A thousand miles on an elephant in the Shan States

by Holt S. Hallett

Early the next morning our Chow ordered in a fresh supply of rice, ducks, and fowls, and asked us if we would like to purchase an ox for food. Of course we gladly consented, and handed him the money. The owner seemed loath to part with the animal, and we more than fancied that the prince had taken heavy toll of the money before it passed from his hands. Anyhow, all of our party had a pleasant addition to our diet for some days. Most of the meat was subsequently smoked and jerked, and therefore kept well.

North-east of the city, about five miles distant, Loi Mok—a range of hills twenty miles long—commences. In this range the Meh Wung takes its rise, and we are about to skirt these hills until we leave the Meh Low for Kiang Hai. The range forms the eastern flank of an ancient lake-basin, which is now drained by the Meh Low. The basin in which Muang Pa Pow lies was formerly severed from the lake by Loi Pa Tyoo, and apparently forms part of the previous drainage-area of a former lake on the Meh Wung.

We had to wait till 1 P.M. for ten fresh coolies and two elephants to replace the twenty coolies we had brought from Zimmé. When these arrived, we left the camp and proceeded due north down the valley of the Meh Low. After passing through the rice-fields of three Shan villages, great spurs from the ranges on either side began to close in; and at the 303d mile we entered the forest, and soon afterwards crossed a flat-topped spur about 70 feet high which proceeded from Loi Mok.

A mile farther we crossed a bend of the Meh Low where the stream was 80 feet wide, 6 feet deep, and had 1 foot of water, and entered the gorge where the river had broken through the hills. Here we met a large company of Kiang Tung Lawas returning from fishing, and carrying fishing-nets which were weighted at the bottom with chains. The women, young and old, were bare to the waist, and the men were dressed, like our Zimmé Shan followers, in garments of cotton dyed with indigo.

There could be no mistaking this race for the Bau Lawa: like the La-hu, whom I met in Kiang Hai, they are akin in language to the Lolo tribes of the Jung race in Yunnan. This is evidenced by comparing the Lolo vocabularies given by Mr Bourne in the report of his journey in South-western China (Blue-book, China, No. 1 of 1888) with the vocabularies given by me in the account of my exploration.

For the next three miles we were amongst the hills. Great spurs covered with teak and other valuable trees sloped up from the river, in whose bed shales and flagstones cropped up. The grass and scrub-jungle on some of the spurs was on fire, and my elephant, from fear, was playing a scale sounding like one played on a child’s tin trumpet, and by no means resembling the ordinary roar of the beast. After crossing two bends of the river, we reached the Kiang Tung Lawa village of Ban Ta Kau, which is situated beyond the gorge, and halted for the night.

After dinner we called up the head-men of the village, and took their vocabulary. To show the utter difference between their language and that of the Bau Lawas, I may mention that fire, water, fish, and pig in Bau Lawa are—ngau, raowm, ka, and layt; whilst in Kiang Tung Lawa they are—bee, hlang, laung-teh, and wa. The Lawas said that nearly every year some of their kinsmen from the neighbourhood of Kiang Tung paid them a visit, and that their forefathers were immigrants from the north, and not natives of the Zimmé State. These people have not such pronounced oval faces as the Lolos in Ssuchuan (although probably of the same race) or the La-hu near Kiang Hai, and at first sight I took them for Burmese Shans. They have, however, better developed noses than the Shans, and some of their women might be taken for handsome gipsies.

Next day we started before the morning mist had been dissipated, and passed through the fields of Ban Pa Bong. The spurs on either side of us were rapidly retreating, and we were now well into the old lake-basin. At the village the plain was three miles broad, and it quickly expanded to six and seven miles, the hills on either side being frequently lost in the haze. The small trees and bushes were spangled with the large pale-blue flowers of a creeper; and white convolvulus, jessamine, and the yellow blossoms of a vine-leaved creeper were frequently seen.

Near Pa Bong we met fifty-three laden cattle, accompanied by a party of Burmese Shans wearing blue trousers and jackets, and great straw hats atop of the silk handkerchiefs which were twined round their top-knots. All the oxen wore nose-bags made of rattan-cane, to prevent them from browsing by the way; and the leaders wore a mask in front of their faces, fancifully worked with cowrie-shells, and topped by a beautiful peacock’s tail. This, of course, was to make the animals hideous, in order to frighten the demons away. Besides the ordinary brass sleigh-bells that are hung round the necks of the oxen, a large bell was suspended from a frame above the leader’s head. The bells are useful for letting the elephant-drivers and other caravans know of their approach, and to enable the caravan-men to track the animals when they are grazing at a halting-place.

The morning was pleasant, and the country very beautiful, and made even more so by the mist rising and falling as it lifted from the plain and was swept from the valleys by the morning breeze. The great variety of trees in the portions of the plain that were not under cultivation, and the constant recurrence of trees out of and in leaf, was a source of continual surprise. The same class of trees were in full leaf in one place where the soil was rich, and had dropped their leaves at a place close by where the soil indicated a laterite formation.