EAST OF SUEZ

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 106, 6 May 1936, Page 13

EAST OF SUEZ

"ROAD TO MANDALAY1

ROMANCE AND REALITY

ON THE IRRAWADDY

If ever a place was romanticised by a poem it is Mandalay, but some of that romance is merely an illusion, according to the matter-of-fact utterances of Captain John P. Tindal, who has just retired from the position of marine superintendent of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company in Burma. Captain Tindal arrived from Sydney today by the WanganeUa in the course of a world tour.

Although he admitted in the course of an interview with a reporter that he knew the old Moulamein Pagoda, mentioned in Kipling's well-known poem, he added: "I have never seen 'the dawn come up like thunder from China 'crost the bay,' because it can't do it. China isn't there. But I have 'heard the paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay'; heard them until I'm sick of them." CALL OF THE EAST. Nevertheless, Captain Tindal still feels the call of the East. That call, he said, was summed up in the word "boy." For the first time in thirty-two years he was without a boy to look after him, and as a result he lost two pairs of shoes between Burma and Australia. Although this stern-jawed smoker- of cheroots, who for 32 years skippered the flat-bottomed ships which journey on "the road to Mandalay," may have heard "the temple bells a-callin'" he ridicules any suggestion that Mandalay is a place "where the flying fishes play." "There are no flying fishes there," he declared. ROMANTIC LIFE. Even with the absence of flying fishes in the Irrawaddy and thundering dawns from China " 'crost the bay," Captain Tindal has had a romantic and exciting life. His most vivid memories are of his early nautical training among a "bunch of tough eggs" and of rounding Cape Horn in an Antarctic blizzard, the hallmark of the old School of sailors. He first came into Eastern seas 40 years ago as an apprentice aboard the sailing-ship Indian Empire. Later he obtained the berth of second mate on the fourmasted barque Port Stanley.

Captain Tindal first went to Calcutta in 1903 to join the British India Steam Navigation Company, and was on the Rangoon run for some months before entering the service of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company. During his subsequent years of service he saw many changes both in the company's personnel and in the river trade and traffic, for, to use his own words, "The Irrawaddy is continually changing."

Captain Tindal obtained his first command in 1908, and thereafter commanded various types of vessels in the company's fleet until 1934, when he became commodore-commander, hoisting his flag on the R.M.S. Nepal, the largest and latest vessel on the Mandalay express run. Early in 1935 he took over .the position of marine superintendent, and retired from active service a short time ago.

During the three decades that Captain Tindal has spent on the Irrawaddy he has grown acquainted with every village and almost every tree along the muddy river, and many travellers who are no longer in Burma will remember being piloted by him.

Captain Tindal leaves tonight for Nelson to commence a tour of the South Island, and will travel through the North Island later before leaving for England on the Tamaroa. >