CHAPTER XXXI.
APATHY OF SIAMESE OFFICIALS—PROPOSAL TO SURVEY PASSES BETWEEN SIAM AND BURMAH—MR WEBSTER’S OFFER—PREPARATIONS FOR BOAT-JOURNEY TO BANGKOK—BOATS AND CREW—KINDNESS OF MISSIONARIES—LEAVE ZIMMÉ—NUMBER OF VILLAGES—SHAN EMBROIDERIES—BUYING PETTICOATS—AN EVENING BATH—SHAMELESS WOMEN—PREPARING FOR THE RAPIDS—MORE BARGAINS—SCRAMBLING FOR BEADS—ENTER THE DEFILE—MAGNIFICENT SCENERY—GEOLOGICAL CHANGES—UNDERGROUND RIVERS—SUBSIDENCE AND PERIODS OF UNREST—AN EARTHQUAKE-BELT—LIMESTONE CLIFFS—A CHINESE SMUGGLER—ROPED DOWN THE RAPIDS—PICTURESQUE CLIFFS—PRECIPICES A MILE HIGH—A WATERFALL—THREE PAGODAS—OFFERINGS TO DEMONS—SPIRITS OF THE JUNGLE—FORMING SPIRIT-CLANS—ALLURING TRAVELLERS TO DEATH—LASCIVIOUS SPIRITS—M‘LEOD’S ROUTE—SHOOTING DANGEROUS RAPIDS—KAMOOK LUMBER-MEN—THE PILLAR-ROCK—PASS TO BAN MEH PIK—SKETCHING THE GOVERNOR—PATH TO MAULMAIN—SEARCHING FOR RUBIES—A SAMBHUR DEER—LEAVE THE DEFILES—ENTRANCE OF THE MEH WUNG—PATHS FOR THE RAILWAY—SILVER-MINES—REACH RAHENG.
Before leaving Zimmé I made a round of calls to thank the Shan princes and the missionaries for rendering my visit so pleasant, and for their kindness in collecting and giving me information about the trade and the country. Every one, with the exception of the Siamese authorities, had shown themselves eager in making my explorations a success; and even the Siamese commissioner, although apparently too indolent to interest himself in my doings, had certainly thrown no hindrance in my path, and was as communicative and truthful as I had been led to expect before leaving Burmah.
By noon on May 31st everything was in the boats, and the missionaries came to see me off and hand me their mail for Bangkok. Mr Webster assured me that if I determined to zigzag across the various passes over the hills which divide Raheng and Zimmé from the British frontier, during the next dry season, he would gladly be of the party, and would be useful in communicating with the Karen villagers who inhabited that region. To this I gladly consented, on the understanding that the exploration would not be carried out unless I could collect sufficient funds for the purpose—which I am sorry to say I was unable to do.
The boats were mat-roofed and flat-bottomed, and about 40 feet long by 6 feet broad. The one occupied by me had a good-sized room at the stern, in which I could stand up and look over the lower roof which sheltered the rowers. Under the floor, which was constructed of movable planks, was placed part of the baggage and some cargo that the boatmen were carrying down as a private speculation. In the other boat were the boys and the remainder of the baggage. Part of the stern of this boat was used as a kitchen; I was therefore not afflicted with the smell of the cooking, and my boat was not inconveniently crowded.
Each crew consisted of a steersman and four rowers, and a Chinaman accompanied us in a similar-sized boat: the three crews were thus able to help in dragging each boat in sequence over the rocks, and in slackening its progress by hauling on to ropes when passing down the worst of the rapids. Before leaving, I procured a list of sentences in Shan and English that would be useful to me on the journey, and Dr M‘Gilvary and Mr Martin secured for me a most intelligent paynim or steersman, who had frequently made the journeys with missionaries, and was therefore well aware of the ways and requirements of Europeans.
Mrs M‘Gilvary, Mrs Martin, and Mrs Peoples vied with each other as to who should provide me with the choicest delicacies for consumption on the journey, and the young ladies supplied me with light literature for my idle moments. It is not surprising that, after experiencing such constant kindness from the Americans in Zimmé, I determined, if I could get Mr Colquhoun to accompany me, to return home through America, and spend three or four months in travelling about in that country.
In the afternoon of June 3d we reached Muang Haut, which lies 82 miles from Zimmé, and is the village where I exchanged elephants for boats on my journey to Zimmé. On the way between Zimmé and Muang Haut, I passed and took the names of fifty-nine villages. Twenty-five of these lie between Zimmé and the mouth of the Meh Hkuang, the villages bordering that part of the river being nearly conterminous; other villages were hidden from view by the long, low-lying, orchard-clad islands, which are numerous for some miles below the city.
We passed Muang Haut, and halted for the night at Ban Nyang, a Karen village situated on the west bank, 84½ miles from Zimmé. For 24 miles below Ban Nyang the river continues very tortuous in its course—cliffs of sand and rounded gravel, remains of the old lake-bottom, occasionally skirting the river on either hand. Leaving early the next morning, we continued down the river, which is beautifully wooded on either bank with great clumps of plumed bamboos, which seem to grow to perfection in the neighbourhood, owing perhaps to the heavy mists which rise from the river, and passing Nong Poom, a suburb of Ban Nang En, we stopped for breakfast at the main village.
Ban Nang En, the village where the body of the levanting princess was washed ashore after her bold leap with her lover from the cliff at Pa-kin-soo, with its suburbs contained seventy-four houses. In wandering through the village, noticing the beautifully embroidered skirts worn by the women, I told my steersman to call the women together and let them know that I wished to purchase some of their handiwork. Soon the shore was thronged by people, some with new garments, and others carrying one just stripped from their person and replaced by one of a plainer nature. The designs would have done credit to the best of our art schools at home, and the colours were blended and chosen with exquisite taste. On showing specimens of the skirts to Mr Helm of Manchester, he was much struck with their beauty, and after looking at the texture of the skirts, which were made in three pieces, through a magnifying-glass, said that the top piece was of English manufacture and the two lower portions by native looms. The prices asked were so low, and the embroidery so extensive and so carefully done, that the women could have earned barely a shilling for a fortnight’s work. I therefore presume that the embroidery is carried on in spare moments as a labour of love, like the fancy-work that employs the fingers of our young ladies at home, and is not expected in any other way to repay the labour expended upon it. Some were worked with silk, some with cotton, some with wools, and others with gold and silver threads, the latter being naturally the most expensive.
MAUNG HAUT TO RAHENG.
After passing four more villages, two of which were suburbs of Ban Nang En, we came to Ban Ta Doo-er, a village on the east bank, 100 miles from Zimmé, where the road from Muang Li crosses the river at a ford. Here two streams, the Meh Tan and the Meh Yee-ep, enter the river from the east, near a great cliff of sand and sandstone which skirts the river on the same bank for about a mile down-stream. After passing three more villages, a great tree-clad spur from the Bau plateau, called Loi Kern, was seen extending close to the west bank near Ban Chang, a village built on both sides of the river, where we camped for the night.
Whilst sitting in my arm-chair enjoying a smoke after my bath, and waiting for dinner to be served, the young women of the village came trooping down to the river to fetch water for household purposes; and afterwards returned chattering and laughing, and, to my consternation, in a twinkling disrobed themselves within a few yards of my chair, and skurried into the water like so many young ducks. I thus gained absolute proof that some at least of the Zimmé Shans wear clothing solely for the sake of warmth, and are as devoid of shame as Adam and Eve were in Paradise.
Beyond the village the Meh Hat enters from the east, and 2½ miles below the village the Meh Lai joins the river from the west. The latter stream has its source close to that of the Meh Teun, and drains the great bay of country lying between Loi Kern and Loi Hin Poon, the latter hill forming part of the great broken limestone plateau through which the river passes, tumbling down numerous rapids in a deep cliff-bound gorge to the great plain of Siam.
Ban Meut Kha, the frontier village of Zimmé on the west bank of the river, which lies immediately to the south of the Meh Lai and 109 miles from Zimmé, contained fifty houses. Whilst I was at this village sketching the north entrance of the gorge, and waiting for the pilots who were to steer our boats through the gorge, and to fix great bamboo fenders on either side of the boats, in order to increase their buoyancy and save them from injury during the passage, my steersman, thinking I might require some more embroideries, and perhaps with the hope of taking toll from the women, wandered through the village advising the people to hurry to me with any garments that they had for sale. In a few minutes my boat was stormed by the female population, and even when starting, fresh relays were so anxious to secure a purchaser that my men had actually to hustle them out of the boat. I, however, partly compensated those who were disappointed by distributing the remainder of my beads and bead necklaces amongst them. It was as good as a play to see the scramble as I threw them on the bank.
A mile down-stream on the east bank of the river is the village of New Htow, below which the Huay Kay-Yow enters from the east, after draining the north-eastern portion of the great plateau through which we were about to thread our way. As we proceeded, spurs from the hills on either side began to approach, occasionally ending with bluffs at the edge of the stream, the rock exposed in some of their faces appearing more like trap than limestone, the strata being much contorted and veined with quartz.
Just before the first rapid, which occurs at 113½ miles, a great rock pierced by two flat-arched caverns juts up from the bed of the stream; and a little farther a spur, Loi Hin Poon, ends in a bluff 60 feet high, which has its face riddled with caves and adorned with stalactites.
After passing the second rapid the scenery becomes bold, and great precipices of mural limestone, with their red and black mottled faces beautified by lichens, mosses, and stalactites, occasionally are seen on either side. A mile farther the defile may be said to commence, the hills coming to the bank on either side, and on the west rising sheer from the river’s edge in precipices 1000 feet high; similar cliffs soon afterwards skirt the river on the east.
Beyond Loi Panya Lawa, the hill of the Lawa chief, is a bold bluff with a face strongly resembling a gigantic sphinx. This cliff lies on the west of the river, and its face for some distance has been scooped out at the foot for 15 and 20 feet in width by the action of the strong current. The precipice on the opposite bank resembles a gigantic Norman castle with rounded towers jutting out from its face. The strata in these cliffs are pitched up vertically, as though they had been bodily turned over on their side.
Beyond the castle-cliff the precipice on the west bank changes its aspect, and looks as though it had been punched up or telescoped from below, one precipice rising above another, and another above it, with a slope at the foot of each, appearing as if before the subsidence of the tiers the slopes had been continuous.
There can be no doubt that the great ravine has been caused by sinkage into caverns and underground passages worn out by water, the hills subsiding into them during a period of violent earth-action. An earthquake-belt extends right up the Malay Peninsula through Burmah and Siam into Yunnan and Szechuen. The whole region is still in a period of unrest, as is evidenced by the numerous hot springs passed by travellers, and the earthquakes which frequently occur in this region.
We halted for the night at the hamlet of Ban Kau, which is situated 123 miles from Zimmé, in a small valley which is drained by the Huay Kau. The precipice facing the village was grotto-worked by the action of the lime-water, the grottoes overhanging in great masses giving the cliffs a honeycombed appearance.
At Ban Kau the river makes a westerly bend for 4 miles, and then continues nearly due south for 19 miles, until it is joined by the Meh Teun.
The next morning we passed six rapids before we reached Ban Sa-lee-am, the last Ping Shan village on the river. Below it the river-banks are under the direct control of Siam.
Soon after leaving the village we halted for breakfast at a barrier of rocks 6 feet high, through which a passage had been made for boat traffic. Here I noticed slate and shale outcropping from the bank and forming the base of the mural limestone, which was much veined with quartz. The cliff on the east of the river below the barrier rises about 600 feet, and is known as Loi Pa May-yow, the Cliff of the Cat. Its name is derived from the great mottled patches of lichen on its face representing figures of cats, tigers, and other animals to people with a fertile imagination.
Between the barrier and Loi Chang Hong, three rapids are passed. Down the last, boat after boat was let down by a rope, the crews of my boats and of that belonging to the enterprising Chinese smuggler who had attached himself to our party in the hope of escaping the custom-houses on the river, tugging at the rope to check the speed of the boat.
Loi Chang Hong is remarkable for its castellated appearance, three grand semicircular buttresses and one of smaller diameter rising 1200 to 1500 feet from the edge of the river. Near the top of the precipice is a great cave about 100 feet high, and on the opposite bank the cliff protrudes for some distance over the stream.
The scenery in the neighbourhood is the boldest and most beautiful in its grandeur that I have ever seen. The cliffs are tinted with red, orange, and dark-grey. Great stalactites stand out and droop in clusters from their face, whilst their summit is crowned by large trees, which, dwarfed by the distance, appear smaller and smaller as the depth of the defile increases. Pale puffball-shaped yellow blossoms of a stunted tree like a willow, shed their fragrance from the banks, where small bays are formed by streams conveying the drainage of the country. Beautiful grottoes have been fretted out by the current near the foot of the cliffs, and are covered with moss and ferns which drip drops of the clearest water from every spray.
The cliffs on the west bank are here 3000 feet high, and rise in great telescoped precipices. At 141 miles the hill on the west retires, leaving a narrow plain for about a mile. On the opposite side of the river, the cliff towers up seemingly to more than a mile in height, the trees on its summit looking like small bushes from the boat. This great precipice is named Loi Keng Soi, and from a chink in its face a waterfall comes leaping and dashing down. Its last great leap is a sheer descent of 500 feet. A short distance beyond the waterfall, far up the cliff, the figure of a gigantic horse is seen standing in a natural niche. When it was sculptured and by whom, tradition fails to tell.
On the west bank of the river, near the end of the cliff where the hill retires and forms a small valley, is a pagoda, and two others are seen cresting the low part of the next hill, which gradually rises into a great cliff near the thirteenth and fourteenth rapids, down which we had to be roped. This cliff is surmounted by three ear-like pinnacles: 2000 feet of rock had lately fallen into the river from the face of the precipice on the opposite bank.
Before leaving the pagodas the boatmen went off in a body to make their offerings and worship. The demons in the defile are evidently much dreaded by the Shans, for at our various halting-places offerings, accompanied by lighted tapers and libations, were habitually made to the local demons before the men ate their meals.
It is no wonder that the deep ravines of this great defile are full of terrifying potentialities to people ridden by such nightmare superstitions as are believed in by the Shans. Such places, according to them, are infested by Pee Pa or jungle demons, the spirits of human beings who have died when absent from their homes. These endeavour to cause the death of others by the same means as caused their own. Their victims have to join the company or clan of demons to which the successful demon belongs. Thus the clan increases in numbers, and is ever becoming more potent for mischief.
The way in which the Pee Pa allure travellers to their death varies according to their tribe. The Pee Pok-ka-long cause deep sleep to fall upon weary travellers, and then lead tigers to kill them. At other times they allure them to a tiger’s den by imitating a human voice. Or they enter the body of a wild pig, stag, or even a reptile, and entice the traveller to follow them to meet his death. The Pee Ta-Moi have power over the atmosphere, and cause sudden darkness in order to force a traveller to camp in a dangerous locality infested by wild beasts. The Pee Ee-Koi produce fever with their breath.
Pee Pok-ka-long (jungle demons).
The Pee Song Nang,[[23]] who are more feared than the other Pee Pa, are the spirits of two dissolute princesses, who, after leaving their father’s palace on the sly, were lost in the forest, and perished. These spirits, like those in the spell-bound forest in Milton’s “Comus,” have
“Many baits and guileful spells
T’ inveigle and invite the unwary sense
Of them that pass unweeting by the way.”
Should travellers succumb to their wiles, they die on the instant, and become for ever their companions. These spirits assume such beautiful faces and figures, such winning ways, and such melodious voices, that it is said no man within their influence can withstand them. Great precautions are therefore taken to keep them at a distance. In every path leading to our camping-places, figures made of twisted twigs or bamboos were set up so as to delude these lascivious spirits and keep them at a distance. Other offerings are made to the rest of the jungle demons, varying according to the supposed inclinations of the spirits.
The next morning we reached the mouth of the Meh Teun, which drains an area of country 55 miles long and 15 miles broad, lying between the Meh Ping and the crest of the range which separates the affluents of the Salween from those of the Meh Nam, and forms the spinal range of the Malay Peninsula. This stream was followed by M‘Leod for some distance when on his return from Zimmé to Maulmain in 1837. From the junction of the Meh Teun the Meh Ping trends in a north-easterly direction for 5 miles, and then runs nearly due east to 159½ miles, when it again turns to the south.
Close to the mouth of the stream is the fifteenth rapid. Some distance beyond it the river is contracted by two great rocks protruding from the west bank, and another from the east bank, which must at one time have extended across the stream, and formed a formidable barrier to boat traffic. This barrier is known as Vin-a-tum.
A short distance farther another rapid occurs at the entrance of the most dangerous part of the defile, which is here formed by Loi Teun on the south and Loi Ap Nang on the north. The bold red-coloured precipitous face of the latter hill has been cut into for a depth of about 30 feet by the fierce current of the next rapid.
The boatmen were here seen at their best. The pilot and the steersman both laid hold of the long broad oar that formed the rudder, and the other men held long bamboos to prevent the boat from dashing against the side as we rushed under and alongside the overhanging cliff. The seven minutes taken in descending this rapid must have carried us more than a mile, and the sensation was exhilarating and delightful. The slightest mistake on the part of the steersmen would have brought us to grief.
At the next rapid the cliffs on either side rose 3000 feet above the river, and the section of their summits so perfectly resembled each other that they looked as if they had only lately been rent apart.
After dashing down four more rapids, and being roped down the next one, we halted for breakfast where the river widens, near an island, to 1000 feet. Here the hills on both sides retreat for a time, and I noticed granite outcropping in the stream-bed, and forming the base of the limestone. Just below the island, which is called Song Kweh, is a very long rapid, down which we were roped; a passage had been made by heaping the boulders on the sides.
The next rapid lies a short distance above Ban Soop Tau, a long house inhabited by some Kamook foresters. Trusting solely to the current and our steersmen and the men with bamboos, we rushed along at railroad speed for three-quarters of a mile, doing the distance in four minutes. After passing the house, which is situated 154 miles from Zimmé, we saw many teak-logs floating down the stream, and some Kamooks on elephants who were engaged in keeping the logs from stranding on the boulders, and edging them off when they did so.
Loi Pa Khun Bait.
A little farther we came to another rapid below which the hills again closed in—the one on the left afterwards retiring at a hamlet near the twenty-seventh rapid, the last that needed the use of the rope. The boat was allowed to rush along the edge of the cliff at the next one, at such a pace as to make me clench my teeth and bite through the cigar I was smoking.
Three miles farther the hill on the left again closed in, and we entered a defile and descended through rough water over a rapid that looked like a chopping sea. A mile farther we halted for the night in a bay of the hills close to the foot of Loi Pa Khun Bait—a pillar-rock about 250 feet high that rises from the foot of a hill near the east bank of the river. The hills had latterly become less precipitous, and the defile ended near the traveller’s rest-house called Sala Bau Lome. The river had latterly varied from 300 feet to 120 feet in breadth.
A mile from the gorge some palmyra-trees on the west bank mark the site of a former village, and soon afterwards the pilots left us to conduct some boats up-stream. The valley between the last gorge and the next one is about 13 miles long and of considerable breadth. It is bounded on the east by the Loi Pa Kha range, and on the west by a bold plateau-topped range of hills known as Loi Luong, which separates the southern branch of the Meh Tuen from the Meh Ping.
Extremity of spur from the west range.
After shooting two small rapids, and passing a couple of small villages situated on the west bank, we halted for breakfast near a great spur from the western range. This spur appears to be more than half a mile high, and precipitous near the end, where a great cave is seen high up in the cliff. I sketched the end of the spur from the foot of the eastern hills, which had now come to the river.
Two miles beyond the spur we reached the village of Soom Cha, whence there is a pass across the eastern hills to Ban Meh Pik, a village near the Meh Wung, through which roads lead to Zimmé and Lakon. Soom Cha is situated on the east bank of the river, and contained fifteen houses, besides a temple and pagoda, of the ordinary Shan type. Three miles farther we halted for a couple of hours at Ban Nah, which, with its suburb Ban Ta Doo-a, contained 135 houses.
On calling at the house of the Keh Ban, or head-man of the village, to get information, I was told that he had gone to the temple to worship. Following him there, I found him squatting on his heels before a wretched collection of images, holding up with both hands a brass tray with lighted tapers round its rim containing his offering. There he sat, without looking round or even moving, and had most likely hurried to the temple and turned himself into a worshipper on seeing my boats approach the landing, so as to avoid giving me any information. Suspecting this, I waited until I was tired of waiting, and then, seeing him still rooted to the spot, took out my pencil and made a sketch of him and the images; after doing which, I returned to the boat.
Ban Nah is situated on both sides of the river, the main body of the village and its suburb being on the west bank. From the village the path leaves for Maulmain, which was traversed by M‘Leod on his return journey in 1837.
Two miles below Ban Nah we entered the last defile which severs the Loi Pa Kha range from Loi Wung Ka Chow, and is 4 miles long, ending at a ford called Ta Pwee, where there is a pagoda near the exit of the gorge on the western hill. Half-way through the defile the boatmen asked for leave to land, as they wished to search for rubies in a hill called Kow Sau Kyow on the west bank of the river, where, they told me, valuable gems were sometimes found. After scraping at the gritty ground for half an hour, they brought me a few small—very small—pebbles to look at, which looked more like garnets than rubies. Soon afterwards we camped for the night. Whilst I was enjoying my bath, a large sambhur deer swam leisurely across the river about 1000 feet from the boat, whilst my boys and the Chinaman were taking long and fruitless shots at it.
Sketch at 188½ miles from Ban Pah Yang Neur.
The next morning, 2 miles beyond the mouth of the gorge, I noticed a low plateau-topped, red-coloured bluff near the west bank, with three niches or caverns in its face, with a scaffolding along the entrances, and a ladder leading up to it. These caves formed the temples of a village of twelve houses which was situated to the south of the hill. After passing three more hamlets containing together between thirty and forty houses, from one of which—Ban Pah Yang Neur—I sketched the exit of the gorge, we reached the mouth of the Meh Wung, which is situated about 193½ miles from Zimmé.
This is the river along which the railway would proceed to Lakon. Another line could be made from near its mouth, proceeding through a short gorge near the source of the Meh Phit and the silver-mines to Muang Li, and thence to Zimmé, and from thence through Muang Ngai and Muang Fang, to join the main line at Ban Meh Chun in the Kiang Hsen plain.
Three miles beyond the village, at the mouth of the Meh Wung, I halted at Ban Meh Nyah on the western bank to sketch the hills lying to the east of the Meh Wung. From Ban Meh Nyah onwards, the villages are continuous on the west bank as far as a small hillock called Loi Dee-at Ha, which juts up from the plain at 206 miles, and is faced on the east bank by Loi Meh Pah Neh—a hillock shaped like a great letter ∟, one limb of which skirts the river for a mile and a half.
Sketch at 196½ miles from Ban Meh Nyah.
For six miles above Loi Meh Pa Neh the east bank is likewise lined with houses, imbedded, as is usual in Siam and its Shan States, in beautiful gardens containing palms, mangoes, tamarinds, and other trees. We halted for the night near a building erected on piles over the water at Ban Tat, for the monks of the neighbouring temple to repeat, at the time of the full and new moons, the ritual appointed to cleanse them from their sins, which, if report is to be believed, are by no means few.
From Ban Tat I sketched Loi Luong Sam Huay—the great hill-spur which juts out from the western hills, ending nearly due west of Raheng, and separates the Meh Tak from the Meh Tau. It is by this spur that the railway from Maulmain to Raheng would gradually descend from the crest of the pass over the spinal range which separates the drainage of the Salween river from that of the Meh Ping. The direction of the spur for some miles is due east and west, and it seems—particularly on its southern side—eminently fitted for the easy development of a railway to the pass. The pass is only 2400 feet above the level of the sea, or about 2000 feet above Raheng, and only 1770 feet above the bank of the Thoungyeen river at our frontier, which lies only 37 miles to the west of Raheng.
When the country through which this portion of the line will run is fully explored and accurately surveyed and levelled, it will probably be found that both the distance and estimated cost given by Mr Colquhoun and myself in our Report to the Government and the Chambers of Commerce, is considerably in excess of what will actually be required; because, in estimating this portion of the railway, we have assumed a length of 80 miles, or more than double the direct distance, and for 53 miles of the length have allowed about double the amount per mile that railways have cost in Burmah.
From Ban Tat we proceeded leisurely, stopping at several of the villages, to Raheng. The city and its straggling suburbs—some 10 miles in length—are beautifully wooded, lining the banks from 212 to 222 miles. The villages on the west bank are smaller and farther apart than those on the east bank, on which the city is built.
We halted at 215 miles, about half a mile above the house of the governor, opposite the house of Mr Stevens—an English pleader who had been for some years in the country, and is concerned in the timber trade.