Imprisoned in Burmah.
Forty years ago, the Burmese empire was an unexplored region, and its port of Rangoon the only town where even the Nation of Shopkeepers could do any business.
Two missions from the Bengal government had indeed been sent to the court of Ava, but their experience and representations of native ignorance, insult and caprice were not of a nature to tempt the commercial traveler.
One
Mr. Henry Gonger, however, a young civilian in
India, of three-and twenty, entertained the idea that Amerapoorah — if one could but get there — would be as glad to have British cottons as any more civilized place, nor was he intimidated by the grim suggestion of his friends, that the Burmese might indeed be glad to
have cottons, but not to pay for them — the little that was known for certain of this outlandish nation being, that it was lying, shifty, and addicted to the repudiation of pecuniary claims.
Mr. Gonger arrived safely at
Rangoon, with presents for the king and his court, and a few thousand pounds' worth of British goods.
One-tenth, however, of every article be brought with him was at once exacted as import duty; and the captain was directed to send in the ship's rudder, so that his vessel might be placed entirely in the power of the authorities.
The duties were levied in kind, so that the royal custom house had rather the air of a marine store; and when the number of pieces of cloth were not divisible by ten, a pieces was torn asunder.
As boats were not to be hired,
Mr. Gouger bought a couple of canoes to carry himself and cargo up the Irrawaddi to the seat of government.
The river is easily navigable, nor did he meet with much obstruction from the authorities of the towns on his way, the circumstance of his carrying presents for the king protecting him. The mosquitoes, however, were almost insupportable, and it was injudicious to sit in the stern of a light canoe, since it was thereby depressed low enough to admit of your being taken out of it by the alligators.
During the six weeks occupied by this transit, the assiduous
Mr. Gouger made himself master of the Burmese language.
He found Amerapoorah in a state of transition, because the king had taken it into his head to move the court to Ava, which ancient city being in ruins, had to be rebuilt for his royal accommodation.
The Burmese monarchs are prone to these gigantic fittings, with each of which the population of half a city is reduced to beggary; but the nobles fill their pockets by the corrupt distribution of building-sites, and the frequent litigation to which the removals give rise — for the principle of justice is quite unknown in Burmath, nor can the simplest right be exercised without the help of a bribe.
The king received
Mr. Gonger very graciously, and allowed him to dispense with the native attitude of sitting on one-half of his body only; but the queen, though equally civil, did not make the same allowance for
European prejudices. "Her majesty condescended to present me, as a mark of her special favor, with a pawn from her own box. It was a leaf enclosing a combination of substances at which my stomach revolted — are tobacco, terra japonica, lime, and spice, and I know not what besides.
What was I to do?
I could not chew all this nastiness to a pulp, as was evidently required of me, so with great deliberation I put it into my waistcoat pocket.
A burst of laughter followed from the young ladies behind, at what they supposed to be my ignorance; another peal, when I told them I should keep it forever as a mark of her Majesty's distinguished favour.
The present of a pawn in its crude state is not much amiss, but the exhibition of it in a different shape quite sickened me. Her majesty, after some chewing of one of these delicacies, took it from her mouth and handed it over to a pretty girl behind her, who esteeming herself highly honored by the gift--
horribile diclum! --popped the nasty morsel into her mouth and completed its mastication.
Mr. Gouger concluded from this that the king and queen of
Burmah were a very good natured, though rather a vulgar couple; but a naturalized Englishman — whom, to his extreme astonishment, he found at the court, and whose history is a romance in itself — undeceived him upon this point.
Yadza — for that was the nearest approach of which the Burmese tongue admitted to the gentleman's real name, which was
Rodgers — had been in youth in the East India Company's service; but having had a difficulty with his ship's mate, and, indeed, having left him for dead after a tremendous beating, had fled to
Burmah, where he had remained ever since — that is to say, for forty years. ‘"Do not trust, sir,"’ said he, ‘"to these condescending manners of his majesty.
He gives way to sudden bursts of passion, when for a little while he is like a raging madman, and no one dares to approach him. I was once present at a full durbar, where all the officers of government, then at the capital were assembled.
The king was seated on a gilded chair, as you have seen him, to all appearance in his usual good temper, when something was said by one present which irritated him. His majesty rose quickly from his chair, and disappeared at a door opening to a private department behind the throne.
The council looked all aghast, not knowing what to think of it, but when he reappeared armed with a long spear, the panic was universal.
Sauve qui peoul. We made a simultaneous rush to the wide flight of steps leading to the palace yard, like a hard of deer before a savage tiger; down the stairs we went pell-mell, tumbling over each other in our haste to escape, without respect to rank or station.
His majesty made a furious rush at us, chased the flying crowd to the head of the flight of stairs, and then, quite forgetting in his frenzy who was the delinquent, launched his spear in the midst of us at venture.
It passed my cheek, and stuck in the shoulder of an unfortunate man on the step before me, without doing him any serious injury.
The only man who remained in the council hall was the old
Sakkya Woongee, who could not escape because of his infirmity, however much he might have wished it. He had the cunning to crawt up to a huge marble image of Gautama, always erected in the hall, ready to receive his majesty's devotions, pretending to offer up prayers for the averting of the sing's wrath."’
Mr. Gouger had not to wait long before he was himself a witness to the ‘"tantrums" ’ into which the sovereign could put himself on oction, and indeed very often when there was no occasion for them.
‘"The new palace was now far advanced towards completion.
It was indeed a remarkably beautiful building.
The tallest of the teak-trees of his forests had been hewn and carved into pillars, long elegant vistas of which, richly gilded, already marked its noble proportions.
The tall spire, consisting of a number of roofs tapering one above the other, in the well-known
Chinese style, had just been crowned by the golden
lee, or umbrella, regarded as the glory of the palace, the use of it being confined to the royal residence and to sacred edifices.
This spire is erected over the hall of audience, and the sacred tee, on its prancing, with its hoop of sonorous boils, is placed as nearly as possible over the throne itself.
The architect who planned the palace stood described nigh in his master's favor, for it was admired by every one as a perfect specimen of good taste.
The king was so much pleased with it, that he often amused himself by going to inspect the progress of the works.
On one of these excursions, the town was visited by a terrific thunder — torm, the sacred too was struck by the lighting, the massive iron stanchions supporting it bent nearly to a right angle, and the ill Lated umbrella of course reversed.
It was indeed a melancholy spectacle to behold the fragments of this beautiful pinnacle, suspended at an immense height, a mark for all fury of the storm.
But the tempest was nothing in comparison with that which raged in the least of the tyrant, when he beheld his glory blown to shreds, and an omen of evil brought upon his throne.
As he could not vent his fury on the elements, he turned it on the able but all fated architect.
I did not see him at the moment, but was told that his rage was like frantic insanity.
The poor man was hunted up, and dragged to the place of execution, and the tyrant jactitating at intervals; 'Is he dead?
Is he dead?' as if grudging a prolonged existence even of a few minutes."’
This king, in his savage and unreasonable humors, which had often a sort of grim absurdity about them, that nobody but the vis time could help laughing at, was nothing so much as an ill conditioned and cruel school bully.
A band of adroit jugglers, who had crossed from
Madras on speculation to exhibit their feats in the royal presence, had been so highly successful that his majesty, by way of rewarding melt, had forbidden their departure; and the poor wretches had been already at the court two years, without a prospect of release, on a splendid allowance of a basket of rice to each person monthly.
'The old king, grandfather of the present one, was by turns a bigot and a heretic; at one time slaying his subjects, because they were not orthodox Buddhists; at another, unfrocking their priests and confiscating their monasteries with as little remorse as our own bluff King Hal,' his subjects also following the lead with equal obsequiousness.
At one period, when the heretical mood was in the ascendant, his majesty was troubled in mind while in search of the true religion, which he had the sagacity to see that Buddhism was
not.
"Once launched on the ocean of speculation, the currents drifted the uneasy monarch hither and thither, until at last they set him on the shoal of Muhammadanism.
His majesty hit upon a very curious method of taking the soundings of this faith, in order to ascertain whether there was good holding ground at the bottom.
He was told that they abhorred pork, and would not eat it. 'Very right, too,' said his majesty; 'your Sheen Gautama tried to eat it, and you know it killed him.'-- 'True, your majesty,' was the reply; 'but our religion does not prevent our following his example, if we like, whereas with them it is a matter of their faith — they would die rather than pollute themselves with it' The cunning thought now passed through the monarch's mind, that if they would rather die than taste a bit of pork, there must be some virtue at the roof of their faith. 'We will try'
‘"Now, there were many Mohammedan residing in Ava, some of them foreigners, others native born subjects of the king.
Of these he commanded several of the most considerable to assemble at his palace, where, to their consternation, the flesh of the hated animal was placed ready cooked before them, and they were commanded, without further ceremony to fall to at once.
What a study for
Lavater: What a subject for
Leech!
I feel it is wrong to make tyranny, in its most detestable form, an occasion for amusement; but who can control the imagination in such a case?
Who does not picture to himself the countenance of a solemn moulvie, with his hand on his flowing beard, cursing the story sparerib, as, with a retching, s-sick stomach, he gapes to receive the no holy morsel?
The look of despair — the ill-concealed rage — the mutual, recognizing glances of the chief actors, as much as to save; ‘ "We are all in the same boat — don't tell of me, and I won't tell of you!"’ The scene must have been unique of its kind."’
The then monarch of Barmah was himself addicted to astrological rather than to religious speculation.
When eclipses of the sun were expected, it was the custom of this singular court, that the
Cassay Brahmins, of whom there were many residing in Amerapoorah, should notify the same to the king.
Whether these predictions were given from calculations made by themselves, or whether they acquired their knowledge elsewhere, I forget, but the time at which the eclipse was to take place was always presented from some source or other.
These Brahmins, from the influence they had acquired over the king a mind by their proficiency in his favorite study, had become objects of general envy, and it broke out fiercely at this time, the malcontents taking their stand incantational on very slippery ground.--They aspired to a short-lived victory by denying the correctness of their opponents' prediction.
Many of the chief courtiers joined the cabal from mere hatred to the Brahmins, without the slightest knowledge of the question, or dread of the consequences.
The cunning old king maintained a vexations silence until the chief men about his court were committed to one side or the other; then, when he had drawn a sufficient number into his net, he threatened to punish the losing party, which ever it might be, for attempting to deceive him.
"A pool of water lay invitingly near, and perhaps suggested the thought. 'The Brahmins, or their accusers, shall stand up to the neck in that pond,' said the king; then turning to
Mr. Rodgers: 'What do you say, Yadza?
Are the Brahimns right or wrong?' --'Now,' said
Mr. Rodgers, 'if I had only had the wisdom to say that I was an unlearned man, and knew nothing of these matters, all would have been right; but, fired with the ambition of being thought a learned man, I replied: 'I have not made the calculations your majesty.' 'Oh!
then you can calculate eclipses?' 'Yes, your majesty, after a fashion.' 'Then go home instantly, and let me know what you say to morrow.'
‘"I went home, not to study the deep things of
Newton, you may be sure, but a book of far greater value to my weak comprehension, the
Bengal Almanac, a copy of which had been sent me for that year.
All I had to do was the school boy task of correcting for the longitude, and as bold as brass I gave the result to his majesty.
The heads of many a man of rank, and of many an ill-starred astronomer, did I behold, waving as thick as Lillis, on the surface of that pond.
But I had acquired a character that taxed all my ingenuity to support, and from that time, as long as the old fox lived, I took especial care, with the fear of the horse-pond ever present, never to be without a copy of the
Bengal Annual Almanac."’
[
To be Concluded in our next.]
