A Daily Chronicle of the Golden City upon the Irrawaddy
Wherein we render an account of the Pagodas, the bazaars, and the European quarter, lately enlarged by the Public Works.
Few harbours in the East offer to the traveller so picturesque a prospect as that of Rangoon at sunrise. The river, broad and tawny with the silt of three thousand miles, glides past the godowns and the timber-yards; the masts of brigs and the tall funnels of steamers stand against a sky already gilded by the first light upon the Pagoda.
The Shwe Dagón — that vast and venerable monument, raised, by ancient tradition, upon eight hairs of Lord Gautama himself — rises from the northern ridge to a height of three hundred and twenty-six feet. Its terraces, mounted by long flights of weather-worn steps, are thronged from dawn till dusk by pilgrims of every condition.
Around the central stúpa cluster some sixty subsidiary shrines, their gilded pinnacles catching the light of the morning in a manner not easily forgotten by any who have witnessed it.
Bells of beaten brass, suspended from the eaves of the lesser pavilions, sound at the lightest touch of the wind.
At evening the pilgrims descend with lighted tapers, and the terraces are reduced to a moving constellation of small flames.
From the highest terrace, the eye commands a prospect that has few equals in the East. And above all glitters the great gilded Pagoda, like a beacon over the wide delta plain.
The European quarter, between the river and the Cantonment, has of late assumed an aspect altogether changed. The Strand presents now a frontage of stone and stucco, broken at intervals by arcaded verandahs in the Italian manner.
Phayre Street, named for the late Sir Arthur, is now metalled throughout its length, and may be perambulated of an evening without the inconvenience formerly attendant upon the monsoon.
The new offices of the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation, lately completed in stone, are reckoned the finest commercial pile this side of Calcutta.
Of an evening the band of the regiment plays upon the maidan, while officers and ladies promenade beside the parade.
The chime of the new High Court clock is heard, when the wind favours, as far as the wharf of the Flotilla. The carriages of the principal residents are drawn up beside the parade, where the airs of Mr. Sullivan and Signor Verdi may yet be heard above the murmur of the crowd.
“A frontage of stone and stucco, broken at intervals by verandahs in the Italian manner.”
Yet beyond Phayre Street, in the quarters of Pazundaung and Lanmadaw, the older Burma persists. There the bullock-cart and the longyi keep their ancient ways; the betel-seller squats at his stall; the bell-rope of a wooden monastery stirs at the touch of an unseen hand.
In the bazaar of Theingyi the Indian cloth-merchant displays his bales of Madras chintz beside the lacquer of the Burman.
At dusk the lamps are lit along Maha Bandoola Street, and the city goes about its two lives, ancient and modern, in a single compass.
The traveller, lingering upon the bund at evening, feels himself for a while the contemporary of every age.
— J. P. M.
With illustrations rendered upon the wood by our staff engraver, from sketches taken upon the ground.
A stúpa of greater antiquity than the city itself.
Set at the very meeting of Sule Pagoda Road and Maha Bandoola, the octagonal stúpa is reckoned by tradition to enshrine a hair of the Buddha. About its base the city has grown up; about its base the city is most readily measured.
Of the Sarkies brothers; opened anno 1901.
A long verandahed frontage upon the river road, much frequented by officers of the steamship lines and travellers in passage to the upper country. Its lounge is, of an evening, a notable resort.
Seat of the administration of Lower Burma.
A vast pile of red brick in the manner of the late Mr. Fowler, with twin wings and a central tower surmounted by an open dome. Its corridors house every department from the Forest Office to the Office of the Director-General of the Post.
Where the Queen’s justice is dispensed.
A clock-tower in the Anglo-Indian Gothic, dominating the prospect from the Cantonment. Within, the Chief Justice and Puisne Judges sit through the heat of the day in robes inherited from a cooler latitude.
Of the Indo-Saracenic order, with native pyatthat.
A happy marriage of two manners: a classical base of arcaded verandahs surmounted by a stepped pyatthat roof, in the Burmese fashion. Lately completed by Mr. Sithu U Tin and accounted among the foremost public buildings.
Lately Scott Market; the great bazaar.
A long arcade where the silks of Mandalay, the lacquer of Pagán, the rubies of Mogók, and the every-day produce of the delta are gathered together under one roof of corrugated iron.
An index of the principal townships, with the page upon which a fuller description may be found.
The mercantile heart; godowns and counting-houses.
The seat of justice and the offices of the Crown.
Old timber-yards along the river; the boatmen’s quarter.
The Chinese town, of arcaded shop-houses and lantern-makers.
A creek-side quarter of rice-mills and bullock-carts.
Beneath the Shwe Dagón; lakes, gardens, and bungalows.
Of mango-groves and the older monasteries.
The railway works and the engine-sheds.
The south-west monsoon is by general report withdrawing.
| Hr. | Ft. | |
|---|---|---|
| High water | 03 : 42 | 17.4 |
| Low water | 09 : 58 | 3.1 |
| High water | 16 : 11 | 18.0 |
| Low water | 22 : 27 | 2.6 |
Pilots are warned of the shifting bar at Elephant Point.
Observances: the Festival of Lights upon the morrow. The terraces of the Pagoda will be illuminated from sunset until the second watch.
Wherein we recount the foundation of the University of Rangoon, and those movements of her students which have, in every generation, shaped the political life of the country.
Founded in the year 1878 as Rangoon College, an affiliate of the University of Calcutta, and elevated to a University in its own right by the Act of 1920, the University of Rangoon has stood at the centre of the political life of the country no less than at the centre of its learning. Its precincts in Kamayut, set about the still waters of the Adipati Lake, encompass the Convocation Hall, the great Library, and the halls of residence in which a generation of nationalists came of age.
Within these halls have studied General Aung San, Mr. U Nu, Mr. U Thant, and the greater part of those who, in this century, have shaped the destiny of the nation. The Rangoon University Students’ Union, founded in 1931 in a modest building beside the Convocation Hall, has been the cradle of every nationalist movement of consequence; and from its grounds, in every generation, the call has gone out for the freedom of Burma.
In protest at the new University Act, which the students reckoned framed to keep higher learning the preserve of the few, the scholars of Rangoon College quit their classes and gathered upon the lawns of the Shwe Dagón. The strike spread the breadth of the country; the fifth of December is now appointed National Day.
Following the expulsion of Mr. Aung San, then editor of the student journal Oway, the students again left their lecture-halls. From this strike emerged the Rangoon University Students’ Union as a power to be reckoned with in the political life of the country.
After student protest against the new military government, the Students’ Union building — long the cradle of every nationalist movement — was reduced to rubble by dynamite upon the seventh of the month. The act marked the close of an open political era.
On the death of Mr. U Thant, lately Secretary-General of the United Nations, the State withholding due honours, the students of the University seized his coffin and built a mausoleum upon the campus. The army was sent in to disperse them.
On the eighth day of the eighth month, the students of the Rangoon Institute of Technology issued the call. Within the week the cities of Burma rose with them in their hundreds of thousands, and a generation took its place in the long succession.
“Where the students of Rangoon have led, the country has not long delayed in following.”