A thousand miles on an elephant in the Shan States

by Holt S. Hallett

CHAPTER XXI.

LEAVE PENYOW—WILD ROSES—AN INUNDATED COUNTRY—ROYAL FUNERAL BUILDINGS—POSTS TWO HUNDRED FEET LONG—COLLECTION AND USES OF WOOD-OIL—DESCRIPTION OF DAILY MEALS—WATER-PARTING BETWEEN THE MEH KONG AND MEH NAM—PATH FOR RAILWAY—A DEAD FOREST—REACH MUANG NGOW—SETTLED BY LAKON—KAREN VILLAGES—TEAK-FORESTS—FOUR THOUSAND BURMESE DESTROYED—A DISTRIBUTING CENTRE FOR MUANG NAN AND MUANG PEH—DEFICIENT RAINFALL—BURMESE PEDLARS—IMMIGRANTS FROM KIANG HUNG-A TERRIBLE DIN—THE ECLIPSE—BUDDHIST LEGEND—ELEPHANTS SHOULD REST AFTER NOON DURING HOT SEASON—LEAVE MUANG NGOW—RAILWAY FROM BANGKOK TO KIANG HUNG CROSSES NO HILL-RANGE—BATTLE-FIELD—THE STONE GATE—WATER-PARTING BETWEEN THE MEH NGOW AND MEH WUNG—A JOLTING ELEPHANT—BAN SA-DET—OFFERINGS FOR THE MONKS—PRESENTS FOR THE CHILDREN—THE BUDDHIST LENT—LIGHTS FOR EVIL SPIRITS—THE DEMON’S LENT—OFFERINGS TO THE NAIADS—ILLUMINATING THE RIVER—KING OF SIAM LIGHTING FIREWORKS—SCARING THE SPIRITS—OFFERINGS TO NAIADS AND DEMONS IN CASE OF SICKNESS—TRIAL BY WATER—SUPERSTITION AGAINST SAVING DROWNING FOLK—DESCENT OF THE RAIN-GOD INDRA—LIBATIONS—THE WATER-FEAST—BATHING THE IMAGES—SCENE IN THE TEMPLE—WAKING THE GODS WITH WATER—PROPITIATING THE LAWA GENII—THE WARMING OF BUDDH—A DOUSING—A COMPLIMENT—CALLING THE SPIRITS TO WITNESS—LEAVE BAN SA-DET—RUBY-MINES—REACH LAKON.

We were detained at Penyow from the 3d to the 8th of April, waiting the arrival of a fresh relay of elephants. The elephants had been turned out for the hot season to graze in the forests, and had to be tracked for long distances before they could be captured. At length, when four elephants had been brought in, Chow Rat, the Lakon prince, kindly lent us two of his own animals; and we thus, with Dr M‘Gilvary’s elephant, and twenty porters, had as much transport as we required.

During our stay the Chow Hluang furnished us with rice and fowls, and the day before we left, to our great joy sent us the fore quarters of a pig. Never was roast-pork more enjoyed by mortal beings.

Leaving Penyow the next morning about seven o’clock, we crossed the Meh Ing, which runs near the south gate of the city. The bed of the river at our ford was saucer-shaped, 80 feet wide, and 5 feet deep in the centre, and contained 1 foot of water, which was covered with a thick yellow slime, that emitted an unpleasant odour. After passing a great clump of rose-bushes, bearing ordinary tea-roses, we entered a plain covered with elephant grass and bamboo jungle, which is inundated to a depth of 5 or 6 feet in the rains.

Three-quarters of a mile from the city we left the low ground, and crossing the Meh Hong Sai, the brook of clear water, entered the rice-plain of Ban Meh Sai. This village is inhabited by people who have been turned out of other places in the district, under the accusation of witchcraft.

Near the village we noticed many padouk and pyngado logs, which had been dragged there for the purpose of building a temple and monastery.

Beyond the fields we entered a bamboo jungle, through which our elephants had to force their way by breaking down the bamboos and small trees, and snapping off such branches and twigs as would interfere with the howdah. It is surprising how docile these great animals are, and how sagaciously they obey the orders given them by their drivers. We halted for breakfast at a house that had been built for us in the pretty village of Meh Hong Khum, which is situated on a stream of the same name.

After breakfast, we visited the temple and monastery, where we found the priests busy making rockets for the approaching eclipse, and then continued through the forest to the village of Ban So. Thence proceeding through a slightly rolling country, where several small streams take their rise, we camped for the night under the shade of a great kanyin tree, near the Meh Na Poi, which enters the Meh Ing. We had risen 350 feet in 12 miles since leaving Penyow.

The kanyin (or oil-tree), under which we erected our tent, had it been on an affluent of the Meh Nam, might have been chosen for one of the main posts of a Pramene, or Royal Siamese cremation temple. When a king of Siam dies, his successor immediately begins making preparations for the construction of a Pramene, a splendid temporary building, under which the body, after sitting in state for several days on a throne glittering with silver, gold, and precious stones, is committed to the flames.

The late Dr Bradley thus described the erection of the posts in one of these buildings:—

“The building is intended to be in size and grandeur according to the estimation in which the deceased was held. Royal orders are forthwith sent to the governors of four different provinces far away to the north, in which large timber abounds, requiring each of these to furnish one of the four large logs for the centre pillars of the Pramene. These must be of the finest timber, usually the oil-tree (kanyin), very straight, 200 feet long, and proportionally large in circumference, which is not less than 12 feet. There are always twelve other pillars, a little smaller in size, demanded at the same time from the governors of other provinces, as also much other timber needed in the erection of the Pramene and the numerous buildings connected with it.

“The great difficulty of procuring these pillars is one main cause of the usual long delay of the funeral burning of a king. When brought to the city, they are dragged up to the place of the Pramene, chiefly by the muscular power of men working by means of a rude windlass and rollers under the logs. They are then hewed and planed a little—just enough to remove all cracks and other deformities—and finished off in a cylindrical form. Then they are planted in the ground 30 feet deep, one at each corner of a square not less than 160 feet in circumference. When in their proper place they stand leaning a little toward each other, so that they describe the form of a four-sided, truncated pyramid from 150 to 180 feet high. On the top of these is framed a pagoda-formed spire, adding from 50 to 60 feet more to the height of the structure. This upper part is octagonal, and so covered with yellow tin sheets and tinselled paper as to make a grand appearance at such a height.”

The Ton Yang (or Ton Nyang), the Shan name for the kanyin tree, sometimes attains a height of 230 feet to the first branch. Its oil is procured in a similar way to the varnish of the Mai Hăk, or Thytsi tree. A large notch is cut in the tree two or three feet from the ground, and a basin is formed at the bottom of the notch, capable of containing three quarts of oil as it drops from the upper part of the notch. A fire is then built in the notches, and kept burning until all parts are well charred. A tree 12 feet in circumference often has three or more of these wounds, each giving from one to two quarts in twenty-four hours.

At first the oil appears milky and thin, but it gradually becomes brown and thicker by exposure to the air. A good deal of sediment collects in the jars into which the oil is put, which is mixed with rotten wood or other material, and formed into torches, from 15 to 18 inches long. These torches serve as candles and lanterns, and also for kindling fires. The oil is used for oiling boats, and, mixed with a finely pulverised resin, as a putty for filling the seams of the boats, and, with less resin, as a coating to protect their bottoms. In a few days it becomes quite hard and impervious to water.

Camping in the evergreen forest, under the great tree, with the air rapidly cooling after the heat of the day, was very enjoyable, and was rendered more so by recollections of our late stuffy quarters in the pest-ridden city. Then we had pork, roast-pork, for dinner! No one can realise what a luxury that is who has not existed mainly upon fowls for several weeks.

For the sake of future travellers in these parts, I may here note the particulars of our daily meals. Before dawn, whilst the elephant-men were bathing their charges in the neighbouring stream and we were having our morning dip, our boys were cooking our chota haziri, or early meal, which consisted of a tin of Kopp’s soup mixed with a table-spoonful of Liebig’s essence of beef, and some biscuits, with coffee, cocoa, or tea, and half cooking the fowls which would be required for our breakfast. By daybreak our meal was completed, and everything packed on the elephants, so that we might be away as soon as it was light. On each of our howdahs we carried a cosie-covered Chinese teapot, into which hot tea had been poured after having been brewed in another pot, and an enamelled teacup to drink out of when thirsty on the journey.

At breakfast, which was served during our mid-day halt, we had soup, chickens, sometimes a duck, curry, and rice, and vegetables when we could get them. The tender shoots of young bamboos, and certain fern-fronds when stripped of their stalks, form excellent substitutes for garden vegetables, and were frequently eaten by us when procurable. Our dinners were similar to our breakfasts, with the addition of fried plantains, tapioca, sago, or boiled rice and jam. Beef was a luxury seldom to be had, and to procure a beefsteak one had to purchase an ox.

The following morning we were off early, and two miles beyond our camp came to the water-parting that divides the streams flowing into the Meh Kong from those emptying into the Meh Nam. It was only 1643 feet above the level of the sea, or 377 feet above Penyow, which was here 14 miles distant.

Nothing could have been more surprising to us. Loi Kong Lome, the great range to our right that separates the Meh Ngow from the Meh Ing, was four or five miles distant, and dying down into the plain, while Loi Nam Lin, the main range on our left, was ten miles away, with its nearest spur two miles from us.

We were in a great gap between two ranges of mountains, and were merely crossing the undulating ground intervening between them. Here was a freak of nature to be taken advantage of for railway purposes. I had now proved that the water-parting of the Meh Kong and the Meh Nam could be crossed through a gap in the mountains, and that Kiang Hung, at the foot of the Yunnan plateau, could be joined to Bangkok, the capital of Siam, by a railway passing through a series of valleys separated from each other by only undulating ground, which offered no physical obstruction to the carrying out of the work. It now remained to be seen whether an alternative line viâ the valley of the Meh Wung, which would bring Zimmé and Maulmain into nearer connection with the railway, was equally feasible.

Descending along the Meh Yu-ek, amongst hillocks and broken ground, we seemed to be passing through the valley of the shadow of death. The forest had a ghastly appearance. Dead bamboos lay like spellicans cast about in every direction, and many had been crushed down by others to the ground, which was carpeted with yellow silvery leaves. The light colour of the bark of the few trees scattered amongst the clumps was strangely in tone with the dead bamboos; and their yellow-green, fresh-sprouted foliage, added to the weird aspect of the scene. One could nearly believe that the pale-blue and yellow butterflies flitting over the path were the souls of human beings in the land of dreams, or on their pilgrimage to a new life.

After descending 363 feet in 4 miles, we reached Ban Hai, a hamlet in a forest of noble teak-trees. Near here, willows were growing in the stream-bed, and a caravan of thirty-five laden cattle passed on their way from Muang Peh to Kiang Hai.

We continued along the stream for another two miles, and then left it flowing to our right, and crossing a couple of low spurs, descended to and crossed the Meh Ngow. This river at our ford was 1073 feet above the sea, 60 feet broad, and 6 feet deep, with 6 inches of water in its bed. The fall from the crest of the pass to our crossing of the Meh Ngow was only 570 feet in a distance of 8 miles. Three-quarters of a mile farther we halted for breakfast at a house that had been erected for our use in the rice-plain of Ban Koi.

We were once again in a cultivated region, and from here to Muang Ngow our path led chiefly through rice-fields and tobacco-gardens.

Early the next morning we reached the beautifully wooded city of Muang Ngow, which is situated 93¾ miles from Zimmé, and 798 feet above the sea.

Muang Ngow is one of the smallest Muangs in the Ping States. It was resettled a few years ago by Lakon, and comprised at the time of my visit only 800 houses, which were scattered through the city and six villages. There were also a few Karen villages in the neighbouring hills, some of whose inhabitants had lately been converted by Dr Cushing’s Mission, the American Baptist, that has done such good work amongst the Karens and other hill tribes in Burmah.

In reporting of this Muang in 1887, three years after my visit, Mr Archer states: “Muang Ngao (Muang Ngow) is an important sub-province of Lakhon (Lakon), and, besides its rich rice-fields, boasts of extensive teak-forests, which have recently been leased to a British company. The valley is broad and well cultivated, and the numerous and populous villages and the traffic on the roads showed greater prosperity and animation than I had yet seen, with a few exceptions, since leaving Chiengmai (Zimmé). Muang Ngao lies on the trade-route from Lakhon to the north, and the number of traders I met here proves it to be a trade station of some importance.”

This Muang, which would be intersected by our proposed railroad, is 83 miles distant from Muang Nan, the capital of the Shan State of the same name, and three days and five hours’ elephant journey, or about 60 miles, distant from Muang Peh, the capital of the State of that name. At the time when the Ping States threw off their allegiance to Burmah, Noi Atha, the governor of Muang Nan, which was then a principality of Zimmé, led a force of 4000 Burmese soldiers into the gorge of the Meh Si-phan, where they were crushed to death by rocks hurled down by the Shans from the overhanging heights. The Meh Si-phan, which enters the Meh Yom from the east, is skirted by the route from Muang Ngow to Muang Nan, and its name implies the “river of the 4000.” Lakon and Muang Ngow would be equally well situated on the railway for tapping the trade of Muang Nan and Muang Peh.

On visiting the governor, who has the title of Pau Muang, or Father of the State, he received us with the usual frank courtesy of the Shan chiefs, and gave us what information he could about trade, trade-routes, and geography. Half of the people gain their livelihood by cultivating cotton, and the remainder by rice, tobacco, and other crops. The outcome of rice varies with the rainfall; and in good seasons the return is eighty to ninety fold, or about double the average in Burmah. The rainfall was insufficient in 1869 and 1883; though in other years their crops were good. The river does not inundate the land, but the hills being near, canals can easily be made to irrigate the fields.

Although there are many areca palms about the place, they do not fruit well; therefore betel-nuts, as well as seri-leaf, are brought from Zimmé. Dried fish come from Penyow and Kiang Hsen, and European goods from Bangkok viâ Lakon. Mr Archer met a number of Toungthoo and Burmese pedlars at the city; and the inhabitants exchange their cotton with the Chinese from Yunnan for salt, which the latter have purchased at Lakon for bartering in the district.

Immigrants from Kiang Hung, belonging to a branch of the Shans known as Lus, have formed settlements in the country between Muang Peh and Kiang Khong, as well as in the valley of the Meh Oo, a river that enters the Meh Kong from the north near the city of Luang Prabang.

The city of Muang Ngow is fringed with, and partially hidden by, fine fruit-trees; the gardens being rendered beautiful by handsome clumps of cocoa-nut and areca palms. The sala being in a filthy condition, and surrounded by a large caravan of laden cattle, we camped in the gardens.

In the evening we were startled by a terrible din which suddenly sprang up on all sides of us. Swarms of men, women, and children, seemingly maddened by excitement, were rushing about firing guns, horse-pistols, rockets, and crackers, in all directions; clashing together gongs, bells, brass basins, pots, bowls, bamboos, and anything within reach; and yelling, screeching, and hooting, made night horrible; while the discord was further increased by the barking and howling of frightened dogs. An eclipse was occurring—the Naga (or dragon) was swallowing the moon; and the people, naturally enraged, were determined that he should disgorge it. After the eclipse was over, clouds gathered over the sky and we had a sharp shower of rain.

The Buddhist legend that gives the origin of the name of this State is by no means complimentary to the people. It states that, when Gaudama Buddha arrived at Ngow and sent to the people announcing his arrival, they were engaged in fishing. Instead of returning home at once and putting on decent clothes, they stopped to finish their haul, and then presented themselves to him in their dripping clothes. On their approaching him, he exclaimed, “The people of this place are ngow (fools). The Buddha came to visit you, you did not hasten to him, and when at length you come, it is in this plight.” This legend, I need hardly say, was not told me in Ngow, but by a Chow Phya of Lakon.

The temperature during the day varied between 69° at 5.30 A.M., 87° at 10 A.M., 92° at noon, 96° at 2.30 P.M., and 95° at 4.10 P.M. During the hot season it is desirable that the day’s march with elephants should commence at daybreak and end by noon; afternoons are very oppressive, and the animals get jaded, particularly when travelling in an open plain or in a leafless forest.

We left Muang Ngow just as it was getting light, on April 11th, and crossed the plain to Ban Hoo-art, a village situated on the Meh Hoo-art, an affluent of the Meh Ngow. We then skirted the stream for five miles, and halted for breakfast on its bank, under a shady grove of trees. Many teak-logs had been dragged from the forest into the bed of the stream for floating to Bangkok during the rainy season. One of the teak-trees in the forest measured 16 feet in girth 6 feet from the ground. During our morning’s march we passed two large villages, a party of Burmese Shans returning to Kiang Tung from Maulmain with their purchases, and a caravan of fifty laden cattle.

In the afternoon we journeyed through a teak-forest, and after crossing two low spurs, halted for the night on the bank of the Meh Lah. Our camp was 81½ miles from Zimmé, and we had risen 614 feet since leaving Muang Ngow.

A mile to the east of our crossing, the Meh Lah, which enters the Meh Ngow near the site of the ancient city of Muang Teep, is joined by the Meh Lah Noi, a tributary from the south, which drains a valley six and a half miles long, formed by a long low spur, which is connected at the head of the valley with the plateau on the west. This valley has the appearance of having been cut lengthways out of the former flat slope of the plateau, the spur seeming to be the lower continuation of the original slope. On ascending the plateau on the morrow, I noticed that in the space between the spur and the north end of the range of hills lying to the east, which commences some ten miles to the south-east, the only hill visible was a short precipitous mass of mural limestone, standing up several hundred feet in height, with its top looking like a great coronet.

It thus became apparent that a similar freak of nature to that already described in the water-parting between the Meh Ing and the Meh Ngow was present in that between the Meh Ngow and the Meh Wung. The ranges between the basins of the rivers are not continuous, and a railway can be constructed from Bangkok viâ Lakon, to Kiang Hung, which lies at the foot of the Yunnan plateau, through a series of great plains, which are only separated from each other by slightly undulating country.

Leaving the Meh Lah early the next morning, we ascended the slope of the plateau for two and a half miles by a good broad road, passing through a teak-forest to the Pah Took (Stone Tent), a pillar of limestone with a small cave in its western face. For the greater part of the way the ascent lay along a natural terrace 300 and 400 feet wide, bordered on the east by the slope of the plateau, and on the west by cliffs of mural limestone. In this neighbourhood a pitched battle is said to have been fought between a Zimmé army and one of Burmese Shans, but I could get no further particulars of the event.

At the Pah Took we turned west and ascended 90 feet to the Pah Too Pah (Stone Gate)—a gap 200 feet broad, in the line of limestone cliffs that fringe the eastern edge of the summit of the plateau. The cliffs on either side of the gap rose like the wall of a fortress to a height of 300 feet, and the ground at the gap was 1941 feet above the level of the sea.

Continuing along the eastern edge of the plateau, which sloped from north to south, we reached the base of Loi Pah Heeng. Leaving Loi Pah Heeng trending away to the south-west, we descended the eastern slope of the plateau—the same that we had previously mounted from the Meh Lah—and after marching a mile, reached the head of the Meh Lah Noi valley.

The crest of the spur at this point is 1564 feet above the sea, and I have assumed that elevation as the height that the railway would have to cross between the valleys of the Meh Wung and the Meh Ngow; but it is evident that a considerably lower pass might be found between the spur and the coronet-topped hill which still loomed above it in the distance.

Continuing our descent, we shortly afterwards came to the source of the Meh Mau, and skirting its channel until we found water in its bed, halted for breakfast and for the night—being hungry, thirsty, and weary with our long march. My long-legged male elephant had kept me in perpetual torment by plunging at every step, and nearly breaking my back. The voices of deer were heard in the vicinity of the camp after dark. These inquisitive animals were most likely attracted by the light of our fires.

Next morning we crossed the Meh Mau, and soon afterwards left it at the point where it turns south to enter the Meh Chang, which empties into the Meh Wung—seven and a half hours’ journey to the south of Lakon. During the first three miles from the camp, we gradually ascended 171 feet to the source of the Huay Kyoo Lie, and then followed that brook down-stream for two miles to where its beautiful glen merges into the great plain of the Meh Wung.

After marching across the plain for three hours, we entered the rice-fields and suburbs of Ban Sa-det, and passing through the village, put up at the sala, or rest-house, which is situated on the banks of the Meh Wung. During the morning we met a party of Burmese Shans, accompanying 102 oxen laden with salt, which they were bartering for cotton to take back with them to Kiang Tung. Ban Sa-det is 60½ miles from Zimmé and 823 feet above the level of the sea.

The village was crowded with people from the neighbouring villages, who had come to join in the New Year festivities and to make their offerings at the temples and monasteries. Long strings of men, women, and children streamed past us in single file, all dressed in their best, on their way to the monasteries—some carrying baskets or brass trays on their heads, and others baskets dangling from both ends of a long flat shoulder-bamboo. Every conceivable want of the monks would certainly be satisfied. Pillows for their heads, handsomely worked three-cornered pillows to rest their elbows on, rugs to sit on, and mats for reclining; new yellow garments, lamps, palm-leaf manuscripts beautifully inscribed and covered with handsomely embroidered covers, fans and face-screens, luscious fruits and delicate viands,—what more could pious monks require, particularly when they were sheltered by such a beautiful and spacious building, situated in such a shady and well-kept garden, as had been erected for them by the people?

Women and children came crowding round the elephants whilst they were being unloaded; and as soon as our things were carried up the steps, followed closely in their wake to gaze at us and our doings and further satisfy their curiosity. Their natural politeness, however, forbade them to mount on to the verandah itself until they were invited to do so. Of course the invitation came as soon as we saw their heads above the level of the floor, and I ordered the boys to get out my packets of beads and bead necklaces so as to cheer the hearts of the little children with such inexpensive presents. How their eyes gloated on them! how their little hands clutched them when they were given! how the presents were passed round and separately admired! how this child wanted a necklace similar to what another child had got! how women who had no children with them urged that they had children at home, and pitifully besought me to give them beads for the absent ones! how there was no satisfying anybody! and those who could get no more were quickly replaced by others who had heard the glad tidings for the children. The whole formed a scene not easily forgotten, and I was sorry when I had to close my hoard in order to keep some of my wealth for distribution elsewhere.

The three days during which the festivities of the New Year last form the chief festival in Buddhist countries—except, perhaps, that ensuing at the end of the Buddhist Lent, which lasts from the day after the full moon of July to the full moon of October—when the merry season is ushered in by a great feasting of the monks, and fun waxes fast and furious. During Lent, marriages, feasts, and public amusements are forbidden to the pious. Some of the monks retire into the forest, or into caves in the hills far from the haunts of men, to devote themselves to religious meditation; and the people observe more strictly than usual the four duty-days which are prescribed in each lunar month, and in which all good Buddhists are expected to worship at the pagodas. Only the most pious of the monks turn into recluses during Lent. The remainder return each night to their monasteries, and are not free to roam through the country until that season is over. In the Ping States, throughout Lent, lanterns are hung aloft to guide the spirits through the air, and thus leave no excuse for them to descend into the streets. The observance of this custom is general, and probably arises from the fact that the close of the rains is an unhealthy season, and that certain spirits are believed to bring disease.

The malevolent and beneficent spirits—the belief in whom forms the earlier, and indeed the reigning, religion of the people—likewise have in the Shan States a Lent or season set apart for the stricter execution of religious duties towards them. This lasts from February to May, during which time the people very religiously observe the various rites and ceremonies of spirit-worship. One of these ceremonies consists in making offerings once in the eleventh month and once in the twelfth month to the spirits of the river, for having defiled the water by bathing and throwing refuse into it.

Evil spirits.

As soon as it is dark, the river becomes alive with joyous pleasure-seeking people hastening to the scene. Offerings, consisting of fairy skiffs and rafts of banana-stalks carrying flowers, betel-nut, seri-leaf, incense, and lighted tapers, are floated in myriads upon the river, and are replaced by others as they disappear in the distance. A similar ceremony occurs in Burmah and Siam at the close of Lent. Upon the toy rafts and boats floated in the river opposite Bangkok, and upon all the canals, are placed miniature temples, pagodas, and transparencies of birds and beasts, all brightly illuminated with wax candles. They are sent off one at a time, and float down with the tide, beautifully illuminating the river. When the miniature fleet has disappeared, the king applies a match to fireworks that have been arranged in boats; and then are seen trees of fire, green shrubbery, and a variety of flowers of ever-changing colours, with rockets and squibs in great profusion. Large and small guns are fired from the surrounding walls of Bangkok to scare away the evil spirits; and during the three days of the New Year festival, companies of priests are employed by the king on the top of the walls, going through certain ceremonies in concert, so as to drive the evil spirits from the city.

Offerings to the spirits of the land or rivers are frequently made in cases of sickness by the people. These consist of clay images, rice, vegetables, flesh, fruit, flowers, and wax tapers, set on toy boats or rafts and placed on the stream or in the street, whichever is the public highway. The spirits are supposed to find the food, &c., and become appeased.

A dryad.

Other superstitions are connected with these naiads. One seems to have given rise to the trial by water, which can still be claimed in the Ping States—both accuser and defendant having to enter the river and see which can keep his head longest under water without coming up for breath; and another, which accounts for the seeming heartlessness of the people towards drowning folk. The common belief is that the water-sprite will certainly resent the interference of one person in rescuing another, by at some future time claiming the rescuer as a substitute.

New Year’s Day amongst the Shans and Burmese occurs at the time of the expected break of the south-west monsoons, and is held in honour of the great Indian rain-god Indra, who is invoked by the people to strike the great demon-shaped clouds (personified in India as the Demon Vritra) which bring the periodical rains, upon which the fertility of the ground depends. In the month of May, in India, the heat becomes intense: vegetation is dried up, the crops cannot be sown, the cattle droop, and milk and butter become scarce. Famine or plenty depends upon the expected rains, and the daily gathering of the clouds is watched with anxiety; but although the array of clouds is constantly enlarging, there is no rain until a rattling thunderstorm charges the ranks and the broken clouds let loose the impetuous showers. “This,” according to the Sama Veda, “is Indra, who comes ‘loud shouting’ in his car, and hurls his thunderbolt at the demon Vritra.”

Indra is represented in the Vedas as a young and handsome man, with a beautiful nose and chin, ever joyous, and delighting in the exhilarating draughts of Soma juice. When offering to Indra, the priest exclaims—“Thy inebriety is most intense; nevertheless, thy acts are most beneficent.”

The evening of the next day, when we were at Lakon, the monsoon burst upon us. A great low-lying phalanx of black bellying clouds came up in battle array from the horizon, and, like a vast black curtain, quickly hid every star from our view. Then commenced the stupendous fight. Indra’s bolts, dashing in every direction, rent the clouds, and the rain came pouring down in torrents upon the thirsty earth.

Amongst the Ping Shans, New Year’s Day is the same as in Burmah, and is fixed by the position of the sun and not by that of the moon. It is the time of the great Water Festival, when for three days Phya In, or Indra—the rain-god and king of the Dewahs—is supposed to descend at midnight to the earth to stay for three or four days. On the signal of his arrival being given, a formal prayer is made, and jars full of water, which have been placed at the door of each house, their mouths stoppered with green leaves, have their contents poured on the ground as a libation to the god, in order to ensure the prosperity of the household; and every one who has a gun hastens to fire it off as a salute to the rain-god.

The first thing in the morning the people take fresh pots of water to the monasteries, and present them to the abbot and his monks; and in the afternoon the women proceed to the temples to wash the images, and later on freely douse their grandparents and other aged relatives. The scene of the image-washing is highly picturesque. Before leaving home for the temples, the women compound various perfumery from spices and flowers, which, when duly prepared, is cast into a metal basin—sometimes of silver—filled with fresh well-water. Newly cut flowers lie on the surface of the water, and likewise deck the hair of the women and girls, and even the top-knots of the little boys who accompany them.

Each woman, and even tiny little girl, bears a basin of perfumed water in her hands, and all trip along gaily, dressed in all the finery at their disposal, chatting and jesting merrily together, to the temple. As they enter its grounds, which are enclosed by low white-plastered brick walls, along two sides of which are erected sheds for the accommodation of pilgrims, the abbot and his monks, in their bright yellow garments, and with their bald pates glistening in the sun, may be seen strolling amongst the pleasant shady fruit-trees. Everything has been kept neat and trim by the pious villagers, not even a stray leaf is to be seen, and fresh sand has been scattered about the grounds as a finishing touch. The great white-walled temple, with its handsome many-tiered roof, and its floor raised some feet from the ground, stands with its door facing the entrance-gate, and a broad flight of steps, with handsome side walls surmounted by great plastered dragons embellished with coloured glass scales of various tints, and the bottoms of beer-bottles for eyes, leads up to the double entrance-door.

There are no windows in the building; and therefore the only light shed upon the great image, besides that glimmering from above, comes from the entrance-door, which faces the shrine, and from the rows of wax tapers which are placed on a stand before the image. On its pedestal are many smaller images covered with gold-leaf or silver, and all intended as resemblances of Gaudama Buddh; some depicting him in a sitting, others in a recumbent, and a few in a standing posture. As you enter the temple, leaving the sunshine for the dim religious light of the great hall, you notice about the altar wreaths and garlands of lovely flowers, fruit of various kinds, piles of newly made yellow robes which have been woven by the women, new mats, and various other offerings, that have been made to the temple and the monks.

The offerings not required, are supposed to be sold by the layman attached to the monastery, and the money given to the sick and needy. The monasteries, I may here remark, serve as refuges for poor travellers, who are welcome at all times to shelter and food as long as they conduct themselves properly.

Punishments in the Buddhist hells.

The floor of the temple is generally of brick covered with a hard white cement, and the walls of the temples are frequently adorned with fresco paintings representing incidents in the lives of Gaudama Buddh, as related in the Zahts,—the favourite one being the Jataka of Naymee, where he is represented as a white ghostly figure in a chariot, passing through the eight hells and the six heavens of the Dewahs. The punishments depicted as happening to various evildoers in the hells make one’s flesh creep. Other pictures portraying the occupations of daily life, the different nationalities seen in the country, and even sepoys and British soldiers, besides civilians with great tall hats or enormous sola-topees, adorn the walls of some of the temples.

Groups of women and children are squatting about on the floor. Neighbours who have not met for a time are chatting together in an ordinary tone of voice. Youths and maidens are joking together, or having a quiet flirtation. Here an aged woman, telling her beads and mumbling her prayers, presses her hands together, and lifting them above her head, inclines her body in a low bow to the great image of Buddha, till her head and hands are pressing the floor. There a mother with her little child on her knee, closes its tiny palms on the stalk of a flower, and teaches the infant how to worship the great lawgiver Buddha.

Presently the abbot, or one of the elderly monks, commences in a monotonous tone to read one of the sacred books, which, being written in Pali, none of the women or children can understand. The service being over, the ceremony of bathing the images commences. All rise to their feet, and the men carry the smaller images into a miniature temple of bamboo, that has been erected in the grounds. When they are all arranged, the women gather around, and each one, taking her basin, dashes the water over the images, which are too sacred for a woman’s hand to touch.

The missionaries told me that the images are likewise drenched with water in times of drought, when the rice crop is being injured for want of rain. Only the year before, the chief of Zimmé, accompanied by his retinue of princes and attendants, ascended to the temple of Loi Soo Tayp, and had the images removed from the building into the grounds of the pagoda. Then the pagoda and images were thoroughly doused with water, to awake the attention of the spirits of deceased monks that were domiciled in them, to the wants of the people. Another day a procession of a hundred monks visited the temple for the same purpose. Finding these spirits obdurate, or too somnolent to be of use, the execution of some convicts was hastened in order to propitiate Poo-Sa and Ya-Sa, the guardian, rain-producing genii of the hills, so that they might allow more water to flow down the streams for irrigating the fields. It is evident that the people believed that these tutelary spirits were hankering after their former diet, and had perhaps forgotten their promise to Gaudama when he visited their haunts.

Another peculiar ceremony occurs, according to Dr M‘Gilvary, at the full moon of the fourth Ping Shan month, which usually falls in January. It is called by a name signifying “The warming of Buddh.” About daylight, bonfires are kindled in the temple grounds, at which are assembled a larger number than usual of worshippers. It is the cool season of the year, when the mornings are uncomfortably cold; but no one dares to warm himself by the bonfires on that morning. They are sacred to the spirits of deceased monks inhabiting the images of Buddh, and are kindled for their especial benefit. When the fires are lighted, incense-tapers are taken by the priests, who go inside of the temple, prostrate themselves before the images, and invite them to come out and be warmed by the sacred fires. It is a sham invitation, however, so far as the images are concerned, as they are not carried out; but the spirits of the poor cold deceased monks are presumed to gladly accept it.

The greatest fun of the Water Festival at the New Year happens amongst the young people. Young men and maidens dash water over each other at every chance they have; little boys, with squirts and syringes, are in their glory; and every one is soon drenched to the skin. No one thinks of changing his clothes, and the fun continues day after day during the festival, amidst stifled screams and shouts of merriment. It is the hottest time of the year, and nobody catches cold; and no one would care to get through the three days with dry clothes! for the wetting is looked upon as a compliment.

Notwithstanding the great heat, the thermometer for three hours in the day marking 101° in the shade, we rambled about amongst the crowd, visited the monastery, pagoda, and temples, watched the fun and the fireworks, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. In the grounds of the pagoda were two fine bells, hanging in beautifully carved belfries. The bells had the usual pieces of stag-horn lying close to them. After completing their orisons, it is customary for the devotees to strike the bell thrice with the deer-horn, in order to awaken the attention of the guardian spirits, and every one else, to the fact of their having done so.

The next morning we were off early, and continued for nearly eight miles down the valley of the Meh Wung, through an extensive rice-plain, to the eastern entrance of the city of Lakon. On our way we passed near ten villages, and crossed a stream, which is known as Huay Bau Kyow (the Stream of the Ruby-Mines). I therefore presume that rubies have been found near the source of this stream. Before reaching the city, we noticed a chain of high hills commencing to the east, each link either separated from the others or divided by merely undulating ground. They are certainly isolated from any other range, because the Meh Mau, which we had followed down from our last pass, after draining their eastern sides, enters the Meh Wung some miles below the city.

The eastern entrance of the city is distant 53 miles from Zimmé, and is protected by brick walls 15 feet high, which enclose a courtyard 40 feet long and 30 feet wide, entered by strong outer and inner gates. A brick wall of the same height extends round three sides of the city; while the western side is simply protected by a palisade—the former wall having been destroyed by the encroachment of the river, which skirts the north and west sides of the city.

After proceeding for three-quarters of a mile through the town, we left it by the western gate, and halted near the bank of the river at the house of Chow Don, the Siamese Assistant Judge, who had kindly placed it at our disposal.