Tired from his confining labours, in December, 1853, Dr. House set
out for a tour to the distant city of Korat, some two hundred miles
in a northeast radius from the capital, but involving nearly twice
that distance of travel. The undertaking had the approval of King
Mongkut, who not only issued the usual passport but sent a letter
commanding all officials to afford assistance and protection,
and directing the governor of Korat to give supplies and other
facilities as might be required. The journey occupied fifty-eight
days and was made partly by boat, partly by elephant train and
partly by buffalo cart. A party of five trusty natives accompanied
him, including Ati, his faithful teacher.
Korat, the capital of the province of the same name, had a
population of some thirty thousand. Dr. House was the first white
person to visit the city, at least in modern times. The out journey
was made by boat up the Meinam to Salaburi on an east branch of the
stream two days above Ayuthia. There elephants were hired to carry
the party with their burden of books and supplies. The course lay
across country through the jungle and over the mountains, requiring
seventeen days from Bangkok. In reporting home his safe return he
wrote briefly:
“I have not had time since my return to draw up a detailed
account of all that befell me on the road, but I think I can
promise you an interesting letter next time—that is, if a
traveller’s tale of life in the woods, riding on elephants
(being thrown from the back of one and lying at the mercy
of the huge creature—with those great feet pawing the air
six inches from my head), riding in buffalo carts, footing
it, roughing it; now shooting deer or peacock, now entirely
out of provisions and making a meal of rice and burnt coarse
sugar; seeing great tiger tracks and hearing their cry,
sleeping in the open air by the watch fire, three nights
and four days without seeing human habitation—with divers
other adventures, will interest you; or if accounts of the
glad reception my books and gospel message seemed to receive
in the many villages and hamlets and in the city, where no
messenger with glad tidings had ever gone before.”
He was well received by the governor of the province, whom he
had previously met in Bangkok. Intercourse with the governor
proved that the doctor could not only show him wonders of western
knowledge but could discover to him facts in his own realm of
interests. Salt being a rare commodity and the local product
being coarse and black, Dr. House showed him how to purify it,
greatly to his delight. As a mark of appreciation the governor
had brought in from the country three unusually large elephants
for the visitor to see; while reviewing them, the doctor called
his attention to a fact of nature concerning elephants, viz.:
that the height of an elephant is equal to just twice the girth
of its foot. His host would not believe this until he had his men
try the experiment on several animals. The doctor had also found
that the elephant provides a reliable pedometer; as its walking
gait is quite uniform, it is necessary only to measure the step
of the particular beast (usually forty to forty-two inches) and
then counting the number of paces per minute (usually seventy) the
distance covered in a given time is easily calculated.
An amusing incident occurred while the stranger was exploring the
city, and Dr. House relates the story with an evident sense of
humour:
“Sallied forth at noon to take a walk east of town. In east
gate got into conversation with some citizens; others came
out to gaze at the stranger till soon had a fair audience
to listen as I opened to them the great truth of the Being
of God. An old man sat down on a stone in the gateway to
listen—all was news to him and others—when a drunken
fellow, sent of Satan as it were, came up and soon became
very noisy, till I could only talk in snatches. Gentle means
nor threatenings availed, but I gave some books.
“Leaving I was going quietly on the way to a watt outside
the walls when my troubler came following after, noisy and
cursing. I gave him that road and took another in another
direction. He returned to follow me, when I thought I was
justified in teaching him that there was a limit to even
Christian patience. So I tripped up his heels, hoping to walk
off out of his way before he could get to his legs again.
But he was only drunk enough to be impudent, and now angrily
followed after me. I picked up a broken limb and turned to
meet my adversary. Brandishing my rather formidable weapon in
the air over the fellow’s head, I ordered him to wheel about
and march back to the city gate. Many had gathered in the
meantime to see what would happen. The fellow was frightened
at my earnestness, quailed and marched; soon stopped to
plead that he intended no harm, when I punched him with my
umbrella with one hand to quicken his steps and flourished
the sledgehammer-like limb in the other, and off he marched
again as bid. This I repeated till getting tired, I tripped
up his heels again and left him sprawling while I went on my
way unmolested.... I cannot even now help laughing at the
figure I must have made with my shillalah swinging over his
head, and his mortal terror at the same.”
Royal passports were not always honoured at face value by distant
under governors. Dr. House found that while the king had commanded,
the command was not much more than warrant for him to demand.
After waiting some days for the governor to engage elephants
for the return trip there was little hope of having his desire
granted unless he took up the task himself. Vigourous action and
persistence overcame the inhospitality which was displayed. The
return trip was laid out through the western part of ancient
Cambodia, through the Chong To’ko pass, thence to the headwaters of
the Bang Pakong River, and home by way of Kabin and Patchin.
Through this region he met with even great indifference to the
king’s commands:
“On the long roundabout journey home from Korat, the person
of whom I engaged my elephants took me for purposes of his
own far round to the southeast of Kabin, the point I wished
to reach at the head of navigation on the Bang Pakong River.
Not unwilling to see the country, I put up with a good
deal of imposition on the part of my guide ... one of the
greatest rogues I ever met. At the village where he resided I
consented to proceed with buffalo carts instead of elephants
at his urgency. We had travelled on with them some days when,
one afternoon walking in advance of my party, I entered the
little Cambodian village of Sakao, three miles east of Kabin
on the military road to the capital of Cambodia.
“Here was an officer of the customs who was on the lookout
for some Cochin Chinese soldiers who had deserted from the
king’s service; and they being unaccustomed to a white face
and I doubtless rather travel worn, and my appearance there
unattended being decidedly suspicious, they were on the point
of arresting me as a “deserter,” when first the name and then
the presence of my guide (who after awhile came along with my
outfit) made all right, for the custom officer and my guide
were old friends.
“Expecting to get away after an early breakfast next morning,
I slept in one of the carts.... Next morning I tried in vain
to purchase a fowl; went over to the headman to beg him help
me. “He had no fowls, he did not think he could procure any
in the village”; but while he was speaking I actually saw
some running about under the house. I was beginning to think
rather hard of Cambodian hospitality when, induced by triple
price, a man slyly brought me a chicken.
“While I was eating my breakfast, the custom house officer
came over to visit his friend, my guide. Soon a neighbour
brought in a large brass dish, and from the liquor in it
the three quaffed and quaffed again, till they became very
chatty and good humoured. I had finished my breakfast and the
cart drivers were waiting for their master. But he was too
pleasantly engaged to leave the jovial company he was in. In
vain I called on him to eat his breakfast that we might be
off, for the sun was high, and still three days remained of
our journey and we had already lost much time on his account.
“Not yet, not yet,” he answered, and kept on sipping from the
bowl of arrack.
“Time passed. At 10:30 they were still at their cups. My
patience was now clear gone. To go on I was resolved and no
longer to be defrauded of my time by a knave. I told him ‘go
he must’ or I should go on without him and he should not
receive a penny of the half-hire to be paid at the journey’s
end, and I should report him to the governor of Korat, who
had put me in his care. ‘And how will you go on without the
buffalo carts?’ he impudently asked. ‘Do as I did when I
went on to Korat; I will hire carriers here in the village
and walk on.’ ‘Not a man shall leave this place to help
you’—put in the custom house officer, ‘he would forbid their
going.’
“I had said nothing to him before, but now I spoke: ‘Mr.
Officer, last night you heard my passport read and the
peremptory order of the viceroy of Korat that I be not
detained a single day on my mission’—and I took him by the
arm as I spoke and looked him in the face—‘You dare not stop
me. Is his excellency the governor of Korat nobody? I have
the royal seal, too—do you not dread that? Keep me here
one-half day more and you will repent of it.’
“His anger that was written on every line of his knavish face
sobered him. The villagers around looked on astonished at
my audacity, bearding this great man in his den, and he did
not know what to make of it. Just then, my guide seeing that
I was resolute in the matter, gave in, ordered the buffalos
to be yoked and told his servants to drive ahead, he would
follow. I took a formal but civil leave of the worthy; we
were off, and my guide, running after, soon overtook us.
Would you believe it, we proceeded but three quarters of
an hour, when he drove off the highway to the shelter of
some trees by the side of a swamp and there came to a halt,
pretending it was necessary to feed the buffalos and that
there was no suitable place beyond. So there two or more
hours were lost—and this while one of my servants was very
ill, our stock of provisions all low, and already seventeen
days on a journey that should have taken but seven.”
The river was finally reached; the buffalo caravan dismissed and
boats engaged to carry the party to Bangkok, where they arrived
after nineteen days’ travel from Korat.
Two lesser trips were made in 1854, which were of some interest.
In June, he accompanied the Baptist missionaries on a trip to
Bangplasoi on the gulf:
“I had long been promising myself a visit to my old patient,
Chek Chong, the Chinese fisherman whose arm I amputated
five or six years ago to save his life, threatened by
mortification resulting from an alligator bite that had
nearly severed the poor man’s wrist. The loss of his arm
seems to have been under Providence the means of saving his
soul, for the religious impression he received while in the
hospital never left him; he then expressed himself willing to
make our God his God. Being unable to read and not being able
to speak Siamese at all ... we referred him to our brethren
of the Baptist mission with some of whose church members he
was already acquainted.... After a due season of instruction
and probation they received him to church membership about a
year ago.
“Living some sixty to seventy miles from Bangkok he cannot
often see his spiritual teachers, and would be quite shut out
from religious privilege, were it not that Bangplasoi has
been made a kind of an outstation by the Baptist mission....
So when I was invited to accompany Mr. Ashmore to that
mission, I readily accepted....
“While there, Chek Chong told me that ever since he had
lived with us at the hospital he had observed the Sabbath,
refraining from labour. Looking around at the evidence of
thrift about him, I replied: ‘I do not believe you are the
poorer for losing one day’s work in seven.’ ‘Yes,’ he said,
‘while the fish business has turned out poorly this season,
out of thirty engaged in it of my neighbours, only four have
succeeded at all, and I am one.’
“We attended morning and evening worship with the family and
such of their neighbours as chose to come in and listen....
Chek Chong being called on to lead in prayer, offered up
thanks most devoutly that ‘the redheaded (_i. e._, not black
like Chinese) foreign teachers had come to visit him.’ He
seems to have much influence for Christ; he is not ashamed of
our Christ; two of his nephews are inquirers; the wife puts
no hindrance in his way.”
The other trip was made in November, when the doctor explored the
Meinam “farthest north” up to that date, reaching Pitsanuloke and
Pichit and occupying thirty-three days. Some sixty to seventy
villages were visited along the way and more than thirteen hundred
tracts given only to those who could read.