The elephants amused themselves as they went along by showering down bamboo seeds upon the men as they passed among the clumps, and seemed not to care at all for the mahout’s whip with the lump of lead attached to the end of its thong. The climate in the basin of the Meh Low being moister than in the Zimmé plain, the verdure is more luxuriant. I noticed a bamboo 60 feet high growing without soil, rooted in the arm of a tree four feet above the ground.
At times, on stretching my neck out of the howdah in order to get a further glimpse of something we had passed, I would see a group of white-turbaned Shans squatting in a bamboo bower, looking, in their great peaked hats and their blankets wrapped round them, like gnomes in the Black Forest. Here would be a party of villagers who had scuttled out of sight as they heard us approach. There a group of porters, with their burdens by their side, chatting and resting in the shade. In a jungle-clad country, nothing could be easier than to surprise an enemy.
After passing several Lawa villages we reached the large Shan village of Meh Pik, or the Pepper river, and halted for ten minutes to visit a temple, which was handsomely decorated with gold-leaf and vermilion, and occupied by a very ugly image of Gaudama, about which stood many smaller and less hideous images. The offerings, which consisted of flowers, food, dolls’ houses, and toy elephants and ponies, were indications of what the votaries wished forwarded to the spirits of their deceased relations and friends. Written instructions frequently accompany such emblems, stating for whom they are intended, and at the tag end the writer curses any one that steals them, and hopes that that individual may be punished in the four hells.
Leaving the village we entered a large grazing-plain, in which many buffaloes with their usual attendants, white paddy-birds and mynahs, were feeding in the plain, crossed the Meh Low and the large rice-plain of Ban Pong, and halted for the night on the bank of the Meh Soo-ay, near the large village of the same name, which is situated 323½ miles from Hlineboay and 1566 feet above the sea. Ban Meh Soo-ay is the headquarters of the governor of this district, who called on us as soon as he heard of our arrival. He told me that the valley of the Meh Soo-ay is the private game-preserve of the King of Zimmé, and that no one is allowed to hunt there, or even enter the valley without the royal permission. It is therefore uninhabited, except by deer, tiger, rhinoceros, elephant, wild cattle, and other large game. From slate and quartz being the only pebbles in the stream-bed, it is not at all unlikely that gold may exist in the hills stretching into this valley, as it does in the same geological formation in other parts of the Shan States.
From the village of Meh Pik, which we had passed, he said a path led westward across the hills to Viang Pow, which was reached by caravans in three days. The descent on the Viang Pow side of the hills was very gradual, but part of the ascent from the Meh Low side was difficult. His village contained sixty houses, but he could not tell, without referring to his books, the number in the other villages under his jurisdiction. In the village I noticed peach-trees, the first I had seen.
The little elephant’s fun.
The next day we left early, and a mile and a half from our camp entered the gorge through which the Meh Low escapes between the spurs from Loi Kook Loi Chang on the west and Loi Mok on the east. These two ranges form the north and east flanks of the old lake-basin, which is now drained by the Meh Low. For five miles, spurs from either side occasionally approached near the stream, which we had frequently to cross in order to shorten our route, as the river is very serpentine in its course. Whilst passing through this gorge, Ramasawmy was playing “God bless the Prince of Wales” on a reed flute; and the little elephant was taking every chance he could to hustle the men over as they crossed the river, and souse them with water from his trunk. If there is truth in transmigration of souls, that little rogue must have been a monkey in a former existence, and had not lost his zest for malicious pranks.
Portow, who had an overweening opinion of his own dignity, and was bent on setting up as an oracle, was unfortunately not only the butt of the boys, but likewise the sport of the baby-elephant. Many a time have I seen him hustled over by the youngster, who seemed to have picked him out as his playmate. Slily and softly stealing up behind, he would suddenly increase his pace, and with a quick shuffle or a sudden lurch shoulder him sprawling to the ground. Portow during this part of the journey behaved like a hunted or haunted man, ever looking behind to see whether the dreadful infant was near.
The large spurs on our left were called Loi Pa Kuang, the hill of the deer-forest; Loi Wung Ngoo, the hill of the snake pool: between which rose Huay Pak Chang, the brook of the elephant’s mouth; and Loi Kee-Wo Hay, the hill where the cattle scatter their dung, so called because the cattle caravans that cross it on their way by a short cut to Kiang Hai, are much distressed whilst ascending its steep sides. There were several plains in the gorge, the spurs being at times half a mile and a mile apart.