OUR CAMP AT PONSEE.
The day of anxiety was followed by a night of rain and storm. Heavy gusts of wind, sweeping down the lofty shoulder of the mountain, threatened to carry away the light tents, and it required all our efforts to prevent this catastrophe by holding stoutly on to the tent poles. The interior was of course inundated, and beds and bedding saturated with water, but some of the followers were worse off, having no shelter of any sort. Our troubles, however, were only beginning. The Nanlyaw tamone,[21] who had been ordered to accompany us as interpreter, and had failed to do so, arrived with orders from the Woon of Bhamô to the tsawbwas of Ponsee and Ponline to repair at once to Bhamô, and assist in an inquiry about reopening the silver mines. The message and the messenger were both suspicious, and some obstructive influence speedily showed itself. A demand was set up for three hundred rupees, compensation for five houses said to have been destroyed by a jungle fire, originating in the embers of our camp-fire at Lakong. Sala evidently thought that any demands would be complied with to prevent his deserting us, and talked much about the imperative orders of the governor. By way of relief from the discussion, we made an excursion up the mountain to a height about six hundred feet above our camp, whence a splendid panorama unrolled itself of the Burmese plain as far as Bhamô, and the junction of the Tapeng with the majestic Irawady. We passed numerous oaks, and a grove of trees bearing nuts exactly like our own hazels. At the highest point reached, a Kakhyen village was found, snugly nestled in a beautifully cool hollow, with a small stream flowing down the hillside.
Our appearance startled three women, proceeding to fill the bamboos, which serve as water pitchers, carried in a wicker basket at the back; they darted into a hollow below the road, and, turning their backs to us, waited till we had passed by. A thousand feet below us, a deep ravine resounded with the cry of hoolock monkeys, howling at the full pitch of their voices. Shooting, either for sport or purposes of science, was rendered extremely difficult by the dense jungle and the steep sides of the deep gorges, where the birds are mostly found, for a bird, when shot, dropped down a steep declivity, into long grass or tangled shrub, where search was useless.
On our return, a cock and hen partridge, of a new species, belonging to the genus Bambusicola, were shot in the cleared ground, and in the woods the cry of an oriole was often heard, but the birds were invisible. Descending by another route, passing the rice clearings, where wild strawberries carpeted the ground with flowers and fruit, and two sorts of violets and various brambles were also in flower, we reached the camp, and were soon plunged again into debate with Sala. The fellow was sulky and angry, demanding six hundred rupees blackmail, and three hundred as compensation for the village fire, threatening as an alternative to leave us to “be lost in the hills and never more heard of.” Sladen temperately refused to submit to such extortionate demands, but, to prove his friendly intentions, offered to compensate for any actual damage, and to send presents to the chiefs en route. His arguments had such an effect on Sala that he was content to ask for one hundred rupees to settle the “fire.”
At this stage of the interview all were surprised by the sudden appearance on the scene of three strangers, dressed in gorgeous Chinese costume, and attended by half a dozen others; two of their faces were familiar, and they saluted Sladen with an air of recognition, but Sala and he were at first equally puzzled as to their identity. The two foremost were arrayed in blue satin skull-caps embroidered with gold, padded and embroidered jackets of fine blue cloth, and wide trousers of yellow silk. They wore new broad cane hats and gold embroidered Chinese shoes. The hilts of their dahs were each enriched with half the lower jaw of a leopard, and suspended from their button-holes was a decoration consisting of a pink and blue square of cloth, with a cipher embroidered in the corner. This was full dress Panthay uniform, which one of them proceeded to divest himself of, and exhibited his ragged Kakhyen garb underneath, and then Sladen recognised Lawloo, the scout despatched by him from Bhamô to the governor of Momien. He produced, carefully rolled up, a packet addressed in Arabic on a strip of red paper, which contained an envelope stamped with Chinese hieroglyphics in red, and a letter written in Arabic, and stamped with Chinese devices in red and blue; attached to this was another letter in Chinese. The latter no one could read, and a combined attempt made by the native doctor and the jemadar to decipher the former also failed, but Lawloo assured us that the governor of Momien was most friendly. He had received the messengers with all respect, and had equipped them in the gorgeous dresses which had disguised them from our recognition. He had also sent with them Shatoodoo, an officer in the Mahommedan service, a tall, fair-skinned, well-built man, dressed in blue uniform, with a fine intelligent face and the quiet self-possession of a well-bred gentleman. Our couriers, men belonging to the Cowlie tribe, bore their new honours with great composure; they completely ignored the presence of the Ponline tsawbwa, while they told of their kindly reception, and explained the purport of the letters. The governor had expected us by the “ambassadors’” route, which leads from Bhamô into Hotha, where he had arranged to meet us. They said we were not to advance at present via Manwyne, unless we were strong enough to fight our way past Mawphoo fort, the stronghold of Li-sieh-tai. The messengers, on their return, though conspicuous by their Panthay uniform, had travelled openly and unmolested through the Shan states, which had been declared to be hostile to our advance. The immediate effect was to cause Sala and the pawmines to withdraw from our tents, which was a great relief, as they had infested them, squatting on the beds for hours together, smoking, and chewing tobacco and betel, while any remonstrance was at once replied to with an angry scowl and a flourish of the naked dah. But the peace did not last long. The tsawbwa soon recommenced his demands, and day after day the fire question was discussed, and terms of settlement agreed upon, only to be insolently repudiated on the first occasion.
The next day more practical preparations for opening the route were made by the despatch of letters and presents to the Kakhyen chief of Seray, and to the Shan chiefs or headmen of Manwyne and Manhleo. Two of the Ponline pawmines and the interpreter Moung Mo, the tamone of Hentha village, whose services and goodwill we had secured, went in charge of the presents, and Sladen’s Burmese writer was also sent, by way of check on the pawmines. They returned in a few days with the presents, which the chiefs had declined to accept, as the tsawbwa of Sanda had refused his consent to our passage, and the Manwyne people, though favourably disposed, were afraid of the poogain, or headman, of Manhleo, a town situated on the south bank of the Tapeng, opposite Manwyne. This official was an inveterate enemy of the Panthays, and a few years before had massacred a Panthay caravan of peaceful merchants. The character and intentions of the expedition had been so misrepresented by the Chinese traders at Bhamô that the Shans were naturally indisposed to run any risks from our presence among them.
The refusal of the presents caused Sala to raise his demands; “all the people, Burmese, Chinese, and Shans,” he declared, were leagued against us, and if we did not secure his protection, we should have our heads cut off. This was his usual argument, illustrated by holding an imaginary head with his left hand, and making the motion of sawing at the supposed neck with his right.
A more practical result of the secret opposition was the stoppage of supplies. Soon after our arrival the Shans from the Manwyne district had discovered that there was a sure market for their provisions, and a regular bazaar had been established in our lines. Kakhyen villagers as well as Shans brought in fowls, rice, salt, vegetables, &c., and competition had kept prices down; empty beer bottles were found to be highly prized, and one bottle was worth twelve measures of rice. Among other things, the Manwyne Shans brought in sugar candy, and preserved milk in the form of thin cakes of paste like a film of coagulated cream, which placed in a cup of water over night supplied a cup of excellent milk in the morning. The method of preparation we could not learn, but the result was undeniably successful. The attendance of Shans, however, fell off, owing to the ill-usage received by many of them from the Kakhyens, who helped themselves to their goods, and paid them with abuse and blows. Hence supplies fell short, and prices rose accordingly, and it became unsafe moreover to wander for any distance from the camp. On one occasion one of us was tempted to indulge in a bath in the small stream which flowed immediately below. There was a most perfect douche, where the water leapt over a huge boulder, embowered in gigantic bamboos and splendid ferns, as though contrived for the secret bath of a Kakhyen sylvan nymph: but the unhappy European invader was scarcely in full enjoyment of the refreshing douche than he was saluted with a shower of stones and broken branches from some villagers who had watched him. This was a ludicrous side of popular hostility, but as the “fire” question continued to be discussed, almost daily warnings were brought to us that ill-disposed Kakhyens were collected on the heights above, intending to attack the camp under cover of night.
A slight change in affairs was effected by the arrival of the tsawbwa of Seray, a village four miles distant, who made his appearance on the 13th, attended by his pawmines and a numerous retinue. He was a rather short stout man of about forty-five, dressed in blue from turban to shoes; his manner was serious and respectful, and his remarks sensible, but evincing great curiosity about all the novelties that presented themselves. When he found leisure to discuss business matters, he asked us the particulars of the fire question, saying that if it were settled, he would undertake to guide us by a hill route to Momien, so as to avoid the necessity of passing through Sanda. Sladen explained to him that though the fire question had been settled three times, he would now submit it finally to his arbitration, and the demand, which had risen to five hundred rupees, was by his award satisfied by a promise of two hundred and sixty. Notwithstanding this settlement, that evening both the tsawbwas came down to request us to keep fires burning, and maintain a careful watch all night, as over a hundred men had collected on the hillside commanding the camp, intending to try their chance in a night attack, according to their usual tactics. Sala had endeavoured, he said, to dissuade them, and had finally told them he would look on while they were shot down by our men. The night, however, passed off more quietly than the days, which were occupied in ceaseless discussions; the question of mule hire being again in debate. Sala brought forward the preposterous demand of twenty rupees a piece for one hundred and sixty mules, those, namely, whose owners had deserted at this place. This demand was supported by fictitious tallies, and his disgust at finding we had kept an accurate account was great, while his fury at the laughter with which his attempts at extortion were met found vent in the usual pantomimic prophecy of our decapitation. The party of tsawbwas was increased by the arrival of the chief of Wacheoon, who brought a present of rice and sheroo; the object of his visit being to make the pertinent inquiry as to what still detained us at Ponsee.
On St. Patrick’s Day, matters came to a crisis. All the morning the tsawbwas and pawmines were assembled in our tent, arguing about the mule hire; even the respectable chief of Seray had caught the infection of covetousness, and demanded twenty rupees a mule for a journey of a few hours. The Seray chief was attended by a Chinaman who had been in his employment from his youth, and now acted as his chief trader. He had interpreted the Momien letters, and seemed to desire to be useful, but it was plain that he regarded the expedition as a military one, designed to assist the Panthays. He declared that the Sanda people were willing to receive us, but were restrained by fear of Li-sieh-tai. Sladen offered five hundred rupees, in addition to the money already paid, for sufficient carriage to Manwyne, where he would await the answer to his letters despatched the day before by the former messengers to Momien and to the tsawbwa of Sanda, as he was determined not to advance without the full consent of all the Shan chiefs. He then, by a happy thought, recounted to the assembled tsawbwas the sums of money and presents that the arch robber Sala had received from him for distribution. At this startling revelation, the chief of Ponsee was evidently exasperated, and a storm was brewing, when suddenly a shot was fired from a house on the hill above us, and a bullet, or slug, whizzed over the tent in which we were sitting, and presently another struck the head of a camp cot inside. All were naturally startled, but no one believed the first shot to have been intentionally aimed until the second was fired after the lapse of a few minutes. Sala and the pawmines sprang out, and vociferated frantically to the people in the village above. The chief of Seray sat silent, and presently announced that he should return to his own home, and the meeting was forthwith dissolved.