A Civil Servant in Burma

The Chief Civil and Political Officer with the expedition was Colonel E. B. Sladen80 of the Burma Commission. Four young officers Mr. R. Phayre, C.S.,81 Mr. A. S. Fleming, C.S., Captain G. S. Eyre, of the Commission, and Mr. G. G. Collins accompanied the force as civil officers. Mr. R. C. Stevenson, also of the police, one of the foremost Burmese scholars, was attached to General Prendergast as chief interpreter.

On the 14th November the frontier was crossed, on the 17th Minhla, on the 23rd Pagan, on the 25th Myingyan were successively occupied. Except at Minhla, where the fort which still stands on the river-bank was not taken without a brisk fight, scarcely any resistance was encountered. And as the flotilla moved up the river, even in Mandalay the determination to resist began to fail. Just before the expedition reached Ava the Kinwun Mingyi arrived, and after some negotiation arranged the unconditional surrender of the capital and of the Royal Family. On the 26th and 27th November the forts at Ava and Sagaing were given up, and the troops at Ava laid down their arms. On the 28th the flotilla moored off the town, and General Prendergast occupied Mandalay. The city and the palace were surrounded, while Colonel Sladen, with the cool courage which was his best distinction, entered the palace alone, and remained there for a day and a night, settling the details of the King’s surrender. Next day, in a little summer-house in the palace garden, King Thebaw gave himself up to the victorious General, and the dynasty of Alaungpăyá ruled no more. After all, it was a mushroom growth, having held sway for little more than 130 years.82 The King and his two Queens, with their mother and her eldest daughter, were driven through the streets of Mandalay in little bullock-drawn carriages, the only vehicles available. They were placed on board the steamer Thooreah, and conveyed to Rangoon. The flimsy little summer-house fell into decay, and no longer exists. The tablet which marks its site, and commemorates the most striking event in its history, will doubtless remain as long as the British flag flies over Mandalay.

The first report of the King’s surrender reached Rangoon in a non-official telegram. By luck or good management we were enabled to telegraph the tidings simultaneously to the Secretary of State, and to save his Lordship from the shock of receiving the first intimation of the fall of Mandalay from his morning paper. Of course, the telegraph line was interrupted. This message came from Tha-yet-my̆o, brought thither by the King’s steamer.

As the junior officer in the Secretariat, I was told off to board the Thooreah on her arrival. I was thus the first officer in Rangoon to see the ex-King and his Queens. King Thebaw was in appearance a Burman of very ordinary type. He looked neither dissipated nor cruel; nor did he show any emotion or feeling of his melancholy position. His somewhat heavy features were unmistakably those of the House of Alaungpăyá. Both he and his elder sister (who died not long ago) closely resembled the familiar picture of Mindôn Min. Queen Sūpăyá-lāt’s features were more finely marked than is usual with Burmese ladies. She bore no appearance of special depravity, but she certainly looked a little shrew. The legend of Sūpăyá-lāt is that she was a monster of cruelty and wickedness, and that she was mainly responsible for all acts of State during her husband’s reign. From all that I heard in Mandalay, where I had many sources of information, for the most part unfriendly to the ex-Queen, I believe that both her wickedness and her influence have been much exaggerated. She seems to have been of a jealous temper, and to have checked any inclination on the part of her husband to follow the footsteps of Mindôn Min. Doubtless it went hard with any maid who attracted the King’s attention. On one of the golden doors of the palace used to be shown bloodstains, marks of a little hand, signs of the tragic end of a Princess who had incurred the Queen’s wrath. (I am aware of the learned explanation of these marks, but the legend is far more interesting.) Beyond this there is no credible evidence of her cruelty, nor is it well established that she ruled the State. Clearly she wielded some influence; but apart from the story of her speech to the Kinwun Mingyi, the most arrogant action imputed to her was that she used to have her meals before the King. Of course, this was very unusual and unseemly for a Burmese woman of any class. It hardly shows that she was paramount in the direction of the kingdom. The royal exiles were transferred to the R.I.M.S. Clive, and, after remaining for a few days in Rangoon, were taken to Madras. They were finally transferred to Ratnagiri in the Bombay Presidency, where King Thebaw and Sūpăyá-lāt still live. The poor little second Queen, of whom nothing, good or bad, has ever been heard, died last year. An irresponsible journalist lately suggested that Ratnagiri was an unsuitable place of abode for these fallen dignitaries. It is one of the best places that could be chosen. They and their family have been quite healthy. As they cannot be allowed to return to Burma, they are likely to be as contented there as elsewhere. Two of the Ministers and a few retainers were with difficulty persuaded to accompany their fallen master. The Ministers speedily returned to Mandalay. So did most of the retainers after one little Chin maid had given some trouble by running up a tree and declining to come down, because Sūpăyá-lāt, whose temper misfortune may have sharpened, had smacked her.

The rapidity with which the conquest of the Burmese King was effected must always be a subject of astonishment. Many times in the previous wars Burmese soldiers had offered stout resistance, fighting fiercely behind stockades. That the martial spirit still survived was abundantly shown afterwards in the years of desultory fighting described in Sir Charles Crosthwaite’s classic history of the pacification of Burma. The truth is, the central Government was rotten at the core, corrupt and inefficient and singularly impecunious. The balance found in the Treasury at Mandalay was about £5,000, not a very large sum to finance a war. There was no organized Burmese army, with captains versed in the art of war, capable of meeting in the field disciplined troops under trained leaders. But the main cause of the downfall of the Burmese kingdom, with hardly a blow struck in its defence, was no doubt the speed with which preparations for the advance were made, and the skill, swiftness, and resolution with which General Prendergast directed the progress to Mandalay. If a little more time had been allowed to the Burmese, the ascent would have been more arduous, though not less effectual. The celerity with which the operations were carried out is probably paralleled in history only by the advance of the Balkan armies towards Constantinople.

While opposition to the main force was feeble and faint-hearted, at the outset of hostilities reprisals were taken on Englishmen employed in the forests or on the river. It was, indeed, only by the humanity or prudence of some local officials that any of these isolated Englishmen escaped. A Thandawzin83 was sent to deal with Bombay-Burma men on the Chindwin. Four of them were barbarously murdered. The murderer was Thandawzin So Bôn, who disappeared immediately. I sought him diligently, but in vain, for nearly twenty-five years. If he still lives, this record of his name may yet bring to him the reward of his crime. Four other forest men were saved by the intervention of the Wun84 of Mingin.

Upper Burma had long been the refuge of persons who had pressing reasons for leaving Lower Burma; in fact, as one departmental Report said, it was a “perfect Arcadia.” Not only thieves, robbers, dacoits, and murderers, but the bailiff who had lost at Komi the proceeds of Court sales, the Postmaster who was short in his collections, the clerk who had stolen witnesses’ subsistence money, all found an asylum across the border. Demands for extradition were made, but practically never with any effect. The Wun of Mingin was among many who felt it necessary to take measures for their security if, as seemed likely, Upper Burma came under British rule. Long years ago, this astute man had been Akunwun85 of the rich district of Rangoon or Hanthawaddy. One morning, having packed on elephants the contents of the Treasury, some lakhs of rupees, he fled with his plunder across the frontier. There, with his wicked prize, he was a man of importance, obtained office, and in process of time was placed in charge of Mingin on the Chindwin River. Partly moved by humanity, for he was as kindly a man as ever scooped a Treasury, partly, I surmise, because he was shrewd enough to foresee the downfall of the Burmese Government, he protected the Bombay-Burma men who fell into his hands, saved them from ill-usage and death, and made them over to a small British force which early visited the Chindwin. The Wun’s humanity was suitably rewarded. His delinquency was condoned and he became a My̆o-ôk. Though he was believed always to be tainted with the corrupt habits of Upper Burma, he served us moderately well. The fact that he had saved the lives of our countrymen was never forgotten and would have covered many sins. Finally, he died in his bed, up to the day of his death in receipt of a pension from Government. I knew very well both him and his wife, who had accompanied him in his flight from Rangoon. Naturally, we did not in plain words discuss that incident. But reference to early days was sometimes made, and the old lady admitted that the Wun had been frivolous and light-hearted in his youth. When I knew him, he was grave and reverend. This is not the only instance in which persons guilty of past offences in Lower Burma purged their guilt by good service in troubled times and were received back into Government employ. I found it convenient to keep in mind their histories.

Another case of the cruel treatment of Europeans was the seizure of a Flotilla steamer at Moda, between Mandalay and Bhamo, and the imprisonment and ill-treatment of crew and officers. Daily was Captain Redman led out as if to execution. He, too, escaped by some friendly intervention, or the hesitation of his captors to proceed to the last extremity. He was, however, very badly used. The two local officers responsible for these barbarities were brought down to Mandalay, fined and imprisoned, and publicly whipped by the Chief Commissioner’s order.

CHAPTER VIII

EARLY DAYS AT MANDALAY

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-shi89 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 Hlutdaw90 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 Yankintaung92 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. Fforde96 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.