“With flesh of men, with brain and fat well smeared,
We make our grim burnt-offering,—break our fast
From cups of holy Brahman’s skull,—and ever
With gurgling drops of blood that plenteous stream
From hard throats quickly cut by us is worshipped
With human offerings meet, our god, dread Bhairava [Siva].”
We were lulled to sleep by the chanting of the pupils in the monastery, and were awakened, soon after four o’clock the next morning, by the tolling of the temple bells, two in number, each of bronze, with inscriptions on them. One bell was three feet in diameter at the mouth, and the other two feet. As the sun rose, and our elephants were being loaded, a procession of men, women, and children was seen approaching across the plain, bringing the day’s food for the monks and their pupils, and small bags of sand to trim up the paths in the temple grounds. A magnificent padouk tree was in full flower near the temple, round which clustered numerous bees, making the air musical with their humming.
Leaving the temple, we continued skirting the rice-fields until we crossed the Meh Sa (60 feet broad and 9 feet deep, with 1 foot of water) close to its entrance into the Meh Ping, at 6½ miles. On the way we met ten loaded elephants accompanied by two of their big babies, and numerous caravans of laden cattle, some conveying tiles to Zimmé. Most of the cattle had bells of metal or bamboo hung round their necks to enable them to be easily traced when straying in the forest; and the leaders had a bow, or arch, of bent wood fastened above their shoulders, from which was suspended a metal bell 10 inches high and 4 inches long, and 2 inches broad at the mouth. The orange-shaped fruit on the nuxvomica trees had been largely consumed by hornbills.
For the next mile and a half, until we reached the Meh Lim, we skirted the river. The temples in the villages were beautifully ornamented with carvings, and decorated with red and gold; and the gardens were fragrant with the scent of pomelo and orange-trees, now in blossom. In the fields we noticed many pouk (stick-lac) trees,[[16]] and I was told by Dr M‘Gilvary that, as there was a heavy penalty enacted for cutting these trees down, they are left standing wherever the jungle is cleared.
The Meh Lim, which enters the Meh Ping from the west, with its affluents the Meh Peum and Meh How, drains a great area of country, including some extensive plains. Two days’ journey above its mouth this river passes through a gorge, which is celebrated for its 400 footprints of Gaudama, called Pra Bat shee-roi or Prabat see-hoi. M‘Leod mentions these in his journal as Pa-bat Sip hoi, and accounts for the name by saying that “the four Buddhs have each trod on the identical stone, the prints of each succeeding one being smaller than the preceding one.” I procured the names of nine villages and an ancient city called Muang Ka on the Meh Lim, and of seven villages on the Meh How and Meh Peun. Tea is said to grow wild on the hills neighbouring these rivers.