CHAPTER XI
A BURMESE HOSTESS
Early in the same afternoon the Blankshire picked up her pilot at Elephant Point and entered the famous Irrawaddy. Long before her destination was in sight, twenty miles from the sea, the glorious Shwe Dagon, a shining golden object, towered into view, flashing in the sunlight against a background of impenetrable woods.
Rangoon, on a river navigable for nine hundred miles, is a large and important seaport and, as the wealth of one of the richest countries filters through its ports, naturally the approach is thronged with shipping. Our incoming liner met or overtook cargo steamers, tank ships, battered tramps and heavily laden wind-jammers in the tow of straining tugs, not to mention steam-launches, barges and swarms of the local sampan, or small boat.
At the wharf where, amidst deafening yells and hoarse shoutings, the Blankshire crept to her berth, crowds of different races—brown, black, yellow and white—awaited the English mail. Passengers were eagerly claimed by their friends and hurried away to motors and carriages; all was excitement and bustle. Alas! ’board-ship friendships soon evaporate, and presently Shafto found himself standing on the aft-deck with his gun-case and cabin luggage, deserted and forgotten—no, for here came Hoskins, the police officer, hot and breathless.
“I say, look here, old chap!” he panted, “I’m just off to catch my train to Tonghoo, but I’ve had a word with FitzGerald; it will be all right about the chummery; they can take you in on Monday. I see Salter on board, one of the head assistants in Gregory’s; I expect he has come to meet you. Well, I must run; so long!”
This good-natured fellow passenger was immediately succeeded by a cabin steward. “Been looking for you everywhere, sir,” he said; “there’s a gentleman come aboard asking for you.” As he concluded, a spare, middle-aged man wearing a large topee and a dust-coloured suit approached and said:
“Mr. Shafto, I believe?” and offered a welcoming hand.
“Yes,” assented the new arrival.
“I’m Salter from Gregory’s. Manders, the head assistant, asked me to meet you. I’ll be glad to help you get your things ashore and take you to the Strand Hotel, where I have booked you a room.”
“That is most awfully good of you,” replied Shafto. “On Monday I believe I am to get quarters in a chummery.”
“Ah, so you are settled, I see. Now, if you will show me your baggage, I have a couple of coolies here with a cart and a taxi for ourselves.”
Mr. Salter proved to be remarkably prompt in his measures, and in less than ten minutes Shafto found himself following his flat narrow back down the steep gangway and setting his foot for the first time on the soil of Burma. He halted for a moment to look about. Here was a landmark in his life, a new sphere lay before him; the street was humming and alive with people, and he stared at the jostling, motley crowd of British, Burmese, Chinese, mostly a gaily-clad ever-changing multitude. Among them were shaven priests in yellow robes. Shans in flapping hats; right in front of him stood a stalwart Burman, wearing a white jacket, a pink silk handkerchief, twisted jauntily around his bullet head, and a yellow Lungi, girded to the knee, displayed a three-tailed cat tattooed on the back of each substantial calf.
And what a curious, soft and penetrating atmosphere; moist and loaded with unfamiliar, aromatic odours!
However, Mr. Salter, a man of action, had no time to spare for contemplation, and briskly hustled the stranger into a waiting taxi—for the old days of the rattling, shattered gharry are numbered.
“I suppose this is all new to you?” said Shafto’s acquaintance as they struggled up the crowded Strand, lined with imposing offices and vast godowns, or warehouses.
“You may say so,” he replied, eagerly gazing at the dense passing throng—animated women with flower-decked hair, square-shouldered, sauntering men, carrying flat umbrellas and smoking huge cheroots, Khaki-clad Tommies and yellow-faced John Chinamen.
“Oh, there’s lots to see in Burma,” continued Salter, “an extraordinary mixture of people and races, and a most beautiful country; such splendid rivers and forests—but here, in Rangoon, everyone has but one idea.”
In answer to Shafto’s glance of interrogation he said:
“We are a commercial community, and our sole aim and object is to work, to get rich, and go home.”
“But that doesn’t apply to the native?”
“No, the Burman does not work; he is merely a spectator. The industry of others amuses him; his chief object is to enjoy life. Well, here is the hotel; let us go in and have a look at your quarters.”
After the baggage had been disposed of and Shafto’s room inspected and criticised, his companion still lingered talking. To Salter, the proverbially eccentric, this new-comer appeared to be an intelligent young fellow whom he would like and take to. There was no superior “just out from London to the back of God-speed” air about him. On the contrary, he appeared to be genuinely interested in his surroundings and insatiable for information. It struck him, too, that the forlorn stranger would put in a mighty dull and solitary evening and, stirred by a benevolent impulse, he said:
“Suppose you come back and dine at my diggings? I may be able to give you a few hints as I am an old hand.”
“I should be delighted,” assented Shafto, “if it won’t be putting you out?”
“Oh no, not a bit; Mrs. Salter is accustomed to my bringing home a stray guest.”
“Had I not better dress?”
“Certainly not; come along with me now, just as you are.”
Thus the matter being arranged, the pair once more entered the taxi, and were presently steering through the traffic of various thoroughfares and teeming bazaars. All at once, with an unexpected lurch, the car turned into a wide, well-shaded enclosure and halted before a low, heavily-roofed house, supported on stout wooden legs—an old-time residence.
“Do you go up,” urged Shako’s host, “whilst I pay the taxi—you can settle with me later.” Here spoke the canny Yorkshire tyke.
Shafto, as requested, climbed the stairs leading up to a wide veranda, on which opened a sitting-room, lined with teak wood and lighted by long glass doors. Here he was confronted by a little Burmese woman with a beaming face. She wore a short white jacket, an extraordinarily tight satin petticoat, or, tamain of wonderful butterfly colours, enormous gold ear-rings, and a flower stuck coquettishly behind her left ear. At first he supposed her to be a picturesque attendant, but when she extended a tiny hand loaded with rings and murmured “Pleased to see you!” he realised that he was addressed by the mistress of the house.
“This is my wife,” announced Salter as he entered. “Mee Lay, here’s Mr. Shafto, one of our new assistants, just out from England; I hope you can give him a good dinner?”
“Oh yes, it will be all right,” and once more she beamed upon her guest, “I will go and see about it now.”
And in spite of her tight skirt, Mee Lay glided out of the room with an air of surpassing grace.
“I dare say you are surprised to see that Mrs. Salter is of this country,” said her husband, as he sank into a chair; “but it is by no means an uncommon match here. Burmese women are very good-humoured and capable; they make capital wives, and there is no denying the fascination of the Burmese girl—always so piquant and smiling and dainty. They have also a wonderful capacity for business and money-making, and a real hunger for land; some of the best plots in and about Rangoon have been picked up by these shrewd little creatures. The men-folk, on the other hand, are incurably lazy. They loaf, gamble and amuse themselves and leave their women-kind to trade, or to weave silks and manufacture cheroots; numbers of them are in business. Mee Lay, my wife, owns and runs a good-sized rice mill; and if you were to look into the back compound you would see it entirely surrounded by her matted paddy-bins, biding a rise in the market.”
A yet further surprise awaited Shafto, in the shape of a little sallow girl, with clouds of crimped golden hair, beautifully dressed in European style, in a white embroidered frock and wide silk sash.
Rosetta had inherited the high cheek-bones and short nose of her mother’s race, the blue eyes and firm jaw of her Yorkshire parent. On the whole, she was an attractive child.
Miss Rosetta Salter received the strange gentleman with overpowering condescension, and spoke English in a thin, squeaky voice. In a flatteringly short time she had descended from her high horse, and accepted Shafto as a friend, revealed her age (eight years) and told him all about her French doll and her new brown boots—also from Paris.
The dinner, which was announced directly after the return of Mrs. Salter, proved to be excellent, well cooked and a novelty. For the first time Shafto tasted real curry, also mango fool. The appointments were exclusively European, with the exception of a massive silver bowl, filled with purple orchids, which adorned the centre of the table. Two snowy-clad Madras servants waited with silent dexterity and conversation never flagged. Salter discoursed of chummeries and the Blankshire passengers, and Mrs. Salter thoughtfully prepared the new arrival for the alarming insects of Lower Burma, whilst Rosetta, for her part, kept up an accompaniment on a high chirruping note.
During a momentary pause Shafto was startled by an odd sound—an imperious, unnatural voice that called, “Tucktoo! Tucktoo! Tucktoo!”
“What is it—or who is it?” he inquired anxiously.
“Oh, it’s only a large lizard that lives under the eaves,” explained Salter, “one of our specialities. In the rains, when he is in good voice, he is deafening.”
“He brings good and bad luck,” added Mrs. Salter. “Oh, yes, that is so,” and she flipped the air with her two first fingers, a favourite gesture among Burmese women.
“How do you mean luck?” Shafto asked.
“If he gives seven ‘Tucktoos’ without stopping, that is luck—great big luck—but if he goes on, he brings trouble.”
“Only if he stops at an odd number,” corrected the child.
“I see you know all about it,” remarked the guest.
“Oh, yes, our Tucktoo never goes beyond seven—I think he is old—and mother says the nats are kind to us.”
“The cats are kind to you!” ejaculated Shafto. “But why not?”
“No, no,” hastily broke in Salter, “nats are spirits, good spirits or bad, who live in the trees; you will hear enough about them before you are a month in Burma. Their worship is the national faith.”
“But I thought Buddhism——” began Shafto, and hesitated.
“Oh, yes, ostensibly and ostentatiously, but wait and see.”
“I am a Catholic,” announced the child abruptly.
She was excessively self-conscious and anxious to show off before Shafto.
“Are you really?” he said with an incredulous smile.
“Oh, yes, I attend the convent school; I am learning French and dancing, I go to mass; mother goes to the pagoda festivals—mother is a heathen.”
“Rosetta! Mind what you are saying,” sharply interposed Salter; “your mother’s no more a heathen than yourself.”
“Rosetta is a nasty little girl,” said Mrs. Salter, rising, “she forgets herself before company, and must go away to be——”
A succession of shrieks interrupted the verdict.
“Oh, do forgive her, please!” implored Shafto; “I ask it as a favour, a special favour.”
Meanwhile Rosetta clung to her mother apostrophising her in an unknown tongue, then with piercing screams, entirely regardless of her beautiful clean frock, she flung herself flat upon the floor.
If Shafto had been inclined to meditation, he might have reflected on the future of the offspring of two such divergent countries as the West Riding of Yorkshire and Pegu. At one moment the prim, well-mannered English girl; the next, an impulsive, emotional daughter of the Far East. When she grew to woman’s estate, which of the races would predominate?
Meanwhile, as Rosetta lay prone and kicking upon the dhurri, her father murmured apologetically:
“When the lassie is a bit over-fired and excited, she doesn’t know what she is saying.”
Mee Lay raised her struggling offspring, was about to bear her away and give her “Tap Tap,” when again Shafto interposed:
“Oh, I say, do forgive her this time, please, Mrs. Salter. This is my first day in Rangoon—and I ask it as a particular favour.”
Mee Lay, an adoring parent, was by no means reluctant to grant his petition, and when the tearful culprit was released and set down, she turned to Shafto and said in her piping treble:
“Thank you, nice gentleman, but she would not have hurt me much. It was not I who said mother was a heathen savage, but Ethel Lucas, and I slapped her, so I did—and Sister gave me a bad mark. I, too, go to the pagoda festivals and like them awfully much. There are bells and beads, and flowers and priests, the same as in the convent.”
“Now that peace has been declared, Rosetta, here is a chocolate,” said her father, “and you can go to bed. Shafto, we will adjourn into the veranda to smoke, watch the rising moon, and listen to the hum of the bazaar—a new sound for your ears!”
In a few minutes both were extended in comfortable, long cane chairs, no doubt experiencing an agreeable sense of bien être. The outlook, with its heavy foliage, was restful to the eye, and the air was charged with a spicy warmth.
Presently Salter began: “On Monday you are due at the office to report yourself. You need not be scared at the Head, although he has a stiff, discouraging sort of manner, and they say that, like the east wind, he finds out all your weak points in the twinkling of an eye! He is just and impartial, and no man is more respected in the whole of Burma than George Gregory. I suppose you know that Gregory’s is one of the oldest-established houses here?”
Shafto nodded; he had learned this fact on board ship.
“We do a great trade and employ a number of young fellows, mostly from public schools and universities. One or two other firms do not engage gentlemen—for reasons that, perhaps, you may guess. Out of business hours our house keeps a sharp eye on their employés. A young chap can get into any amount of mischief in Rangoon—Rangoon is full of temptations.”
“Oh, is it?” muttered Shafto indifferently—what could its temptations offer in comparison to London?
“Anyhow it seems a huge, stirring sort of place,” he added, as he watched motors, bicycles, and gharries whirring past the entrance.
“Stirring! Why you may say so—it’s humming like a hive day and night. There are so many taps to turn in this wealthy country—timber, rice, wolfram, jade, tin, oil, rubies. A man with a little capital, if he does not lose his head, can make a fortune in ten years, especially in paddy. Our particular trade is teak and paddy—that’s rice, you know. I expect your work will be on the wharf and pretty heavy at first.”
“Well, anyway, it’s an open-air job.”
“Yes, you have the pull now; this is our cold season—October to March; but the hot weather is no joke; as for the rains, you might as well live in a steam laundry; we get a hundred inches here in Lower Burma.”
“A hundred inches!” echoed Shafto, “you are not serious?”
“Yes; it pours down as if the sea were overhead, and goes on steadily for days. Frogs flop round and round your room, and you can almost hear the trees growing. In the rains the forests are a wonderful sight, such dense masses of foliage and flowers. Can you imagine great trees entirely covered with exquisite blooms, and garlands of pink and lilac creepers interlacing the jungle?”
“How gorgeous! Perhaps I may see all this some day,” said Shafto, “after I have explored Rangoon itself.”
“Well, I hope you may,” assented his companion, “and now I want to ask you a strange question.”
“All right—ask away!”
“You have only been a few hours on shore, and I am curious to know if you have received any impression of the place and people—you know, first impressions go a long way!”
“Yes. Although I have only just rattled through the streets and along the Strand, the impression I gathered is that the Burmese appear to be an amazingly happy crew, with no thought for the morrow; they were all laughing and chattering as if life was a splendid joke and they enjoyed it thoroughly. The joie de vivre simply hits me in the eye!”
“I can explain all that,” said Salter, putting down his cheroot and sitting forward in his long chair. “The Burman has no fear of death, but proclaims an intense consciousness that it is a mere passing over to another existence—one of a chain of many future lives—and I think I may say that this belief is universal. They also declare that a man’s present life is absolutely controlled by the influence of past good or bad deeds, and that in the next world they may possibly be better off than they are in this. Although a Burman gives alms, worships at the pagoda on appointed days, and repeats the doxology he has learnt at school, he governs his life by the nats—spirits of the air, the forests, streams, and home, who must be propitiated.”
“I never heard of these nats until now,” said Shafto.
“No; but, as I have said before, you will hear a good deal about them here, especially if you mix with the Burmans.”
“I certainly hope I shall see something of the people of the country.”
“You will find them interesting; a full-blooded, pleasure-loving race; they’ve curious, original ideas, drawn from their ancient and sacred books, and an amazingly generous notion of time. For instance, they talk glibly of worlds a hundred thousand years old, and believe that this very planet has been destroyed no fewer than sixty-five times—chiefly by fire, on ten occasions by water, and once by wind! According to them, as in the New Testament, ‘a thousand years are but as yesterday.’ And yet they do not acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being—the highest glory is annihilation.”
At this moment a light little figure flitted up the stairs, leaving an impression of slender elegance and satin skirt.
“Ah, there goes Ma Chit, my wife’s cousin!” explained Salter.
“And I must be taking my departure,” said Shafto rising. “What you have been telling me is extraordinarily interesting, and I would gladly sit on for hours, but it is ten o’clock.”
“Yes, and we workers are early birds. I hope you will come and see us again. I have been twenty years in the country and I can tell you many a curious tale. To-morrow will be Sunday and, if you like, I will call round and take you to do a bit of sightseeing—the Pagoda and the lakes.”
“I should enjoy it of all things; perhaps you will have tiffin with me at the hotel?”
“No, you must come to us; twelve o’clock sharp, and afterwards we’ll make a start.”
“Then I’ll just go in and say good-bye to Mrs. Salter.”
When they entered the sitting-room, where lamps had been lighted, they found the lady of the house in an ecstasy of admiration, gesticulating with her tiny brown hands, as she gloated over a length of rose and silver brocade. Standing beside her was the proud owner of this magnificence; a slim, graceful girl, wearing heavy gold ornaments and flowers in her hair, and, in spite of an extravagant use of pearl powder, undeniably pretty. Her slanting eyes were long-lashed and expressive, and her little mocking mouth wore a bewitching smile.
“Look at my tamain, Papa Salter!” she cried; “a piece of the best satin, just enough for a skirt—one yard and a half; Herr Bernhard brought it to me from England.”
“Splendid indeed, Ma Chit,” he replied; “you will cut them all out at the big festival and the Pwes. Mee Lay, Mr. Shafto wishes to say ‘good night’!”
Mee Lay took a somewhat preoccupied leave of her guest, her eyes and attention being riveted upon the gorgeous material in her hand; but Ma Chit accorded the young man a gay salutation and a splendid view of her beautiful white teeth.
Salter accompanied his guest to the entrance gate, giving him careful directions as to the whereabouts of his hotel. It was an exquisite starlight night; the roar of the bazaar, the clang of the trams, and the whistling of launches were in the distance; the compound itself was so still that the sudden thud of a fallen jack-fruit made quite a startling sound. As the men exchanged last words, their attention was arrested by a charming tableau in the lighted sitting-room; two figures were outlined in strong relief against the dark teak walls, both absorbed in conversation. Ma Chit presented a particularly attractive picture, with her rose-crowned head, graceful posture, and waving hands; even as they gazed, her rippling laugh drifted seductively towards them.
“In this country, great is the tyranny of Temptation, and there is one of the temptations,” gravely announced Salter; “Rangoon is full of these fascinating chits, who have no morals, but are witty, good-tempered and gay. Ma Chit—the name means ‘my love’—is said to be irresistible and the prettiest girl in the province; she is Bernhard’s housekeeper.”
“His housekeeper!” repeated Shafto; “why, he told me he lived at the German Club!”
“That may be; but he has a fine house in Kokine. It is not an uncommon situation—that sort of temporary marriage. Ma Chit looks after his interests, rules his household, and makes him comfortable; her people acquiesce. All marriages are easily arranged and easily dissolved among the Burmans. A young man may offer sweets, serenade a girl a few times; if he is acceptable, there’s a family dinner, with much chewing of betel nut, and that constitutes the ceremony!”
“What a happy-go-lucky country!” exclaimed Shafto.
“Happy, yes! Lucky, I’m not sure! Well now, don’t lose your way; first turn to the right, second to the left, and there is the Strand. Good night!”