The Pacification of Burma

by C. H. T. Crosthwaite

Of the next State entered, Keng Hkam, the same story has to be told. The Nam Pang, a stormy river which rises in the north near Lashio, flows into the Salween near Keng Hkam. The valuable portion of this district consists of an extensive plateau extending along the right bank of the Nam Pang, where tobacco and sugar grow well, and very fine rice-fields and extensive groves of palms made the country rich.

The State suffered greatly in the Twet Nga Lu's disturbances. The old capital was absolutely destroyed, and nothing now remains but the ruins of fine teak monasteries and some ornate pagodas absolutely falling to pieces.

The chief had moved to a new town three or four miles off, but intended, now order had been restored, to build again on the old site. Many families had emigrated to the east of the Salween.

This chief, styled Myoza, accompanied Mr. Scott to Kengtung. His avowed object was to improve his mind by travel, and to learn English modes of procedure. It afterwards, however, appeared that he was attracted more by the fame of the charms of a lady of the Kengtung Royal Family than by a craving for knowledge. "He was successful in his wooing," wrote Mr. Scott, "and it may be hoped that his bride will put an end to the habit which he is developing of making inconsequent set speeches. Otherwise he is in great danger of becoming an intolerable young prig."

It is not possible here to follow the journey to Kengtung march by march. It must suffice to give some idea of the country through which the party had to go. From Keng Hkam to the Kaw Ferry on the Salween, the road was easy enough, the only difficulties being caused by the passage of the Nam Pang, across which, owing to the nature of the bed of the stream, the pack animals could not swim, and had to be ferried over. The Nam Teng, which was one hundred paces wide and twelve feet deep under the eastern bank, would have been a cause of delay had not the Shans thrown a bamboo bridge across the stream. This bridge built by the villagers, in six days it was said, was crossed easily and safely by the loaded transport mules. The bamboo is worth more to the peasants than gold and silver and precious stones. With it a Burman or Shan can do almost anything. For offence or defence, for house or furniture, for carrying water or making a raft, the bamboo is equally good.

Mr. Scott's party crossed the Salween at the Kaw Ferry, which is in the small State of Hsenyawt, which is described as a simple chaos of hills with probably not above a couple of hundred acres of flat paddy-land in its whole area. The village, which exists for the ferry rather than for any other reason, can hardly find room for more than two or three houses in a cluster, and is consequently scattered over a square mile or so of broken ground. On the other side of the Salween it is uninhabited, and the road for some distance is very difficult, climbing along the side of a gorge through which the Nam Leng runs. Mr. Scott tells us that the Panthay traders carry picks and spades to make the road as they go, and it is only their labour which has kept the route open. From the ferry the road runs north-east to Hsenmawng, which is another small State and town under the same man who governs Hsenyawt. There are two routes to Kengtung from this place. One, the northern, through Möng Ping, bears the proud title of Lammadaw (the royal road), and was always used in Burmese times; but landslips had made it dangerous for animals, and fighting between rival leaders, for men. The other road, which kept more to the south, passing through a district named Möng Pu Awn, was perhaps longer but better, and was followed by Mr. Scott. It follows a zigzag course. First north-east, to Hsenmawng, then south-east to Möng Hsen, then north-west again to Kengtung. "East of Hsenmawng," writes Mr. Scott, "is a simple sea of hills, range behind range all the way to Kengtung. The main ridges run nearly due north and south, and they with their spurs and sub-features, can hardly be said to be broken by the valleys of Möng Pu Awn or of Möng Hsen. It is a constant succession of ascents and descents the whole way to Kengtung."

The mountains crossed were often of some height, and between the altitudes of 3,500 and 5,000 feet were covered with pine forest. The main range of Loi[40] Pè Möng, the great divide between the Salween and the Mekong Valleys, which averages 6,000 feet, and rises in many places to more than 7,000, carries no pine forests.

"On the spurs and sub-features, which stretch far away to the west, forming what may be almost called a plateau—a very uneven one certainly, cut up by gigantic gullies, and sprinkled with numerous eminences, but still a rough sort of tableland—pine forest is the prevailing growth, and seems to give place to oak and chestnut above 5,000 feet, which, however, is about the average of this high-land plain. Notwithstanding the ruggedness of the country which is very much like a Brobdingnagian ploughed field, the road is not by any means bad. It is very fatiguing, but for a mule-track it is very much better than the roads at many places in the Western States, where the path climbs straight up the hillside with a Roman directness of purpose, or follows stream beds and rocky gorges with a pertinacity born of an ignorance of shoe-leather. Beyond the Salween the track follows the line of the spurs, with the result that one very seldom has a back-breaking climb. The credit of this natural engineering eye seems to belong rather to the Panthay and Chinese merchants than to the natives of the country; for farther south, where the Panthay caravans pass but seldom, the paths follow the usual Shan system of going straight from point to point." It was through a country of this sort that the little party which was to receive the submission of its chief, and settle his relations with the Sovereign Power, made its way. With Scott were two other white men, Captain Pink, of the Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment, who was a member of the Commission, and Dr. Darwin, a civil surgeon, in the service of the Burman Government. The escort consisted of eighteen old soldiers, Sikhs of the Shan levy which had lately been taken over by the army, and as many untrained recruits of the same corps. There were besides a few Burmese clerks on Mr. Scott's staff, some servants and camp-followers, the transport mules with their Panthay drivers, a few elephants—which were more imposing though less agile than the mules—and lastly the princely wooer in the shape of the Myoza of Keng Hkam, with a tail of rough spear-men to give a touch of romance to the cortège. Not a very imposing embassage, certainly, to represent the majesty of England, and to require the allegiance of a chief who ruled over twenty thousand square miles of country. But the leaders had the right spirit, and not a man with them, from the trained soldiers to the rough mule-drivers, but marched with his head high.