As speedily as possible, Mr. Bernard went up to Mandalay, leaving Lower Burma practically under the administration of the Secretary, Mr. Symes. He went up in the old R.I.M.S. Irrawaddy, embarking at Prome. With him were a few civil and police officers, destined with those who had accompanied the expedition to form the nucleus of the Civil Administration. Colonel T. Lowndes,[86] Inspector-General of Police, Captain C. H. E. Adamson,[87] of the Commission, Mr. G. M. S. Carter, and Mr. M. J. Chisholm, of the Police, were on board, and I had the luck to go as Junior Secretary. We landed at Minhla and inspected the fort, now garrisoned by Bengal Infantry, and the scene of the fight; at Myingyan, where we saw marks of our cannonade; at Pakôkku, where the Chief Commissioner was received by the My̆othugyi-gadaw,[88] a lady of large bulk, of high spirit, and of cheerful humour, who was administering the town and district in the name of her son. The old lady was extremely affable, and professed loyalty to the new Government. To the best of her ability, I believe she carried out her engagement. Her position was quite in accordance with the practice in Burma, where, as already stated, women take a prominent part in public affairs. She survived for some years, and was always our good friend.
On the 15th of December, 1885, Mr. Bernard arrived at Mandalay, and, with his staff, took up his quarters in the Palace where Sir Harry Prendergast and his officers were already installed. Mr. Bernard occupied a set of rooms behind the Eastern Audience Hall. Colonel Lowndes and I shook down in some good masonry buildings hard by, which had been used as waiting-rooms by the Ministers coming to transact business with the King. My abode was immediately under the wooden tower in the south-east corner of the palace, whence Queen Sūpăyá-lāt is said, the legend is apocryphal, to have viewed the march of the British force from the shore to the city. Behind me was the shed of the White Elephant, which had died a few days after the occupation, feeling, no doubt, that his use was at an end. Opposite, fronted by a pillared terrace, in the midst of which played a fountain, was a charming pavilion faced with white stucco, of modern design and construction, used by the King as a morning-room. Mr. Bernard adopted it for the same purpose. We were all most kindly made honorary members of the Headquarter Mess, established in spacious rooms adjacent to the Royal Theatre. There, with the chief military officers, we dined every night, and often played a quiet rubber. For breakfast and luncheon, during his stay in Mandalay, Mr. Bernard kept open house for his staff. Mr. Bernard’s breakfasts were refreshing interludes in the busy round of official work. Round that hospitable board often sat welcome guests, visitors of distinction, officers passing through Mandalay bringing a breath of the old world to our new heritage. From time to time every member of the Viceroy’s Council came to see the latest kingdom added to the Empire. Perhaps the visitor who made the deepest impression was Sir George Chesney, Military Member of Council, a man of wide culture and literary distinction, moving on a higher plane than the ordinary Indian official. (No offence to the ordinary official, honest man, whose stock of late years has unjustly depreciated.) Sir George Chesney seemed to have a wider range, a more extensive outlook; his premature death deprived the world of a statesman. In very early days came to Mandalay, as the Chief Commissioner’s guests, some charming Americans, among them a lady of exceptional grace and beauty. Warned by secretaries and aides-de-camp that she could not possibly go to Mandalay, where conditions of war still obtained, she is said to have gone pouting to the great Lord Sahib, by whom she was assured that she should certainly go, and that her path should be strewn with roses. ’Twere churlish not to believe this pretty story. My impression is that the men of the party tried to buy the Palace as it stood, and succeeded in acquiring a gilded sentry-box. I may wrong them.
Most strange and almost incredible it seemed to range at will the halls and corridors, where hardly a fortnight before the Lord of many White Elephants had kept his State. The Palace was in exactly the same condition as when occupied by the Burmese Court. As a Burman official said, in another place, the scene was the same, the actors only were changed. Barbarous Byzantine mirrors of colossal size still lined the walls; a motley heap of modern toys, French clocks and fans, mechanical singing birds, and the like, mingled with lovely specimens of Burmese carving, gold and silver and lacquered trays and boxes, forming a heterogeneous collection characteristic of degenerate taste. Rooms so lately tenanted by King, Queens, and their butterfly attendants, aglow with light and colour, were now occupied as sober offices and quarters. Khaki uniforms, boots, and the ringing of spurs replaced gay pasos and tameins and soft pattering of naked feet. The Palace, it must be confessed, was a mass of somewhat tawdry buildings, mostly of wood and of no great antiquity, desecrated by corrugated iron roofs, yet of interest as a unique specimen of Burmese domestic architecture. Perhaps the most striking features were the great halls of audience, supported by mighty pillars of teak, red and golden, the several Royal thrones often described, and the Py̆athat, the graceful terraced spire surmounting the eastern throne-room, which travellers have been taught to call the Centre of the Universe. The title was invented by an enterprising journalist, but will, no doubt, always be cited as a mark of Burmese arrogance. Besides the rooms reserved for the King, then occupied by Sir Harry Prendergast, the Palace afforded accommodation for the Queens and for Ambassadors, attendants, pages, maids of honour, and the usual entourage of an Eastern Court. For some years the Palace continued to be inhabited. The King’s audience-hall was used as a church; the corresponding hall on the west, the Queen’s, as a club house. A few of the buildings on the Palace platform were of masonry work, built for the King by some of the foreigners who swarmed at the Burmese Court. Like the famous A-tu-ma-shi[89] monastery, these made no pretence of being in Burmese style, and were grievous to the æsthetic eye. In the Palace enclosure was the Council Chamber where the Hlutdaw[90] deliberated. Opposite was a model of the Kyaung,[91] where King Thebaw spent his novitiate. This also was for some time used as a church. All round the Palace were charming gardens, intersected by watercourses, with many a grotto and pavilion, where gay young Princes and Princesses, pages and maids of honour, idled away the pleasant hours. Girdling and protecting the Palace and its precincts was an inner wall of masonry, and round this again a palisade of stout teak logs. The main gates of the palace corresponded with those of the city. Just within the eastern gate stood a white tower, the Bohozin, whereon was a mighty drum, the Bohozi, struck by hereditary beaters to record the hour and to assure the world that the King was in his palace. After the occupation, the beaters fled. We were gravely warned that the silence of the Bohozi would be interpreted as a sign that anarchy prevailed and that there was no Government. The beaters were sought out and reinstated. As soon as the periodical sound of the drum was heard once more, we were solemnly advised that this would never do. The beating of the Bohozi indicated that the Burmese Government still existed, and that we were merely temporary sojourners. So the beaters were retired on suitable terms, and the Bohozi was sent to the Phayre Museum. I need hardly say that it did not matter a brass farthing whether the drum was beaten or not.
The Palace stood in the middle of what we came to call the city. Built on somewhat high ground about three miles from the shore, the city (myo) was a perfect square, surrounded by a rampart of earth, battlemented walls, and a moat on which water-lilies floated in lovely profusion. Each face of the walls measured one mile and a quarter. Between the walls and the moat was a stretch of turf, as if expressly provided for a morning gallop, but somewhat spoilt by sudden holes. Five great gates, two on the west, one on each other side, opened through the wall, each approached by a bridge over the moat. At every gate was a red wooden pillar, with an inscription recording the date and circumstances of its erection. Stories, which we need not believe, are told of the burial of living victims beneath these pillars. Within the city walls, all round the palace, the space was closely packed with Burmese houses. Here were the dwellings of Ministers and other high officers, each surrounded by an ample compound (win) where lived a whole village of relations and retainers. Here also were the humbler dwellings of minor officials, soldiers, and the miscellaneous rabble collected about an Eastern Court.
Now all is changed. The Palace remains a melancholy memento of Burmese sovereignty. The halls are tenantless, and the footstep of the infrequent visitor rings hollow on its floors. A fragment of the teak stockade is preserved. The rest is replaced by a neat post and rail fence. All the native houses have disappeared. The space within the walls is occupied by barracks, mess-houses, dwellings, polo-ground, and the like. The last Burmese house, now removed, was that of the Kinwun Mingyi.
The town, as distinguished from the city, extended to the river on the west and to Amarapura on the south, peopled mostly by non-officials living in wooden houses and bamboo huts, with here and there a white masonry building, the dwelling of an Indian trader. In the midst was the great bazaar, the Zegyo. An embankment protected the low-lying land from the river in flood. Through the town crept the Shwe-ta-chaung, a malodorous stream, on whose banks still stood the old British Residency in a grove of tamarind-trees. While in the city the roads were straight and hard, the streets of the town were unmetalled, alternately dust and mud. The first work undertaken by the army of occupation was the construction of four roads to the shore. With military simplicity, but perhaps with some want of imagination, these were called A, B, C, and D Roads, names which still cling to them. To the south was the Yakaing Paya, commonly called the Arakan Pagoda, the shrine of the great image of Gaudama Buddha, brought across the hills from Arakan. Second only in interest to the Shwe Dagôn Pagoda, it attracted throngs of pilgrims. In one of the courtyards reclined battered bronze statues of magic virtue. If you had a pain, you rubbed the correspondent part of one of these statues, and obtained relief. In a neighbouring pond were sacred turtles, who came at call to be fed.
East of the city rose the Shan Hills, with the little hill of Yankintaung[92] alone in the middle distance. The evening glow reflected on the Eastern Hills misled the unobservant to rhapsodize on the beautiful effect of the sun setting behind Yankintaung. North stood Mandalay Hill, a cool and pleasant height, ascended by stone steps or by a winding bridle-path; near its pagoda-covered summit towered a stately upright statue of the Buddha, his right arm extended towards the city, as it were the palladium of the capital. At the foot lay the A-tu-ma-shi (the Incomparable Monastery), a large white masonry structure of modern design, built by an Italian. Here sat another colossal image of the Buddha, in whose forehead sparkled a diamond of unequalled size and lustre.[93] Hard by stood the Ku-tho-daw Păya,[94] surrounded by a multitude of small shrines covering alabaster slabs, on which was inscribed the Law of the Buddha. This pious work commemorated its founder, the Einshemin, Mindôn Min’s brother, who lost his life in the rebellion of the Myingun Mintha in 1867. Gone now are the Incomparable Monastery and the statue on the hill, both accidentally destroyed by fire some years later.
In December, 1885, the situation in Mandalay, and, indeed, in Upper Burma generally, was very curious. Sir Harry Prendergast was in supreme military command. Colonel Sladen was the chief civil authority. The future of Upper Burma was still under discussion between the Chief Commissioner, the Government of India, and the Secretary of State (Lord Randolph Churchill). It might be decided to annex the country, or it might be thought better to set up a new King, and to make Upper Burma a protected State. Pending the decision, an attempt was made provisionally to carry on the Government on the same lines as before the occupation. Although the King of Burma was an absolute, not a constitutional, monarch, there was a Council of State (the Hlutdaw), an advisory and executive body with no legislative powers. It consisted of the Wungyis, or Mingyis, the four highest officers of State; four Atwin Wuns, high officers of the Palace; and four Wundauks, props or assistants of the Wungyis. Under their orders was a crowd of secretaries or clerks (Sayedawgyi). The country was governed by Wuns, each of whom administered a local area, and received orders from the Hlutdaw collectively, or from individual members thereof. Mandalay was in charge of two Myowuns (town magistrates), the Myowun U Pe Si,[95] and the Shwehlan Myowun. Temporarily, the Hlutdaw was maintained in its powers and functions, the place of the King being taken by Colonel Sladen. There was one important innovation. Over all was the Chief Commissioner. The Hlutdaw issued a proclamation to all Wuns and local officers, directing them to carry on their duties as before under the command of the Central Government. British officers in charge of districts Captain Eyre at Pagan, Mr. Robert Phayre at Minhla, Mr. Collins at Myingyan, Mr. Fleming at Shwebo were not subordinated to the control of the Hlutdaw. Mandalay also was removed from their control. At first Mr. Fforde[96] as District Superintendent of Police, then Captain Adamson as Deputy Commissioner, with Mr. Fforde as his chief aid, were in charge. These officers received most valuable help from U Pe Si, who threw in his lot with the new Government, and served it loyally and well for the rest of his life. U Pe Si was one of the most interesting characters of the annexation period. Of an established official family, his grandfather having been one of the signatories of the Treaty of Yandabo in 1826, he was a man of courage and resource, well fitted to be the colleague of British officers. His knowledge of Mandalay and the surrounding district was intimate and extensive. His mind was acute and his judgment sound. At sixty, so old and frail in appearance that he was once introduced to a high officer as “the Yenangyaung Mingyi over ninety years of age,” that fragile frame was informed with dauntless will and resolution. He maintained the closest relations with a succession of Deputy Commissioners and Commissioners of Mandalay. His practice was to drop in to breakfast and consume vast quantities of jam, to the detriment of his poor digestion, as an aid to the delivery of wise discourse on men and things. Without him the task of governing Mandalay, difficult at the best, would have been still more arduous.
Our early sway was of a patriarchal type. The theory that the penalty should be made to fit the offence was adopted by an ingenious magistrate who knew his Burman. An instance recurs to me worthy of Shahpesh, the Persian. Some gamblers were brought up for judgment.
“So you like cards. Will you play a game with me?” said the magistrate genially. “Please draw three cards.”
Two aces and a two were shown.
“What a lucky man! Take four stripes.”
The next man drew two kings and a five.
“Your luck is not so good. Receive twenty-five stripes.”
And so on, to the delight of the public, and, we may hope, of the players. Another accused in the same case, hung about with cards and dice and other instruments of gaming, was paraded through the streets with his face to the tail of the pony on which he sat.
Colonel Sladen had the royal temperament, and was prepared to set right all the wrongs done by his predecessor. In pursuance of this policy he restored to the Yenangyaung Mingyi and the Pintha Mintha respectively all their property which had been confiscated by the King. As soon as these orders came to his notice, Mr. Bernard imperatively forbade any further similar restitutions, rightly holding it impossible to investigate the acts of the Burmese Government in exercise of its sovereign powers. The Yenangyaung Mingyi, then verging on ninety, was a valued Minister of King Mindôn, and had been wounded in the Myingun Prince’s rebellion. On that occasion, as I heard from the lips of an eyewitness, King Mindôn was attacked by his disloyal son in a summer palace near Mandalay Hill, and escaped borne on the back of a faithful attendant. The Mingyi had fallen into disgrace with King Thebaw, doubtless because he was father of the Kyimyin Mipaya,[97] one of Mindôn Min’s lesser wives, who had borne the King a son, the Pyinmana Mintha.[98] In the massacre of 1879 this child’s life was spared, probably on account of his extreme youth; but he and his mother and her family all remained objects of suspicion, and were kept in confinement by the Burmese Government. Soon after our arrival the boy was discovered, and sent to India and educated at an English school. After 1905 he returned to Burma and settled in Rangoon, where he still lives on excellent terms with our officers. Restored to favour and fortune, the Mingyi often came to see me, walking sturdily in spite of his years, and usually accompanied by two small sons of about eight or nine. The Pintha Mintha was the brother of Yanaung Maung Tôk,[99] already mentioned as the roystering companion of King Thebaw. These two titular Princes were sons of another Yenangyaung Mingyi, of romantic history. Sprung from humble stock, as a small boy he attracted the notice of a Princess. She adopted and educated him, and made him one of the royal pages. Conspicuous for grace and courtesy of manner, and, probably also for ability, he went on from rank to rank till he became successively Atwin Wun, and, on his death-bed, Mingyi. Though not of royal blood, his sons were given the title of Mintha, as it might be Prince Bismarck or Prince von Bülow. Yanaung Maung Tôk had the repute of being a blustering, truculent ruffian. If that was so, Pintha Maung Byaung alone inherited his father’s gracious qualities. I knew him well. A pleasanter, more courteous, more polished gentleman could not be found. His wife, who, I regret to say, died last year, was of a good official family, and a lady of exceptional charm. Their sons are doing well in Government service. Their daughters, delightful young girls in their early teens, glittering with diamonds and rubies, created a sensation at the celebration of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee in 1887. All three married well, but only one survives, the happy wife of a very distinguished Burmese officer.
It was natural that for some time after the occupation there should be much confusion. But at the very outset means might have been taken for the preservation of the State Records; instead of which, in the time-honoured phrase, soldiers were allowed to play havoc with these documents; many of them were burnt, many more were torn and spoilt. The loss was irreparable. Immediately after the Chief Commissioner’s arrival further destruction was stopped, and the surviving records were collected and deposited in the Council Chamber. Much of interest was thus preserved, but many State papers of priceless value, historically and administratively, were irretrievably lost.
The Burmese of Mandalay did not in the least recognize that they had been conquered. They were as free and easy and unconcerned and bumptious as if the King was still seated on the throne. The first task set me in Mandalay, the day after our arrival, was to find a Mohammedan doctor who was believed to have arrived lately from Bhamo. This was literally all the direction or clue given to aid me in a search among nearly 200,000 strange people. Not even the man’s name was known. Colonel Sladen kindly placed at my disposal a small Burmese official, and as we rode out of the South Gate my companion was hailed by a friend and asked where he was going with the young barbarian (kala). My Burmese was fluent and vigorous. However, though I liked not the manners of his friend, my man was an intelligent, willing fellow, and before the winter sun had set we found and brought back the object of our mission. Later on, when much distress had been caused by fires, incendiary and accidental, the Burmans of Mandalay grew rather sulky. But nothing cured them of their insouciance. When fires were destroying their dwellings, they looked on quite calmly without offering to lend a hand, while British officers took extreme risks to save life and property in burning houses.
“There is a very valuable box in that house” (in a blaze). “Would you mind bringing it out for me?” I heard a Burman say to a British officer, who complied with the cool request.
At this time we were almost completely cut off from Lower Burma and Rangoon. The telegraph line was interrupted, while letters came slowly by steamer once a week. Postal arrangements were necessarily of a primitive kind. The post-office was a flat, or barge, high and dry on the river-bank. When a steamer came from Rangoon, the mail-bags were opened and their contents cast on the deck of the flat. We who had hastened down on hearing of the steamer’s approach were allowed, even invited, to search the pile and take what belonged to us. In spite of this apparently hazardous procedure, I heard of no letters going astray. I quarrelled quite seriously with a high officer of the post-office because I said in his hearing, incautiously and, I confess, unjustly, that I was sending letters to Rangoon by messenger rather than trust them to the post. For some months, if not years, we were unfriends; but I am glad to say that, in the course of time, we were reconciled.
I was soon taken from Secretariat work and sent as civil officer with a column. A detachment of Madras Cavalry without support had been sent to repair the telegraph line between Ava and Myingyan. They had met with resistance and been forced to return. The task was then entrusted to an adequate force. Two guns, British infantry, Madras Cavalry, and Madras Pioneers were placed under the command of Major Fenwick, I.S.C. Captain R. A. P. Clements[100] was staff officer; Mr. H. d’U. Keary[101] and Mr. Rainey[102] were of our party. At Ava, where we halted before starting on our march, Maung Hlwa, the local Wun, came in and made his submission, among the first-fruits of Burmese loyalty in that part of the country. Maung Hlwa, I am glad to say, still survives and draws his pension. He was an official of the good old Upper Burman type. Not over-educated, without very delicate scruples, of proved courage, with boundless personal influence (awza), wherever he was sent he was a loyal and useful servant of Government. No better man than he to bring a troublesome township into order. He was one of the Burmese officers who went to the Coronation Durbar at Delhi in 1903, where he was deeply impressed by the pomp and splendour of the occasion. On this march he was of the utmost service, though I am not quite sure that he did not take advantage of the opportunity to pay off some old scores. So quiet seemed the country and so little did we expect attack that I used to ride for miles along the river-bank and through the jungle at Ava with no other companion but Maung Hlwa. Yet within a month, at Sagaing on the opposite bank, four officers were attacked within sight of the Government steamer Irrawaddy, and three of their number slain by dacoits who issued from ambush, cut down their victims, and disappeared before the rest of the party, walking not a couple of hundred yards behind, were aware of what had happened. The fall of Mandalay had been so sudden that it had not yet been realized in rural places, and the forces of opposition had not yet been organized. Very soon the turmoil began. It was then long before officers were able to travel without escort in Upper Burma.
This was one of the first daurs, or small expeditions, undertaken. Keeping close to the telegraph line which it was our primary duty to restore to working order, we marched through the midst of the Ava subdivision. In fine open country we rode daily over sessamum fields or through tall growths of millet, making our first acquaintance with the land where so much of our lives was to be spent. The climate was cool and pleasant, so that we were able to march far into the morning. At the village where the cavalry had been routed we were so hospitably received that, to the best of my recollection, no punishment for past misdeeds was inflicted. We were particularly touched to find here two Madrasi sayces,[103] cavalry followers who had been missing since the engagement, and who had, in fact, been wounded and disabled. They had been plastered and nursed by the villagers, and were restored to us none the worse for their adventure. Not much farther on we found a crucified man falling to pieces after long exposure to sun and wind. I believe it was customary to kill the victim before affixing his body to a St. Andrew’s cross. In early days, after a successful skirmish with dacoits, a Burman assistant approached the civil officer, saying as a matter of course: “I suppose it is time now to crucify the prisoners!” Incidents like these illustrate the charming inconsistency of the Burmese character already noted.
Later on in our march we were resisted at two villages and had two little fights without, I think, any casualties on our side. After all the people had been cleared out, the first village was burnt for reasons of military necessity. Rightly enough, the burning of villages has always been discouraged, indeed, strictly forbidden, save as an extreme measure or for military reasons. But, when occasion arises, it is very interesting to put a match to a thatched roof and see it blaze to the sky. The second village had to be shelled. Clements and I, who had ridden round to examine one of the farther approaches, found ourselves in the unpleasant position of being shelled by our own side. There I saw an instance of the stoical resolution with which Burmans meet death. A man torn to pieces by a shell asked only for an umbrella to shield him from the sun and a cheroot to smoke while he awaited the end. Both were supplied while our surgeon afforded such relief as might be. Here is another inconsistency. By a shout and the explosion of a cracker, a band of dacoits[104] will put to flight all the men of a village, who stampede, leaving the women and children at the mercy of the assailants. Dacoits themselves go to work with trembling knees and hearts of water, ready to fly at the first sign of resistance. Yet men of the same race and class face a firing party with a smile or walk to the gallows with unfaltering step. Once, at a military execution, some half a dozen dacoits were put up, one by one, against the city wall to be shot. The first man had the top of his head blown off by the volley. His companions awaiting their turn burst into a laugh at his grotesque appearance.
A day or two after Christmas we halted at My̆otha in the middle of the Ava subdivision and there held the first gymkhana in the jungle of Upper Burma. Pony races and other sporting events for officers and men and for local Burmans made up the programme. It was a characteristic episode. The people of My̆otha were very friendly and joined with enthusiasm in the proceedings. Here I confirmed in his office the My̆othugyi.[105] I am told that he still holds the appointment. After leaving My̆otha, we had our third and last encounter with dacoits. Captain Clements and Mr. Rainey took a few sowárs[106] to escort a telegraph working-party a few miles from our camp. So unexciting seemed the prospect that the rest of us stayed behind. Some of us walked unattended to a neighbouring village and sat for a long time talking with the headman and his people. The working-party and the escort were met by a hostile line of Burmans armed with muskets. Followed by the sowárs, the officers charged and routed the enemy, but Clements fell with two holes in his chest. No wonder the surgeon looked grave. A bullet in each lung, God shield us, is a most dreadful thing. However, a fortnight afterwards I found Clements quite active at mess at Tha-yet-my̆o. I infer that his pony swerved at the volley and that the two holes were made by the same bullet. In Burma Clements got another wound and two brevets. He served with great distinction in South Africa, and after passing through many campaigns was cut off by appendicitis at Quetta in the midst of a brilliant career. A fine officer, a perfect horseman, with a frame of iron, even in youth he gave promise of future eminence.
Another unfortunate incident was an outbreak of cholera in our camp, which brought us to a halt for some days and cost valuable lives. A stalwart young sergeant of gunners was specially regretted. A halt on account of cholera is one of the most gloomy and depressing experiences, particularly for the men. It was with somewhat chastened feelings that we marched into Myingyan. Our one consolation was that we had accomplished our purpose and reopened telegraphic communication with Rangoon.
Meanwhile the Kinwun Mingyi, who had gone with the ex-King, had returned to Mandalay, and the Taingda Mingyi, the evil genius of the dynasty, had been sent to Hazaribagh. Mr. Bernard was convinced of the Taingda Mingyi’s active disloyalty. It was notorious that, in the King’s time, he fomented disorder and shared the spoils of dacoity. There were reasonable grounds for believing that he continued these practices and that his power was exerted against the Government. To retain this man in a leading position on Colonel Sladen’s Council, or even to allow him to stay in Burma, deprived of office, in a private station, was fraught with grave risk. In Mandalay his influence was supreme. His speedy removal without previous warning seemed clearly desirable. This was dramatically effected. As the Mingyi sat in the midst of the Hlutdaw, Mr. Pilcher entered and summoned him to the Chief Commissioner’s presence. Arriving there, he was told that he was to be sent to India. His request for permission to go to his house before leaving was refused. Seated with Mr. Pilcher in a bullock-carriage, he was driven to the shore. As he passed out of the West, the Traitors’, Gate, there was a block, and the carriage halted. “Is this where you are going to kill me?” asked the old man. Under the provisions of the beneficent Regulation III. of 1818, the Mingyi was detained for several years. Long after the country had been at peace, he was allowed to return and end his days in Burma in receipt of an allowance from Government. He was a man of much force of character, comparatively uneducated, and, unless his face and common fame belied him, of harsh and cruel nature. That protruding under-lip and that glance, stern even in old age, were signs of a fiery and turbulent soul. After his return he did no harm, and, having lost his wealth in foolish speculations, he died a poor man. I helped to get a small pension for his widow, an innocent old lady, who was, I believe, sincerely grateful. The pension was granted as an act of grace, not out of respect for the Mingyi’s memory.
About this time I went on one more little daur, perhaps hardly worth mentioning. Dacoits were entrenched in the Kaung-hmu-daw Pagoda, not very far from Sagaing. A column, with Colonel Lowndes as civil officer, was sent against them. Another column, which I accompanied, started at the same time and went up the river. We were to hold a defile in the hills and cut off the retreat of the dacoits dislodged from Kaung-hmu-daw. The arrival of the main body at Sagaing was marked by the lamentable incident already narrated.[107] Next morning, as arranged, the pagoda was attacked and the defenders driven out. The rest of the plan miscarried. Our intelligence was grievously at fault. The only pass in the hills, we found, ran from east to west. Through it we marched at the mercy of any hostile force which might be crowning the heights. Emerging scathless from this gorge, as no one took advantage of so fair a chance, we reached a wide champaign over which an army corps might have scattered without coming near us. That Sunday morning we had a pleasant picnic on a breezy down, and towards nightfall we marched back, having seen no one worse than ourselves.
Early in 1886 Mr. Bernard returned to Rangoon. As I was not in Lower Burma for any length of time from December, 1885, to March, 1887, it does not fall within the scope of this book to attempt a description of events in that part of the Province in the months following the occupation of Mandalay. It was a time of stress and anxiety. Insurrections, excited no doubt by emissaries from the Burmese Court and headed in more than one case by monks, broke out all over the country. For a time Lower Burma was a seething mass of disorder. With inadequate military and police forces, Commissioners and district officers bravely faced the situation, and by strenuous efforts suppressed rebellion and gradually restored peace. In the early months, in the Chief Commissioner’s absence from Rangoon, the general direction of operations was in the hands of Mr. Symes, then an officer of ten years’ service. With what nerve, resolution, and judgment he discharged this great responsibility only those who served in Lower Burma at that time can properly appreciate. No one could have done better and more valuable work in a very serious crisis. Those early months showed Mr. Symes to be an administrator of the highest class, and won for him the reputation which he enjoyed to the day of his lamented death.
At the beginning of 1886 Lord Dufferin came to study on the spot the problem of Upper Burma and practically to decide its destiny. At the same time came Sir Frederick Roberts, then Commander-in-Chief in India. With the Viceroy were Mr. Durand,[108] Foreign Secretary; Mr. Mackenzie,[109] Home Secretary; Mr. Mackenzie Wallace,[110] Private Secretary; and Lord William Beresford, Military Secretary, a galaxy of talent. Lord Clandeboye, afterwards Earl of Ava, in the flower of his youth and beauty, was among the aides-de-camp. Sir Frederick Roberts’s staff was hardly less brilliant. It included Major W. G. Nicholson,[111] Major Ian Hamilton,[112] Captain Neville Chamberlain,[113] and Colonel Pole-Carew.[114] Besides being the best-known man of his time in India, Beresford was probably the best Military Secretary in history. He was thoroughly conversant with every detail of his office. Equally at home in the direction of a Durbar or the management of a social gathering, with singular charm of manner, he had the delightful gift of being all things to all men. At a garden party he might be seen in close converse with a pillar of the Church, or hanging on the lips of an American Missionary, as if this idyllic communion was the one thing for which he lived. After this visit, the Bishop of Rangoon confided his opinion to a friend: “I am glad to see that the tone of the Viceregal Court is so good. Do you know? I think this high standard is in a great measure due to the influence of Beresford.” In Rangoon the usual festivities were held. At a ball I was deputed to interpret between His Excellency and Burmese ladies and gentlemen. Lord Dufferin’s embroidered compliments, addressed to some fair ladies, severely taxed my homespun vernacular.
After a short stay in Rangoon Lord Dufferin and Sir Frederick Roberts went up to Mandalay in the steamer Mindoon, fitted out and placed at the Viceroy’s disposal by the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company. Stopping at various places on the way, the Viceroy made the acquaintance of the local military and civil officers. The visit to Mandalay was an unqualified success. Their Excellencies, for Lady Dufferin lent her gracious presence to the occasion, were welcomed by the military and civil officers and all the Burmese notables. They were installed in the finest rooms in the Palace, visited all scenes of interest in the town and city, and received the members of the royal house and the most eminent Burmese officers and their families. On the eastern terrace of the Palace the Viceroy held a levée, the first and only instance of that ceremony being held in the Nandaw.[115] Just before his departure, in a mandat[116] erected on the shore, he addressed a meeting of Burmese Ministers and high officials. His speech was interpreted by an Extra Assistant Commissioner, Maung Pyi. Failing to catch one sentence, the interpreter vainly tried to induce his Excellency to repeat it. Nothing daunted, Maung Pyi, with perfect assurance, evolved and uttered an elaborate sentence of his own. The incident passed unnoticed. Lord Dufferin’s name will always be associated with Upper Burma. From Ava he took one of his titles, and he acceded to the request that the cantonment of Mandalay, embracing the city as well as an area without the walls, should bear his name.
On the voyage and after his arrival in Mandalay the Viceroy and his advisers conferred with Mr. Bernard concerning the future of the newly acquired dominion. With the sanction of the Secretary of State, his Excellency, at a dinner given on the eve of his departure, announced the decision that the country was to be administered as part of British India. It was on this occasion, and by Mr. Bernard, that the familiar term “annexation” was first publicly used. Then, having accomplished the purpose of his visit, the Viceroy re-embarked for Prome. Just opposite Pagan, whereat the state of the district did not invite a landing, the Mindoon stuck fast on a sandbank for nearly twelve hours, a really characteristic incident on the Irrawaddy. Lord Dufferin was not in the least disconcerted or annoyed; he professed to be pleased to have one day’s entire rest. Towards evening the whole party were on the point of being transferred to some small craft in attendance, but luckily the steamer floated off in time, and this inconvenience was avoided. The return to Rangoon was saddened by the tidings of the death of Mr. H. L. St. Barbe, one of the most rising men in the Province, whose very remarkable personality gave every promise of distinction.[117] He was killed in the Bassein District, one of the first victims of the dacoit bands which harassed Lower Burma for three or four years.
By their charm and courtesy Lord and Lady Dufferin won all hearts, and left the happiest impression on the people of the Province. Still a junior officer, naturally I was not brought into close or frequent contact with them; but on the voyage to and from Mandalay I was near enough to come under the spell. Lord Dufferin was no doubt an admirable Viceroy. His dignity and presence, as well as his brilliant gifts, were specially fitted to adorn that illustrious office. He did not condescend to detail or profess to be industrious in small things. Industry, it has been said, is the tribute which mediocrity pays to genius. Often, I have heard, it was difficult to induce him to attend to matters of routine. But a really important case inspired him with enthusiasm, and on it he shed the rays of an illuminating mind; to its polished completion he devoted infinite pains. His visit in the early years of his Viceroyalty was greatly to the benefit of the Province. During the rest of his life in India his warm and friendly interest in Burma never failed.
The annexation of Upper Burma has been criticized not only by those who regard with disapproval every extension of the Empire. A very distinguished officer, whose best years had been passed in Burma, and who was familiar with both parts of the Province, suggested to me as one grave objection that the annexation extinguished a nationality, a thing which had not before been done in India. I have no doubt that, especially from the point of view of the good of the Burmese race, the annexation was an unmixed advantage. So far from extinguishing a nationality, we reintegrated it. Up to 1885 Burma was in a state of disunion. Part flourished under British rule; part languished under native tyranny. Some Burmans were British subjects; some served their own King. The conquest of Upper Burma reunited the severed fragments. Once more Burma became a solid country, the Burmese a nation under one undivided control; and as such it began a career of almost unexampled prosperity. Although there are differences and distinctions between the two sections, due to the varied course of their past history, Burma now forms one Province, and every part shares in the fortunes of the whole. The annexation did far more than this. It restored peace and order to a distracted people, and secured to every man the free enjoyment of the fruits of his labours. To all men were given the protection of equal laws and the assurance of even-handed justice. The grasping avarice of officials was restrained, and corrupt practices were discountenanced. Burmans are not excluded from a due share in the administration. To aspiring youths, promising careers have been thrown open. The second Burman as yet enlisted in the higher branch of the Accounts Department is an Upper Burman, the first to take the degree of Bachelor of Arts. On those Burmans who loyally accepted the new Government, office and honours were freely bestowed. The Kinwun Mingyi became a Companion of the Star of India, U Pe Si of the Indian Empire. The real patriots were those who recognized that the new order meant peace and prosperity, with no suppression of native religion or customs, and who risked obloquy, and often life and property, in loyal service to the State. These were truer friends of their people than men who, by ineffectual revolt and resistance, plunged their country for years into bloodshed and misery.
In March, 1886, Sir Charles Bernard returned to Mandalay. On April 1 the provisional administration of the Hlutdaw came to an end. Sir Edward Sladen retired, and the Chief Commissioner assumed direct control of Upper Burma. At the same time the Burma Field Force was broken up, Sir Harry Prendergast returned to India, and Sir George White took command of the troops. While retaining general control of the whole Province, Sir Charles Bernard left Lower Burma under the immediate direction of Mr. G. J. S. Hodgkinson[118] as Special Commissioner, devoting his own energies mainly to the settlement of the new Province and the modelling of its administration. An entirely separate Secretariat was formed, of which, as Secretary for Upper Burma, I was in sole charge. My office was in the Hlutdaw building, within the Palace enclosure. We had our own little printing-press, modestly but efficiently equipped by Mr. Regan, and we published our own Gazette. My only qualified assistant was Mr. Taw Sein Ko,[119] then in his early youth, to whom I am indebted for invaluable assistance during those busy months as well as in later years. Of the clerical staff, the less said the better. It was, perhaps, a unique Secretariat, with no records of previous years and no precedents. Whatever the Secretary might forget, the Chief Commissioner remembered. Besides myself, the only member of Sir Charles Bernard’s immediate staff was the Personal Assistant. This office was filled first by Andrew Thomson, C.S., a man of brilliant ability and exceptional gifts. Later came Sir Charles Bernard’s elder son, J. H. Bernard, C.S., endowed with many of the qualities of his family. Andrew Thomson died in the flower of his youth, multis bonis flebilis. James Bernard died in Bengal, in tragic circumstances, midway in a career of promise. Never were two pleasanter or more helpful comrades.
Though the Hlutdaw was dissolved, seven or eight
of the principal Ministers were retained on moderate
salaries as a consultative body. They had their own
office in the Hlutdaw building, with a few clerks,
and were in charge of the old State records. The
handwriting of these clerks was most elaborate and
beautiful. Such writing is now, I fear, a lost art.
In the King’s time Court writers were kept up to
the mark by fear of heavy penalties. For wrongly
dividing a word at the end of a line (like thi-
s) the punishment was amputation of the right hand.
It seems almost excessive. The Sayedawgyi were
of a higher class than ordinary clerks in Government
offices. Some of them were related to Ministers, or
even to members of the royal family. And often
enough they blossomed into Wuns or Ministers.
Among them were men of ability and character. I
instance my friend Maung Tin, A.T.M., Extra
Assistant Commissioner, long resident at Pagan as
township officer, now subdivisional officer, a recognized
authority on the antiquities of that historic
city. Another, also Maung Tin, A.T.M., Extra
Assistant Commissioner and subdivisional officer,
has written a learned history of Burma. Both are
men of good family and have attained responsible
positions under our Government. The Ministers
had no powers, but were often consulted on matters
of which they had special knowledge or means of
information. Punctually at noon every day, a
chaprási[120] came into my office and announced the
Minister’s approach.[121] At the ensuing conference
public affairs were discussed and the opinions of
Ministers invited. If the stock of references was
low, the conversation turned to Burmese history and
family affairs, of which their knowledge was extensive
and accurate. One day we were all bidden to
the wedding of the late Shwepyi Mingyi’s daughter.
A peculiar custom prevailed among the wealthier
classes of having marriages celebrated by Pônnas,
Hindu descendants of captives from Assam or
Manipúr. It has already been explained that Buddhism,
as understood in Burma, provides no ceremony
of marriage. The custom of inviting Pônnas to
celebrate marriages of Buddhists with some sort of
Hindu rite, the binding with a thread and the
eating out of the same dish, is a curious anomaly for
which I can find no parallel. This was a wedding
of the Pônna type. All Mandalay attended, including
many European officers. To complete the
quaint mixture of foreign ceremonies, the health of
bride and bridegroom was drunk in champagne by
those of the company who allowed themselves that
indulgence. Late in the morning, as I was about
to leave, one of the Ministers said with a sigh:
“Well, I suppose we must be getting away to office
too.” The suggestion that such a festal day might
be spent as a holiday was accepted with effusion.
There was something pathetic in the thought of
these men, all of mature and some of advanced years,
who had exercised almost absolute sway over a
kingdom, regarding themselves as under the orders
of an officer so much their junior in age. I did my
best to make the position as little irksome as might
be. As I retained the friendship of every one of
them as long as he lived, I hope my efforts had some
measure of success.
With the Kinwun Mingyi I contracted a close and intimate friendship, which ended only with his death at an advanced age. In early days Andrew Thomson and I were often at his house, playing with his charming grandchildren, small boys and girls of four or five years of age; sometimes on Sunday mornings we went to his garden beyond the walls for an early picnic. The Mingyi was a man of amiable disposition and courtly manners, of great learning, a delightful companion. To have had the privilege of discussing with him the doctrine of Neikban (Nirvana) is a pleasant memory. Although he could have no real love for our Government, he loyally accepted it, and did his best to support and strengthen the new order. I believe him to have been a man of high character, incapable of any base or treacherous act. His personal record was unimpeachable; he lived and died in honourable disregard of wealth. He had no children except two sons by adoption.
Another house where I was always welcome was that of the widow of the Pagan Min. She was his principal Queen, and occupied the house where the deposed King and herself had lived since the accession of Mindôn Min.[122] It was interesting to meet in such conditions one who had sat on the throne and was sprung from the race of Burma’s Kings. She was a charming lady, advanced in years, with the fine manners of her rank and people. In the house of the Pintha Mintha[123] I was also received on cordial terms. My friendship with his family subsists to this day.
The description already given[124] of the position of women in Burma may help to render intelligible the sketch of our life in Mandalay in early days. For some months European ladies were not encouraged to come to Mandalay. Most of us were extremely busy, and lived an austere life in the Palace. For companionship we were dependent on one another and on our Burmese friends. The people of whom I saw most in rare intervals of relaxation were officials and their families and members of the royal house. Queens and Princesses were many. For a melancholy reason Princes were few. Except the Myingun Prince in Pondicherry, and the Nyaung-yan and Nyaung-ôk Princes in Calcutta, only two of Mindôn Min’s sons survived—the Kawlin and Pyinmana[125] Princes.[126] Educated in India, these two have now for some years lived in charming domesticity in Rangoon; each happily married to a lady of his House. Both are honorary magistrates, and duly take their turn as members of a Bench for the trial of petty cases. There were a few other Minthas, sons of the Einshemin[127] and other Princes, besides more distant relations of the King. Several of the Minthas have taken service under Government, and occupy responsible positions as Assistant Commissioners, My̆o-ôks, and in other departments. Almost all the ladies of the Royal House, widows and daughters of Mindôn Min, or otherwise nearly related to the King, were in great distress and poverty. For the most part they had subsisted on meagre allowances, many of them being kept in confinement or under restraint. All these ladies received pensions from the British Government, but on so minute a scale that Sir Charles Bernard’s proposals for their maintenance excited by their moderation the surprise even of the Government of India. Yet when income-tax was, as some think illegally, levied in Upper Burma on incomes derived from Government, I am ashamed to say that these paltry stipends were subjected to deduction. From time to time the scale of pensions was raised, but it was not till many years later that I had the good fortune to enlist Lord Minto’s active sympathy with these ladies, and to secure for them allowances not utterly inadequate. Most prominent of the royal ladies in Mandalay were two full sisters of King Thebaw, the Pakangyi and Meiktila Supaya.[128] Meiktila Supaya married a commoner, and died some years ago, leaving two charming daughters, of whom one is the wife of a Government officer. The Amá-daw-gyi[129] brought up her nieces, and lived quietly in Mandalay till recent days. Only one of Mindôn Min’s wives of royal stock survived till our time. Wives of inferior rank were not of royal blood, but for the most part daughters of officials or chiefs. The three whom I knew best were three sisters, the Limban, Thetpan, and Thayazein Queens, daughters of a Talaing My̆o-thugyi in Lower Burma. They were ladies of dignity and refinement, with whom my family and I were long on terms of intimacy. Only the Thayazein Queen survives, living happily with her daughters and grandchildren in Rangoon. The pension list included over one hundred persons. At first the Princesses shrank from marrying commoners, but clearly most of them must condescend or remain unwed. Many of them, therefore, in the course of time took husbands of inferior rank. In the quarter of a century which has passed since the annexation, not one of the ladies of the Burmese royal family has given the slightest trouble to Government from a political point of view; none of them has intrigued or shared in any conspiracy or seditious movement. When the prominent part taken by Burmese women in public and private affairs is remembered, it will be admitted that, if for this reason alone, these ladies merit gentle treatment at our hands. I think they might at least be excused from paying income-tax on their pensions.
It may be appropriate here to notice the theory and practice of class distinctions in Burma. The King and the royal family were placed on a lone and lofty pedestal, and regarded with exaggerated reverence. In respect of royalty there was almost, not quite, a distinction of caste. An instance of respect for the sacredness of the blood royal came under my own notice. A granddaughter of Mindôn Min, daughter of his son by a minor Queen, a charming and attractive girl, eloped with the Queen’s nephew, a very presentable youth. The boy was one of the Queen’s household, son of the Queen’s own brother, a commoner. The Mipaya’s[130] distress and indignation were extreme. To console her, I suggested that, after all, the lover was of her own family. “I would as soon she had married a coolie out of the street,” was the uncompromising reply. The old lady had no rest till she had worried these young people to divorce, and married the girl to a Princeling. Anomalies were necessarily recognized. Though the King took as his chief Queen one of his half-sisters, Kings and Princes might marry commoners; royal ladies might not do so. Of late, as we have seen, this rule has become less strict. But genuine respect for the royal family still abounds. To this day, whether in Upper or Lower Burma, any upstart who pretends to royal origin secures a following.[131] The very sensible plan of employing them as My̆o-ôks and Extra Assistant Commissioners has done much to keep real sons of Princes out of mischief.
Apart from the royal family and monks, the only distinct class among Burmans is that of officials. There is no landed gentry; there are no county families. In most cases, especially in the higher grades, official rank was not hereditary. The Mingyi’s son did not become a Mingyi, or the Wun’s son a Wun, by succession. Occasionally one came across officers, like my friend U Pe Si,[132] sprung from official families. This was the result of nepotism, not heredity. As a rule an official obtained his position by luck or by favour or by family influence, by repute for learning, or by distinction as a soldier or administrator. The royal family and officials excluded, the rest of the people were on the same social plane. False pride and snobbishness were unknown. One of the Ministers, of eminent learning, who came clad in silks and glittering with golden chains, brought his brother to see me. The brother was an old peasant out of the fields, who sat on the floor, wearing the scanty dress of the working farmer. We had a pleasant talk about crops and seasons, while the Minister sat on a chair and discussed what Prince Hassan[133] used to call “country business.” It is, perhaps, to this absence of false pride, to genuine kindness of heart, and to traditional respect for elders, that the fine manners of Burmans are due. Good manners and self-respect are marks of all ranks. I have received perfect civility and courtesy from Princes and Ministers, from peasants and labouring men; always a kind word and a smile and thought for a guest’s comfort and convenience. Even contact with Western civilization has not yet spoilt the grace of manner which adorns the Burmese race.
The lack of class distinctions imports a certain want of cohesion, which does not facilitate the task of administration. Burmans are rank individualists, and so, I suppose, far behind the times. Each family is a separate entity, bound by no ties to any overlord. It is true that the hereditary principle is strong in the case of minor offices, such as those of My̆o-thugyi[134] or Ywa-thugyi.[135] These comparatively small but important offices passed from father to son for generations. In Lower Burma we have practically abolished the circle, and in Upper Burma the My̆o is likewise in process of decay. I for one agree that the village is the better unit. Yet some tribute of respect must be paid to the old My̆o-thugyi, a courtly country gentleman of dignity and presence, possibly more ornamental than useful.