Mandalay to Momien

CHAPTER II.
BHAMÔ.

We found some difficulty in steering the long steamer through the channels, but anchored about 5 P.M. on the 22nd of January off the river front of Bhamô, in a very deep and broad channel. Our arrival attracted crowds, but the whistle and rush of steam drove many into a precipitate retreat. We had now reached our true point of departure. Whatever had been the uncertainties of the untried navigation of the river, the real dangers and difficulties of the attempt to penetrate Western China were now to begin. We bore the proclamation of the king commanding all Burmese subjects to aid us. But there was no governor of Bhamô to execute the royal orders, and the secret intentions or inclinations of the Burmese were yet to be tested. The difficulties of the unknown road over the Kakhyen mountains, the hostility or friendship of the mountaineers, and of the Shan population between them and Yunnan, were equally untried. Moreover, though it had scarcely been realised in all its bearings by our own British officials, Yunnan was no longer a well ordered province of the Chinese empire; it was disorganised by the successful rebellion of the Mahommedan Chinese, called Panthays by the Burmese, who had established a partial sovereignty, extending from Momien to Tali-fu. The frontier trade had been materially interrupted, partly by the desolation caused by the internecine warfare, and partly by the depredations of imperial Chinese partisans. Of these, the most dreaded leader was a Burman Chinese, known as Li-sieh-tai, a faithful officer of the old régime, who had established himself on the borders of Yunnan, and waged a guerilla war against the Panthays and their friends. His name is Li, and his so-called small name is Chun-kwo, while from his mother having been a Burmese, he is also known as Li-haon-mien, or Li the Burman. As having been raised to the rank of a Sieh-tai in the Chinese army, he was called Li-sieh-tai or Brigadier Li.[15]

In Bhamô itself there were a number of Chinese merchants, who were unlikely to favour any project which threatened to admit the hated barbarians to a share of their monopoly and profits. This may give some idea of the state of things which we found on our arrival. Our illusions as to a speedy or easy progress were soon dissipated, and after a formal visit from the two tsitkays, or magistrates, ruling the northern and southern divisions of the town, it became evident that we must prepare for a long stay at Bhamô. The royal order to provide transport had only been received by the Woon on the eve of his departure on his fatal expedition to Momeit. Nothing, therefore, had been done; nor could they venture to act until the new governor arrived. The next best thing was to insist on their carrying into effect the royal order to build a house for us, which had not been done. This they reluctantly performed, and in a few days a bamboo edifice was run up close to the Woon's house, consisting of a central hall, with three bedrooms on either side, and a verandah at each end of the house. A small outhouse accommodated the servants and baggage, and the guard was quartered in an adjacent zayat; a tent pitched in front of the house served as a refectory. Till these quarters were prepared, we remained on board the steamer, receiving crowds of visitors. In the press a heavy log of timber fell on a little girl and fractured her thigh; she was at once carried on board, and the broken limb duly set. This incident speedily established the reputation of the foreign doctor, and for the rest of our stay patients flocked in every day, some coming from long distances, and blind and lame eagerly expecting to be made young and whole. A great deal of blindness had resulted from small-pox. Ophthalmia was also prevalent. A common affection was a form of ulcerous inflammation, chiefly on the legs, amongst those whose occupation led them into the jungles. This was so intractable as to incline one to attribute it to poisonous thorns; but subsequent personal experience proved that slight bruises and abrasions are most apt in this country to become painful and tedious. During the whole time no case of fever was treated, nor did any occur among our party of one hundred men. This speaks volumes for the salubrity of the place during the dry season. The highest temperature experienced was 80° Fahrenheit, the average maximum being not more than 66° Fahrenheit, while the nights were very pleasant, cooling down, if we may put it so, to fifty or forty-five degrees. Fever is rather more prevalent during the rains, when the Irawady rolls down a huge volume of water, a mile and half broad, and the low lands are submerged twelve to fifteen feet.[16]

But this is a digression somewhat professional, and it is needful to revert to the narrative and try to give the reader some notion of our surroundings and proceedings until we got away fairly on the march.

Bhamô, known by the Chinese as Tsing-gai, and in Pali called Tsin-ting, is a narrow town about one mile long, occupying a high prominence on the left bank of the Irawady. Instead of walls, there is a stockade about nine feet high, consisting of split trees driven side by side into the ground and strengthened with crossbeams above and below. This paling is further defended on the outside by a forest of bamboo stakes fixed in the ground and projecting at an acute angle. However formidable to barefooted natives, the stockade does not always exclude tigers, which pay occasional visits, and during our stay killed a woman as she sat with her companions. There are four gates, one at either end and two on the eastern side, which are closed immediately after sunset; a guard is stationed at the northern and southern gates, while several look-out huts perched at intervals on the stockade are manned when an attack of the Kakhyens is expected. The population numbers about two thousand five hundred souls, occupying about five hundred houses, which form three principal streets. There are many thickly wooded by-paths, and bridges over a swamp in the centre of the town, leading to scattered houses, dilapidated pagodas, zayats, and monasteries.

The street following the course of the bank, with high flights of steps ascending from the river, has a row of houses on either side, with a row of teak planks laid in the middle to afford dry footing during the rains. The houses of the central portion are all small one-storied cottages, built of sun-dried bricks, with tiled concave roofs with deep projecting eaves. Through an open window the proprietor can be seen calmly smoking behind a little counter, for this is the Chinese quarter, and the colony of perhaps two hundred Celestials here offer for sale Manchester goods, Chinese yarns, ball tea, opium, Yunnan potatoes, lead, and vermilion, &c. They also regulate the cotton market, and the traffic in this product, which is brought both from the south and the north, is carried on even during the rains. The head Chinaman, who is responsible for order amongst his compatriots, is a man of great influence. He and his fellow merchants, professing great friendship, invited us to a grand feast and theatrical entertainment given in the Chinese temple, or rather in the theatre which formed a portion thereof. We entered through what was to us a novelty in this country, a circular doorway, into a paved court. The theatrical portion of the building was over the entrance to a second court, facing the sanctuary, which is on a higher level. A covered terrace surrounded the holy place on three sides, with recesses containing seated figures nearly life size, with rubicund faces and formidable black beards and moustaches. Each of these was carefully protected from dust by being enshrined in a square box closed in front with gauze netting. Besides the theatrical entertainment, which was interminable, we were regaled with preserved fruits and confectionery, with tea and samshu, or rice spirit, followed by numerous courses of pork, fowls, &c. The staple of conversation was the dangers and impossibilities of getting through to Yunnan; every argument they could think of to induce us to abandon the idea of progress was then and afterwards employed. It can readily be imagined that the Bhamô Chinese traders viewed with utter dismay the prospect of Europeans sharing their trade; to their schemes of hindrance we shall again recur.

The rest of the townspeople are exclusively Shan-Burmese, living in small houses built of teak and bamboo, all detached and raised on piles. The Woon's house, on a low promontory running out into the swamp behind the Chinese quarter, was a large tumbledown timber and bamboo structure; but its double roof and high palisade covered with bamboo mats marked the dignity of its occupier. A small garden overrun with weeds contained the remains of a rockery and fish-pond, and a neglected brass cannon, under a low thatched shed, guarded either side of the gate; in a large adjacent space stood the court-house. All the public buildings were then in a state of dilapidation and decay; this the inhabitants attributed to Kakhyen raids, destructive fires, decay of trade since the Panthay wars, and misrule. Evidence was not wanting in the numerous neglected pagodas and timber bridges, and in the ruinous and charred remains of what must have been handsome zayats, that Bhamô,...