On the north end of a hillock which protrudes from the north-west corner of the city, where the old palace was situated, and near the river, are the walled grounds of a temple and pagoda, trimly kept, and in good repair. From these grounds the view of the country to the north and west is superb: the great spurs of Loi Pong Pra Bat in the distance look like isolated mountains, the spurs rising considerably higher than the crest of the range linking them together. This peculiar arrangement is noticeable in all the great hill-ranges that I saw in the Shan States, the spurs seeming to have been carved out of a great uneven plateau. Between the great spurs and the river several low hillocks, seemingly the remains of a low-lying plateau, are seen, and amongst these the river winds its way amidst limestone bluffs.
In A.D. 1436 one of the pagodas in the city was rent by lightning, and the celebrated “Emerald Buddh,” cut out of green jasper, was exposed in the shrine in its breast. This image is now enthroned under a seven-tiered white umbrella in Wat Pra Kao, at Bangkok. When discovered it was removed to Zimmé, then being rebuilt after its destruction by the Siamese in 1430. Afterwards it was removed to Vieng Chang, probably early in the sixteenth century, when the successor of the Laos king who ruled at Zimmé moved the capital to Vieng Chang; and ultimately to Bangkok in 1779, two years after the Siamese had made Vieng Chang a province of their empire.
The Lao, with heads shaven with the exception of a blacking-brush tuft at the top, have an absurd resemblance to the wooden monkeys on a draw-stick, formerly sold in the Lowther Arcade. One seen at Kiang Hai was decorated with a peculiar form of tattooing consisting of a mass of blue dots free from any design, with the exception of ornamental edging along the waist and below the knees. This style of tattooing may be a specimen of an ancient type once current amongst the eastern branch of the Shans. At a little distance it resembles a pair of knee-breeches. I have never seen it elsewhere, except in the case of one of the princes of Muang Nan.
The next morning I watched the people streaming over the ford on their way to market, and was amused to see the terror expressed in the faces of the women as they passed our sala, and were horrified at the sight of our Madras boys. Group after group screamed with fright, and scurried by as fast as they could go. Those who looked back were further scared by the hideous grimaces the three scamps made at them. The women must have taken the boys for yaks, or ogres: they had evidently never seen black men before.
Fishing implements used in Siam.
It is the habit of every one in the Shan States to proceed in single file, and the same rule is followed by the elephants and caravan animals. For some time in the early morning the procession of people and animals on their way to the city was continuous. Gaily dressed Burmese Shans, carrying their shoulder-bamboos, passed by, and were often accompanied by their women, who were dressed in beautiful embroidered skirts, loose blue spencers, and steeple-crowned broad-brimmed hats of plaited straw, or else of palm-leaf, similar to those worn by the men, and separated from the crown of their head by a pad, and fastened under the chin by a string. Then would come a string of fisher men and women from the great staked fishing-dam that has been erected across the river a little above the ford. These would be followed by market-women, long caravans of laden oxen, mules, and ponies; and lastly, by some elephants. The market-women, having just crossed the ford, were short-kilted, and, as is usual with the Zimmé Shans, the unmarried women were guiltless of clothing above the waist.
Fishing implements used in Siam.
The prices in the market would make the mouths of our stay-at-home people water: large fowls, twopence each; large ducks, fourpence; rice, three pounds a penny; fresh fish, a halfpenny a pound; and sugar, a penny a pound.