A Civil Servant in Burma. White Herbert Thirkell
been pressing affairs elsewhere, we should doubtless have occupied Mandalay, and almost certainly set up a protected King. The time was ripe for intervention, but not for annexation.
At Government House we were kept moderately busy by telegrams with Mandalay and Calcutta. One fine morning the Nyaung-yan Prince appeared, with the design of attempting (to speak proleptically) a Jameson raid on Upper Burma. The secret history of this incident I may not tell. Let it suffice to say that the Prince was sent back to Calcutta with all speed in a Government ship. To soothe public feeling in Rangoon a Press communiqué was issued from the Secretariat, informing the world that in respect of Upper Burma the attitude of the Government of India was one of “repose and defence,” a phrase which was received with mingled surprise and derision. The explanation I may perhaps disclose after many years. The telegram of the Government of India authorizing the announcement was signalled, or at any rate transcribed by me, in the words given to the Press. But what the Government of India wrote was that their attitude was one of “reserve and defence.” Curiously and perhaps somewhat ingenuously the Rangoon Volunteer Rifles adopted, and for many years retained, as their motto the words “Repose and Defence.” Of late they have become more energetic, and this motto has been discarded as inappropriate.
Government House maintained the hospitable traditions of the Province. All the officers of the 43rd were entertained and housed during their very brief stay in Rangoon, and, though tourists were fewer than in later years, we had some visitors. Of these the most distinguished was General Ulysses Grant, ex-President of the United States, who in his voyage round the world touched at Rangoon. With him came Mrs. Grant, their son Colonel Grant, a Cabinet Minister, a doctor, and a man of letters. General Grant seemed to me to talk, in moderation, as much as other people. I had the honour of being instructed by him in the mysteries of the constitution of the United States, and even of discussing with him the possibility of a League of Anglo-Saxon Peoples to impose peace on the world. He impressed us all as a man of strength, dignity, and character. The growing port and city of Rangoon interested him, and he foresaw and foretold its early and rapid increase. May I tell here a trivial story? At a reception at Government House in honour of General Grant, whereat all Rangoon was present, one of the highest officers brought down the house by withdrawing a chair on which the Commissioner of Pegu was about to sit. As the Commissioner weighed about twenty stone, he was somewhat seriously annoyed by this frolic, though not, I am glad to say, hurt. I record the incident, and refrain from moralizing.
Though wealth has increased and the standard of living has been raised, there seems to have been more money to spend in Rangoon in those days. The great merchants vied with Government House in their entertainments. One at least left a lasting impression. More than twenty years after I tried in vain for some time to explain to my old native coachman where he was to drive. At last my meaning dawned on him. “You want to go to Leishmann Sahib’s house.” Now, Leishmann Sahib had opened his doors to General Grant, and about a year later had left Rangoon for ever. Rice and teak were the sole sources of wealth. The oil-fields were as yet unexplored. The price of rice had not risen to its recent fictitious height. There were no limited companies with opportunities for unlimited speculation.
About this time the Diocese of Rangoon was constituted, and Dr. J. H. Titcomb was consecrated the first Bishop. Coming straight from England, with no knowledge of the East, Bishop Titcomb’s inexperience betrayed him into some pardonable mistakes. Very soon after his arrival, he surprised some friends with words to this effect: “Though I have been here such a short time, I regret to say that already sorrow has visited my household. I have had to give my cook a week’s leave to bury his grandmother.” For a cook to ask leave to attend his grandmother’s funeral is much the same as for an undergraduate to prefer a similar request in Derby week. I mean no disrespect to a good man’s memory by telling this innocent story. The Bishop won all hearts by his kind and gentle bearing, and was, I am sure, an excellent occupant of the new See. He was the first Prelate with whom I was privileged to play lawn-tennis.
A little earlier had been tried the eccentric experiment of appointing a Forest Officer to the charge of the Education Department in the temporary absence of the Director. The acting Director played the part of Balaam with a difference. In his first and last Annual Report, instead of blessing, he freely cursed the Department and all its works. Mr. Max Ferrars still flourishes. He has returned to his early love, and professes literature at a German University. He will forgive me for exhuming this early incident of his career. The Education Department, from time to time, has incurred much obloquy, for the most part undeserved. Its errors have been due to want of intimate knowledge of the language and customs of the people. Certainly it has never merited the cynical censure, perhaps unwittingly implied in a Government Resolution which, in removing an officer as an incorrigible drunkard, remarked that he might obtain employment in the Education Department.
CHAPTER III
THE FIRST SUBDIVISION: THE SECRETARIAT
My first subdivision was Pantanaw in the Delta of the Irrawaddy. The town from which it was named stands on a narrow creek through which used to pass the steamers of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company plying between Rangoon and Bassein. Long since the mouth of the creek has silted up. When next I visited Pantanaw, as Commissioner, I had to approach the town in a small boat of the shallowest draft. But, in ’79, the arrival of the Bassein steamer was the event of the week. Pantanaw is said to be a Talaing (and portmanteau) word meaning “The abode of the people who have to use mosquito nets.” If the Burma Research Society correct this statement, I must bear it. At any rate, if the etymology is false, the connotation is true. Burma could show places where mosquitoes were more numerous and more valiant, where even cattle had to be put under nets at night and prisoners in jail protected by iron gratings. But the mosquitoes of Pantanaw were plentiful and brave enough. After a short time one seems to become more or less immune against ordinary mosquito bites. The new-comer is more succulent and more attractive to this friendly insect. It is the song of the creature which is a persistent annoyance. But the mosquito of these parts has no curious taste. To the last he bit me as well as sang in my ears. In those days the local mosquito apparently was not of the kind which carries malaria. Or perhaps, owing to the backward state of sanitary education, he had not yet learned his trade. Cholera and smallpox excepted, the delta was comparatively free from serious diseases. Though swampy and water-logged, it was not beset by malignant fevers.
Our house was humble. In accordance with the usage of the time, it was built on piles, so that the rooms were 8 or 10 feet above the ground. Thus we lived well out of the mud and out of reach of snakes. An open, slippery, wooden stair ascended to the doorway. The walls were of mat, and the roof was of thatch. I am willing to believe that there was a plank floor, though I have a vague impression that we trod on split bamboos. The house consisted of one fairly large room, divided into two by a mat partition reaching nearly to the unceiled roof. One part was the bedroom, with a bathroom attached, the other was a combined dining- and drawing-room. Tacked on was one more room, about the size of a three-berth cabin. This was the study or library. Having mosquito netting over door and windows, it was habitable even after sunset. During our sojourn, Government very kindly began to build a nice new house for us. It was our Promised Land, of which we had but a Pisgah-sight. We watched its progress with interest, often visiting the work and suggesting small improvements. We were transferred about a week before it was finished. I slept in it once, twenty years after.
Pantanaw was a depot for Ngapi, that malodorous compound of decayed fish in which Burmans delight. The public buildings were a courthouse with a police-station hard by, a hospital, a schoolhouse, and a bazaar, or market. The rest of the town consisted of native houses of fishermen, traders, and brokers. In the dry weather, the foreshore was covered with huts. Bitter and ceaseless were the disputes between brokers and traders about claims to hut-sites on the sands. The streets were causeways of loose bricks. Except through the town itself, we had one walk, over one of these brick paths to the Burmese cemetery. The whole subdivision supported one pony. He lived in ease and affluence, as you could not ride for half a mile without coming upon an impassable stream. We were the only European inhabitants. Two other people spoke English, a Jew shopkeeper named Cohen, whom Burmans, not holding him in high respect, preferred to call Maung Hein,31 and an Arakanese schoolmaster, with whom I maintained an intermittent acquaintance to the end of my service.
There is a subtlety here.