by G. A. Henty
Produced by Martin Robb
On The Irrawaddy:A Story of the First Burmese WarBy G. A. HentyIllustrated by W. H. Overend.
Contents
Preface.Chapter 1: A New Career.Chapter 2: The Outbreak of War.Chapter 3: A Prisoner.Chapter 4: A Ruined Temple.Chapter 5: With Brigands.Chapter 6: Among Friends.Chapter 7: On The Staff.Chapter 8: The Pagoda.Chapter 9: Victories.Chapter 10: The Advance.Chapter 11: Donabew.Chapter 12: Harry Carried Off.Chapter 13: Preparing A Rescue.Chapter 14: In The Temple.Chapter 15: The Attack.Chapter 16: Rejoining.Chapter 17: The Pride Of Burma Humbled.Chapter 18: In Business Again.
Illustrations
Stanley is brought before Bandoola, the Burmese general.Stanley gave a sudden spring, and buried his knife in the leopard.They forced the canoe behind bushes, so as to be entirely concealed.The Burmese make a great effort to capture Pagoda Hill.Stanley cut down the man who was about to fire the hut.The great snake moved his head higher and higher, hissing angrily.In vain the Burmese tried to force their way into the chamber.The old Burmese general was carried from point to point in a litter.
Preface.
With the exception of the terrible retreat from Afghanistan, noneof England's many little wars have been so fatal--in proportion tothe number of those engaged--as our first expedition to Burma. Itwas undertaken without any due comprehension of the difficulties tobe encountered, from the effects of climate and the deficiency oftransport; the power, and still more the obstinacy and arrogance ofthe court of Ava were altogether underrated; and it was consideredthat our possession of her ports would assuredly bring the enemy,who had wantonly forced the struggle upon us, to submission.Events, however, proved the completeness of the error. The Burmanpolicy of carrying off every boat on the river, laying waste thewhole country, and driving away the inhabitants and the herds,maintained our army as prisoners in Rangoon through the first wetseason; and caused the loss of half the white officers and menfirst sent there. The subsequent campaign was no less fatal and,although large reinforcements had been sent, fifty percent of thewhole died; so that less than two thousand fighting men remained inthe ranks, when the expedition arrived within a short distance ofAva. Not until the last Burmese army had been scattered did thecourt of Ava submit to the by no means onerous terms we imposed.
Great, indeed, was the contrast presented by this first invasion ofthe country with the last war in 1885, which brought about thefinal annexation of Burma. Then a fleet of steamers conveyed thetroops up the noble river; while in 1824 a solitary steamer was allthat India could furnish, to aid the flotilla of rowboats. No worsegovernment has ever existed than that of Burma when, with the boastthat she intended to drive the British out of India, she began thewar. No people were ever kept down by a more grinding tyranny, andthe occupation of the country by the British has been an evengreater blessing to the population than has that of India.
Several works, some by eyewitnesses, others compiled from officialdocuments, appeared after the war. They differ remarkably in therelation of details, and still more in the spelling of the namesboth of persons and places. I have chiefly followed those given inthe narratives of Mr. H. H. Wilson, and of Major Snodgrass, themilitary secretary to the commander of the expedition.
Chapter 1: A New Career.
A party was assembled in a room of an hotel in Calcutta, at the endof the year 1822. It consisted of a gentleman, a lady in deepmourning, a boy of between fourteen and fifteen, and two girls ofthirteen and twelve.
"I think you had better accept my offer, Nellie," the gentleman wassaying. "You will find it hard work enough to make both ends meet,with these two girls; and Stanley would be a heavy drain on you.The girls cost nothing but their clothes; but he must go to adecent school, and then there would be the trouble of thinking whatto do with him, afterwards. If I could have allowed you a couple ofhundred a year, it would have been altogether different; but yousee I am fighting an uphill fight, myself, and need every pennythat I can scrape together. I am getting on; and I can see wellenough that, unless something occurs to upset the whole thing, Ishall be doing a big trade, one of these days; but every half pennyof profit has to go into the business. So, as you know, I cannothelp you at present though, by the time the girls grow up, I hope Ishall be able to do so, and that to a good extent.
"I feel sure that it would not be a bad thing for Stanley. He willsoon get to be useful to me, and in three or four years will be avaluable assistant. Speaking Hindustani as well as he does, hewon't be very long in picking up enough of the various dialects inKathee and Chittagong for our purpose and, by twenty, he will havea share of the business, and be on the highway towards making hisfortune. It will be infinitely better than anything he is likely tofind in England, and he will be doing a man's work at the age whenhe would still be a schoolboy in England.
"I have spoken to him about it. Of course, he does not like leavingyou, but he says that he should like it a thousand times betterthan, perhaps, having to go into some humdrum office in England."
"Thank you, Tom," Mrs. Brooke said with a sigh. "It will be veryhard to part with him--terribly hard--but I see that it is by farthe best thing for him and, as you say, in a monetary way it willbe a relief to me. I think I can manage very comfortably on thepension, in some quiet place at home, with the two girls; butStanley's schooling would be a heavy drain. I might even managethat, for I might earn a little money by painting; but there wouldbe the question of what to do with him when he left school and,without friends or influence, it will be hopeless to get him intoany good situation.
"You see, Herbert's parents have both died since he came out hereand, though he was distantly related to the Earl of Netherly, hewas only a second cousin, or something of that kind, and knewnothing about the family; and of course I could not apply to them."
"Certainly not, Nellie," her brother agreed. "There is nothing sohateful as posing as a poor relation--and that is a connectionrather than a relationship. Then you will leave the boy in myhands?"
"I am sure that it will be best," she said, with a tremor in hervoice, "and at any rate, I shall have the comfort of knowing thathe will be well looked after."
Mrs. Brooke was the widow of a captain in one of the nativeregiments of the East India Company. He had, six weeks before this,been carried off suddenly by an outbreak of cholera; and she hadbeen waiting at Calcutta, in order to see her brother, beforesailing for England. She was the daughter of an English clergyman,who had died some seventeen years before. Nellie, who was theneighteen, being motherless as well as fatherless, had determined tosail for India. A great friend of hers had married and gone out, ayear before. Nellie's father was at that time in bad health; andher friend had said to her, at parting:
"Now mind, Nellie, I have your promise that, if you should findyourself alone here, you will come out to me in India. I shall bevery glad to have you with me, and I don't suppose you will be onmy hands very long; pretty girls don't remain single many months,in India."
So, seeing nothing better to do, Nellie had, shortly after herfather's death, sailed for Calcutta.
Lieutenant Brooke was also a passenger on board the Ava, and duringthe long voyage he and Nellie Pearson became engaged; and weremarried, from her friend's house, a fortnight after their arrival.Nellie was told that she was a foolish girl, for that she ought tohave done better; but she was perfectly happy. The pay andallowances of her husband were sufficient for them to live upon incomfort; and though, when the children came, there was little tospare, the addition of pay when he gained the rank of captain wasample for their wants. They had been, in fact, a perfectly happycouple--both had bright and sunny dispositions, a
nd made the bestof everything; and she had never had a serious care, until he wassuddenly taken away from her.
Stanley had inherited his parents' disposition and, as his sisters,coming so soon after him, occupied the greater portion of hismother's care, he was left a good deal to his own devices; andbecame a general pet in the regiment, and was equally at home inthe men's lines and in the officers' bungalows. The native languagecame as readily to him as English and, by the time he was ten, hecould talk in their own tongue with the men from the three or fourdifferent districts from which the regiment had been recruited. Hisfather devoted a couple of hours a day to his studies. He did notattempt to teach him Latin--which would, he thought, be altogetheruseless to him--but gave him a thorough grounding in English andIndian history, and arithmetic, and insisted upon his spending acertain time each day in reading standard English authors.
Tom Pearson, who was five years younger than his sister, had comeout to India four years after her. He was a lad full of life andenergy. As soon as he left school, finding himself the master of ahundred pounds--the last remains of the small sum that his fatherhad left behind him--he took a second-class passage to Calcutta. Assoon as he had landed, he went round to the various merchants andoffices and, finding that he could not, owing to a want ofreferences, obtain a clerkship, he took a place in the store of aParsee merchant who dealt in English goods. Here he remained forfive years, by which time he had mastered two or three nativelanguages, and had obtained a good knowledge of business.
He now determined to start on his own account. He had lived hardly,saving up every rupee not needed for actual necessaries and, at theend of the five years he had, in all, a hundred and fifty pounds.He had, long before this, determined that the best opening fortrade was among the tribes on the eastern borders of the Britishterritory; and had specially devoted himself to the study of thelanguages of Kathee and Chittagong.
Investing the greater portion of his money in goods suitable for thetrade, he embarked at Calcutta in a vessel bound for Chittagong.There he took passage in a native craft going up the great river toSylhet, where he established his headquarters; and thence--leavingthe greater portion of his goods in the care of a native merchant,with whom his late employer had had dealings--started with a native,and four donkeys on which his goods were packed, to trade among thewild tribes.
His success fully equalled his anticipations and, gradually, heextended his operations; going as far east as Manipur, and southalmost as far as Chittagong. The firm in Calcutta from whom he had,in the first place, purchased his goods, sent him up fresh storesas he required them; and soon, seeing the energy with which he waspushing his business, gave him considerable credit, and he was ableto carry on his operations on an increasingly larger scale. Sylhetremained his headquarters; but he had a branch at Chittagong,whither goods could be sent direct from Calcutta, and from this hedrew his supplies for his trade in that province.
Much of his business was carried on by means of the waterways, andthe very numerous streams that covered the whole country, andenabled him to carry his goods at a far cheaper rate than he couldtransport them by land; and for this purpose he had a boatspecially fitted up with a comfortable cabin. He determined, fromthe first, to sell none but the best goods in the market; and thushe speedily gained the confidence of the natives, and the arrivalof his boats was eagerly hailed by the villagers on the banks ofthe rivers.
He soon found that money was scarce; and that, to do a goodbusiness, he must take native products in barter for his goods; andthat in this way he not only did a much larger trade, but obtaineda very much better price for his wares than if he had sold only formoney; and he soon consigned considerable quantities to the firm inCalcutta and, by so doing, obtained a profit both ways. He himselfpaid a visit to Calcutta, every six months or so, to choose freshfashions of goods; and to visit the firm, with whom his dealings,every year, became more extensive. But, though laying thefoundations for an extensive business, he was not, as he told hissister, at present in a position to help her; for his increasingtrade continually demanded more and more capital, and the whole ofhis profits were swallowed up by the larger stocks that had to beheld at his depots at Sylhet, Chittagong, and at the mouths of thelarger rivers.
Twice since he had been out he had met his sister at Calcutta, andwhen she came down after her husband's death, and heard from Tom'sagents that he would probably arrive there in the course of afortnight, she decided to wait there and meet him. He was greatlygrieved at her loss, and especially so as he was unable to offerher a home; for as his whole time was spent in travelling, it wasimpossible for him to do so; nor indeed, would she have acceptedit. Now that her husband was gone, she yearned to be back inEngland again. It was, too, far better for the girls that sheshould take them home. But when he now offered to take the boy shefelt that, hard as it would be to leave Stanley behind, the offerwas a most advantageous one for him.
The boy's knowledge of Indian languages, which would be of immenseadvantage to him in such a life, would be absolutely useless inEngland and, from what Tom told her of his business, there could belittle doubt that the prospects were excellent. Stanley himself,who now saw his uncle for the first time, was attracted to him bythe energy and cheeriness of manner that had rendered him sosuccessful in business; and he was stirred by the enterprise andadventure of the life he proposed for him. More than once, in thelittle-frequented rivers that stretched into Kathee, his boats hadbeen attacked by wild tribesmen; and he had to fight hard to keepthem off. Petty chiefs had, at times, endeavoured to obstruct histrading and, when at Manipur, he had twice been witness ofdesperate fights between rival claimants for the throne. All thiswas, to a boy brought up among soldiers, irresistibly fascinating;especially as the alternative seemed to be a seat in a dullcounting house in England.
He was, then, delighted when his mother gave her consent to hisremaining with his uncle; grieved as he was at being parted fromher and his sisters. The thought that he should, in time, be ableto be of assistance to her was a pleasant one; and aided him tosupport the pain of parting when, a week later, she sailed with thegirls for England.
"I suppose you have not done any shooting, Stanley?" his uncleasked.
"Not with a gun, but I have practised sometimes with pistols.Father thought that it would be useful."
"Very useful; and you must learn to shoot well with them, and withfowling-piece and rifle. What with river thieves, and dacoits, andwild tribes--to say nothing of wild beasts--a man who travelsabout, as I do, wants to be able to shoot straight. The straighteryou shoot, the less likely you are to have to do so. I have come tobe a good shot myself and, whenever we row up a river, I constantlypractise--either at floating objects in the water, or at birds orother marks in the trees. I have the best weapons that money canbuy. It is my one extravagance, and the result is that, to myboatmen and the men about me, my shooting seems to be marvellous;they tell others of it, and the result is that I am regarded withgreat respect. I have no doubt, whatever, that it has saved me frommuch trouble; for the natives have almost got to believe that Ionly have to point my gun, and the man I wish to kill falls dead,however far distant."
Two days after the departure of Mrs. Brooke, her brother andStanley started down the Hoogly in a native trader.
"She is a curious-looking craft, uncle."
"Yes; she would not be called handsome in home waters, but she isuncommonly fast; and I find her much more convenient, in many ways,than a British merchantman."
"Is she yours, uncle?"
"No, she is not mine, and I do not exactly charter her; but sheworks principally for me. You see, the wages are so low that theycan work a craft like this for next to nothing. Why, the captainand his eight men, together, don't get higher pay than theboatswain of an English trader.
"The captain owns the vessel. He is quite content if he gets a fewrupees a month, in addition to what he considers his own rate ofpay. His wife and his two children live on board. If the craft canearn twenty rupees a week, he
considers that he is doingsplendidly. At the outside, he would not pay his men more than fourrupees a month, each, and I suppose that he would put down hisservices at eight; so that would leave him forty rupees a month asthe profit earned by the ship.
"In point of fact, I keep him going pretty steadily. He makes tripsbackwards and forwards between the different depots; carries me upthe rivers for a considerable distance; does a little trade on hisown account--not in goods such as I sell, you know, but purelynative stores--takes a little freight when he can get it, andgenerally a few native passengers. I pay him fifteen rupees a week,and I suppose he earns from five to ten in addition; so that thearrangement suits us both, admirably.
"I keep the stern cabin for myself. As you see, she has four littlebrass guns, which I picked up for a song at Calcutta; and there aretwenty-four muskets aft. It is an arrangement that the crew are topractise shooting once a week, so they have all come to be prettyfair shots; and the captain, himself, can send a two-pound shotfrom those little guns uncommonly straight.
"You will be amused when you see us practising for action. Thecaptain's wife and the two boys load the guns, and do it veryquickly, too. He runs round from gun to gun, takes aim, and fires.The crew shout, and yell, and bang away with their muskets. I takethe command, and give a few pice among them, if the firing has beenaccurate.
"We have been attacked, once or twice, in the upper waters; buthave always managed to beat the robbers off, without muchdifficulty. The captain fires away, till they get pretty close; andI pepper them with my rifles--I have three of them. When they getwithin fifty yards, the crew open fire and, as they have threemuskets each, they can make it very hot for the pirates. I have astore of hand grenades and, if they push on, I throw two or threeon board when they get within ten yards; and that has alwaysfinished the matter. They don't understand the things bursting inthe middle of them. I don't mean to say that my armament would beof much use, if we were trading along the coast of the MalayPeninsula or among the Islands, but it is quite enough to deal withthe petty robbers of these rivers."
"But I thought that you had a boat that you went up the rivers in,uncle?"
"Yes; we tow a rowboat and a store boat up, behind this craft, asfar as she can go; that is, as long as she has wind enough to makeagainst the sluggish stream. When she can go no further, I take tothe rowboat. It has eight rowers, carries a gun--it is atwelve-pounder howitzer--that I have had cut short, so that it isonly about a foot long. Of course it won't carry far, but that isnot necessary. Its charge is a pound of powder and a ten-pound bagof bullets and, at a couple of hundred yards, the balls scatterenough to sweep two or three canoes coming abreast and, as we cancharge and fire the little thing three times in a minute, it is allthat we require, for practical purposes.
"It is only on a few of the rivers we go up that there is any fearof trouble. On the river from Sylhet to the east and its branchesin Kathee or, as it is sometimes called, Kasi, the country iscomparatively settled. The Goomtee beyond Oudypore is well enough,until it gets into Kaayn, which is what they call independent. Thatis to say, it owns no authority; and some villages are peaceableand well disposed, while others are savage. The same may be said ofthe Munnoo and Fenny rivers.
"For the last two years I have done a good deal of trade in Assam,up the Brahmaputra river. As far as Rungpoor there are a great manyvillages on the banks, and the people are quiet and peaceable."
"Then you don't go further south than Chittagong, uncle?"
"No. The Burmese hold Aracan on the south and, indeed, for somedistance north of it there is no very clearly-defined border. Yousee, the great river runs from Rangoon very nearly due north,though with a little east in it; and extends along at the back ofthe districts I trade with; so that the Burmese are not very farfrom Manipur which, indeed, stands on a branch of the Irrawaddy, ofwhich another branch runs nearly up to Rungpoor.
"We shall have big trouble with them, one of these days; indeed, wehave had troubles already. You see, the Burmese are a great andincreasing power, and have so easily conquered all their neighboursthat they regard themselves as invincible. Until the beginning ofthe eighteenth century, the Burmese were masters of Pegu; then thepeople of that country, with the help of the Dutch and Portuguese,threw off their yoke. But the Burmese were not long kept down for,in 1753, Alompra--a hunter--gathered a force round him and, afterkeeping up an irregular warfare for some time, was joined by somany of his countrymen that he attacked and captured Ava, conqueredthe whole of Pegu and, in 1759, the English trading colony atNegrais were massacred.
"This, however, was not the act of Alompra, but of the treachery ofa Frenchman named Levine, and of an Armenian; who incited theBurmese of the district to exterminate the English--hoping, nodoubt, thus to retrieve, in a new quarter, the fortunes of France,which in India were being extinguished by the genius of Clive. TheEnglish were, at the time, far too occupied with the desperatestruggle they were having, in India, to attempt to revenge themassacre of their countrymen at Negrais.
"Very rapidly the Burman power spread. They captured the valuableTenasserim coast, from Siam; repulsed a formidable invasion fromChina; annexed Aracan, and dominated Manipur, and thus becamemasters of the whole tract of country lying between China andHindustan. As they now bordered upon our territory, a mission wassent in 1794 to them from India, with a proposal for the settlementof boundaries, and for the arrangement of trade between the twocountries. Nothing came of it, for the Burmese had alreadyproposed, to themselves, the conquest of India; and considered themission as a proof of the terror that their advance had inspiredamong us.
"After the conquest by them of Aracan, in 1784, there had been aconstant irritation felt against us by the Burmese; owing to thefact that a great number of fugitives from that country had takenrefuge in the swamps and islands of Chittagong; from which they,from time to time, issued and made raids against the Burmese. In1811 these fugitives, in alliance with some predatory chiefs,invaded Aracan in force and, being joined by the subject populationthere, expelled the Burmese. These, however, soon reconquered theprovince. The affair was, nevertheless, unfortunate, since theBurmese naturally considered that, as the insurrection had begunwith an invasion by the fugitives in Chittagong, it had beenfomented by us.
"This was in no way the fact. We had no force there capable ofkeeping the masses of fugitives in order; but we did our best, andarrested many of the leaders, when they returned after theirdefeat. This, however, was far from satisfying the Burmese. Amission was sent, to Ava, to assure them of our friendlyintentions; and that we had had nothing whatever to do with theinvasion, and would do all we could to prevent its recurrence. TheBurmese government declined to receive the mission.
"We, ourselves, had much trouble with the insurgents for, fearfulof re-entering Burma after their defeat, they now carried on aseries of raids in our territory; and it was not until 1816 thatthese were finally suppressed. Nevertheless, the court of Avaremained dissatisfied; and a fresh demand was raised for thesurrender of the chiefs who had been captured, and of the whole ofthe fugitives living in the government of Chittagong. The Marquisof Hastings replied that the British government could not, withouta violation of the principles of justice, deliver up those who hadsought its protection; that tranquillity now existed, and there wasno probability of a renewal of the disturbances; but that thegreatest vigilance should be used, to prevent and punish theauthors of any raid that might be attempted against Aracan.
"A year later a second letter was received, demanding on the partof the king the cession of Ramoo, Chittagong, Moorshedabad, andDacca; that is to say, of the whole British possessions east of theGanges. Lord Hastings simply replied that if it was possible tosuppose that the demand had been dictated by the King of Ava, theBritish government would be justified in regarding it as adeclaration of war. To this the Burmese made no reply. Doubtlessthey had heard of the successes we had gained in Central India, andhad learned that our whole force was disposable against them.
"Three yea
rs ago the old king died, and a more warlike monarchsucceeded him. Since 1810 they have been mixed up in the troublesthat have been going on in Assam, where a civil war had beenraging. One party or other has sought their assistance, andfighting has been going on there nearly incessantly and, two monthsago, the Burmese settled the question by themselves takingpossession of the whole country.
"This has, of course, been a serious blow to me. Although disorderhas reigned, it has not interfered with my trading along the banksof the river; but now that the Burmese have set up their authority,I shall, for a time anyhow, be obliged to give up my operationsthere; for they have evinced considerable hostility to us--have maderaids near Rungpoor, on our side of the river, and have pulled downa British flag on an island in the Brahmaputra. We have taken, inconsequence, the principality of Cachar under our protection--indeedits two princes, seeing that the Burmese were beginning to invadetheir country, invited us to take this step--and we thus occupy thepasses from Manipur into the low country of Sylhet."
"I wonder that you have been able to trade in Manipur, uncle, asthe Burmese have been masters there."
"I am not trading with the capital itself, and the Burmese havebeen too occupied with their affairs in Assam to exercise muchauthority in the country. Besides, you see, there has not been warbetween the two countries. Our merchants at Rangoon still carry ontheir trade up the Irrawaddy; and in Assam, this spring, the onlytrouble I had was that I had to pay somewhat higher tolls than Ihad done before. However, now that Cachar is under our protection,I hope that I shall make up for my loss of trade, in Assam, bydoing better than before in that province."
"I thought you called it Kathee, uncle?"
"So it is generally named but, as it is spoken of as Cachar in theproclamation assuming the protectorate, I suppose it will be calledso in future; but all these names, out here, are spelt pretty muchaccording to fancy."
While this conversation had been going on, the boat had beenrunning fast down the river, passing several European vesselsalmost as if they had been standing still.
"I should not have thought that a boat like this would pass theselarge ships," Stanley said.
"We have a good deal to learn in the art of sailing, yet," hisuncle replied. "A great many of these Indian dhows can run awayfrom a square-rigged ship, in light weather. I don't know whetherit is the lines of their hulls or the cut of the sails, but thereis no doubt about their speed. They seem to skim over the water,while our bluff-bowed craft shove their way through it. I suppose,some day, we shall adopt these long sharp bows; when we do, it willmake a wonderful difference in our rate of sailing. Then, too,these craft have a very light draft of water but, on the otherhand, they have a deep keel, which helps them to lie close to thewind; and that long, overhanging bow renders them capital craft inheavy weather for, as they meet the sea, they rise over itgradually; instead of its hitting them full on the bow, as it doesour ships. We have much to learn, yet, in the way of shipbuilding."
The trader had his own servant with him, and the man now came upand said that a meal was ready, and they at once entered the cabin.It was roomy and comfortable, and was, like the rest of the boat,of varnished teak. There were large windows in the stern; it had atable, with two fixed benches; and there were broad, low sofas oneach side. Above these the muskets were disposed, in racks; whileat the end by the door were Tom Pearson's own rifles, four brace ofpistols, and a couple of swords. Ten long spears were suspendedfrom the roof of the cabin, in leather slings. The floor, like therest of the cabin, was varnished.
"It looks very comfortable, uncle."
"Yes; you see, I live quite half my time on board, the rest beingspent in the boat. My man is a capital cook. He comes fromChittagong, and is a Mug."
"What are Mugs, uncle?"
"They are the original inhabitants of Aracan. He was one of thosewho remained there, after the Burmese had conquered it, and speakstheir language as well as his own. I recommend you to begin it withhim, at once. If things settle down in Assam, it will be veryuseful for you in arranging with the Burmese officials. You won'tfind it very easy, though of course your knowledge of three or fourIndian tongues will help you. It is said to be a mixture of the oldTali, Sanscrit, Tartar, and Chinese. The Tartar and Chinese wordswill, of course, be quite new to you; the other two elements willresemble those that you are familiar with.
"I talk to the man in Hindustani. He picked up a little of it atChittagong, and has learned a good deal more, during the two yearsthat he has been with me; and through that you will be able tolearn Burmese."
A week later the dhow entered the harbour. Stanley had passed mostof his time in conversation with Khyen, Tom's servant. The facilityhis tongue had acquired in the Indian languages was of greatbenefit to him, and he speedily picked up a good many Burmesesentences.
For the next six months he continued, with his uncle, the work thelatter had carried on; and enjoyed it much. They sailed up thesluggish rivers, with their low, flat shores, in the dhow; towingthe rowboat and the store boat behind them. The crews of theseboats lived on board the dhow until their services were required,helping in its navigation and aiding the crew when the wind droppedand sweeps were got out.
The villages along the banks were for the most part small, but werevery numerous. At each of these the dhow brought up. There was, inalmost all cases, sufficient water to allow of her being mooredalongside the banks and, as soon as she did so, the natives came onboard to make their purchases and dispose of their produce. Inaddition to the European and Indian goods carried, the dhow wasladen with rice, for which there was a considerable demand at mostof the villages.
As soon as he had learned the price of the various goods, and theirequivalent in the products of the country, Stanley did much of thebartering; while his uncle went ashore and talked with the head menof the village, with all of whom he made a point of keeping on goodterms, and so securing a great portion of the trade that might,otherwise, have been carried by native craft.
Three times during the six months the dhow had gone back toCalcutta, to fetch fresh supplies of goods and to take in anothercargo of rice; while the trader proceeded higher up the river, inhis own boats. While on the voyage, Stanley always had the rifleand fowling piece that his uncle had handed over, for his specialuse, leaning against the bulwark, close at hand; and frequentlyshot waterfowl, which were so abundant that he was able to keep notonly their own table supplied, but to furnish the crew and boatmenwith a considerable quantity of food. They had had no trouble withriver pirates, for these had suffered so heavily, in previousattacks upon the dhow, that they shunned any repetition of theirloss. At the same time every precaution was taken, for, owing to theintestine troubles in Cachar and Assam, fugitives belonging to theparty that happened, for the time, to be worsted, were driven totake refuge in the jungles near the rivers; and to subsist largelyon plunder, the local authorities being too feeble to root themout. The boats, therefore, were always anchored in the middle ofthe stream at night and two men were kept on watch.
To the south as well as in the north, the trading operations weremore restricted; for the Burmese became more and more aggressive.Elephant hunters, in the hills that formed the boundary of theBritish territory to the east, were seized and carried off;twenty-three in one place being captured, and six in another--allbeing ill treated and imprisoned, and the remonstrances of theIndian government treated with contempt by the Rajah of Aracan. Itwas evident that the object of the Burmese was to possessthemselves of this hill country in order that they might, if theychose, pour down at any time into the cultivated country round thetown of Ramoo.
"There is no doubt, Stanley," said his uncle one day, "we shallvery shortly have a big war with the Burmese. The fact that theseconstant acts of aggression are met only by remonstrances, on ourpart, increases their arrogance; and they are convinced that we arein mortal terror of them. They say that in Assam their leaders areopenly boasting that, ere long, they will drive us completely fromIndia; and one of their generals
has confidently declared that,after taking India, they intend to conquer England. With suchignorant people, there is but one argument understood--namely,force; and sooner or later we shall have to give them such a heartythrashing that they will be quiet for some time.
"Still, I grant that the difficulties are great. Their country is atremendous size, the beggars are brave, and the climate, at anyrate near the sea coast, is horribly unhealthy. Altogether it willbe a big job; but it will have to be done, or in a very short timewe shall see them marching against Calcutta."