CHAPTER II.
SURVEYING—THANKFUL FOR A HALT—LEAVE HLINEBOAY—KAREN HOUSES INFESTED WITH BUGS—HALT NEAR WELL—RIGGING UP SHELTER FOR THE NIGHT—TENT LEFT BEHIND—TEAK-FOREST—YUNNANESE—A SCARE—EXPLODING BAMBOOS—TREES 130 FEET HIGH—A MID-DAY HALT—THE BRITISH GUARD-HOUSE—A NIGHT CAMP—GLUTINOUS RICE, MODE OF COOKING AND CARRIAGE—ELEPHANTS FEEDING—HEAVY DEW—JOURNEY DOWN THE YEMBINE VALLEY—MOTION OF ELEPHANTS—DIFFICULT SURVEYING—A PRACTICAL JOKE—RAILWAY TO RANGOON AND MANDALAY—HEATHEN KARENS—NO LONGER A MISSIONARY—DIFFICULTY IN CONVERTING BUDDHISTS—VENISON FOR DINNER—STUNG BY BEES—PASS BETWEEN THE THOUNGYEEN AND THE SALWEEN—TREES 25 FEET IN CIRCUMFERENCE—LIMESTONE CLIFFS—OFFERING TO THE DEAD—DESCENT TO THE THOUNGYEEN—THE FORD.
Surveying by time-distances and a prismatic compass, when on the march, requires a steady hand, a quick judgment for selecting an object for your angle, and a good memory. If the hand is unsteady, the ring of the compass, which is balanced on a needle, will not come to rest. In a jungle-clad country you must watch the foremost elephant as it winds through the trees, and rapidly select the point for your next angle as the animal is just passing from view. A good memory is required, otherwise in noticing the trees, rocks, by-paths, width and depth of streams, breadth of fields, size of villages, and taking sketches of, and angles to, neighbouring hills, you will forget the object, twig, branch or trunk of tree, that you have aimed at.
Having taken your angle, you must catch up the last elephant—for you are taking your distances by the time it takes in passing over the ground—and observe the time and your next angle on arriving at the object you had formerly chosen. This constant observation, continuing from dawn to dark with one interval for refreshment, is a great strain upon one’s attention, and when joined with the necessity of taking heights from the aneroid barometer, and temperatures from the thermometer at every change of level, makes one thankful for a halt at the foot or summit of a mountain pass, where one has to check the height by the boiling-point thermometer.
For the first hour after leaving Hlineboay we passed over slightly undulating ground, covered with stunted trees and scrub-jungle, and then entered paddy-fields through which we proceeded to Quambee, a Talaing, or Pwo, Karen village in a rice-plain over half a mile in breadth. To the east of the plain amongst the forest appeared many isolated hills and knolls, backed up by a boldly defined peaked range of hills, the Dana Toung, distant about fifteen miles, which forms the water-parting between the Thoungyeen and Salween rivers.
There being no zayat, or rest-house, in the village, and Karen houses being generally infested with bugs, we decided to camp in a grove of large trees in the vicinity of a well, from which we could draw water for bathing and cooking. After the elephants were unloaded and we had finished our supper, a shelter for the night was quickly formed with a few bamboos, roofed with two large waterproof sheets which I luckily had with me. My tent had been left behind in Maulmain through an oversight of the boys; and although the Bombay Burmah party kindly brought it with them to Hlineboay, it may be still at the latter place, as they had not carriage sufficient to bring it farther. A tent is a cumbersome and costly thing to carry about, and we managed very well for several months without one.
The next day we resumed our short stages, hoping that Mr Bryce’s party would catch us up. The country continued of much the same character as between Hlineboay and Quambee—only, cultivated fields became rarer, isolated hills more numerous, and teak-trees were frequently interspersed in the forest. The first night from Quambee we spent in a zayat on the bank of the Hlineboay river.
Towards dark a party of Chinese from Yunnan, who had sold their goods at Zimmé, came scampering by, armed with Shan dahs or swords, spears, and very antiquated horse-pistols. They were conducting a caravan of between forty and fifty mules and ponies to Maulmain, intending to bring them back laden with piece-goods and general articles of merchandise. They ultimately camped about half a mile from us, as several times in the evening we heard from that direction what we considered to be the discharge of firearms. Chinamen were not likely to waste powder in frightening off dacoits or wild beasts when they had any simpler, equally efficient, and cheaper means at command; and next morning we learnt our mistake in a very unexpected and alarming manner. We were suddenly awakened by a fusillade of reports around our camp. I jumped up, seized my Winchester, and rushed out, thinking that our party was being attacked. I found the boys squatting quietly round the fire, grinning like monkeys, and heaping on joints of green bamboos. The liquid in the cavities turning to steam under the influence of heat, caused them to explode, thus giving rise to the reports which had startled us. The rascals had learnt the trick from Portow, and were amusing themselves at our expense, being evidently bent on giving us a good fright.
Leaving the zayat a little before seven, we crossed the river and clambered over a low hillock, and continued through the forest, with teak-trees still appearing at intervals. Small hills and spurs from the Kyouk Toung range were occasionally seen to the east, backed up by the Yare-they-mare hill, a great spur of the Dana range, some four miles distant. About half-past eight we crossed the Hlineboay river for the last time, and shortly afterwards ascended 80 feet to the crest of the high ground, 300 feet above sea-level, and seventeen miles from Hlineboay, which forms the water-parting between the Hlineboay and Yambine rivers.
Thence we passed through the forest, still occasionally with teak-trees, following the course of the Yingan stream, with hills at times bordering on either side, and halted at half-past eleven for breakfast by the side of the stream, under a magnificent clump of thyt-si trees, which produce the celebrated black varnish. These monarchs of the forest, 130 feet in height, owing to great buttresses springing from the stem some feet from the ground, were of enormous girth, and looked truly magnificent. Here was a perfect place for a mid-day halt: hill, forest, and water scenery all combined; a cool stream as a bath for the elephants and ourselves; shelter from the heat of the sun; a pleasant glade for a ramble whilst breakfast was being prepared. Nothing was wanting but the songs of birds and the rippling chatter and laughter of girls to make our picnic all that could possibly be desired. Day after day, month after month, we enjoyed such picnics on our travels.
We struck camp at a quarter past two, and after a little more than an hour’s journey, still following the stream, reached Teh-dau-Sakan, the halting-place close to the Lanma-Gyee Garté, the last British police post on our road to the Shan States—having thoroughly enjoyed our day.
The police station, which is situated twenty-four miles from Hlineboay, consists of two thatched buildings built of bamboo, and surrounded with a dilapidated stockade, which would have been useless as a defence against dacoits. It was occupied by ten or twelve Madras constables, who complained much of the feverishness of the locality, and begged for quinine, saying they were out of it. I never met less intelligent men in my life; they seemed to know nothing of the locality, and the idea of a map was utterly incomprehensible to them—they had not been educated up to it. There was no getting any information from them; the whole current of their thoughts ran towards carna and pice (food and money), and their bodily ailments.
We erected our shelter for the night about a hundred yards from the station, in a grove of thyt-si trees, each measuring from 30 to 40 feet in circumference five feet from the ground. A large party of Shans from Lapoon encamped near us, and came over in the evening for a chat with our men. Camp-fires were dotted around us in all directions. Each elephant had, besides the mahout, an attendant to look after its wants, lop branches off banian and other trees for its food, shackle its fore-feet when we halted, and aid in its morning, noonday, and evening bath.
Each couple of men built a fire for themselves, and kept it alight during the night, partly for warmth and partly to scare wild beasts that might be wandering around. Kouknyin, the glutinous rice eaten by the Karens, is steamed, and not boiled. An earthen pot, or chatty, is placed upon three stones or clods of earth, which serve as a tripod; on the top of the pot is placed the basket containing the rice, and the junction is made air-tight with a wet cotton rag. A fire is then lighted under the pot, and the steam from the water in the pot rises into the rice and cooks it. Whilst hot the rice is stuffed into joints of green bamboos about a foot in length, and eaten when required. Joints of green bamboos likewise serve them for kettles: placed slanting over a fire, the water soon boils. The elephants feeding in the neighbourhood could be heard crashing through the bushes, rending off branches that suited their fancy. These animals were our sentinels, and would trumpet if a tiger came roving in their neighbourhood.
It would have been pleasant to sit in the open air and watch the stars as they twinkled through the trees, if it had not been for the heavy dew which commenced to fall soon after sundown. Loogalay’s mosquito-curtains, made of stout cotton cloth, were dripping wet the next morning, and he came with a long face and wrung them out before us. Portow merely jeered at him, and asked why he had not erected a leaf-shelter, as the other men had done. It is worse than useless complaining of the effects of one’s folly in a company of wits.
Next morning, the 26th of January, we ordered two of the elephants to be got ready to take us on an excursion down the Yembine valley, the farther end of which I had visited on a tour up the Salween. This would give me a chance of learning to survey from the top of an elephant. At first thoughts one would deem such a feat to be impossible; the pitching and rolling of the huge beast, which goes along like a Dutch lugger in a chopping sea, would prevent the compass being brought to rest, and most likely jam it into one’s eye. Yet, by giving way to the swaying movements of the brute, I managed to get as perfect results as when surveying on foot. From thenceforth, during my land journeys, I surveyed from the back of an elephant.
The boys, in packing our breakfast for us, perhaps out of fun, omitted not only to put in my cigars, but also our knives, forks, and spoons, forcing us to improvise some out of slips of bamboo to avoid having to feed native-fashion, with our fingers.
Following the stream of the Yingan till it joined the Yembine, we continued down the valley of the latter, accompanied by the mournful wailing of the gibbons in the forest, the plain gradually opening out to more than a mile in width, but contracting at times to a quarter of a mile, as spurs jutted in from either side. After travelling for three hours and a half, we halted for breakfast at the Karen village of Nga-peur-dau, which is beautifully situated on the hillside to the south of the valley.
The hills opposite the village were bold, and in some places precipitous, appearing as though they had been punched up from below, and were most likely mural limestone. Clay-slate, limestone, and sandstone are the chief rocks in this part of the country. Silver, copper, lead, and iron pyrites are found in Bo Toung, a hill some miles to the north of Nga-peur-dau, and felspar and porphyry are met with along the Salween some distance above Yembine.
We were now within eight miles of the village of Yembine, which is situated at the junction of the Yembine with the Salween. After walking about a mile and a half farther along the hillside, it became evident that a railway could be carried from Yembine to Teh-dau-Sakan with the greatest ease, meeting no difficulties in its path. I had previously ascertained, by visiting Yembine, that the Salween could be crossed in the defile to the south of it by a bridge of four or five hundred feet span; and, from my former experience in the country, I was aware that a line could be carried from the Rangoon and Mandalay Railway to this crossing through one continuous plain. It remained to be seen whether such a line could be continued along the course we were taking to South-western China, or whether the better course lay eastwards from Maulmain to Raheng, and thence northwards to the same goal.
We learnt from the Karen villagers that the Karens in the hamlets scattered through this region, and those to the north and the east, are still heathens, and I was glad to find that the missionaries are now on their scent. Most of the Karens elsewhere in Lower Burmah have become Christians, and the American Presbyterian and Baptist missionaries, who have so well worked the field, are turning their attention to Upper Burmah, Karenni, the Shan States, and Siam. I was amused by reading in a missionary report some months ago the complaint of a missionary that all the Karens in his district had embraced Christianity, and he had not another one to convert. He was a pastor, but no longer a missionary.
The Karens, Shans, Kakhyens, and other hill tribes, who are spirit-worshippers and not Buddhists, are the stocks from which converts are produced in Burmah and Siam. If you wish to have Burmese Christians, it is necessary to train them in mission schools from childhood. A Burmese adult behaves like a goat in the sheep-fold. He skips in and out as it suits him. Too often he merely enters to see what he can get from the shepherd. It is said to cost more to convert a Burman than it does to convert a Jew. A Roman Catholic missionary told me some years ago that he very much doubted whether his mission had ever made a real convert out of an adult Burman. As the sapling is bent, so the tree grows.
Having finished the inspection, we returned to camp, where I regaled myself with my long-wished-for smoke. The boys, when scolded for their delinquencies, pretended to look chapfallen; but I am afraid I had a twinkle in my eyes when rebuking them, as I saw the three convulsed with laughter before they were many paces away. During our absence the other elephant-drivers had shot a deer, and on our return presented us with a leg. This was a delightful surprise, as we had been subsisting on fowls and tinned provisions for several days.
The next day was Sunday, so we had a delightful day’s halt. I sent some of the Karens off to the neighbouring villages to obtain sufficient fowls and rice for our journey to Maing Loongyee, where we could obtain a fresh supply. Veyloo and Jewan went off on a lark, but soon returned in a dismal plight to seek my aid. In attempting to get honey, one had been stung on the eyelid, the other on the neck. An application of Perry Davis’s pain-killer acted like magic, taking away the pain; and a little ointment sent them off again light-hearted—putting down their punishment, I hope, to their yesterday’s conduct.
On Monday we started a little before seven, and followed the Yembine and its branches to the crest of the pass over the range which divides the drainage of the Salween from that of the Thoungyeen. The pass—32 miles from Hlineboay—has its crest 612 feet above sea-level, or 446 feet above our camp at Teh-dau-Sakan. On our way we met a party of Shans proceeding to Maulmain. A descent of about 50 feet from the crest brought us to the plateau, interspersed with detached hills, which is separated from the narrow plain through which the Thoungyeen runs, by a row of cliff-faced masses of limestone 1000 and 2000 feet in height, between which the drainage of the country flows to the river.
Close to the northern foot of the pass we came to the Tee-tee-ko stream, flowing through a pretty and pleasantly wooded valley, along which we proceeded. Turning up a northern affluent, when the Tee-tee-ko turned to the east on its way to the river, we halted for the night under some noble Kanyin trees. These trees, from which a brown resin and superior wood-oil is procured, have stems, often 25 feet in circumference, rising straight as a dart 120 feet from the ground to the first branch. The dense foliage completely shuts out the rays of the sun, thus affording a splendid shade for a mid-day halt. You do not realise their enormous size until from a distance you notice how dwarfed people camping under them appear. An elephant by their side looks like a pig under an ordinary tree.
The next morning, at a distance of two miles from the pass, we crossed the Meh Pau, a stream 60 feet wide and 7 feet deep, which, flowing from our right, enters the Thoungyeen some distance below the Siamese guard-house and below our point of crossing. We then clambered up a circular knoll rising 700 feet above the plateau, and had a fine view of the Pau-kee-lay Toung—one of the precipitous limestone masses lying three-quarters of a mile to the east. Descending from the knoll, which is ascended by the track to save half a mile of extra distance, we breakfasted on the bank of the Koo Saik Choung, just above its rapid descent between two great limestone precipices to the river.
At the junction of one of the many roads which diverged to Karen villages and the Thoungyeen from our track after leaving the pass, we noticed the death-offering of some Sgau Karens belonging to a neighbouring village. The offering was a propitiatory one to the spirit of the deceased, and proffered in order to induce it not to return and haunt the village. A silver coin had been placed in the ground beneath a rudely carved figure, on the top of which narrow strips of red and white cloth were hung; around the figure was a tiny fence, roofed in with a small bamboo platform. Miniature jackets and trousers were suspended from small poles at the sides of the fence. Food, which had been placed on the platform, was no longer there—the thieving birds having most likely deprived the poor ghost of it.
After breakfast we entered the defile, and descended from the plateau in the bed of the Koo Saik Choung, which falls 135 feet in the distance of a mile in a series of gentle cascades, separated by ice-cold running pools as clear as crystal; the towering precipices on either side looming through the trees, with their crests hidden by the dense foliage, and the natural colonnade formed by the evergreen forest through which we were passing rendering the air delightfully cool. How charming it would have been to have breakfasted in this pleasant retreat among the lichen-covered limestone boulders, mosses, and ferns! Leaving the defile, we followed the Thoungyeen down-stream past the Siamese guard-station, which lies on the other bank—the river forming the frontier—to the ford.
The river at the ford is 250 feet wide from bank to bank, with the channel reduced to 70 feet by a great shoal of boulders, now uncovered, stretching from the western bank. The current being swift and the water chest-deep, some of the men were nearly swept away whilst crossing. The boys went in up to their hips, and stood trembling, afraid to proceed farther. I therefore told them to return to the strand, and I would send elephants from the camp to bring them across.
The bank of the river is about 206 feet above mean sea-level at Maulmain. After passing the ford, we crossed the Meh Tha Wah, passed the guard-house, and camped about half a mile off, near the stream and some rice-fields. As soon as the elephants were unloaded, I sent two back for the boys; but meanwhile they had found their way to the ferry, and crossed the river in a boat. The guard-house is 38 miles from Hlineboay.