Burmese Sketches - Khamkoo

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BURMESE SKETCHES.
materially affects the peace and order of Burma. Opium,
which is extensively grown in Yunnan, is smuggled by the
Kachins into British territory, together with liquor and arms.
Their hills afford also a convenient asylum to many bad
characters, rebels, and other disturbers of the public peace,
who are a standing menace to the plain country. Some of the
principal trade-routes between Burma and China are dominated
by the Kachins ;
the amber mines are situated in their country ; and their
exactions and harassments are most vexatious, and are stifling
the india-rubber forests, the jade quarries, and
the resuscitated commerce, which requires every fostering care.
Besides, they have repeatedly committed raids on the settled
villages in the plain country, and have in some cases assumed
a defiant and sullen attitude in their intercourse with the
paramount power.
The one great difficulty in dealing with the Chins and the
Kachins is their want of any inter-tribal coherence. Almost
every village forms an independent community ; society is
loosely organized among them ; vendetta is the common motive
for aggressive action ; and the authority of the chiefs is neither
supreme nor effectually exercised. The decisions of the elders
of a tribe frequently over-ride the commands of its chief ; and
such decisions are generally based upon superstitous omens.
The Chief Commissioner of Burma has, however, attempted to
wield these inchoate units into germs of harmonious village
communities, by granting sanads to the de facto chiefs, who
are assured of British protection on condition of paying a light
tribute as a visible token of submission, and exercising their
lawful rights in accordance w!th custom and usage. There
can be no doubt of the practical results of this plan of settlement,
beneficial alike to the Government and to these wild
hill-men.
Many of the Kachins have visited the headquarters of the
Bhamo district, and have seen with their own eyes British
forts and British guns, and other appliances of civilized warfare.
Last year an attempt was made to produce a similar impression
of British power on the Chin chiefs of the Siyin tribe. A
party of them were brought down to Rangoon under the
charge of a young Burmese officer, and were shown the menof-war,
the arsenal, etc. They stayed several days at Rangoon,
and went back to their country. Their memory must either
be very short, or the impression produced on them too evanescent,
because not long after their return home they broke out
again, cutting telegraph-wires and setting British authority