A CHINESE FORTIFICATION—CHINESE ARMY DESTROYED BY FAMINE—VIANG PA
POW—KIANG TUNG LAWAS—WITCH VILLAGES—AN INTELLIGENT PRINCE—BEST
DIRECTION FOR RAILWAY—PURCHASE AN OX FOR FOOD—AN ANCIENT LAKE—LEAVE
PA POW—UPPER GORGE OF THE MEH LOW—KIANG TUNG LAWAS A JUNG TRIBE, AND
DISTINCT FROM BAU LAWAS—BURMESE SHANS—CATTLE WITH NOSE-BAGS AND
MASKS—EFFECT OF SOIL ON FOLIAGE—SURPRISES IN THE JUNGLE—TEMPLE AT
BAU MEH PIK—OFFERINGS TO DECEASED ANCESTORS—THE VALLEY OF THE MEH
SOOAY A GAME-PRESERVE—INDICATIONS OF GOLD—ROAD TO VIANG POW—LOWER
GORGE OF THE MEH LOW—PORTOW, THE LITTLE ELEPHANT’S PLAYMATE—LOI
KOOK—LOI CHANG SHANS RETURNING FROM FRONTIER DUTY—UNWARRANTABLE
ACTION OF CHINESE GENERAL—KIANG HUNG SHANS BURMESE SUBJECTS IN
1886—REMOVAL OF CAPITAL—KIANG HUNG ANNEXED BY BRITISH IN 1888—SHANS
DREAD ENTERING DESERTED TEMPLES—DECEASED MONKS CLASSED AS
DEMONS—WORSHIPPING DECEASED MONKS—SUICIDE OF A PRINCESS AND TWO OF
HER MAIDS—SOUSED BY AN ELEPHANT—COURTESY OF THE CHOW HONA OF KIANG
HAI—AN IMMENSE PLAIN.
Viang Pa Pow—the City of the Croton Forest—is a Viang Hau or
Yunnan-Chinese city, which was fortified and stockaded by the Chinese
when they sent four armies to attack Burmah (A.D. 1765–69), and was
unoccupied when M‘Leod passed it in 1837. The Chinese forces are said to
have been much harassed by the Lawas and other hill tribes, and being
entirely cut off from their supplies, had to kill their ponies for food,
and ultimately to retreat. Famine proved their chief enemy, and very few
lived to reach Yunnan.
The city is surrounded by a double moat and an inner rampart, the latter
palisaded on the top with teak-logs standing 12 feet high from the
ground. It is 1700 feet long, 1073 feet broad, and contains seventy
houses. The _muang_, or district, has 322 houses scattered amongst the
Shan villages, and about 2250 Shan inhabitants. The valley of the Meh
Low is, however, chiefly occupied by the Kiang Tung Lawas, whose houses
are far more numerous than those of the Shans. These Lawa gain their
livelihood by cultivating rice, cotton, sugar-cane, and indigo, and by
mining iron, and making muskets, dahs, spears, ploughs, chains, and
other articles. We passed by many of their villages between the city and
Ban Meh Pik, and later on between Kiang Hai and Muang Hpan.
The Shan villages in the Muang have been set apart for the habitation of
reputed wizards and witches. These people have the choice of settling
here or in Muang Ngai, Muang Pai, and in Kiang Hsen—all of which regions
are deficient in population. Dr M‘Gilvary told me that many of the
people accused of witchcraft are so foolish as actually to believe in
the truth of the accusation, and that there is more superstition and
consequent fear, hatred, and malice in the witch villages than elsewhere
in the country.
Soon after camping I had a visit from Chow Chaum Muang, a first cousin
of the Queen of Zimmé, the most intelligent native met by me during my
journeys. With the aid of a box of matches, he took great pains in
explaining to me the general features and lie of the country. He said
there was no range of hills between Viang Pa Pow and the valley of the
Meh Wung, and that the best direction for the railway from Raheng would
be from Kiang Hsen viâ Kiang Hai, Muang Hpan, Penyow, Ngow, and Lakon.
As he arranged the matches according to the lie of the hills and
streams, I sketched the plan on paper. I found his information extremely
correct. The Shan nobles are certainly much more truthful and reliable
than the governors and officials in Siam, who pride themselves upon
their duplicity, and do as little as they can to aid a visitor to their
country, and all they can to deceive him.
Early the next morning our Chow ordered in a fresh supply of rice,
ducks, and fowls, and asked us if we would like to purchase an ox for
food. Of course we gladly consented, and handed him the money. The owner
seemed loath to part with the animal, and we more than fancied that the
prince had taken heavy toll of the money before it passed from his
hands. Anyhow, all of our party had a pleasant addition to our diet for
some days. Most of the meat was subsequently smoked and jerked, and
therefore kept well.
North-east of the city, about five miles distant, Loi Mok—a range of
hills twenty miles long—commences. In this range the Meh Wung takes its
rise, and we are about to skirt these hills until we leave the Meh Low
for Kiang Hai. The range forms the eastern flank of an ancient
lake-basin, which is now drained by the Meh Low. The basin in which
Muang Pa Pow lies was formerly severed from the lake by Loi Pa Tyoo, and
apparently forms part of the previous drainage-area of a former lake on
the Meh Wung.
We had to wait till 1 P.M. for ten fresh coolies and two elephants to
replace the twenty coolies we had brought from Zimmé. When these
arrived, we left the camp and proceeded due north down the valley of the
Meh Low. After passing through the rice-fields of three Shan villages,
great spurs from the ranges on either side began to close in; and at the
303d mile we entered the forest, and soon afterwards crossed a
flat-topped spur about 70 feet high which proceeded from Loi Mok.
A mile farther we crossed a bend of the Meh Low where the stream was 80
feet wide, 6 feet deep, and had 1 foot of water, and entered the gorge
where the river had broken through the hills. Here we met a large
company of Kiang Tung Lawas returning from fishing, and carrying
fishing-nets which were weighted at the bottom with chains. The women,
young and old, were bare to the waist, and the men were dressed, like
our Zimmé Shan followers, in garments of cotton dyed with indigo.
There could be no mistaking this race for the Bau Lawa: like the La-hu,
whom I met in Kiang Hai, they are akin in language to the Lolo tribes of
the Jung race in Yunnan. This is evidenced by comparing the Lolo
vocabularies given by Mr Bourne in the report of his journey in
South-western China (Blue-book, China, No. 1 of 1888) with the
vocabularies given by me in the account of my exploration.
For the next three miles we were amongst the hills. Great spurs covered
with teak and other valuable trees sloped up from the river, in whose
bed shales and flagstones cropped up. The grass and scrub-jungle on some
of the spurs was on fire, and my elephant, from fear, was playing a
scale sounding like one played on a child’s tin trumpet, and by no means
resembling the ordinary roar of the beast. After crossing two bends of
the river, we reached the Kiang Tung Lawa village of Ban Ta Kau, which
is situated beyond the gorge, and halted for the night.
After dinner we called up the head-men of the village, and took their
vocabulary. To show the utter difference between their language and that
of the Bau Lawas, I may mention that fire, water, fish, and pig in Bau
Lawa are—_ngau_, _raowm_, _ka_, and _layt_; whilst in Kiang Tung Lawa
they are—_bee_, _hlang_, _laung-teh_, and _wa_. The Lawas said that
nearly every year some of their kinsmen from the neighbourhood of Kiang
Tung paid them a visit, and that their forefathers were immigrants from
the north, and not natives of the Zimmé State. These people have not
such pronounced oval faces as the Lolos in Ssuchuan (although probably
of the same race) or the La-hu near Kiang Hai, and at first sight I took
them for Burmese Shans. They have, however, better developed noses than
the Shans, and some of their women might be taken for handsome gipsies.
Next day we started before the morning mist had been dissipated, and
passed through the fields of Ban Pa Bong. The spurs on either side of us
were rapidly retreating, and we were now well into the old lake-basin.
At the village the plain was three miles broad, and it quickly expanded
to six and seven miles, the hills on either side being frequently lost
in the haze. The small trees and bushes were spangled with the large
pale-blue flowers of a creeper; and white convolvulus, jessamine, and
the yellow blossoms of a vine-leaved creeper were frequently seen.
Near Pa Bong we met fifty-three laden cattle, accompanied by a party of
Burmese Shans wearing blue trousers and jackets, and great straw hats
atop of the silk handkerchiefs which were twined round their top-knots.
All the oxen wore nose-bags made of rattan-cane, to prevent them from
browsing by the way; and the leaders wore a mask in front of their
faces, fancifully worked with cowrie-shells, and topped by a beautiful
peacock’s tail. This, of course, was to make the animals hideous, in
order to frighten the demons away. Besides the ordinary brass
sleigh-bells that are hung round the necks of the oxen, a large bell was
suspended from a frame above the leader’s head. The bells are useful for
letting the elephant-drivers and other caravans know of their approach,
and to enable the caravan-men to track the animals when they are grazing
at a halting-place.
The morning was pleasant, and the country very beautiful, and made even
more so by the mist rising and falling as it lifted from the plain and
was swept from the valleys by the morning breeze. The great variety of
trees in the portions of the plain that were not under cultivation, and
the constant recurrence of trees out of and in leaf, was a source of
continual surprise. The same class of trees were in full leaf in one
place where the soil was rich, and had dropped their leaves at a place
close by where the soil indicated a laterite formation.
The elephants amused themselves as they went along by showering down
bamboo seeds upon the men as they passed among the clumps, and seemed
not to care at all for the mahout’s whip with the lump of lead attached
to the end of its thong. The climate in the basin of the Meh Low being
moister than in the Zimmé plain, the verdure is more luxuriant. I
noticed a bamboo 60 feet high growing without soil, rooted in the arm of
a tree four feet above the ground.
At times, on stretching my neck out of the howdah in order to get a
further glimpse of something we had passed, I would see a group of
white-turbaned Shans squatting in a bamboo bower, looking, in their
great peaked hats and their blankets wrapped round them, like gnomes in
the Black Forest. Here would be a party of villagers who had scuttled
out of sight as they heard us approach. There a group of porters, with
their burdens by their side, chatting and resting in the shade. In a
jungle-clad country, nothing could be easier than to surprise an enemy.
After passing several Lawa villages we reached the large Shan village of
Meh Pik, or the Pepper river, and halted for ten minutes to visit a
temple, which was handsomely decorated with gold-leaf and vermilion, and
occupied by a very ugly image of Gaudama, about which stood many smaller
and less hideous images. The offerings, which consisted of flowers,
food, dolls’ houses, and toy elephants and ponies, were indications of
what the votaries wished forwarded to the spirits of their deceased
relations and friends. Written instructions frequently accompany such
emblems, stating for whom they are intended, and at the tag end the
writer curses any one that steals them, and hopes that that individual
may be punished in the four hells.
Leaving the village we entered a large grazing-plain, in which many
buffaloes with their usual attendants, white paddy-birds and mynahs,
were feeding in the plain, crossed the Meh Low and the large rice-plain
of Ban Pong, and halted for the night on the bank of the Meh Soo-ay,
near the large village of the same name, which is situated 323½ miles
from Hlineboay and 1566 feet above the sea. Ban Meh Soo-ay is the
headquarters of the governor of this district, who called on us as soon
as he heard of our arrival. He told me that the valley of the Meh Soo-ay
is the private game-preserve of the King of Zimmé, and that no one is
allowed to hunt there, or even enter the valley without the royal
permission. It is therefore uninhabited, except by deer, tiger,
rhinoceros, elephant, wild cattle, and other large game. From slate and
quartz being the only pebbles in the stream-bed, it is not at all
unlikely that gold may exist in the hills stretching into this valley,
as it does in the same geological formation in other parts of the Shan
States.
From the village of Meh Pik, which we had passed, he said a path led
westward across the hills to Viang Pow, which was reached by caravans in
three days. The descent on the Viang Pow side of the hills was very
gradual, but part of the ascent from the Meh Low side was difficult. His
village contained sixty houses, but he could not tell, without referring
to his books, the number in the other villages under his jurisdiction.
In the village I noticed peach-trees, the first I had seen.
[Illustration:
_The little elephant’s fun._
]
The next day we left early, and a mile and a half from our camp entered
the gorge through which the Meh Low escapes between the spurs from Loi
Kook Loi Chang on the west and Loi Mok on the east. These two ranges
form the north and east flanks of the old lake-basin, which is now
drained by the Meh Low. For five miles, spurs from either side
occasionally approached near the stream, which we had frequently to
cross in order to shorten our route, as the river is very serpentine in
its course. Whilst passing through this gorge, Ramasawmy was playing
“God bless the Prince of Wales” on a reed flute; and the little elephant
was taking every chance he could to hustle the men over as they crossed
the river, and souse them with water from his trunk. If there is truth
in transmigration of souls, that little rogue must have been a monkey in
a former existence, and had not lost his zest for malicious pranks.
Portow, who had an overweening opinion of his own dignity, and was bent
on setting up as an oracle, was unfortunately not only the butt of the
boys, but likewise the sport of the baby-elephant. Many a time have I
seen him hustled over by the youngster, who seemed to have picked him
out as his playmate. Slily and softly stealing up behind, he would
suddenly increase his pace, and with a quick shuffle or a sudden lurch
shoulder him sprawling to the ground. Portow during this part of the
journey behaved like a hunted or haunted man, ever looking behind to see
whether the dreadful infant was near.
The large spurs on our left were called Loi Pa Kuang, the hill of the
deer-forest; Loi Wung Ngoo, the hill of the snake pool: between which
rose Huay Pak Chang, the brook of the elephant’s mouth; and Loi Kee-Wo
Hay, the hill where the cattle scatter their dung, so called because the
cattle caravans that cross it on their way by a short cut to Kiang Hai,
are much distressed whilst ascending its steep sides. There were several
plains in the gorge, the spurs being at times half a mile and a mile
apart.
At the 330th mile, the river, then 1500 feet above sea-level, takes a
sudden bend to the east, and passing betwixt an isolated hill and the
last spur from Loi Mok, enters the Kiang Hai plain. At the end of the
spur is the small village of Ban Tsen Tau, and in front of the
isolated hill were three deserted houses in old patches of
cultivation, which had been occupied by witches on their way to settle
at Kiang Hsen. After leaving the river, we commenced crossing the
small spurs which stretch into the Kiang Hai plain from Loi Kook Loi
Chang, and halted for the night at a pretty mountain-stream, the Huay
Wai, the brook of bamboos. Shortly after our arrival we met 200 Shans
on their way back to Zimmé from Kiang Hsen, carrying their things on
light bamboo shoulder-trestles, somewhat similar in shape to the
frames of the pack-saddles used for caravan cattle and mules. The men
rest the trestle first on one shoulder, and when tired on the other.
The Shans were returning from doing frontier duty; some disturbance
having arisen in the Burmese Shan States to the north.
[Illustration:
_Front view of trestle._
]
[Illustration:
_Side view._
]
These disturbances are alluded to by Mr Bourne of our Chinese Consular
Service in his report (Blue-book, China, No. 1, 1888), where he notes
that when at Ssumao in January 1886, he heard that “in 1884 the Chinese
asserted their authority through Ma Chung, the General at Puerh, in a
rather questionable manner, by the removal of the Hsuan-wei Ssu, and
also of the officer (Patsung) of the Liu-kun district.” The Hsuan-wei
Ssu is the chief of Kiang Hung, and the district named is the one
nearest to Ssumao belonging to Kiang Hung.
On Mr Bourne sending his writer “to visit a Burmese temple (Mien Ssu)
situated four miles south of Ssumao, and forming part of a castle
belonging to the Liu-kun Tu-ssu, ... they (the priests) described
themselves as Burmese subjects, but said they bore a heavy yoke, having
to pay taxes both to Ssumao (the Chinese frontier-post) and to Che-Li
(the Chinese name for Kiang Hung). My writer, who has been in Burmah,
described the castle as quite Burmese in construction.”
[Illustration:
_View of Loi Poo-ay at 1.3 P.M. 14th March._
]
The fact that the Shans within four miles of Ssumao considered
themselves to be subject to Burmah in January 1886, a year after we had
annexed that country, is most important. It thus becomes evident that
the “Upper Burmah Notification, No. 75, of 1888,” by which “all of the
territories east of the Salween river which on the 27th November 1885
owed allegiance directly or indirectly to the King of Burmah” are
included in our dominions, includes the portion of the Burmese Shan
States that lies to the east as well as to the west of the Meh Kong
river, and therefore the whole of the country through which the
Burmah-Siam-China Railway will run from Kiang Hsen right up to the
Chinese frontier-post at Ssumao. If we had not annexed the Shan States
of Kiang Tung and Kiang Hung, they would inevitably have fallen sooner
or later to the French, and our only practicable road for a British
railway to China would have been foolishly relinquished, together with
the trade of the people of Western China.
When talking about the temple we had visited at Ban Meh Pik, Dr
M‘Gilvary told me that the Shans are afraid to visit a deserted temple,
for the reason that the images of Gaudama are inhabited by Pee Soo-a
Wat, the spirits of deceased Buddhist monks, who are the protecting
spirits of the temple. If neglected, having nothing to live on, they
become savage, and sit like Giant Despair, gnawing their nails; being
thenceforth classed amongst demons, or malignant spirits. If a temple is
not totally abandoned, and offerings are made to only one image by a
worshipper, the envious spirit of another is apt to avenge himself by
startling the votary; and should the person afterwards become ill, or
should accident or other misfortune happen to him, the image is
thenceforth regarded by the people as the embodiment of a malign spirit.
Ancestral spirits and those of a family clan, if not worshipped and fed
every three years, likewise become malignant in their inclinations.
[Illustration:
_View of Loi Kook Loi Chang at 1.3 P.M. 14th March._
]
When an abbot, celebrated for his learning and virtue, dies, it is the
custom for those who have spent their monastic life under his
instruction, to prepare a shrine for him in some part of their house,
or, if still in the monastery, in their dormitory, where flowers and
food are placed for the acceptance of the spirit of their deceased
teacher. If he is treated with neglect or disrespect, he may become a
spirit of evil towards his former pupils. Apparitions may be caused by
good or evil spirits.
With reference to his having told me that the Shans were a romantic
people, Dr M‘Gilvary said that suicide amongst them was by no means
unusual. If a man considered that he had been slighted or ill-used in
any way, he was apt to brood over the fact, and work himself into a
state—when he would take his own life. Only a year or two ago one of the
princesses being crossed in love, hung herself from a branch of a tree;
and two of her maids, finding her suspended, in sorrowful despair at
having lost their sweet mistress, sought to accompany her in death by
dangling from the same branch.
Starting early the next morning, we crossed a few low spurs and then
descended to the great plain of Kiang Hai. As we passed near the first
village, my elephant, which had taken a trunkful of water at the last
brook, made a bad shot, and sent it flying over me and my survey-book.
This feat made Portow, who was walking by the elephant to translate for
me, nearly die of laughter; his sense of fun for once becoming greater
than his sense of his own dignity. We halted for the night at the large
village of Don Chi. The villages in the neighbourhood belonged to three
_Kwangs_, or sub-districts, and contained 600 houses. In one of the
villages I noticed several papaw-trees in the orchards. The juice of the
fruit of this tree renders any tough meat tender, and has been
successfully employed in the removal of the false membrane in
diphtheria.
We put up for the night in the hunting residence of the Chow Hona, or
second chief, of Kiang Hai, who arrived in the evening, but courteously
insisting that we should remain, put up elsewhere. From the large plain
near the village we could see Loi Poo-ay eleven miles to the east,
stretching away to the south, and giving rise to the small hillocks that
separate the sources of the Meh Low from those of the Meh Ing; and to
the west were Loi Kook Loi Chang, and some smaller hills on the south of
the Meh Khoke.