Two days, passing through scrub jungle, brings the traveller to Ban Nam Pi, where there are some iron "mines"—a series of shallow diggings on an extensive deposit of limonite, which seems to be "derivative" from surface decomposition. The quartz rock, which generally underlies it, is probably a quartz sand which has been metamorphosed under pressure into the hard material we now find. In, or in close connection with the latter, the iron nodules are not to be found, but near the surface, where the quartz has softened and looks almost like a sandstone, the nodules occur in abundance.
The great difficulty was to get any one to do any work, even in clearing away débris, such is the fear of the "Pi," or spirits, who are said to guard the mineral. Without the offer of a white bullock, who ought first to be slain for their benefit, it was asserted that the spirits would certainly interfere with any one attempting to do any work. I was also told that when the iron ore is removed it brings bad luck to any house in which it is stored, and that, if hung up on a tree (certainly an odd place for stowing ores), it invariably causes the death of the tree. An iron-shod bamboo is the only tool used, but no work has been done for ages, and the small furnace which once existed at the village is quite dilapidated. It was quite vain setting to work myself, and giving out that I had made a permanent arrangement with all the "Pi," even the most vicious, before leaving Bangkok; nothing less than a royal proclamation will ever give the people confidence enough to make the opening up of these places possible.
On January 10 we were fairly under way for the north, high in hope and spirits, as a party always is when the scenery begins to change, and weary plains give way to lofty hill-ranges and distant peaks, with cool clear streams splashing in the rocky watercourses. At Muang Fang we came down to the Meinam once more, and camped in a very fine wat, which none of us will ever forget; for we marched in, parched and dusty, to find ourselves under orange trees loaded with fruit, and then and there all hands almost bathed in the delicious cool juice. To the south is a lovely semicircle of hills of schist, which turn the river away to the west. To the north, the timber-clad heights rose shoulder upon shoulder, far into the peaks of Kao Luet and Kao Taw, dim with distance. We were at last fairly in the mountains and in the Laos country.
I do not wish to give what would perhaps be a wearying account of our marches day after day, full of pleasure, of changing beauties, and of memorable incidents as they were, but as succinctly as possible to speak of the configuration of the country we passed through.
We next day forded the river at Ban Taluat, and were in the province of Nan. The trail on to Cherim (north-east) crosses a number of small hills of clay slate, which form the outlying buttresses of the rougher country to the north; the strike which I observed here and all the way up on our northerly journey is pretty regularly north and south, the dip westerly at about 25°, sometimes steeper. Water is scarce here, and when we stopped for breakfast in the bed of a hoay (or mountain-stream) at 9, after about three hours' going, even the holes in the sandy bed only gave us two or three pints of water; but, of course, in January this is to be expected. To avoid the rough country northward the trail crosses the Meinam once more, where its direction is southerly, to Cherim, whence the march to M. Faek is a very long and hilly one, over high ridges of clay slate, which carry one up over 1000 feet above the river. Some of the glimpses we got in the early mornings, as we climbed upwards among the tall trunks, were quite magnificent. These forests, in their winter clothing of reds and yellows, with the tall grey trunks standing out clear against the deep shadows behind, are, with the early morning or evening sun upon them, perfectly gorgeous. As day dawns the rays climb down the heights above you into the mists, which forthwith whirl and melt; and then, as you rise above it all, there lies below on all sides a billowy sea of wild forest, high on jagged ridges in the sunlight, or darkened in shadows far down in the deep torrent valleys; in the blue distance eastward the Nam Pat range lies dim, and north and west the eye loses itself among endless cloud-capped ranges.
The sala at Muang Faek is on the west side of the river, and consists of a number of separate bamboo shelters; here we had to rest our elephants, all eighteen of which were tired out by the climb from Cherim, and we had to engage two more to reduce the weights on our tired beasts. Elephants in Siam are never idle, and the animals I got from Pechai, which belonged to the Minister of the Mining Department, had all been hard at work hauling teak and such things before our arrival. At Muang Faek there are a good many, and the two which now joined us were a male and female of magnificent proportions. They had a swinging gait, with which they travelled much faster than the others, evidently not being accustomed to dragging heavy timber, but to light weights and hard climbing. At first they didn't like their new surroundings at all, and it was most curious to see how, when the one began to trumpet and back out of the crowd, the other rushed up, caressing him with her trunk all over, and even pushing it into his mouth, and stood by him till he was pacified; but if she left his side for a moment, round he whirled in search of her, and the mahout could do nothing to stop him. I never saw them separated by more than twenty yards the whole time they were with us; they had always to be loaded and unloaded together, as they stood side by side, entwining their trunks lovingly, and in the evening, after the march, they bathed together and squirted one another in huge enjoyment. The howdahs are simply rough saddles like big baskets, and are generally fitted with a close plaited roof with a long peak before and behind, like those fitted on the kiens, or ox-carts, of the plains.
From M. Faek the trail, which is well trodden, passes along the steep wooded banks of the Meinam, which, however, is here known as the Nam Nan. The clay slate dips 65° W., and makes long black ridges in the river-bed, which can be seen deep down in the clear water, or rising in sharp crags above it, and forming the rapids, which make the river a difficult highway at the best, and only navigable by the long narrow dug-outs.
It is a short march to Hoay Li, where there is a sala kept, as they all are in Nan, in excellent condition; but there is a stream close by. The next day's march was a heavy one, over more lofty ridges without water, and it is, therefore, a good stopping-place. Leaving at sunrise, the Laos guide and myself reached the small shelter at Hoay Nai at one o'clock, the rest of my Siamese straggling in well blown an hour later, and the elephants climbing down the steep watercourse at three. This is generally the extent of a day's march, and the average rate of jungle-travelling, allowing for stoppages, is never over 2½ miles an hour, and a six hours' march is as much as the Siamese can do; in these hills the elephants certainly do not do more than 2 miles an hour. To the Laos trotting along on foot there is, however, no limit that I ever discovered, even with the heavy loads which they carry swung on a pole across the shoulder. With a couple of handfuls of kao nëo, the hill-rice, which they steam over a pot into a glutinous mass, very handy and portable for the day's march, and with some dried fish and a banana, and a long pull at the fresh stream water once in the day, they will go cheerily from morn till night, swinging when necessary their long dhâp (a sword of Burmese style, which every man over sixteen carries if he be a man at all), to cut and lop the branches and jungle which are for ever blocking the tracks. This stopping-place was one of the wildest we were ever in; nothing but jungle and mountains all around, the place itself a tiny clearing in the bottom of a deep narrow ravine, where the monster trunks climbed far above us, leaving only one little space of open sky, from which at three o'clock the sun was shut out, and where at half-past five night had fairly set in. A number of gangs going south from Nan were camped here with us.
Another, easy, march brought us to Muang Hin, over 1200 feet above sea-level. Imagine a number of lovely villages clustering among their coconut and areca palms, in a beautiful wide valley surrounded by forests and hills, the glistening yellow paddy-stalks bright in the afternoon sun, with the black backs of the buffalo moving lazily about; the homely red of the little oxen, and the moving islands the elephants make whisking the paddy in their trunks; with the village sounds drifting down the quiet air—the distant drum at the monastery, whose grey roof stands above the other houses, or the far-off "poot, poot" of the "nok poot" in the jungle (a black bird, by the way, with a long pheasant-like tail and light red wings)—and you have an idea of the lovely scene which spread before us that evening as we emerged from the hills.
This valley runs parallel to the Nam Nan valley to the eastward, but drains in exactly the opposite direction, the water running north and turning into the Nam Nan considerably north of M. Sisaket. Three days going down this lovely valley brought us through a rough piece of limestone country to Muang Sa, where I stayed some days visiting several places in the neighbourhood. This township is important, and stands by the Nam Nan in a very fine paddy-growing plain, and is better supplied with inhabitants than the country we had come through; but even here the tigers are very bold, and often come right into the villages. Small irrigation canals extend in all directions.