After fording the Meh Sa Lin near the town, and passing through Yain Sa Lin, we crossed the Meh Gat, and proceeded along a good road over a spur, where limestone, slate, and claystone, veined with quartz, cropped up, to the Meh Ka Ni. This stream, turning to the north at the point we first crossed it, tumbles over a couple of falls, one 70 feet, the other 100 feet high, and flows through a ravine into the Meh Sa Lin.
MAINGLOONGYEE TO MAUNG HAUT
The valley of the Meh Ka Ni, up which we ascended, is narrow, the crests of the hills on either side being barely two miles apart. The hill-slopes are well wooded with large and valuable timber. Many of the trees give a splendid shade, and are evergreen. Down the valley, in a bed of granite 30 feet broad, strewn with great granite boulders, leaps and dashes a foaming torrent in the rainy season. At the time of our visit it was but a rivulet falling in little cascades, dancing round the rocks, sparkling in the sunlight, and flowing gently through pleasant pools, delightful to bathe in. For five miles we journeyed through the deep shade of the forest, frequently crossing the stream, and then halted for the night at Pang Hpan. On our way we passed several parties of Kamooks and Karen villagers, and met large caravans of laden oxen conveying paddy and betel-nut to Maing Loongyee.
The camping-ground, situated in an open plain near the meeting-place of several side valleys, lies 105 miles from Hlineboay, and 1753 feet above the sea. The highest shade-temperature during the day had been 73°, and our ride up the pretty glen had been extremely pleasant.
After dinner, in the course of conversation, Dr Cushing, thinking, perhaps, that I was a Mark Tapley, and that a lugubrious tale might cheer me up, told me that he was a most unlucky companion to travel with. All his former comrades had died on the journey, or soon afterwards. He then backed up his statement with three instances. Kelly, a missionary, was drowned one day’s journey from Moné; Lyon, another missionary, had died of consumption at Bhamo; and Cooper had been killed by one of his guard at Bhamo. I instanced his wife, who was then in America, as an exception. It was of no use—she was his better half—I was a doomed man.
Next morning the thermometer stood at 48°, the same as it had been at Maing Loongyee. The trees, however, were shedding their leaves far less in the upper valley than in the lower country. Starting about eight o’clock, accompanied by the mournful wailing of gibbons, who were practising the trapeze from tree to tree far above our heads, and making astounding leaps, we continued up the glen, passing large droves of Karen pigs, and caravans of laden cattle, until the stream forked, and we ascended the intermediate spur to the crest of Loi Kom Ngam—the Beautiful Golden Mountain—the hill-range dividing the drainage of the Meh Sa Lin from that of the Meh Laik.
View looking west down Pass at 10.53 A.M. 14th February.
Gigantic tree-ferns, and the first chestnuts we had seen, were passed as we clambered the spur; and we noticed trees in bloom bearing a red flower, and a large periwinkle-blue creeper which, spreading over the largest trees, spangled them with blossoms. Before reaching the summit we had a magnificent view down the nine miles of valley we had been ascending, extending across the Meh Mum valley to the hills beyond the Salween river. The pass, which is 109 miles from Hlineboay, is 3609 feet above sea-level.