The ceremony of excommunication took place in due course, and was brief enough, lasting only five minutes. He was brought in by all the headmen, and attended by his mother and brother, the latter carrying the clothes of an ordinary Shan, which the culprit, when degraded, was to assume. All sat down, and the poor old woman made an affecting appeal to her son to confess if he were guilty; but he preserved a dogged silence, and commenced to take off his turban in front of the altar. She then retired, departing with her hands clasped above her head, and ejaculating prayers. The priest, having removed his turban, took a water lily from an offering of flowers in front of the image of Gaudama, and, placing it on a tripod, again deposited it before the image. The chief priest now appeared on the daïs, and the culprit knelt behind his lily muttering a few sentences, occasionally rising from his knees, and bending in worship before the figure, and gradually retreated after each prostration, until he was beyond the verge of the daïs peculiar to the priests. He then knelt before the chief phoongyee, and repeated some formula after him, after which he retired to his room, and soon emerged dressed as a layman. He was then taken away by the headmen, and some hours after was brought back led by a chain secured to an iron collar round his neck. In the evening he was again led by the chain, down to the khyoung, escorted by the headmen, who stated that they had failed to find any clue to the missing spear, or to establish the guilt of the prisoner. He was, however, during the ensuing conference as to our departure, kept chained to a pillar and guarded by two men. After another day of delay and barter with the people, who crowded the khyoung, the only noticeable purchase being some capital tobacco at the price of a rupee for three pounds and a half, we took our departure on August 4th. The old tsawbwa and his grandchild came with a parting present of cloth, and a request that we would not mount until we had passed his house; and a silver watch presented by Sladen to his adopted son gave immense pleasure to both the chief and his heir. As we approached the haw, three trumpeters blew a lusty blast, and the three saluting guns were fired as we ascended the steps leading to the gateway, where the chief and his grandson awaited us. After a hearty handshaking, and formal adieus, we mounted under a second salute, and rode out of the town preceded by the trumpeters in full bray.
The road at this season was carried along the embankments of the paddy fields nearer to the base of the hills. The courses of the many mountain streams showed the traces of the devastation caused by the unprecedented floods of the past week; whole rice fields had been swept away, and in others the crop had been hopelessly buried in silt. Roots and stems of large trees everywhere blocked the channels, and the sides of the mountains showed red patches, like wounds, where landslips had occurred. These had been most destructive; nine villages were said to have been overwhelmed in the Sanda valley, one, a village of forty houses, being completely destroyed with all its inhabitants, save nine who were absent. The nineteen miles to Manwyne were accomplished by 5 P.M., and we took up our quarters in the same khyoung as on the former visit; some trouble and a little gentle violence being requisite to exclude the pertinacious and curious Chinese, who went so far as to hustle a sentry. These Manwyne people (not including the Shans), though not so hostile as on our first visit, were evidently ill-disposed, and can be only classed as “rowdies.” At sundown a bell was rung and a huge candle lit in front of the altar, while the priests, kneeling on the upper daïs, supported by choristers on the lower one, chanted their vespers.
Bell-ringing and matins woke us up early in the morning, and, as before, the devout women trooped in with their offerings of rice and flowers. The phoongyees and some others were very much interested in hearing about railways, telegraphs, and other wonders of Western civilisation. One of the Sanda headmen remarked that they were much privileged to hear of such things, and that we must all have met before in a previous existence, and would doubtless meet again. They were awed by viewing the moon through a good telescope; and a prediction of the coming eclipse of the sun evidently impressed them with a deep sense of our astrological powers, the chief phoongyee, with bated breath, inquiring whether it presaged war or famine.
Our first visitor was the “Death’s Head” pawmine of Ponsee, who came with the idea that we should entrust ourselves to his friendly guidance, and was chagrined at the information that we should return by Hotha. The Hotha tsawbwa had been delayed by the difficulty of crossing the mud left by the floods, and, when he at length appeared, was at first inclined to magnify the difficulties, physical and otherwise, of reaching his valley. When he found us resolute, he made light of the difficulties, and arranged that the Manhleo poogain should take charge of the baggage, while he himself preceded us to prepare for our reception. In the meantime we were entertained at a dinner by the tsawbwa-gadaw, the honours being done by the Hotha chief. We were welcomed by the two Buddhist nuns, one a daughter of our hostess, and the other a sister of Hotha, attended by a crowd of maids and retainers, and were at once requested to take our seats at the table. Tea was then served, followed by the dinner, consisting of well-cooked fowls, roast and boiled, pork, &c., with small plates of onions, peas, and sliced mangoes; then came rice and sauce, followed by another service of tea. All the dishes were served on Chinese porcelain, and the samshu was poured from a Birmingham teapot into tiny cups of jade. We were waited on by men; but just as the dinner was placed on the table, the hostess came in for a few minutes, and made a speech of welcome, and apologies for having nothing better to offer; and when it was over, she rejoined the party. The two rahanees and their maids favoured us with their company all the time. Being struck with the red-dyed nails of the ladies, I asked one rosy-cheeked damsel to show me the dye. She volunteered to give a practical illustration, and at once brought from an inner room a pulpy mass of the petals and leaves of a red balsam beaten up with cutch. Having first begged for a small ring as a memento of our visit, she proceeded to envelop the tip of my little finger in a portion of the pulp, and covered it with a green leaf neatly tied on with thread.
After dinner the Hotha chief entertained us with a performance on the Shan guitar or banjo, for the instrument had only three strings, and the sounding-board was made of a stretched snake skin. The chief was evidently regarded, and justly, as a skilled performer, and under his fingers the instrument discoursed sweet, pleasant tinkling, while the airs, though simple, were melodious. After our return to the khyoung, the two nuns and their maids arrived with some presents from the tsawbwa-gadaw, and remained for two hours, asking intelligent questions about our country and religion, and on leaving made us promise to visit them at their own khyoung. The next afternoon a messenger came to remind us of our promise, and two of the party went to the nunnery. It consisted of two bamboo houses, side by side, enclosed by a fence. One, used as a residence, was an ordinary Shan house of three rooms; the other, used as a chapel, was a pavilion, twenty-four feet square, raised on piles four feet above the ground, and closed in with mats on all sides save that fronting the dwelling-house. The only decorations were a few small images of Gaudama, and strips of white paper cut into ornamental figures and suspended like banners from the roofs. The Hotha nun was engaged in weaving, which was a breach of the Buddhist canons, forbidding the religious to employ themselves in any useful labour. We were invited into the dwelling-house, and served with mangoes and women’s tobacco, and bidden to light our pipes. A long and interesting conversation ensued, mainly on religious subjects. The nuns, especially the young lady of Manwyne, evinced great interest in the subject of Christianity, concluding by begging us to consider her as a sister. Then we all adjourned to afternoon tea at the haw of her mother. The old lady expressed a great desire to possess a portrait of our gracious Queen, which we promised to send her from Rangoon. In the meantime, we offered a temporary substitute in the shape of four brand new rupees, with which she was greatly pleased.
August 9th found us ready for an early start from Manwyne, but the want of porters delayed us till 8.30, when we set out for the Tapeng. A farewell dish of rice and spirit, “to strengthen us for the journey,” arrived from the tsawbwa-gadaw, while the chief phoongyee presented some cloth to each of us, heartily expressing his good wishes for our welfare. The townspeople waved their adieus, some calling out Kara! kara! and others the Shan equivalent for Au revoir! It was noon before the ponies were safely across the river, now six hundred yards in breadth, on the other side of which a mud flat extended for two miles. The smooth surface had been caked hard by the sun, but with many a fissure, through which the legs of the ponies slipped into the tenacious quagmire beneath. At last a veritable Slough of Despond was reached, and the party was fairly bogged; the ponies floundered and stumbled so much that it became necessary to dismount. The next half-hour will not be easily forgotten, when, the reins in one hand and my dog held fast in the other, I plunged and struggled through the slimy ooze, which seemed to grasp the legs firmly at each step. At one place the pony made a sudden stumble, and disappeared in the mud, whilst the strain sent me rolling forwards until dragged to my feet by two unincumbered natives. The stoutest of our party was literally hauled through by men stimulated by rupees, while his pony had to be dug out of the mud by some Shans. A blunder of our guide had led us into this tract of mud, which had been recently deposited by the overflow of the river; and the amount of alluvium brought down can be imagined from the fact that the tract covered about six square miles, with an average depth of four feet. Following the embankments of the paddy fields for about two miles, we halted for breakfast on a grassy slope at the foot of the hills, under the shade of wide-spreading banyan and mangoe trees, amidst eager crowds of villagers staring at the strangers.
CHAPTER X.
THE HOTHA VALLEY.
The mountain summit—A giant glen—Leesaw village—The wrong road—Priestly inhospitality—Town of Hotha—A friendly chief—The Namboke Kakhyens—The Hotha market—The Shan people—The Koshanpyi—The Tai of Yunnan—Their personal appearance—Costume—Equipment—The Chinese Shans—Silver hair ornaments—Ear-rings—Torques, bracelets, and rings—Textile fabrics—Agriculture—Social customs—Tenure of land—Old Hotha—A Shan-Chinese temple—Shan Buddhism—The fire festival—Eclipse of the sun—Horse worship—Ancient pagodas—Roads from Hotha.
At 2 P.M. we commenced to ascend the hills, which from Manwyne had not appeared to be more than one thousand feet high, but proved to be three times that altitude above the river. The rough bridle-path led straight up the steep declivity, and in the blazing heat of an unclouded sun the ascent was most trying to man and beast, already wearied by their exertions in the quagmire. The mules were ahead, but our men soon began to lag, although we went as slowly as was compatible with the prospect of reaching Manloi, on the other side, before nightfall. A short way up the mountain, bold cliffs stood out, of white crystalline marble, weathering to a dull brown. This was succeeded by quartzose rock; and, still higher, a blueish gneissose rock formed the upper mass of the range. We passed through several Kakhyen villages, paying a few rupees by way of toll to the headmen, who were sitting by the roadside waiting for us. Near the summit, we had a splendid view of the course of the Tapeng to the Burmese plain. A high curtain of clouds to the westward hung over the entrance of the river into the gorge of the hills, while below and beyond it the immense plain of the Irawady was clearly discerned backed by high hills, and with the great river winding through it like a broad silver band. To the right extended a magnificent panorama of the valley as far as the spur above Sanda, and we took a long farewell gaze at the lovely vale, walled in by its guardian mountains, and rich in every variety of effect produced by the grouping in sunset lights and shadows, of flood and fell, and verdant fields. Having crossed the summit more than five thousand feet above the sea, we looked down on the narrow Hotha valley, not a thousand feet below, stretched out at our feet for twenty-five miles, the opposite or southern range trending round to the north-east to join the mountain wall of the Sanda valley, by a connecting ridge, much lower than the height from which we looked across, and saw to the south successive distant heights cradling valleys whose waters flow to the Shuaylee.
It is somewhat difficult to find an appropriate term for this lofty mountain-cradled district. It is a giant glen, scarcely above two miles wide, presenting no level ground, but a succession of broken surface diversified by tossed grassy knolls of red soil, dotted here and there with villages, each with its plantation of fruit trees. A narrow stream, the Namsa, winds down on the southern side, till, through a cluster of higher grassy hills covered with bracken, it forces its downward way to the Tapeng. Such is the valley of Hotha as it lay smiling before us in the fast fading light, with its hundred villages, tenanted by forty thousand peaceful and industrious Chinese-Shans, which compose the two states of Hotha and Latha, or Muangtha and Hansa.