Having commenced to descend the ridge, we met with some Leesaws carrying a freshly killed deer, which an offer of ten rupees failed to induce them to part with. Many tracts of temperate forest trees, such as oaks and beeches, were seen, and below them extensive tracts of a novel short and thin stemmed bamboo. We presently passed through the village of our Leesaw friends, picturesquely perched on the face of a steep spur among magnificent trees and enormous grey boulders, some of which were as large as the houses, which latter differed altogether from the Kakhyen habitations, being small square structures, with no floor save the ground, which was kept dry by means of a trench cut round the mud walls. We entered the village street by a wooden gateway, and passed out under a long covered passage embowered in luxuriant creepers.
The sun had set almost as we commenced the descent, and darkness overtook us halfway down. At a division of the path, a stubborn muleteer insisted on choosing what proved to be the wrong road, and half our party, including the Manhleo headman, were thus misled. We blundered along a rough bridle-track covered with loose stones and cut up by watercourses. In vain we shouted to attract the attention, and learn the whereabouts, of the rest; no answer was returned save the echoes from the hills, now shrouded in darkness. At last we met some Shans, and learned that we were close to a village called Mentone, in the Latha or western division, and some miles from Hotha. A consultation was held as to which alternative was the worst, to proceed in the dark to Hotha, or go dinnerless and supperless to bed. The latter seemed the least evil; so we made for the village khyoung, which was reached at 8.50 P.M. We could get nothing to eat; and, thoroughly tired, we unsaddled the hungry and worn-out ponies, and, taking their saddles for pillows, fell asleep on the floor in front of the altar. Our slumbers, however, were soon disturbed by the phoongyees squatting down close to our heads, and shouting out their evening prayers. The chief phoongyee, a shrivelled old man, sat cross-legged, with his prayer-book on a small stool before him, and a little acolyte sat by his side, running a wooden pointer along the lines to keep the priest’s eyes from wandering. Before him sat six choristers yelling in different keys at the pitch of their voices. The devotions of the phoongyee were interrupted by our Shan interpreter, who shouted to him that he wanted to buy four annas worth of rice. The priest at once stopped the service to bargain as to the quantity of rice to be given for the coin, which was new to him; this being settled, he resumed his office, but was again interrupted, as he had not sent any one to serve out the rice.
Prayers being ended, we requested something to eat, and were told that there were some pears on a tree outside, to which we were at liberty to help ourselves, a generous offer which was politely declined. The priest, however, gave us quilts to lie on; and being thus made at all events warmer, though still hungry, we fell asleep, and, waking before dawn, were well on the way to Hotha by sunrise.
The inhospitality of these phoongyees was in singular contrast to the tenets and practice of the Burmese Buddhist priests, who hold it a pious duty to receive and refresh the stranger. There was, however, an ill feeling at work against us, which found vent in the question asked by some of the villagers, “Why had we come to their valley to bring flying dragons and other evils on them?” This was due to the malicious reports that the Muangla people had spread. The unexampled inundations were attributed to our presence, and it was declared that our stay had been followed by death in each place. Even the Hotha chief was not free from the superstitious dread thus produced; and his father-in-law, the old Latha tsawbwa, though he accepted the presents sent him, utterly declined a visit, as he feared the strangers would bewitch him and his household. His dutiful son-in-law declined to press him, as he was “an old buffalo,” which always went in the contrary direction to that in which it was driven.
Turning our backs on the inhospitable village, we proceeded by an excellent paved road carried along the end of the spurs, and in many places cut out along the slopes. The mountain streams were crossed by means of granite bridges, some of them adorned with dragons. Numerous villages embowered among fine trees were passed; and a novel feature was introduced by the occurrence, at intervals, of roadside drinking-fountains, the wells being built over and cased in stone ornamented with a white marble frieze. A gilded pagoda surmounting a hillock opposite Manloi brought our thoughts back to Burma, as it was the first pagoda of the Burmese type seen since our departure from the plains.
At 8 A.M., August 10th, we arrived at the town of Hotha, consisting of about one hundred and fifty houses, surrounded by a low wall, somewhat ruined and dilapidated, the result, not of Panthay invasion, but of a rebellion by the tsawbwa’s subjects, who a year before, exasperated by the imposition of a new tax, rose and attacked his town. The tsawbwa and his son, in state dresses, the former attired as a mandarin of the blue button, received us at their residence, and a salute was fired from four mortar-shaped guns embedded in the ground. Quarters were assigned to us in the haw, close to the chief’s private apartments; and all our people were assembled in the course of the day. The whole of the baggage was brought in safely, although the party had been divided in the descent of the mountain, and some of the followers had been obliged to remain in the Leesaw village, the unsophisticated mountaineers charging them two rupees a head for their night’s lodging! The Manhleo poogain and Kingain, the Muangla headman to whom the convoy of the baggage had been entrusted, were very proud of the encomiums passed on their successful performance of their task, and requested a certificate to that effect, and further promised to assist all future travellers who might desire to cross from Manwyne to Hotha.
We remained until the 27th as guests of the courteous and accomplished chief Li-lot-fa, or, to give him his Chinese appellation, Li-yin-khyeen; and the recollection of our sojourn with him, and of his pleasant valley, is the most agreeable of all the reminiscences of the country beyond the Kakhyen hills. Not only did our host evince the most hospitable desire to purvey all creature comforts, but he made us feel thoroughly at home. We lived on terms of intimacy with his family, and his two wives and two daughters manifested a charming freedom of manners, combined with the most refined propriety, that would have done credit to a drawing-room at home. The chief delighted to converse about the various modern inventions of which he had heard reports from the Chinese who had visited Rangoon. Their accounts, however, more suo, had been full of marvellous exaggerations, including flying-machines, telescopes that enabled the sight to penetrate mountains, and others that divested people of their clothes! The chief had some vague ideas about railways, steamships, and gas, and was most eager for fuller and more accurate information.
We urged him to visit Rangoon and Calcutta, but he seemed to think the disturbed state of the country an insuperable obstacle; but he discussed, instead, the plan of sending his son, a lad of thirteen, to Rangoon. Li-lot-fa could read and write Shan and Chinese, and he now commenced to learn Burmese, and it was a curious sight to see him at work with his note-book, which he had obtained from us, taking down words and sentences as busily as if he had been a competition wallah preparing for an examination.
The fact that this tsawbwa had succeeded in maintaining friendly relations with both the Panthays and imperialist Chinese chiefs, with whom his real sympathies lay, so that his valley had escaped the evils of war, spoke well for his diplomatic tact. His conversation showed that he had been from the first well informed about our progress and difficulties, which he unhesitatingly attributed to the machinations of the Bhamô Chinese. He asserted that the advance to Ponsee, and the desertion of the muleteers at that place, had been part of a well concerted scheme on the part of the Kakhyen chiefs to attack and plunder our baggage. Our escape from this danger was attributed by the chief to “a supernatural power against evil, given as a reward for good deeds in former existences.”
As an energetic trader, he was most anxious to co-operate heartily in reopening all the trade routes, his especial object, as was natural, being the restoration of the central or embassy route, which had been closed for some years by feuds between the Kakhyens of the hills on the southern side of the Tapeng and the Burmese officials. The cause of quarrel was stated to have been an unprovoked attack, on the part of the Burmese, on a few Kakhyens.