HISTORIC CITY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 April 1942, Page 5

HISTORIC CITY

KING THEBAW’S CAPITAL. BOMBING OF MANDALAY. The former capital of Burma, Mandalay, which has been bombed by the Japanese, has a name made familiar to millions by Kipling’s well-known poem. It is not an old city, being younger, in fact, than Auckland. Sited on the east bank of the great River Irrawaddy, 350 miles north of Rangoon, it was built in 1856-7 by King Mindon Min to supersede the old capital, Amarapura, not many miles distant.

Mindon, who was a comparatively humane and enlightened ruler, erected city walls enclosing a fine palace of wood, carved and gilt, and standing upon a brick platform 900 ft. long and 500 ft. wide. Near by he provided equally ornate Buddhist temples. On his death in 1876 he was succeeded by Thebaw, who gradually came under the influence of anti-British European adventurers living in his capital. The new king began to negotiate with the French for railway and river-steamer concessions, and eventually the Indian Government found it necessary to serve him with an ultimatum. Thebaw responded by calling on all Burmese to rise and drive out the British. Late in 1885 an expeditionary force under - Sir Henry Prendergasf was sent up the river, and in less than) a month the king, an exile, was on his way to India. The annexation of the whole of Burma was proclaimed on January 1, 1886. Mandalay is an important centre of river and rail trade for the whole of Upper Burma, and has a population of about 150,000 people, more than threefourths of whom are Burmese Buddhists. The railway from Rangoon continues north-eastward from Mandalay to Lashio, the Burmese terminus of the Burma Road. From Sagaing, on the opposite bank of the Irrawaddy, another line runs almost to the extreme north of the country. Within the town walls is a former British cantonment. Fort Dufferin, but the main military and air establishments are on the outskirts.