After a good night’s rest, we were awakened by the shrill cry of peacocks, which seemed to be challenging each other from all directions, and by half-past seven had everything packed and had left the camp. We were in high glee at again being under way, and felt like schoolboys off for a holiday. The morning was simply delightful, the air was delicious, and although most of the trees were leafless, the temperature at starting was only 55°. Turning northwards, we followed the Meh Kang, a stream 30 feet wide and 6 feet deep, to the village of Ban Hai, and shortly afterwards crossed it, and commenced to ascend, amidst outcrops of traprock, the steep slope of Loi Pa Chāu.
The ascent, although only 500 feet, was tedious, and took us an hour and a half, as the elephants had to crawl up, resting after every footfall, before they raised their huge bodies up for another step. The slope was clad with teak-trees, and the village at the crest of the ascent is known as Ban Pa Sak, the village of the teak-forest. This village and its surroundings was a great surprise for us—like what the Giant’s country must have been to Jack after mounting his bean-stalk. What we had taken for an ordinary unoccupied range of hills when we were crossing the Zimmé plain, was an extensive undulating plateau; and here on its very edge was a village, beautifully situated amid gardens of palms and fruit-trees, with a pleasant little brook of icy-cold water meandering through it from some springs near at hand. The village is 251½ miles from Hlineboay, and 1820 feet above the sea.
After crossing the plateau, we descended along the Meh Ka Lah to the Meh Hkort, and halted for the night at the village of Luong Hkort, which is situated in a broad part of the valley. A small monastery, temple, and pagoda adorn the crest of a low flat-topped spur, about a mile to the north-east of the village.
Leaving a little before seven the next morning, and turning east, we ascended the narrow valley of the Meh Hkort, and the following morning reached the crest of the pass. The incline of the valley had been easy throughout, and the deep shade of the forest had made the journey from Luong Hkort very pleasant.
The water-parting which separates the streams draining into the Meh Ping from those flowing to the Meh Kong, was 276 miles from Hlineboay and 4235 feet above the sea. The rise in the fifteen miles from the village had been 2656 feet. This was the highest point reached by me upon any of my journeys. The thermometer at 10.15 A.M. read 71°, or 9° less than it had been at the same time at Muang Doo.
Following the Meh Chay Dee down-stream, we reached a halting-space, and found the place so pretty and the flowers of the bauhinea-trees in its neighbourhood so fragrant, that we settled to spend the next day, Sunday, there. We had descended 1003 feet in six miles from the crest of the pass, and I was astonished to find teak-trees interspersed through the forest at a height of 3089 feet above the sea.
A ta-lay-ow.
I noticed that the elephant-drivers placed ta-lay-ows, or small pieces of lattice-work, on tall sticks stuck in the ground, on the paths leading to and from the camp; and on inquiry, I learned that they were intended to entangle any evil spirits that might wish to injure our party. The Shans consider such precautions fully sufficient to ward off their malignant foes. The spirits, in their opinion, have as little intelligence as the birds of the air, and any scarecrow device will keep them at a distance. You cannot send a man alone even with a letter, because a Zimmé Shan will not travel without a companion; and on our asking the reason, we were told that ill would certainly come to the man who drew the water if he likewise made the fire. It gave one quite an eerie feeling to be with a people who believed the land to be full
“Of calling shapes, and beck’ning shadows dire,