The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-05-03 00:00:00

THE STATE OF BURMAH.

The Daily Few of Ifonday publishes a letter from their
Correspondent at Rangoon (under 4ate April Ist), from which
we make the following extract :

The Government has decided to do nothing for the
present—to send no ultimatum, to demand no gull-
rantee for the safety of British subjects in Mandalay;
eineply to wait on the defensive, and see what King
Theebaw's next move will be. The position is not at all
a pleasant one for Mr. Shaw, who appears uncom-
fortably like being abandoned to the tender mercies
of the drink sodden young monarch. One of the Ira-
waddy Flotilla boats, however, is kept up in Mandalay
with fires banked, ready to carry off the members of
the Residency at half an hour's notice in case any
sudden denger chould arise. That affairs are very
critical in the Golden City is only too evident. Letters
become more and more gloomy and there has been an
almost complete exodus of
,British subjects and of all
whose wealth might elevate them to an equally honour-
able, if perilous, eminence. As far as I know, the
oely Englishmen now in the Burmese capital are
Messrs. Shaw, Phayre, and St. Bathe, with the Rev.
J. A. Colbeck, of the S.P.G. mission. These gentle-
men are in a very ticklish predicament. To
remain where they are implies an almost unen-
durable mental and bodily strain. To go away
would be almost certainly regarded by young
Thebaw and his councillors as a declaration of war,
and the three hundred miles to the frontier
would seem trebly long in a race for life. Arrivals
from the Royal city report that Thebaw is steadily
gathering men, and is furbishing up his arms, an
operation .they stood very much in need of. The
Enfields have been brought out of the arsenal,
and the Burmese soldiery may be seen all day long
washing the b trrels in the little rivulets which run
along most of the Mandalay streets, and after-
wards endeavouring to get a bolish on them by
a vigorous rubbing with broken bricks. Tne
cannon have been relieved of the spare clethes which
the palace guards used to k tuff into them, and an
attempt is being made to get them mounted. M. de
Facieu, old Min-done-Min's general of artillery, has
arrived in Rangoon, and is inclined to think that busi-
ness is meant. The Mandala,v gunners are not likely
to prove formidable. M. de Facieu was never able to
get them any practice He tells, with a chuckle, of
the only occasion when they had ball practice. It was
immediately after he had received his appointment,
and he got a battery with infinite toil and trouble to
go outside the town and commence firing. The king,
Min-done-Min, heard the unwonted noise, and was
profoundly enraged, for Burmese Royal ears should '
never be assailed by loud sounds, far less by such
startling reports as came from the Royal battery. A
messenger was sent off as fast as the fastest pony in
the Royal stables could carry him to put a atop to it.
Nothing was done to M. de Facieu, except that he got
orders on no account to do anything of the kind again,
He was looked upon as s poor Kalah—an ignorant
foreigner—who could not he expected to know any
better, but the Burman officer of the battery was
flogged almost to death for his treasonable imperti-
nence, and the guns were stored up to prevent such a
hideous enormity being perpetrated again. The old King
had a mania for getting cannon at one time. All
kinds and conditions of people used to come up to
Mandalay to try and get employment from him.
Min-done-Min had a regular formula with them all.
'What is your name?" "John Jones." "What
can you do "I am a pastry cook, your Majesty."
"Cam :you make a cannon ? " Whereupon John
Jones, if he was wise, would say, like the canny Scot
who was asked if he could play the fiddle, that he had
never tried, but was quite willing to make the experi-
ment. Theebaw has therefore quite a large stock of
;elms, more or less useless, at his disposal, and possibly
his youthful ears may deign to allow themselves to be
outraged by the sound of practice, for the sake of
imagined triumphs, He has even a few Gaffing guns,
made in Mandalay by an Italian artificer from a model
obtained somewhere or other.

The Mandalay infantry man is quite 89 amusing an
individual as his brother the bombardier. He rejoices
in a conieal tin helmet, like a candle extinguisher,
adorned with a piece of looking-glass in front. Of this
he is very proud, but does mot disdain to drink water
and eat, his dinner out of it. Those on euard wear the
cast-off uniform coats of Madras Native Infantry
Regiments. As, however, there is only a limited
supply of these adornments, the man on guard strips
and hands over his uniform to his relief, and goes
home happy. They are specially proud of their drill,
and it certainly comprises some evolutions not con-
templated by the compilers of the "Manual of
Field Exercise." The squad assembles in a rough
line, all with their putsoes—a cloth worn round the
waist, and reachipg when loose to below the knee
tucked up ; some of them emoking, others with a plug
of betel in their cheeks. The officer in charge cries
"Hs," and slaps his thigh, a performance which is
followed with more or less precision by his company,
one or two, who are engaged in lighting their tsalays
—huge, torchlight, green cheroots—being considerably
behind hand, but slapping thighs all the more loudly
just to call attention to the fact that they have done it. '
The officer then calls "Hi" again and slaps his other
limb. The soldiers do ditto. Then he says "He "and
hunches up his shoulders, says " He "and brings them
down again; brandishes an apparently jointless limb
in the air, follows suit with the other, exclaiming Si
vigorously and is dutifully copied by his men. At
this stage one of them i petty sure to get excited and
turns a double somersault, whereupon all laugh and
the instructor exclaims cinch, the invariable ejacula-
tion of a Burman and intoned RO as to express joy,
sorrow, admiration, or disgust. By and by a few
squat down, and when the commandant is tired of it
he does so also, and the aqttad dissolves or not as it
pleases, every man entirely satisfied that he has done
vood work and is a credit te his village. The number
of Theebaw's array is only liutited by the number of
the men in the country, for every able-bdied man has
tattooed on his body the dragon, the enciblein of mili-
tary tservice. Probably he could turn out 50,000 men,
but the great majority of these would be without
muskets.
The Rangoon Burmans are firmly persuaded that
Theebaw has concluded an alliance with the Emperor
of China, and is only waiting for a Cklestial army to
sweep down on Lower Burrnah, and drive the Great
Queen's armies into the Bay of Bengal. In the
year 1875 an Imperial Envoy from China was re-
ceived at Mandalay with great pomp, and a
Burmese Envoy was sent in return to ".ekin
with presents, and an aclinowledgment by the
KiDG of Burimah c.f 'the suzerainty of the Emperor
of China. Many Burmans, therefore, believe that if
an English force crosses the frontier' the Pekin Court
will immediately put in a claim to supremacy and
protection over Burnash, and there is, therefore, much
alarm and disquiet-even hr the- most respectable
loyal Burniese circles. , . ,

and si