Читать книгу A Civil Servant in Burma - White Herbert Thirkell - Страница 8

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