When travelling by steamer on duty, the sum of Rs. 5 per diem was deducted from one’s pay under the name of “table money;” and, as it included everything, it could not be termed excessive. In the matter of liquor, the system naturally admitted of great abuse, though in all my river trips I never saw more than one instance of advantage being taken of it.
Long ere this, Government has probably taken a leaf out of the book of the P. & O., reducing passage-money, and charging wine, &c., separately.
And now, having arrived alongside the jetty at Prome, it only remained for me to go ashore and report myself. No; another duty had first to be performed, one seldom or never of an agreeable nature; and that was taking leave of the captain, a very good fellow, who had studied our comfort in every way and was a favourite all along the line.
It proved only a temporary farewell, for I often met him again in his cruises, smoking with him the pipe of peace and enjoying a certain dish which he knew how to prepare _secundum artem_.
“A Daniel come to judgment! yea, a Daniel! Oh wise young judge, how I do honour thee!”
Uninviting as may have been the immediate surroundings of the last place, few stations could vie with Prome in all that was picturesque. Situated on the left bank of the river, it consisted of a limited and undulating tract of country, covered with fine trees, from the branches of which hung beautiful creepers in graceful festoons; shrubs and undergrowths also grew thickly among the timber. The Burmese must, in selecting the spot, have had an eye to that which nature had already rendered beautiful; they then improved upon it according to the canons of native art—not by any means for the benefit of “οἱ πολλοί,” but as a sylvan retreat, wherein priest and monks could lead a purely isolated and ascetic life, away from the busy haunts of men, with every facility for contemplation and with as few hindrances as possible on the main road to “Nirvana.” Judging from the size and number of the Pon-gyee houses, one would imagine that the religious fraternity must have mustered there in great numbers, ere the spoiler turned them out and appropriated their sacred dwelling to his own sacrilegious uses. All is fair in war; these elegant edifices of teak, built on piles along either side of the main road, and now converted into residences and mess-houses, had, but a few years since, presented a picture that would have evoked ecstasies from an artist. There, shaded by the luxurious foliage of the tamarind, dwelt the original occupants, some reading, others sitting cross-legged in emulation of their master, a few, maybe, imparting to the young the doctrines of their wondrous religion.