ROBERTSON, W. A. Maymyo Rides. Scale: 4 inches = 1 mile. [Maymyo], W. A. Robertson, Deputy Conservator of Forests, 24 - 8 - [19]12.
Lithographic map in four colours on cotton; previously folded, light discolouration, otherwise remarkably well preserved; provenance: Lady Charlotte Isabel Wheeler-Cuffe's copy (name in ink in one cormer), a few annotations in ink and pencil.
This ‘hill station’ Maymyo (Pyin Oo Lwin) in Burma served as the Colonial government summer headquarters. The area’s best known occasional Western resident is probably Eric Blair [‘George Orwell’] who decamped there when stationed in Burma from 1922-1927. - This map belonged to another Western resident of Myamyo, Lady Charlotte Isabel Wheeler-Cuffe (1867-1967), of Irish decent, who accompanied her husband to Burma, who worked in the Public Works Department. She became a serious plant hunter and produced wonderful watercolours. The Wheeler-Cuffes lived in a colonial villa named Upperfold, where Charlotte began to design an elaborate garden. One Burmese species of rhododendron is named after her, and she sent species and seeds to Glasnevin Botanical Garden. She was the driving force behind the establishment of the botanical garden at Maymyo. After her return from Burma she settled at the Cuffe family home at Lyrath, outside Kilkenny, where she continued gardening at a grand scale. - See Jungling with Lady Charlotte and Lady Charlotte and “the job six times too big” both under https://thegardenstrust.blog/ .
Orwell, at the beginning of chapter 9 of Homage to Catalonia recalls Maymyo 'From Mandalay, in Upper Burma, you can travel by train to Maymyo, the principal hill-station of the province, on the edge of the Shan plateau. It is rather a queer experience. You start off in the typical atmosphere of an eastern city—the scorching sunlight, the dusty palms, the smells of fish and spices and garlic, the squashy tropical fruits, the swarming dark-faced human beings—and because you are so used to it you carry this atmosphere intact, so to speak, in your railway carriage. Mentally you are still in Mandalay when the train stops at Maymyo, four thousand feet above sea-level. But in stepping out of the carriage you step into a different hemisphere. Suddenly you are breathing cool sweet air that might be that of England, and all round you are green grass, bracken, fir-trees, and hill-women with pink cheeks selling baskets of strawberries'.
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