NANTIN VALLEY, TOWN OF MUANGTEE TO THE LEFT.
A mile beyond we reached the small walled Chinese town of Nantin, now held by the Panthays. Two officers on ponies met and conducted us through the gate to a ruined Chinese temple. This had once been a handsome structure, but the walls were riddled with shot, the images defaced, and broken open in search of plunder. Nantin itself showed all the signs of having been once a thriving Chinese town. Now one-half of it was in ruins, and the other tenanted by a scanty and miserably poor population. By its position on a triangle of land between the Tahô and a swift deep affluent, with the hills rising close behind it and forming the base line, it completely commands the main road to Momien and Yunnan. It was accordingly held by a strong Panthay force, under a governor bearing the title of Tu-tu-du.
The governor visited us, accompanied by a Chinese chief named Thongwetshein, who had recently joined the Panthay cause. They demanded either a list of the presents intended for Momien or permission to search our baggage, both of which requests Sladen stoutly refused, and referred them to Momien for instructions. In the course of the day it came out that reports had been circulated that our boxes contained live dragons and serpents and fearful explosives. The fears of the Tu-tu-du were quieted by a peep at some bottled snakes and frogs, and he begged us to pay him an official visit. This, he said, would strengthen his influence over the townspeople, whom he described as thieves and ruffians.
A veritable Mahommedan Hadji was resident in the town. Knowing a little Persian and Arabic, he led the devotions of the faithful, the Musjid being held in his house. Our jemadar visited it, and described it as miserably appointed, without water for ablutions, and the worship as very lax.
The next day, we set out in state with a guard of eight sepoys, and preceded by two gold umbrellas. We passed through the bazaar, a narrow dirty street, with a double row of stalls, displaying hoes and ploughs, a little cloth, thread, paper, and eatables, including almost ripe peaches. At the residence, we were received with a salute of three guns; and the centre gates being thrown open for our admission, as a mark of special honour, we rode forward to the second courtyard. In the reception room the governor led us to a raised dais, he himself occupying a low place on a bench at the side of the room. After a few compliments, he suddenly vanished, only to reappear in a few minutes in full mandarin costume. The explanation was that, seeing Sladen in full staff uniform, he felt it incumbent on him to assume his official robes. Tea in beautiful porcelain cups and betel-nut were served; and Sladen having presented him with a musket and one hundred and fifty rounds of ammunition, the governor escorted us to the outer court, and dismissed us under a salute of three guns.
Instructions having come from Momien that we were to proceed without delay, we started the next morning. The Panthay garrison lined the street, and at a neat stone bridge spanning a burn which runs through the town the governor and Thongwetshein with their staff awaited us to say farewell, while the band struck up a lively air on the gongs. A guard preceded us, commanded by a nephew of the governor of Momien, and a more indescribable lot of irregulars were never seen. The officers, however, were fine intelligent men, well dressed in Panthay garb. So little fear of danger seemed to exist that they were accompanied by some female relatives in full Chinese costume, who rode in the advance guard. The valley, or rather glen, as it is only a mile wide, which stretched to the north before us, seemed to be a remarkable instance of the changes effected by water. Throughout its length of about twenty miles, its sides are marked by two well defined river terraces, and indications of a third higher one corresponding to the highest of the Mawphoo glen. These terraces close in at the head, while the entrance into the deep ravine of the Mawphoo glen terminates it. This whole length of area, lying one thousand feet above the level of Sanda, has been denuded by the Tahô; the second terrace, which corresponds with the lower one of the Mawphoo glen, is almost on the same elevation with a level platform which extends from the head of the valley. From this to the foot of the Mawphoo gorge seems to have been once a level flat, perhaps a lake, like that of Yunnan, from which the Tahô precipitated itself as a waterfall into the Sanda valley. The hills to the east, at the base of which our route lay, instead of the bold precipitous mountains of metamorphic rocks, were rounded trappean hills, occasional glimpses of which reminded us of home scenery, as they swept up in grassy curves, with dense clumps of trees on or near their summits. Numerous watercourses seamed their sides, the channels strewn with waterworn granite boulders, rounded lava-like masses of cellular basalt, and large fragments of peat.
The hills to the north-west rose much higher, in a lofty, well wooded mountain wall, with grander peaks soaring beyond. Seven miles from Nantin we halted to visit the famous hot springs. The steam rising from them had been visible nearly a mile off; and the Nam-mine, a rather large stream fed by them, was hot enough to startle both men and mules while fording it. The rocks composing the side of the hill whence the springs issue consisted of a cellular basalt and a hard quartzose rock, the former being partially superficial, and the latter that through which the springs issued.
Seen from the west, the south-eastern side of the hill is marked by an apparently deep, crater-like hollow, forcibly suggesting that it was once a volcanic vent, the neighbouring rocks being almost scoriaceous, and the internal heat being still evidenced by the boiling springs. Besides those on the western face, others still larger occur on its other side, some miles to the east. Of those visible, the most important is an oval basin about three yards long, with a depth of eight inches; about six yards from it are a number of funnels, six inches in diameter, in the quartz rock, emitting steam. Higher up, and fifty yards off, another strong jet of steam occurs, and on the other side of a narrow gully are two other springs, which emit a considerable body of boiling water through the earthy face of the hill. The water in the principal spring comes up with great force through circular apertures, about three inches in diameter, and the bottom of the basin is covered with thick impalpable white mud. Owing to the heat and volume of steam, it was only accessible on the leeward side, and the ground was so hot that our barefooted followers could not approach by some yards. It vibrated in a remarkable way, and the sensation was as if one were standing over a gigantic boiler buried in the earth, which was increased by the loud roar of the steam from the funnels, and the indistinct rumbling noises in the hidden inferno.
It is remarkable that, although the steam is at scalding heat, the stones in it are covered with masses of green jelly, which thrive at a temperature only ten degrees below boiling-point. The analysis of a gallon of the water is as follows: 120 grains of solid matter; 112 salts of alkalis, almost entirely chloride of sodium; 80 earthy salts, silica, and oxide of iron. No nitric and but very little sulphuric and carbonic acids were present, but traces of phosphoric acid were detected. We were informed that the springs are much resorted to by patients from all parts, who use the spring to cook their food, and cure themselves in the vapour or the Nam-mine stream. After enjoying our halt, which had been made with the full approval of the Panthay officers and the Hotha chief, we started to overtake the cavalcade, which had marched forward. Just as we rejoined the rear-guard, four shots were fired in front, but as the road only admitted of single file, and lay along a thickly wooded hillside, marked by the ruins of many villages, no one could advance to reconnoitre. Word was presently passed down that the mules had been attacked and two Panthay officers wounded; but on proceeding onwards, we discovered that the affair was more serious, and that the two officers and another man had been killed. We soon came up to the bodies of the officers wrapped in their large turbans and tied to bamboos, ready to be carried back to Nantin. The poor fellows had both been great favourites with their comrades and the governor of Momien; and a sad group surrounded the bodies, including their female relatives, who had ridden out from Nantin only to lament their murder, for so it was. As they were riding at the head of the mules, at a corner in the narrow path, a lurking body of Chinese rushed out from the trees, shot down the first, and the second, hurrying to the rescue, was shot through the leg and cut down with a dah. Eight mules had their loads thrown off and looted, and were then driven up the hills. A little further on, the scene of the disaster was marked by the ransacked packages lying on the roadside, and among them two boxes containing my clothes and notebooks. One of these had escaped unopened, and was left in charge of a Panthay officer, who promised to see it brought on. At the head of the valley a halt was called, to enable all the Panthays to come up, as a second ambuscade was suspected in a thickly wooded hollow in the steep hillside above.
At this point the river terraces sweep round to form the head of the valley, but the Tahô has cut a deep gorge through them. The second terrace could be seen continuing to the north in a long upward slope, thrown into rounded mounds, the sites of small villages, and terminating in a distant broad plain. The hillsides were covered with pines, and the road ran through a belt of dense forest, over the shoulder of a spur from the main range of hills. Here the attack was expected to be made, so we advanced with vigilant attention to the jungle on either hand, passing ruined villages, buried in dense vegetation, consisting chiefly of fruit trees and garden plants run wild. We were unmolested, and, after a short descent, came upon the Tahô foaming along its rocky channel, spanned by a broad parapeted bridge of gneiss and granite. The roadway exactly followed the curve of the arch, and the ponies could scarcely keep their footing on the smooth slabs, worn almost to a polish by the constant traffic of bygone centuries. On the right bank a small Panthay guard met us, and reported that they had chased a body of Chinese, lurking in the dreaded hollow. We soon gained the level of the plain, seen in the distance as the upward termination of the Nantin valley. From its eastern side rose a long conical hill, stretching nearly north and south, in a black sterile mass of lava, with the exception of its rounded grassy summit. This remarkable extinct volcano of Hawshuenshan, rising abruptly from the plain, stands out in striking contrast to the tumulus-shaped grassy hills which cluster round it on all sides. A few small plants rooted in the interstices of the rocks do not, in the distance, impart even a trace of verdure to its barren sides, which are thrown into long rocky curves, evidently old lava streams. We rode over the eastern extremity of this volcano, by a broad path paved with long slabs of gneiss and granite, and again came upon the Tahô, as a narrow rapid stream running between it and the abrupt sides of the grassy hills to the east. We crossed the river over another handsome stone bridge, and passed the ruins of a rather large village. The Tahô issues at this point from between a high spur and the volcano, through a very narrow gorge; and the road wound up the side of the spur, and was laid with a double line of stone flags to facilitate the ascent. From the top we gained a fine view of the small circular lake-like valley, from which the Tahô issued below, and looked down on numerous villages encircling the irrigated level in its centre, which was covered with young rice. Continuing a slight ascent over the grassy hills, by a good broad road, we turned the flank of a lofty hill crowned with a white pagoda; and the valley of Momien lay before us, shut in on all sides by rounded hills, treeless, but covered with pasture.