CHAPTER XXXIV.
LEAVE RAHENG—ISLANDS—ZIMMÉ SHANS IN RAHENG—SIAMESE WOMEN—MISLEADING STRANGERS—“SOW” AND “RAT” POLITE TERMS—REACH KAMPHANG PET—SALUTED WITH STONES—FOUND DEAD—BURMESE—VISIT THE GOVERNOR—THE FLOOD—POPULATION—A FEMALE INTERPRETER—LEAVE KAMPHANG PET—CULTIVATION—REACH PAK NAM PO—TOUNGTHOO PEDLARS—NAVIGATION ON THE MEH NAM—LOOPLINE TO OOTARADIT—GAMBLING-HOUSE—A FRENCHIFIED MONK—SKETCHING A BEARDED SIAMESE—SIZE OF THE DELTA—JOURNEY TO BANGKOK—A LONG STREET OF VILLAGES—REACH BANGKOK.
Hand-dredge.
We left Raheng early in the morning of June 13th, and after forcing our way through the double file of boats which lined the banks, passed the fine plastered brick building, somewhat resembling Salween House at Maulmain, where the governor resides, and halted to sketch the south-eastern hills near Ban Ta Kare. A mile and a half farther I got a capital view of the hillocks lying to the east of the city. Seven miles from Raheng the villages forming its suburbs came to an end, and in the next sixteen miles we saw only two small villages or hamlets.
The quicksand in the bed of the river during this stage of the journey, and as far south as the junction of the Meh Ping with the Meh Nam, was a constant cause of delay, as boat after boat had to dredge its way across drifting sandbanks, which closed up as they passed. The hand-dredge used consisted of a blade formed of a teak plank three and a half feet long and one foot deep, with a handle rising two and a half feet above it. One man pressed down the handle, and three or four others drew the blade along by two pieces of cord fastened through holes near its end. The remainder of the men of the three boats aided the action of the dredge by loosening the sand with large teak-wood roofing shingles.
View of hills looking east at 218 miles from Ban Kow Nome Wan.
Sketch at 216½ miles from Ban Ta Kare.
Owing to the swift current and drifting sandbanks, the passage up-stream is very tedious, and boats from Bangkok to Raheng take between thirty and thirty-five days in the dry season. The river varies between 700 and 1000 feet in breadth; but at one place opposite a small hillock below the revenue station of Dan Wung Chow, which is situated at the border of Raheng with Kamphang, it is contracted for some distance to 400 feet. Near here we halted for the night, having made 17 miles in the day.
The province of Raheng is mainly occupied by descendants of Zimmé Shans, owing to its having formerly been part of the kingdom of Zimmé. Even in the city, more than half the people are Zimmé Shans and Peguans. As we proceeded southwards from Raheng, the daintily dressed Zimmé women, with their neat coiffure and pleasant faces, rapidly gave place to slovenly brazen-faced Siamese females, often made more repulsive by their recently shaven heads being covered with short bristles. All of these women whom we addressed on our way to Bangkok, asking the names of villages or for other information, answered us cheekily, and never by any chance digressed into the paths of truth. The men were but little better; and we had frequently to inquire the name of a village from half-a-dozen separate people before I considered it safe to enter it in my field-book. My steersman seemed to enjoy the game, and constantly hailed the women and small girls passing by in their little dugout canoes, the women as sow-ey and the girls as rat-ey—sow being the polite Siamese term for a woman, and rat for a girl.
The following morning we continued for five miles through islands. Below the last island the villages became more numerous, fringing both banks for three miles out of the six to Kamphang Pet. Carts were seen in these villages, the first we had encountered since we left Burmah: they were remarkable for the size of their spoked wheels, which were fully six feet in diameter. Just before reaching Kamphang Pet we halted for a few minutes at Muang Ko, an extensive village on the opposite bank of the river, built on the site of an ancient city. The village possesses a fine temple and large pagoda. To the north of the village a stream called Krong Suen Ma enters the river, down which much teak is floated from the western hills.
Shortly after anchoring for the night at Kamphang Pet, whilst the boys were preparing dinner in the gloaming, a shower of stones was flung at the boat by some lads from the bank. All my men were quickly after them, but failed to catch the urchins, who retreated but to return and salute the boat in the same manner several times during the evening. As Veyloo happened to be hurt by one of the missiles, and a fresh supply of ducks and fowls was required, I determined to look up the governor before starting the next morning. Ten of my fowls had died since we left Zimmé, being found by the boys dead in the morning, and being considered unfit for my consumption, had been eaten by the boatmen. Fowls are apt to die a natural death, but rarely in such swift succession. I had been rendered suspicious by seeing the eagerness with which the boatmen besought Veyloo to give them a duck which had been found dead that morning, instead of chucking it overboard, as he threatened to do. I therefore told him to carefully skin it and see whether its neck had been dislocated, and this was found to be the case. I had that duck for breakfast, and need scarcely say no more fowls and ducks were found dead during the journey.
Near the governor’s house I met Moung Byay, one of our Burmese subjects, and his wife, and had a chat with them. After some talk, he said he would be glad if I would come and put up with him for a day or two at his house at Wung Pa Tat, when he could give me a good deal of information about the country. I thanked him, and replied that I was sorry I could not afford the time, and said I would be much obliged if he would come and interpret for me at the governor’s. He told me that the great flood of 1878 had risen ten and a half feet on his fields, which lay about a gunshot to the west of the river. The country to the east was higher, and the flood there was less than five feet in depth.
On reaching the governor’s, I found him in the company of half-a-dozen of his head-men. He received me courteously, and appeared anxious to do what he could for me. I told him of the reception my servants had met with, and made Veyloo show him the scar on his shoulder. I said it was the first incivility I had met in the country, and that such rowdyism did not speak well for the government of his province. He was evidently annoyed at the incident, and at once sent two of his officers to inquire into the circumstances, and see whether the lads could be traced. I then asked him about the flood, and he showed me the mark he had made on his own house in order to register the height. It was four and a half feet above the ground, and eighteen and a half feet above the water in the river, which was at the time of my visit fourteen feet below the bank.
I said I should be much obliged if he would order some fowls and ducks to be supplied to me at the market rate, as my supply was running short, and I wished to continue my journey in the afternoon. He at once put down four rupees on the mat before him, and each of the head-men put down one, and a couple of officers were despatched to purchase the birds and carry them to my boats. He assured me there were at least 3000 houses in the city—including the neighbouring suburbs Noung Palin, Muang Kow, and Nong Ping—and fully 30,000 in his province. Elephants take three days proceeding to Sukkhothai, and five days to Sawankalok on the Meh Yom: there are no mountains on the way, and carts can be taken to either place. During the conversation the wife of Moung Byay interpreted for me, and did so in a most intelligent manner.
After thanking the governor and his officials, and refunding the money they had given, I returned to the boats accompanied by the Burmese, who said they would be glad to receive me as their guest if I happened to be in the neighbourhood again. Having thanked them for their kindness, I sketched the hills; and the men having brought the fowls and ducks, I continued my journey, and halted for the night at Ban Wung Pone, close to a house that had been erected for the local demons, and had four yellow flags planted before it. The village lies 5 miles from the city and 261 miles from Zimmé.
The next two days, proceeding leisurely, I halted at several temples, at one of which I was presented with a stone head worthy of Grecian art; and at another I saw many fine bronze images of Buddha, which had been maliciously broken—perhaps when the Burmese invaded the country. Some of the abbots I subsequently met gladly sold me several small images of Buddha for a few two-anna and four-anna bits—equivalent to 2d. and 4d. One of the pagodas—that at Ban Wung Ken—was remarkable on account of its being ornamented with crockery plates four inches in diameter. This mode of decoration must be Chinese in origin. One of the large pagodas in Bangkok is similarly adorned. On the branches of a Mai Ma-kok tree near the crockery pagoda, some enormous beehives were suspended about 70 feet from the ground.
View looking west from Kamphang Pet.
Loi Kow Chung.
On the morning of the 18th I halted at Ban Bung Kay-ow to sketch a hill of mural limestone about 2000 feet high, called Loi Kow Chung, which was seen on end three miles to the south-east of the village; and shortly afterwards passed some floating houses, resting upon rafts of bamboos, and occupied by a band of strolling players. The women had their faces daubed over with a ghastly white paste; and their fingers, as is the habit with well-to-do Siamese females, covered with rings; and gold, or most likely pinchbeck, chains thrown over their neck and shoulders.
Loi Kow Chung.
The amount of jewellery and gold and silver ornaments worn by wealthy people in Siam—especially by women and children—is surprising. Children of the rich wear heavy anklets and bracelets of gold, those of poorer people of silver, and those of the poorest classes of brass. More often than not, lads and lassies so bedecked have not a rag of clothing on them. Clothes are not thought necessary for children in Siam until they reach seven or eight years of age.
At Ban Ta Nyoo I sketched the front face of the limestone hill, and, 10 miles farther down-stream, Loi Kow Luong—the last great spur that approaches the river from the western hills. Sugar-cane, rice, cotton, and tobacco seemed to be the chief crops grown. The slopes of the river-banks, where flat, were planted with tobacco, pumpkins, and melons.
At Pak Nam Po, the town at the junction of the Meh Ping with the Meh Nam, I met some Toungthoo pedlars from Thatone in Burmah, and halted for an hour to enable the boys to replenish their larder. The water in the Meh Ping, from Zimmé downwards, had seldom exceeded 2 feet in depth.
The Meh Nam below the junction has much more water in it, and large boats are able to sail up the stream nearly to Phichai (Peechai), and poling-boats can reach Ootaradit from Bangkok in twenty days. A steamer drawing 4 or 5 feet, according to Mr Satow, might do the same journey in four or five days. Above Ootaradit, owing to rapids in the bed, the Meh Nam is only navigable for dugout canoes. Ootaradit is one of the termini for the Chinese caravans from Yunnan, and might be connected with the Siamese main line of railway by a loop-line from near Pak Nam Po, rejoining the main line near Muang Ngow. It could likewise be connected with a branch from Raheng, which would pass through Sawankalok and Sukkhothai—the ancient capitals of Northern Siam.
Loi Kow Luong.
In the 84 miles between Kamphang Pet and Pak Nam Po, we passed fifty-four villages—many of them of considerable size; and during the whole of the journey from Kamphang Pet to Bangkok, we frequently heard at night reports of firearms from boats anchored near us, and on inquiry I learnt they were fired off to scare the pirates—bands of whom are said to infest the river. There are no river-police above Bangkok; the boatmen, therefore, have to carry arms to defend their cargoes. The policy of the Government seems to be to squeeze as much as they can out of the people, and to leave them a prey to the officials and to pirates; the officials, indeed, are said generally to be in league with the pirates, and to share the plunder with them.
View from the junction of the Meh Nam.
When walking through Pak Nam Po, I had my attention drawn to the gambling-house by the band playing within its precincts and by the crowd in its neighbourhood. Whilst watching the gamblers, in order to comprehend the method of the game, a man at my side addressed me in Siamese. On turning, I found he was a young man dressed in the yellow robe of the monks, but wearing an imperial beard and small twisted-up moustaches after the French fashion. I addressed him in French, thinking he was a French half-breed from Cochin China spying out the land in disguise, who had not had the heart to sacrifice his personal appearance beyond shaving his crown, but merely got a blank expression and some more words of Siamese. Not even a tell-tale shrug could I get out of him. If he was a Siamese monk, he was the only one that I ever saw so adorned.
Some of the Shan and Siamese laity neglect to pluck out their beards and moustaches; and I had an amusing interview with one of these hairy-faced men at Nakhon Sawan—a city about two miles below the junction of the Meh Nam. Whilst rambling about the place, I noticed a man with his hair parted in the middle, and with well-grown whiskers, beard, and moustaches, amongst the crowd of gazers who were accompanying me. I at once stopped to take his likeness, and, for fear he should bolt, kept him within 18 inches of me whilst I completed the sketch. The crowd formed a ring round us, nearly splitting their sides with laughter at one bearded man staring intently at and sketching another, and incessantly chaffing my victim.
Below Pak Nam Po the villages become more numerous, frequently lining one or the other or both sides of the river. For 55 miles below Muang In, and for 25 miles above Bangkok, the string of towns and villages on each side of the river may be said to be conterminous—one long street of houses. Nearly the whole population of the delta, which is about 130 miles long by an average of 50 miles broad, reside on the banks of the main river and its affluents.
Pak Nam Po is 338½ miles from Zimmé, and 204½ miles from the king’s palace in Bangkok—the distance between Zimmé and the palace being 543 miles. The river for 173 miles from Pak Nam Po varied in width from 600 feet to 900 feet, and from thence to Bangkok was seldom more than 1000 feet in breadth. I reached Bangkok on June 28th, and put up in the hotel, where the manager did the utmost for my comfort and that of my servants. In fact, Veyloo was so pleased with hotel life that he subsequently took service with the manager.