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Updated: May 3, 2025
The Burman knows better, and he would get on badly without the active help and advice of his comrade and wife. Did you ever see anything like it in your life? I never did. We are on a steamer coming down the Irrawaddy River from Mandalay, and it is our first evening on board.
The Madras first division sailed at the same time, and joined them a few days later; and the whole force, under the escort of H. M. frigate Liffey and the Slaney, sloop of war, left Port Cornwallis on the 5th of May, and arrived on the 9th at the mouth of the Irrawaddy. Forces were detached for the capture of the islands of Chuduba and Negrais.
At this season, swelled into torrents by the rains, they pour into the Irrawaddy, quickly raising its level 40 to 50 feet, and the peaceful river which I have described becomes a mighty flood, in places 2 miles in width, full to the top of its banks and overflowing the fields and flooding the village streets, and sweeping away from its sand-banks those huts and pagodas and other temporary buildings we have noticed, while the mud which its turbid waters carry each year adds a little to the delta at its mouth.
Looking back to the south down the valley we had come up, the Chin hills bounded the horizon, but between us and them lay miles and miles of rolling woods, and a haze at the foot of the hills over the plain of the Irrawaddy.
Now as I write the electric light goes out, and we light our candles the ship is quiet fore and aft, the only sound the rippling of the Irrawaddy against our anchor chain and plates. 29th. Second day from Mandalay. We have stopped three times at the river-side to-day.
The Irrawaddy has many tributaries, but though the larger streams, such as the Chindwin and Mu Rivers, are always flowing, most of the smaller forest streams are dry, excepting during the monsoon, which continues from May until September.
The roof leaked in a thousand places, rain was driven under the walls, and everything I had was soaked with warm water. Next day we had a pleasant walk into Bhamo, that important military station on the left bank of the Irrawaddy.
It was on a Tuesday evening that Risley and Jack entered Dent's shop in Rangoon: late on the Thursday afternoon the three comrades stepped out of the train at Mandalay. "I know a little place down by the river where we can stay quietly," said Dent, and they took a carriage and drove down to the banks of the broad Irrawaddy.
Mandalay is at the upper end of this lake-like part of the Irrawaddy; it lies back and behind the river bank or bunda, so it is not visible from the river. Our steamer pulls up against a flat that lies against the sandy shore, exposed, at this time of year, by the lowness of the river. There are no wharfs as I had expected, only two or three floating sheds, and two or three steamers like our own.
As you will see, Burma lies on the eastern side of the Bay of Bengal, just north of the Malay Peninsula, joining Siam and China on the one side and the Indian provinces of Assam and Manipur on the other, while from an unknown source in the heart of Thibet its great river, the Irrawaddy, flows throughout the entire length of the country, and through Rangoon, the seaport at its mouth, forming the great highway for commerce and communication between the world at large and its little-known interior.
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