Next morning the beaters came, numbering twenty men, and carrying thirteen guns. My companions were eager for the sport, and became nearly tempestuous because they were detained for two or three hours after daybreak before the whole party was together. At last they were off; Dr M‘Gilvary and Mr Martin on elephants, and the remainder on foot. For two hours they journeyed to the north-east, and then left the path. A few minutes later they came upon an unsavoury odour, and Dr Tiger cocked his gun and looked sharply about; and then, rummaging in the grass, drew out the carcass of a deer on which a tiger had been breakfasting. This was encouraging. A few steps farther, one of the men spied a deer standing close by in the grass. He took careful aim, but his wretched flint-lock missed fire, and the deer was off. At the same moment another sprang from under the feet of Mr Martin’s elephant, and got away unshot at.
Junction of the Meh Fang and Meh Khoke valleys.
The missionaries then dismounted, and sent the elephants a short distance away, and took up the stations assigned to them by the hunter. The drivers then approached in a big semicircle, but nothing appeared, and my friends again mounted their elephants, to cross some damp low ground to another part of the plain. Suddenly a deer sprang up close to Mr Martin, and he fired and missed. Meanwhile the men started another, which likewise escaped. The projecting hood of the howdah, together with the presence of the mahout on the elephant’s head, doubtless helped to spoil the aim of the mounted sportsmen, particularly as the elephants got excited with the sport. In the next drive one of the men got a shot, but when he went to pick up his deer it started up and disappeared in the long grass. After lunch they made tracks homeward. On the way the hunter got one shot, Dr M‘Gilvary four, and Mr Martin two more, and at least half-a-dozen deer got away without being fired at. They arrived tired and hungry, with a good many empty cartridges, but with no game.
In the meantime I had stayed behind to sketch the hills, fix their positions, and take the diurnal curve from the aneroid barometer and boiling-point thermometer, and had not the heart to chaff my companions when they returned with empty bags. The plain of Muang Fang averages 7 or 8 miles in width, and is over 30 miles long.
The next day being Sunday, Dr M‘Gilvary and Mr Martin made it a day of rest, and stayed behind visiting and preaching to the people, whilst I journeyed five miles to the north-east to sketch the country from Ban Meh Hang, where I obtained capital views of the junction of the valleys of the Meh Khoke and the Meh Fang, the rivers meeting about 15 miles to the east-north-east. At the same time I got a view of the Loi Tum Tap Tow, now 22 miles distant, and two other limestone bluffs that jutted up in the plain.
On my return I proposed to my companions to visit Muang Hang, which was said to be about three days’ journey due east from Muang Fang, and the sources of the Meh Ping and Meh Hang, and see where the latter passed under the hills; but circumstances were against us—our oatmeal, biscuits, sugar, tea, cocoa, chocolate, kitchen-salt, treacle, and milk, had all been consumed or appropriated by the nimble-fingered elephant-men, who seemed to consider that they had a right to feed themselves surreptitiously at our expense on the route. Vayloo and Jewan had fever, and Loogalay had dysentery. To put a finishing touch to our disasters, the driver of the vicious elephant had somehow provoked its anger, and the animal had knocked him down and tried to kill him with his tusks. Luckily he had escaped with a few bruises, a damaged hand, and a grazed side. So we had to give up the extra journey, and settled to return by Viang Pow and Muang Ken.
View up the Meh Fang valley from Ban Meh Hang.
A large caravan of cattle was encamped close to us during our stay at Muang Fang, and had been spreading foot-and-mouth disease through the country by contaminating every camping-place it halted at. Several of the animals died of the disease during our stay at the city. There is no Contagious Diseases Act in force outside our possessions in the East, so the fell plague would be further spread as the caravan proceeded.