XXII
BAPTISTS AND BUDDHISM
There are twelve million Burmese here in Burma. I told you in my last letter how thoroughly Buddha had, 2500 years ago, captured the Burmese with his doctrines.
For 2400 years Buddha practically had it all his own way. If in that time any other competing religions sought a foothold in Burma, they became discouraged and moved out.
Burma was solid for Buddha.
Buddha had a monopoly and held it against all comers for 2400 years. One hundred and one years ago the Baptists came to contest the field.
They didn't come with a blare of trumpets. One man, a Rev. Adoniram Judson, and his wife started out from Salem, Massachusetts, came to Burma and settled here in Rangoon, to wrest from Buddha his adherents, and add them to the Baptist Church. They worked six years without winning a convert. After one hundred and one years the results are:
from which figures one must agree with me that Buddha ploughed deep and planted thoroughly. The other Christian denominations have about 66,000 members between them.
There are of baptized Baptists in Burma 66,000, all other Christians about the same number. The Christians claim an adherent, or nominal Christian, for every church member; so baptized and nominal Christians in Burma number 264,000.
This makes 10,264,000 Buddhists and Christians. The balance of the 12,000,000 in Burma are non-Christians or non-Buddhists, and are composed of various peoples, and tribes: the Karens, Chins, Kachins, Musos, etc.
But the Baptists admit that the great majority of their converts were not made from Buddhists, but from the Karens, Chins, Kachins, and Musos, chiefly from the Karens.
To quote from the minutes of the Judson Centennial held here in Rangoon in 1913:
"But what of the Buddhist population, which is so greatly in the majority that out of a total of 12,115,217 dwellers in the land, 10,384,579 are returned as Buddhists? From among the Buddhists only 3,197 are members of our own Baptist churches, and a correspondingly small number are members of other communions. It is thus readily seen that, while the success of our missions in Burma has been very great, those who have professed belief in Christ have come very largely from the non-Buddhist population.
"Of the ten million Buddhists, eight million are Burmans, and of Burman Baptist Christians we find but 2,700. Please bear that fact in mind – 2,700 Burmans in our churches and eight million Buddhist Burmans. To each Burman Baptist church member there are 3,000 Burman Buddhists looking us in the face as we turn to our task for the coming century."
The Baptists here are hotly contesting the field; bombarding it with a thoroughly up-to-date publishing plant; with a college, schools, and missionaries. For the first twenty years of work we find them with 2,000 converts to their credit.
After half a century of labor we find them with 12,000 converts, while for the full century we find them with 66,000.
A significant fact stands out clear and forceful: They gained in the last decade of work 20,000 converts, nearly one-third as many as they won in ninety years of struggle.
But still Buddhism stands, and Buddha, its founder, after 2500 years, looks with peaceful, quiet eyes from innumerable images set in temples throughout the land – to me more impressive than the Sphinx with the secrets of the centuries locked in its impassive gaze.
Buddha held back no secrets – with burning zeal he preached what he believed was truth. Today one image of the Sphinx, with its riddle – but countless images of Buddha, many of heroic size.
The most impressive one I've ever seen is the Daibutsu in Kamakura in Japan. A temple built in the form of Buddha of solid bronze and silver, with eyes of gold.
This temple was built centuries ago, to keep alive the name and teachings of a man who taught and wrought a score of centuries before this wonderful temple was built – the mystic past steals over you as you look, and you turn and walk away – wondering, wondering, wondering.
XXIII
THE RANGOON BUSINESS MAN WHO DROVE HIS SERMON HOME
There is a business man here in Rangoon who, to my mind, has put one over on the missionaries, by seeing their game and beating them at it with a sermon – a sermon with more ring and go to it than anything of that kind I've struck in the Orient – or out of it.
They are really a godless lot out here in the Orient, as we look at godliness; or, at least, profess to.
They haven't any more respect for the Sabbath day on this side of the world (except in a few spots where the missionaries have made a dent in the situation) than a lot of crows have for a farmer's rights in a field of growing corn.
Now, this business man I am writing about was born and brought up in England. He had it drilled into him when he was a boy that we should remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy; and the teaching stuck.
He is a character.
Between the ages of seventeen and fifty-six he got started in life; got rich; retired; and lost his fortune; and when he was fifty-six years old he was broke – down and out.
He came to Burma, prospected for gold until he was sixty-six years old, and the net result of that ten years of gold prospecting was – still broke.
As he had a character just like Gibraltar, he was able to borrow a few pounds sterling, and with it started life all over again in business here in Rangoon.
He got to going to the good; and at the end of five years, when he was seventy-one years old, he had a name and some fame in his line of trade.
At that time the heir apparent to a mighty throne came through Rangoon, touring Burma with his staff.
He heard of this man, and wanted to buy some of his goods. He decided on a Saturday afternoon, that the next day at eleven o'clock he would call at this man's store and inspect his stock with a view to purchasing.
As this potentate was a mighty gun – none bigger – he prepared the way to his proposed visit by sending one of his numerous staff to this man's store Saturday evening, to inform him that at eleven o'clock of the next day his Royal Highness would be around to buy some goods.
It's right at this point in the narrative that this man got there with his sermon. He said: "Present my compliments to his Royal Highness, but tell him I wouldn't open my store on Sunday to do business even with the King of England."
Get that?
Ever been in London, dear old "Lunnun"? They set great store by selling royalty in England. There's a fellow over there in London doing a smashing business in oysters just because he can put up over his door "Purveyor of Oysters to His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales."
Well, this little-big sermon got back to England, and the result was that in the next five years this man sold goods to royalty pretty well over the world, and got rich. And he is here today; and he tells me that while he has played the game of business for the love of it, he is eighty years old now and is going to wind up. Being without wife or children, he is going to leave his wealth to orphan asylums.
XXIV
THE GLASS OF ICE WATER THAT JARRED RANGOON
To come to Rangoon and not go to see the elephants work the teak timber that comes down the Irawadi River would be like going to Venice and not have your picture taken in St. Mark's Square with the doves roosting all over you; or to leave the pyramids without a photograph of yourself with the great pyramid of Cheops for a background.
I plead guilty to the dove picture – it's on our mantle at home – had it taken to please my wife, who was with me on that trip.
The great satisfaction I take in that picture is its proof of my self-sacrificing nature.
Having visited Venice several times before I took my wife there, I knew all about that "picture-with-the-doves" game.
Just before the photograph fiend in Venice, who will photograph an American with the doves for $2.00, an Englishman for $1.00, and a German for 20 cents, made his exposure, I bought my wife a cornucopia of corn that venders sell for a cent, with which to feed the doves.
The woman in the picture behind the cloud of doves is my wife. The man at her side, minus any doves on him to mar his seraphic smile, is myself.
The photograph of me at the pyramids, taken on a former trip, would be a pretty good picture of me, too, if my natural modesty hadn't got the better of me, which modesty prompted me to get behind the pyramid when the photographer made his exposure.
This photographer is on the ground and does a rushing business photographing globe trotters at the pyramids. The pyramid being betwixt me and the camera made a failure of the picture so far as being a good one of me is concerned; but I'm ready to bet good money that I'm the only world tourist who can show a photograph of Cheops without a globe-trotter in the foreground. It's a good photograph of the pyramid.
But really one shouldn't leave Rangoon without seeing the elephants work the teak logs.
The human intelligence of the animals, coupled with their great strength as they push the logs into place, accurately measure distances, walk back and forth to study the problem of how best to place a log, and then roll and put it into place, is one of the sights worth seeing in Rangoon; which, in itself, is a town worth seeing.
A city well laid out with wide streets running at right angles, extending several miles along the river front, and a mile inland.
Many beautiful lakes are in the suburbs, and tropical parks abound: and it is the third city in British India.
It's an old, old town. Its chief attraction to draw visitors from the ends of the earth is the great Shwe Dagon Pagoda, the oldest Buddhist temple in the world, the foundation of which was laid 588 B. C.
And Rangoon has trolley cars and water-works, and electric lights, and an ice plant.
And ice is a precious commodity in Rangoon. In fact, ice is a precious commodity in any Oriental city excepting Manila.
In Manila they have caught onto the idea that ice is not a deadly poison or precious stones.
I attribute it to the influence of the white Filipinos living there, who are wonderfully like Americans in taste, habits and general all-around desirableness.
Ask for a glass of ice-water at a hotel in Rangoon, or Hong Kong, or Pekin, or Yokohama, or Calcutta, or Bombay and watch what happens.
Your table boy will bring you a high glass of tepid water and drop a piece of ice in it as big as a hickory-nut, and the only thing in the whole transaction worthy of note is the boy's self-satisfied air of having done his whole duty.
I have demoralized the whole running-gear of the best hotel in Rangoon – I'll be known among the hotel fraternity of Rangoon in future as the "ice man" who visited the town in 1914.
Becoming weary of watching that little nugget of ice in a large glass of tepid water, doing its best to chill the water as it rapidly diminished to the size of a two-carat diamond, finally to dissolve entirely in an heroic effort to make good, I called the table boy to me and ordered him to empty the glass and bring me the several receptacles in the dining room that held ice for all the guests. Fishing enough nuggets from the lot to pack the glass full of ice, I ordered it filled with water – looked up at the boy and said: "Savvy? Ice-water!"
I leave town today for Calcutta – that glass of ice water has jarred Rangoon.
XXV
THE CALCUTTA SACRED BULL AND HIS TWISTED TAIL
Did one of your old readers, kind friend (I think it was McGuffy's Second) way back in childhood days have a little poem in it all about a lot of little girls playing a wishing game? It's over forty years ago that I read that little poem, and I can only remember one little girl's wish.
She said: "I wish I were a flying fish, o'er ocean's sparkling waves to sail, a flying fish, that's what I wish, 'mid Neptune's blue to lave my tail."
Not having read that little poem for over forty years, and not having the book with me out here in Calcutta, I may not have quoted the lines verbatim, but as near as I can recall it, that's what she said.
That little girl didn't know what she was wishing for or she'd sooner have wished to be a devil bug.
The flying fish has got that old saying, "Between the devil and the deep sea," beaten to a frazzle.
The life of a flying fish may look all right to the unsophisticated, but things are rarely what they seem, and a flying fish's life is a hard lot.
Chased up out of the water to escape the jaws of some horrid sea monster seeking to make a meal off it, it spreads its silvery wings o'er "ocean's sparkling waves," when a seagull comes along, and – good-bye little flying fish.
Now if I'd been one of those little girls playing that wishing game and had known as much as I know now, I'd have wished to be a sacred bull here in Calcutta.
That's one fine job – the life of a Calcutta sacred bull.
I stepped out of my hotel today onto one of Calcutta's best streets, with a pavement twenty feet wide, filled with pedestrians, lined with splendid shops.
Calcutta is a town of one million inhabitants and is the second city in size in the British Empire.
Just at the side of the entrance to a fine jewelry store lay a great big fat and glossy sacred bull, with a garland of roses round his neck, placed there by some devout Hindu.
The natives would stop and fondle and brush the flies off him. Stopping to look at the novel sight, and giving the fine old fellow a few gentle strokes, I turned to my guide and asked him to tell the natives who had stopped to witness the foreigner's interest, to make the bull get up. I wanted to see what he would do.
A native pushed him in the flank and ribs, but Mr. Bull only smiled, and as plain as words his actions said, "No, thanks, I'm perfectly comfortable here."
"Twist his tail," I said; "that will start him."
The native gave his tail one twist. The bull looked around with a surprised air and anyone could see that he said, "That's a new kind of a caress," but he didn't get up.
"Twist it harder," I said.
Three turns of the tail brought him to his feet, and he walked leisurely along the crowded thoroughfare, perfectly at home, wearing his garland of roses as naturally as a girl would wear a string of beads, receiving a gentle pat from the native passersby – even an English girl put out her hand and gave him a stroke in passing.
He was a great big, glossy, docile pet, expecting and getting a wealth of love.
I am told that when he is hungry he goes to a green grocer's store and makes a meal off the grocer's cabbage, with no protest from the grocer, after which he goes to a confectioner's shop for a dessert – and gets it.
There are scores of sacred bulls in Calcutta. They have their special stamping ground. Let one bull poach on another one's preserve and there is a bullfight then and there. Not a Spanish "bullfight" – seven or eight trained athletes against one bull, with death for the bull a foregone conclusion – but a real, genuine, interesting bullfight, with the victor's tail in the air.
And it's a dull person who can't understand that that bull is saying to the vanquished one: "You stay where you belong. I'll do the sacred bull business around this neck of the woods."
XXVI
THE GUIDE WHO WOULDN'T SIT IN "MASTER'S" PRESENCE
I call him Lal.
The rest of his name is too long for week-day use. He is my interpreter, my guide, my servant, my counselor, and my friend.
I have hired him for a two weeks' trip across India. He is considerable of an erudite gentleman – speaks several languages.
I speak only one, and I do queer things to that one lots of times.
But Lal doesn't try to impress me with his superiority just because he knows a lot more than I do – quite the reverse.
His wages are a rupee a day, out of which he feeds himself. That was his own price. I'm paying him all he asks. I've been told that I'm paying him too much, that he has stung me. A rupee is thirty-two cents!
But he is a superior guide. He admits it himself. To prove it he showed me a sheaf of recommendations from American globe-trotters whom he has guided across India in days gone by.
A good many of those recommendations are frayed at the edges through much showing, but I wouldn't mind having some of those names on a blank check, with privilege to write the rest of the check myself.
Lal tells me he is the "Professor" of the guides.
I hired him yesterday. He calls me "Master." That's regular. All servants and guides in India call their employers "Master."
With a two weeks' trip to plan across India, with a map of India, hotel guides and railroad time-tables, pencil and paper spread out before me in my room this afternoon, I said: "Draw up a chair, Lal, and sit down. Here is a two hours' job before us."
"Excuse me, 'Master'," Lal said, "but if 'Master' will excuse me I will not sit in 'Master's' presence."
Get that?
Royalty, don't you know?
Lal got "Master" in only three times in that sentence. I've known him to bring it in four times in a shorter one.
In addition to Lal's numerous duties – standing between me and the natives, brushing my clothes, looking after my laundry, making my bed in sleeping cars, and watching my goods and chattels while I take my meals in the dining car, and a score of other such duties, Lal was looking after "Master's" dignity.
Lal, old boy, after that gentle reminder, I'll know my place.
If there's nothing else to do, I'll let Lal fan me. I believe it's one of the prerogatives of Royalty to be fanned by vassals.
These Indian guides are a class by themselves. Many of them have traveled far.
Picked up by travelers for a tour across India, they are frequently taken to England and through Europe. For instance, Lal has been to England and Boston. In speaking of India he says: "My India," "my Calcutta," "my Bombay," and there isn't much about India he doesn't know.
They travel third-class, which is ridiculously cheap in India. The tourist, of course, pays his servant's railroad fare and must land him back to point of hiring him.
Lal's home is in Calcutta. I will have finished with him at Bombay and will have to send him back to Calcutta, across India, fifteen hundred miles, and that item of expense will be sixteen rupees six annas – all of five dollars and twenty cents.
It's hard lines to pour out money in this way on Lal – but Royalty is expensive anyway.
XXVII
ROYALTY VS. "TWO CLUCKS AND A GRUNT"
To go across India from Calcutta one of the necessary things to consider is a railroad ticket.
After my vassal and I had planned an itinerary we called a victoria, or rather Lal flagged a Hindu driving a team hitched to one.
It was rigged for a footman at the rear. The footman was there, too, ready to open the door for "Master" when he wished to enter or alight.
This truly regal, royal outfit cost twelve annas for an hour's drive, and that's twenty-four cents.
You can work the Royalty racket in Calcutta cheaper than you can hang over a lunch counter and eat baked beans in America.
Now Cook's tourist agency has booked me from Hong Kong to New York via steamer, first-class, over the Peninsular and Oriental line, P. & O., for short.
That means steamer from Hong Kong to Calcutta via Singapore, Penang and Rangoon.
I have to pay my railroad fare across India to Bombay, and from that port privilege of P. & O. direct to London, via Aden, Port Said, Gibraltar and Marseilles, and home from London via any American or British line I choose from London.
Cook's take care of a traveler they book in this way, and their representatives look out for you on arrival and departure from ports.
In my role of Royalty I bade my vassal, Lal, to hoist himself up on the driver's seat, and to tell the driver to go to Cook's.
Laying my itinerary before a booking clerk at Cook's I said: "Please book me to Bombay over this route."
As I was traveling first-class by water, which they knew all about, and as I preserved my regal tread from my carriage door right up to Cook's counter, the clerk said: "Of course you want first-class, Mr. Allen?"
"Of course I don't," I came back at him; "you stung me last trip across India for first-class, and you know the only difference between first and second here in India is the price, just double second, and the number on the door of the compartment. You'll book me second, please."
This Royalty act is all right here in India, but you want to know where to draw the line when it affects your pocketbook with nothing to show for it.
The man saw I was wise, grinned, and issued me a second-class ticket, and third-class for my servant; and the evening of that same day saw me starting for the railroad station in another victoria, Lal and the driver up front, footman on behind, the lord my duke (meaning me) in the "tonneau" with bedding, grips, steamer trunk, camera, coats, etc., etc., all royally placed in the same vehicle.
When a traveler starts out from Calcutta to take the train for a night's journey, if it don't look as if he was breaking up housekeeping and going somewhere, I've never asked for bacon and eggs in the woolly West and heard the shirt-sleeved waiter yell: "Two clucks and a grunt," and then collect more for the viands than it costs to be moved across the second city in the British Empire in royal entourage.