LAKON AND LAPOON DATE FROM THE SIXTH CENTURY—DESCRIPTION OF LAKON—A
CHRISTIAN JUDGE—LAW AND JUSTICE—PUNISHMENTS COMMUTED TO FINES—LEGEND
OF THE DIPPED PRINCE—LEGEND OF LAKON—A MODERN JOKE—LEGEND OF THE
RING LAKE—THE GOD OF MEDICINE—THE ASWINS MENDING AN OLD MAN—ORIGIN
OF QUACK-DOCTORS—A SIAMESE DOCTOR—THEORY OF DISEASE—MEDICINES—174
INGREDIENTS IN A DOSE—DRAUGHTS FOR THE POOR, PILLS FOR THE
RICH—MEDICINES BY PAILFUL—EMPIRICS—BELIEF IN DEMONS AND WITCHES—MODE
OF PAYMENT BY THE JOB—NO CURE, NO PAY—FEE TO THE GOD OF
MEDICINE—PRIESTS TO THE DEMONS—SACRIFICES—CONTAMINATION FROM
LEPERS—SMALLPOX AND VACCINATION—FILTHY DWELLINGS AND FURNITURE—NO
PILLOW-CASES OR SHEETS—KILLING BUGS—VILLAGES ON THE MEH WUNG—DR
NEIS’S SURVEY—KAREN CHRISTIANS—REV. D. WEBSTER—DR CUSHING
ILL—EAGERNESS FOR WORK—MALARIOUS FEVERS—NUMEROUS KARENS IN BRITISH
SHAN STATES—TRADE OF LAKON—VISIT THE CHIEF—CHEAP LABOUR FOR THE
RAILWAY—GREAT HEAT—BURST OF THE MONSOON.
Lakon (Lakhon, Lakaung, Lagong, or Nakhon Lampang), the capital of a
Shan State of the same name, is said to have been built on the site of
an old Lawa city by Aindawa Raja, the younger son of Queen Zamma Dewah,
who was raised to the throne at Lapoon A.D. 576. The queen is said to
have been the daughter of the king of Vieng Chang, formerly a powerful
kingdom in the basin of the Meh Kong, and the widow of a prince of
Cambodia. It is a double city, part being built on either side of the
river, and is the most important Ping Shan town to the south of Zimmé.
The palace is in the section lying along the east bank; and the city
with its suburbs is said to contain a population of about 20,000 souls,
a hundred of whom are Chinese.
Like Lapoon (Labong or Lamphun), the State of Lakon owes allegiance to
Zimmé as well as to Bangkok, and formed part of the ancient kingdom of
Zimmé. It contains 15 Muangs, or provinces. The chief’s residence is of
the usual type of double teak-framed houses, separated by a passage on
the raised flooring, inhabited by Shan gentry, wealthy Burmese
foresters, and Chinese merchants in the Ping States. Its compound, which
contained two other buildings, is surrounded by a brick wall 10 feet
high, much out of the perpendicular, on the south-west side, the
foundations not having been carried low enough. On the opposite side of
the road are several fine temples, resplendent with beautiful
wood-carving and fresh gilding; and nearer the gate is the palace of the
Chow Hona, or second chief.
The houses lining the streets are enclosed in large palisaded gardens,
in which the dwellings for the demons, each two feet square, stuck upon
posts, and looking like pigeon-houses, formed prominent features. Near
the palace of the Chow Hluang are the court-house and jail. The latter
is surrounded by a high plank fence. Looking through the chinks between
the planks, we saw a few prisoners heavily loaded with chains squatting
in the enclosure.
In the afternoon the head Chow Phya, Chow See Ha Nat, came to call on Dr
M‘Gilvary, and gave me much information. This nobleman had been for a
long time the chief judge of the court, and some years before had been
converted by Dr M‘Gilvary. Since then he had been exemplary in his
conduct as a Christian. I took the opportunity to question him as to the
methods of conducting law and justice in the country. According to him,
before the commencement of an action each party has to pay five rupees
into court, the defendant having to borrow the money if he is not the
owner of it. The charge is then written down by a court official,
together with the evidence of the witnesses; frequently a _douceur_ from
either party weighs down the scales of justice, and gains the case for
the richer or most unscrupulous party. Since he had become a Christian
he had seldom been allowed to try a case.
Money in the Ping States, like charity, covers a multitude of sins; and
for most crimes, in fact for all, at the will of the supreme chief the
punishment of imprisonment, or even death, can be commuted to fines. As
the salaries of the court officials, as well as some of the emoluments
of the chiefs, depend upon bribery, fees, and fines, this is naturally
the favourite mode of punishment. The higher the fine, the greater the
fee, for 20 per cent is added to the fine as a fee for the officials of
the court, and 10 per cent for the head judge. Fines for drunkenness are
the perquisite of the supreme chief, whether Chow Che-wit (the Lord of
Life, the title of the supreme chief of Zimmé and Muang Nan) or Chow
Hluang (the title of the chiefs of Lakon, Lapoon, Peh, Luang Prabang,
&c.) In cases of theft, double the value of the beast or thing stolen
has to be paid to the late owner, as well as the fine to the court. If
an elephant is stolen, a fine of 200 rupees has to be paid to the chief
by the culprit. If a man cannot pay the fees, award, and fine, he is put
into chains, and forced to saw wood, or do other work, receiving no pay
or food from the officials whilst a prisoner. He has to beg in chains
for his food, and prisoners in chains are frequently seen begging in the
market-place, or from house to house. The prisoners are thus fed at the
expense of their friends and relations, or, if they have none in the
vicinity, by the charitably disposed. The imprisonment lasts until the
man is released by the payment of the award and fees, whether by himself
or by his friends, and seldom continues more than two or three years,
for he is generally released, if impecunious, at the intercession of the
lord whose serf he is.
In relation to the hills lying to the east of the city, which I sketched
before leaving, the Chow Phya told me the following legend:—
In the time of Gaudama Buddh, Kom-ma Rattsee (the Siamese Komara-pat—the
god Rudra, in the Rig Veda, who was worshipped by the ancient Aryans), a
famous magician, demigod, and doctor, visited Lakon, and informed the
princes and people that by his medicines and charms he could add beauty
and restore youth and life to any one, however he might have been
dismembered and mangled. A decrepit old prince, who was verging on
dotage, and longed for a renewal of his youth, begged the magician to
experiment upon him. The doctor, after mincing him up, prepared a magic
broth, and, throwing the fragments into it, placed it over the fire.
After performing the necessary incantations, the prince, rejuvenated and
a perfect beau, was handed out of the pot. He was so pleased with his
new appearance, and the new spirit of youth and joy pervading him, that
he entreated the magician to reperform the operation, as he thought the
first chopping up having been so successful, still greater benefits
would accrue from its repetition. On the magician refusing, he
clamorously persisted in his request. The demigod, annoyed at his
persistence and his covetousness, accordingly minced him up and put him
into the pot, where he remains to this day. The hill where the Phya, or
prince, was dipped, is called Loi Phya Cheh (the hill of the dipped
Phya); and a hill near it is known as Loi Rattsee (Russi), after the
magician. Another of the hills is known as Loi Mon Kow Ngam (the hill of
the horns of the beautiful wild cow). Poo Chow, the celebrated Lawa
monarch, is said to have been killed by the cow whilst pursuing it. He
is the tutelary spirit of the district, and is worshipped by the people.
The hill on which he was slain is known as Loi Kyoo Poo Chow (the hill
of the pass of the revered Chow). _Poo_, or _pu_, is a term of high
esteem, and means a paternal grandfather.
[Illustration:
_View of hills east of Lakon._
]
After relating the legend of Muang Ngow, which I have already referred
to, he told us that of Lakon, which runs as follows: There was once a
Lawa living on the verge of the Lakon State, when the whole of the
country was covered by a dense forest. Hearing that Gaudama Buddh was
visiting the site of Wat Lam Pang, the Lawa hastened to procure some
wild honey, and placing it in the joint of a bamboo, slung it to the end
of a shoulder-pole, formed from the branch of a Mai Ka Chow tree, and
proceeded on his way to the Buddh. The country through which he passed
is known as La-Kaun, the Lawa’s walk (from _la_ or _lawa_, and _kaun_ or
_kon_, walk). After eating the honey, the Buddh planted the bamboo joint
in the ground, and from it sprang a great clump of yellow-stemmed
bamboos, which still flourishes near the _Wat_, or temple. The branch of
the tree being driven by the Buddh into the ground, with its thin end
downwards, sprouted and became a tree, still thriving on the spot,
bearing leaves reversed from their natural position. The tree, bamboo,
and temple are objects of pilgrimage, and are worshipped twice a year,
in the second and sixth months.
He then related a modern joke about Phra Chedi Sow, the sacred twenty
pagodas, situated five miles to the north-west of Lakon. These pagodas
are likewise the site of pious picnics. An observant pilgrim happening
to count them, could find but nineteen. Over and over again he counted,
thinking that he must be mistaken, but his tally was always the same. At
last he applied to the abbot for an explanation, and was assured that
the twentieth pagoda was at Ban Wang Sow, the village of twenty pools,
distant some miles to the south of Lakon, where there is a pagoda. This
the old Chow Phya considered to be an immense joke.
After nearly splitting his sides with laughter over this humorous tale,
he said that there was a legend about a small lake in the neighbourhood
called Nong Wen (the lake of the ring), which we might perhaps like to
hear. On our assenting, he said the name arose from the following
circumstance: A youth wandering through the woods with his sweetheart
became unseemly in his attentions, and thereby deeply offended the local
spirit, who, to punish them, caused the ground to sink gradually under
their feet. The couple fled in great fear. The young man in his terror
grasped the girl’s hand, and she, in her hurry to get away, wrenched it
from him with such force that her ring fell off and came to the ground.
The ring sinking, became a round pool—the Ring Lake.
Komara-pat, the god of medicine, mentioned in the first legend, is
sacrificed to by all doctors in Siam at the expense of their patients,
and in the stories told of him, seems to have many of the qualities of
the Aswins, two grotesque personages in the Rig Veda, who were the
general practitioners of medicine amongst the Aryans. In the Rig Veda
they are described as brothers of the sun, and travel in three-cornered,
three-wheeled cars drawn by asses. They are depicted as half-comic,
half-serious personages, with very long arms, and are concerned in every
odd legend in the Veda. To a holy man who was beheaded for revealing to
them forbidden science, they presented a horse’s head, and stuck it on
his neck in place of his own head. They enabled the lame to walk and the
blind to see, and restored an “aged man to youth, as a wheelwright
repairs a worn-out car.” These professors in healing seem to be the
progenitors of the jugglers, magicians, and quacks found in all ages,
not only in the East, but in Europe.
A Siamese doctor, according to an account given by a medical missionary,
is distinguished from other folk by his medicine-box, wrapped up in a
piece of figured muslin or some silken or woollen fabric, holding half a
bushel, more or less, of pills and powders, carried under his arm or in
his little skiff, or in the arms of a single servant. As the customs of
the country require physicians to remain day and night with their
patients while suffering under grave diseases, it is impossible for them
to attend upon many persons at a time. Doctors are therefore far from
being in the possession of a lucrative practice, and few are lucky
enough to be able to save sufficient to enable them to acquire a
teak-built house surrounded by an orchard, and support two or three
wives, together with a growing family.
Polygamy among them is accounted a mark of opulent distinction, and is
looked upon as a favour which has descended to them by virtue of good
deeds performed in previous states of existence.
The Siamese, according to the same authority, put diseases down to
disturbances in the four elements, _ahpo_ (water), _lom_ (wind), _dacho_
(fire), and the earth. Water produces dropsy; wind produces rheumatism,
epilepsy, apoplexy, headache, flatulency, colic, inflammation, &c.; fire
produces all kinds of fevers, measles, boils, smallpox, &c.; and the
earth, by its invisible and impalpable mists and vapours, induces
cholera and other terrible plagues. The spirits, both good and evil,
have great power over these four elements internally and externally, and
can produce a multitude of bodily ailments. The people, knowing that
they have accumulated much demerit in their present state of existence
as well as for their sins in their innumerable previous existences, feel
themselves at the mercy of these spirits, and do all they possibly can
to propitiate them.
The doctors use four general classes of medicines to combat the
disturbances that are caused by the four elements. These are chiefly
derived from the vegetable kingdom, and from such kinds as are
indigenous to their country. A small proportion of their medicines are
imported from China, and purchased from Chinese apothecaries. Barks,
roots, leaves, chips, orchard-fruit, and herbs, constitute the great
bulk of their _materia medica_. Next to these they employ articles of
medicine belonging to the animal kingdom, such as bones, teeth,
sea-shells, fish-skins, snake-skins, urine, eyes of birds, cattle, cats,
and the bile of snakes and of numerous other animals. Lastly, but less
frequently, they employ articles from the mineral kingdom, such as
stones, saltpetre, borax, lead, antimony, sulphate of copper,
table-salt, sulphate of magnesia, and, very rarely, mercury. Besides the
above, aloes and gamboge, and a few other gums and resins, are
occasionally used.
The dependence of Siamese physicians, in waging war with disease, is
more upon a large combination of ingredients in a prescription than upon
the power of any one or two of the same. Hence they often have scores of
components in a single dose. One hundred and seventy-four ingredients
were counted by a missionary in one prescription, which was ordered to
be taken in three doses.
They employ their vegetable combinations chiefly in the state of
decoction or infusion. A common way of speaking of the quantity of
medicine which a person has taken is to say that he has swallowed three,
five, or more pots of it—each pot containing from two to four quarts.
And a common way of paying the doctor is by the potful, from 30 to 60
cents each. The form of pills is esteemed a more select mode of
administering their vegetable medicines; but as these are more expensive
and troublesome to prepare, patients are charged more highly for them.
Medical practitioners in Siam are all, with rare exceptions,
self-taught, or mere empirics. If a man wishes to try his fortune as a
doctor he reads a native medical manuscript or two upon some kind of
disease, and quickly ventures to practise, following the directions of
the book. If he happens to be successful in a case, or nature has cured
the person in spite of his treatment, he trumpets his triumph abroad,
and asserts that he has rescued his patient from death; and the Siamese,
who, with all their native cunning, are easily gulled in medical
matters, credit his reports, and his fame is assured. The ignorance of
the physicians is safeguarded by the fact that all the cures that take
place in connection with the use of their physic are attributed to it,
and all failures to cure are supposed to result from the malicious
interference of evil spirits, wizards, witches, or something else beyond
the power of human skill to contend against.
Physicians are paid by results; and a bargain is struck to pay so much
if the patient is cured, before the case is undertaken. If the doctor
appears to have done his best, and has been very attentive, the people,
even in case of the death of the patient, evince their gratitude by a
valuable donation, as well as by small gifts whilst the patient is being
treated. It is very seldom that “a job of healing” is undertaken for
less than 8 ticals (a tical is worth two shillings), or for more than 20
ticals. The price may run up to ten or even twenty times the amount of
these sums, in an inverse proportion to the reduction of the hope of
effecting a cure, as the disease progresses. The pledges given are
always verbal; but as there is never any want of living witnesses to
attest them, the successful doctor can claim their payment by law, and
in case of default of money, goods, or chattels, he may seize any of the
family of the patient or relations dependent upon him or her under the
age of twenty, and employ the youth or maiden as his bond-slave in lieu
of interest of the debt until it is paid.
Over and above the amount of the pledge, the law allows the practitioner
to demand in all cases of successful treatment the customary fee, which
uniformly amounts to 3½ ticals, equivalent to seven shillings in English
money. This fee is called _Kwan-Kow Kaya_, and is divided, like its
name, into two parts. The _Kwan-Kow_ consists of a proffer of 1½ tical
(three shillings) in silver, made by the patient or his friends. This
forms part of the offering for propitiating the primitive teacher of
medicine, the demigod Komara-pat, who is believed to exert influence in
the spirit-world over diseases. A wax candle is stuck upright in a brass
basin or earthen bowl, and the money is planted in the candle. Then a
small quantity of rice, salt, chillies, onions, plantains, &c., is
placed in the same vessel, and an incantatory form is recited over it by
the physician. No Siamese doctor will enter on the treatment of a
patient, however trifling the disease, without paying his respects in
this manner to the father of medicine.
The second part of the fee, termed _Kaya_ (literally, the price of
medicine), is 2 ticals, equivalent to four shillings, which is the
supposed legal cost of the medicines that may be given in the treatment
of the case, be it little or much. The law having joined these two parts
of the custom together, they must be exacted together. These two amounts
remain in charge of the friends of the patient until the physician has
worked the cure; and if he fails, he cannot claim the money.
Another legal method by which Siamese practitioners increase their
incomes is by acting as priests to the demons who are supposed to cause
disease. They take advantage of the universal superstition that the
deceased spirits of mankind have power to cause, as well as cure,
disease; and that they can be propitiated by offerings. The people
credit the doctors with the power to tell whether these oblations are
required or not; and for each time that he is at the trouble of making
such offerings, he may legally claim, in case of cure, three shillings
from his patient. This oblation is called _Kraban_, and is performed as
follows: The doctor moulds little clay images, sometimes of men, women,
or children; sometimes of elephants, horses, oxen, or swine; and
sometimes of silver or gold coin; and places them on a little float, or
stand made of plantain stalk, or leaf. Interspersed among them, he puts
a little rice, salt, pepper, onion, plantain, chillies, seri-leaf, and
betel-nut, and lights up the whole by placing a small candle on the
stand. Thus arranged, he carries it into the street, and lays it down by
the wayside; or, if the house faces the river or canal, he sets it
afloat, and leaves it to take care of itself. The fee for making this
sacrifice is called _Soo-a Kraban_.
The listlessness of the Siamese and other Shans with regard to
contagious diseases is astonishing. They seldom take any care to avoid
contact with leprous persons, who are quite common in their families;
and until 1840, when vaccination was introduced by the American
missionaries, they had no thought of shielding themselves or their
children from their most terrible scourge, smallpox. Even now, when the
utility of vaccination is explained to them, many shrug their shoulders
and carelessly reply, “Tam boon tam kam,”—follow good, follow evil—which
implies that they must submit to whatever happiness or sorrow their
deserts bring them.
One of the great causes of disease amongst them is, doubtless, the
uncleanliness of their dwellings and furniture. It might be inferred
that a people so fond of bathing, and so particular in washing their
persons and clothes, would be equally clean in their houses. But such is
not the fact. They scarcely ever scrub the ceilings, walls, or floors of
their dwellings. You may see dirt upon the walls and posts of their
houses, layer upon layer, the accumulation of years. The floors, if made
of plank, are always of a dingy dirty colour, yet polished with a
varnish made by the dirt of their bare feet continually rubbed in with
other filth. Here and there in the floor you will see holes conducting
to the lower storey, which they use as spittoons, and for other
purposes.
The houses of the nobles and wealthier classes have one room, or more,
carpeted with grass matting, which hides the holes above mentioned, and
such rooms are pretty well furnished with spittoons, generally dirty
beyond description. When the floors are of split bamboo, the ordinary
flooring of the poorer classes, one has a clear view of the filth
beneath the floor, as the interstices between the slats are many and
often large.
A peculiar concentration of filthiness is to be found in Siamese
bedrooms, especially so if they are occupied by invalids. The sick have
little strength or spirit to give attention to the cleanliness of their
persons, much less to their bedding, and their relatives are little
disposed to care for these things. It is fortunate that their rooms are
well ventilated through chinks in the walls, floors, and roofs; and that
the continually accumulating filth is quickly dried, and is thus
probably deprived of much of its inherent power to engender disease.
The missionary stated that, having visited the sick at their homes for
twenty-nine years, he might truthfully say he had not seen a clean
mattress, pillow, or mosquito-bar oftener than once in twenty visits,
and then only among his Christian flock. The bedrooms amongst the masses
of the people were generally horribly untidy. Their mattresses and
pillows, having never had a sheet or pillow-case put over them, and
having been used for months, and sometimes years, without any kind of
washing, were generally brown and greasy as smoked bacon. Their
mosquito-curtains, which when new were white, looked as if they had been
long smoked in a chimney. The unmistakable marks of bed-bugs were thick
and black enough to throw a European lady, or even gentleman, into
hysterical fits at the sight. The Siamese think it wrong to kill their
bugs, so merely take them up tenderly, and drop them into a little
cocoa-nut oil, which soon gives them their quietus; or place the
infested mats in the sun, so that the unacclimatised pests may die of
sunstroke.
After such a description of the loathsome habits of the Siamese, it is
refreshing to return to the Christian Chow Phya, whom we left squatting
on the floor, telling us tales about the country. Before he left, I
asked him to draw me a map showing the position of the different streams
entering the Meh Wung, from the source of the river to its junction with
the Meh Ping. On its completion, he gave me the names of 112 villages
lying in the basin of the river, and said there were many more whose
names he could not recollect. Fifty-four of these villages lay to the
north of the city, and the remainder to the south in the portion of the
valley that will be traversed by our proposed railway. Villages
containing less than thirty houses were not included in his list.
Elephants, he said, took 13 days in travelling from Lakon to Raheng; 4
days to Muang Peh; and 5 days from Muang Peh to Muang Nan. In following
the White Elephant route from Lakon to Raheng, the road is easy, and no
hills are crossed between the two places. This portion of the country
which will be traversed by the railway was surveyed by Dr Paul Neis in
1884, and a copy of his survey has been submitted to the Government and
Chambers of Commerce with the other maps, included in our “Report on
Railway connection of Burmah and China.”
The Rev. David Webster, of the American Baptist Mission, whom I had met
at the Siamese frontier-post on the Thoungyeen river, and subsequently
shared quarters with at Zimmé, has been very successful amongst the
Karens in the hills neighbouring Lakon. This field was only opened out
in 1881; and in 1885 he had 161 Karen converts in these villages amongst
his congregation. I have never met a missionary more in earnest than Mr
Webster. He and his wife and their golden-haired little daughter seem
utterly regardless of creature-comforts, and make long journeys among
the hill-people, bearing all sorts of inconveniences in order to carry
out their good work. I cannot speak too highly of all the American
missionaries I had the pleasure to meet in the country. Although Dr
Cushing was ailing with incipient smallpox, which had not yet declared
itself, we could with difficulty persuade him to refrain from visiting
the Karen villages occupied by the Christians, although they lay at a
considerable distance from our route.
Mr Webster has frequently suffered from malarious fever, and in his
report, dated Lakon, February 10, 1885, gives some interesting
particulars as to his views on the subject. He says: “It is noticeable
that different localities have each its own peculiar type of fever. This
that I have just experienced is entirely new to me; yet it has not had a
very bad effect, except that I am weak, and not as usual inclined to
much exertion. As far as fever is concerned, I do not see that we have
much to choose between places. In some places some men are healthy and
others are sick. Much more depends on the person than on the place, I
think; and, again, as much depends upon the exposure to heat, fatigue,
cold or wet, and to the lack of really good food, as upon anything else
in the locality.” Although all my companions got fever at one time or
another, I am thankful to say that I remained free from it; the only
effect the malaria seemed to have upon me was to loosen for a time every
tooth in my head, which is hard lines enough when one has to munch hard
biscuits or even gingerbread nuts.
Many of the tribes between Zimmé and the Chinese frontier are Karen, and
in a pamphlet published in 1881 by Dr Cushing, he states that “the
Karens in this direction, towards Zimmé and beyond towards China, are
very numerous, probably more numerous than all the Karens in British
Burmah.” It is therefore likely that a very large field for missionary
work will be opened up by our assuming control of the Shan States lying
between the Salween and Meh Kong rivers.
When saying good-bye to the Chow Phya, we asked him to send the Chinese
monopolist to us, so that we might learn something of the taxation and
trade of the State. On his arrival he told us that he paid the
Government of Lakon 12,000 rupees for the right of levying taxes,
amounting to 10 per cent of the value, upon all exports from the State,
other than timber; and one of his employees informed us that the bargain
left this monopolist a clear gain of 10,000 rupees. His district
includes Muang Ngow, Muang Penyow, and the other provinces of Lakon. The
value of the exports, outside teak and other timber, must be about
300,000 rupees.
The principal exports from Lakon to Bangkok consist of teak, sapan-wood,
hides, horns, cutch, ivory, and stick-lac; to China, raw cotton,
rhinoceros-horns, soft deer-horns, which are used for medicine,
gold-leaf, saltpetre, ivory, and brass tinsel-plates. Lakon imports from
Muang Nan rock-salt; from Kiang Tung, lead, steel swords, steel ingots,
walnuts, lacquered utensils, and opium; from Zimmé, cloth, crockery,
betel-nuts, and pickled tea; from Muang Peh, raw cotton, tobacco, cotton
cloth, betel-nut, and cutch; from Luang Prabang, gum-benjamin,
stick-lac, raw silk, and fish spawn; from the Chinese province of
Yunnan, opium, bee’s-wax, walnuts, brass pots, ox bells, Chinese silk
piece-goods, silk jackets and trousers, silk jackets lined with fur,
figured cloth, straw hats with waterproof covers; and from Muang Penyow,
paddy and rice. Nine or ten Chinese boats leave Bangkok for Lakon
monthly, each bringing goods to the value of between 9000 and 10,000
rupees every trip. This implies an import trade from Bangkok, chiefly in
English goods, of 90,000 rupees a month. The monopolies for opium and
gambling were farmed by another Chinaman, who pays the Government 3000
rupees, and is said to make a clear profit of 10,000 rupees. The only
tax levied direct from the people is one basket of paddy for each basket
that is sown.
Mr Carl Bock, who visited Lakon in 1881, states in his book that “the
country about Lakon is apparently rich, not only in timber, but in
minerals. Near the town are some very rich iron-mines; and I also saw a
quantity of galena ore, of which I was assured the mountains in the
neighbourhood were full. Copper is also found in the district. The
natives are skilled metal-workers, and make their own guns.”
In the evening we went to the palace to call upon the Chow Hluang. We
found him seated on a raised dais, giving audience to several of the
princes and head phyas. On our approach he got up and shook hands with
us as we were introduced to him by Dr M‘Gilvary. He appeared much
interested in the subject of the railway, and after entering into
particulars as to its construction, said that it would certainly do much
to increase trade and enrich the people. Five or six thousand _Kamooks_
could easily be hired for the earthwork, timber-cutting, and
jungle-clearing. Those employed in the teak-forests were hired for 50
rupees a year and their food, which cost about 3 rupees a month. Lime
was burned at Ban Kwang on the Meh Wang, and bricks cost only 30 rupees
for 10,000. Carpenters received from 4 annas (fourpence) to 1 rupee a
day, and sawyers charged only 5½ rupees for every 169 feet sawn. From
five to six Chinese caravans came yearly to Lakon from Yunnan, each
accompanied by from 30 to 80 mules; and about 10,000 laden cattle and
20,000 porters frequented the city, coming from different directions,
and passed through elsewhere. A large trade was done with the
surrounding regions, and with Bangkok, Burmah, and China, but he was
unable, or too indolent, to give me particulars of it.
Having got all we could out of the chief, we returned to Chow Don’s
house just in time to escape a tremendous thunderstorm, which soon
cleared the air, and greatly reduced the temperature, which for some
hours during the day had stood at 102° in the shade. Many elephants are
bred in the Lakon State, and a great number are employed in the
extensive teak-forests that are now being worked.
The next day the temperature was much lower, as the rain continued to
fall until 9 A.M., and thoroughly wetted the ground. The greatest heat
during the day was only 86°, or 16° less than on the previous day.
Although in a hurry to get to Zimmé, I halted till the following
morning, in the hope that Dr Cushing might be benefited by the rest, and
spent the time in wandering about the place and collecting information.
[Illustration:
LAKON TO ZIMMÉ
]