A thousand miles on an elephant in the Shan States

by Holt S. Hallett

Dr Cushing with the help of the Chow, who had set his heart upon entering Kiang Hai in state, marshalled the procession. Ten armed men led the way, and were followed by the prince’s elephant, some attendants, Dr Cushing’s elephant, some attendants, Dr M‘Gilvary’s elephant, some attendants, my elephant, five loaded elephants and the baby-elephant, and a long train of servants, porters, and elephant grooms. I could not help laughing as we went along, as we appeared so like a travelling circus advertising itself in a provincial town.

Leaving the Chow Hona’s house at half-past six, we marched through the plain, passing several laterite hillocks, and crossing one to avoid a swamp—and skirting five villages, until at the village of Sun Kong we came in sight of the crenelated walls of Kiang Hai. Thence we traversed the graveyard of the governors of the city, and shortly afterwards that of the abbots of the monasteries, entered and crossed the city, and halted at the rest-house lying between it and the Meh Khoke. The rest-house is situated 352¼ miles from Hlineboay, and 1320 feet above the sea.

One of the tomb pillars in the cemetery of the governors was six feet in height, and had a pyramidal cap ending in a flame-like ornament. For one foot from the ground the pillar was six feet square. Five steps, or offsets, occurred in the next foot in height, reducing the sides of the square for the following foot to four feet; then three offsets, together measuring three and a half inches in height, supported a cap five feet square, upon which the pyramid rose in offsets of two inches. In front of the pillar was an altar, on which flowers and vegetable-wax tapers had been freshly laid.

The rest-house in which we put up was in a very leaky condition, owing to the thatch not having been renewed, and to the devastation wrought in the leaves and rafters by the bamboo-beetles. The Chow’s rest-house, which was next to ours, was in a still worse condition, as many of the floor planks and girders were rotten, and the floor was thus a succession of man-traps. This was soon remedied, for as soon as the Chow Hluang heard of our arrival he despatched men with new bamboos and thatch to render our habitations more secure and comfortable.

Kiang Hai, whose Pali name is Pantoowadi, is picturesquely situated on the south bank of the Meh Khoke. From the crest of the small hillocks near the city, when the air is free from haze, the eye can range 20 miles westward up the river valley; 18 miles eastward to Loi Tone Yang; the same distance to the south, or farther if there was anything high enough to see; and to the north as far as the low hillocks, 15 miles distant, which divide the Kiang Hsen plain from the valley of the Meh Khoke.

A series of low laterite hillocks spring up from the plain to the west of the city. This plain, and that to the north of the river, is inundated in places for a depth of two feet in the rains for eight and nine days at a time. Two of the hillocks serve as portions of the ramparts on the north and west sides of the city.

The river rises in a plateau two days’ journey to the south-west of Kiang Tung, and its sources are separated from the Kiang Tung plain, which is 2500 feet above the sea, by Loi Kum, the Loi Peh Muang which divides the Kiang Tung State from that of Moné, a State lying to the west of the Salween.

The Meh Sim, which enters the Salween, rises near the sources of the Meh Khoke; and the head of the pass, crossed by Dr Cushing in 1870, between Kiang Tung and the head-waters of the Meh Sim, is 6500 feet above the sea, or 4000 feet above the Kiang Tung plain.

At the sources of the Meh Khoke, according to some Ngio Shans whom I interrogated, is the district of Muang Khon, which comprises several villages. Two days farther from Kiang Tung, down the Meh Khoke, is Muang Khoke, from which the river takes its name. Six days from Kiang Tung, still down the river, lies Muang Sat, or Muang Hsat, and a day farther Muang Khine and Wang Hung. Still lower down is Muang Tat Pow, then Muang Nyon and Ta Taung. The latter is distant four days by water from Kiang Hai, and five or six miles above the entrance of the Meh Fang into the Meh Khoke. The above Muangs, or provincial States, are situated in extensive plains, and Muang Sat has frequently formed the base of Burmese operations against Siam. As Muang Sat has been incorporated by us in the dominions of the chief of Muang Pan, one of our Shan States lying to the west of the Salween, it will be seen that we have already carried our protection over the hills which divide the waters of the Salween from those of the Meh Kong into the valley of the Meh Khoke.

Above Ta Taung the valley of the Meh Khoke lies in the British Shan States. From thence eastwards, half-way to Kiang Hai, the Meh Khoke forms the Anglo-Siamese boundary; the frontier then turns in a north-eastern direction to the Meh Kong, which it reaches a few miles above Kiang Hsen. To the east of Loi Peh Muang[^[3]] the people are known to the Zimmé Shans as Tai Ngio, and pertain to the Shan States west of the Salween. The chief of Moné had rebelled against the Burmese in 1882, and taken refuge with the chief of Kiang Tung: this may account for so many Ngios having recently occupied the deserted country lying to the north of Kiang Hsen. The chief of Moné has since been reappointed to his State by the British.