine tract as level grass grown pasture land, begemmed
with Eastern flowers of many hues, and most expansive “paddy-fields," of
whose smooth verdancy we cheerfully availed ourselves, to track our boats along
the river banks (the crews being landed and tackled on to hawsers), where first
we witnessed in our proper persons the desolated scenes of civil war. Alas! the
ravages of all-destroying war were here too painfully evinced on every side.
May England, maiden England, never know invasion's horrors. The beauteous
villages erst-while were sacked and burnt by the marauding native bands, the
crops ripe for the harvest in many instances lying wastefully neglected, — the
cattle straying ownerless about through the enclosures and rich paddy-rice
fields— not a living human being about. A skulking, hungry-looking cat, or dog,
or a few half-starved, frightened looking cocks and hens, perched in the
neighbouring trees, which latter fowls suggestive as they were of nightmare and
dyspepsia to more highly organized digestions, yet, I'm bound to say, figured,
ere many hours, in an impromptu appetite- appeasing curry, a culinary specimen
not much belying our natal "Soyer's" skill. The neighbouring town,
pagodas, Poonge houses, all were desolate, except about the latter a priest or
two, more daring, or more lazy than their fellows, with shaven crown and
cunning, stealthy glance askew, followed us about in sulky silence.
September 13th. — A little farther on we came on a like deserted,
straggling town, a mass of ruins, too, just past a creek, in which some
natives, howling with frantic gesticulations, paddling along in their canoes,
endeavoured to entice us to follow off the main river up this creek, so as to
join their goodly company, but in vain; and well it was so, for an ambush, as
the "interpreter" afterwards told us, was probably their object. A
few empty, half-burnt bamboo houses, ransacked of all contents, and a Pagoda,
on a largish scale, intact from its solidity, marked out this place — the
former famous, or, more properly, infamous "Donabew;" and sphinxes of
colossal magnitude in stone, and with them a few josses of wood or marble, too
useless or too enormous to destroy, along with a half-ruined Poonge-house,
which I had nearly forgotten to mention to my readers.
This said "Donabew" was notoriously the scene of European ambushed slaughter, even in the former war. It and the country round about the
depot of the Burmese troops and bands of lawless freebooters, the cruel,
rascally "Dacoits" of Pegu, whose handy work we saw far off, last
night, in flaming village conflagrations here and farther up the river. This
day the heat is registered, I find, at 103 degs. in the external air; in shade,
85 degs. of Fahrenheit. I took to-day under treatment, as a beginning, four
patients — two with intermittent fever, and two with bowel affections; one of
the latter, almost a giant in stature, was chaffed by his companions for
"letting a plantain," as they said, knock over such a sturdy fellow
with diarrhoea. Poor fellow, his ridiculers little thought, ere many weeks
passed over, this plantain-sickened, hardy giant was to fail amongst the first,
a victim to "the scourge of eastern scourges" — cholera; and that his
bones, with others of his "chaffing comrades," were doomed ere long
to whiten on a lone island in the Irrawaddi, apart from home and kindred, their
last resting places soon to be marked only by a rude bamboo cross over their
grave, surrounded by bamboos, and extemporized by the very hand that tells the
tale to-day. "Peace to their names."
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