IN THE JUNGLES OF BURMA
The next morning we went to call on an American missionary. He lived in
a handsome bungalow set in a wooded park on a hill just outside the
town. The first persons we saw when we reached the place were a native
gardener clipping away at the shrubbery on the grounds, and another
servant following two very little girls who drove about the house a team
of lizards harnessed together with reins tied to their hind legs.
When we told the missionary that we were looking for work, he quickly
found something to put us at. Among other things, I repaired the floor
and several windows, and made two kitchen benches. James put a new cover
on the missionary’s saddle, cleaned and oiled his fire-arms, put new
roosts in his hen-house, and set his lumber-room in order.
We found some work in the city also, and, with some four dollars in
silver and copper, set off once more. A jungle trail led eastward
through a dark forest. We walked as fast as we could, for the hour was
late and the next village was fully fifteen miles distant. Not a hut or
a human being did we pass on the journey; only the path showed that
someone had been there before us.
Black night had fallen when we reached Kawkeriek. The town was only a
collection of those same one-story bamboo huts standing in uneven rows
in the square clearing which its inhabitants had won after a hard fight
with the wilderness.
We had heard that a commissioner lived at Kawkeriek. We wandered among
the huts, asking passers-by to direct us to his bungalow. The few whom
we came upon in the darkness listened with trembling limbs to our
question, grunted something that we couldn’t understand, and hurried
noiselessly away.
The hour was late when we came upon one who must have been made of
bolder stuff than his fellow townsmen, for he agreed to guide us. Beyond
the last row of huts, he plunged into a pathway that led into the woods,
and, climbing a low hill, stopped before a bungalow almost hidden in the
trees. We turned to thank him, but found that he had slipped silently
away.
The commissioner was reading in his study. To our surprise, he was a
brown man—a Burman from “over Mandalay way.” He said he had not dined,
and for that we were thankful; for to have missed the dinner that he
invited us to share would have been a misfortune indeed.
We watched the commissioner with interest; for it is not often that
England honors a brown man by making him a ruler over one of her
districts. In appearance he was like other Burmans of the wealthier
class. He wore the usual flowing robe, though his legs were dressed and
his feet were shod. His long, thick black hair was caught up at the back
of his head in a graceful knot. But in manners and speech he was like an
educated European. He spoke English so well that if we had entered the
bungalow blindfolded we should never have suspected that his skin was
brown. We were much surprised to learn that he was still a bachelor; for
people of Asia usually marry when they are very young. When we gave
expression to our astonishment, he answered: “I have been too busy in my
short life to give attention to such matters.”
[Illustration: The chief of a jungle village agrees to guide us for one
day’s journey.]
There was a dak bungalow in Kawkeriek. The commissioner’s servant showed
us the way, prepared our bath, and arranged the sleeping-rooms for us.
In the morning we took breakfast with the governor. Later that morning
he called together his council of eight wise men for no other purpose
than to talk over with them our plans for traveling to Siam on foot.
Toward noon they called us in to tell us what they thought about it. One
speaker said that the country east of the city was a trackless jungle
overrun with savages, poisonous snakes, and man-eating tigers. Even the
people of Kawkeriek dared not go far into it. However, if we were
determined to risk our lives and go, there was outside the door a “wild
man,” chief of a jungle village, who was going our way, and he would
guide us for one day’s journey.
We answered that we must start immediately. A servant stepped out on to
the veranda and summoned the _boh_, as they called the “wild man.” He
came into the council-chamber, a tall, thin, bony, awkward wild man. His
skin was a leathery brown, his hair short and standing up like bristles
all over his head. His eyes were small, and moved about so restlessly
that he made us think of a leopard. His cheek-bones were high and his
forehead sloped backward to his hair. The chewing of betel-nuts had made
his teeth jet-black. We began to fancy that we had seen him before,
playing and chattering in the tree-tops.
His clothes, nevertheless, were brilliant. Around his head was wound a
strip of pink silk; an embroidered jacket, having no buttons, left his
chest bare to the waist-line; his hips and legs were clothed as far as
the knees in many yards of bright red stuff draped to look like
bloomers. Below the knees he wore nothing. At his waist was fastened a
bag for betel-nuts. He carried a leather sack of the shape of a
saddle-bag, and—an umbrella.
He spoke a Burmese so different from that used by the commissioner and
his council that their words had to be translated for him by another
native. We knew that they were telling him that he was to be our guide
through the jungle. He listened carefully, and gave a grunt now and then
to show that he understood, bowing so low each time he spoke that his
head all but touched his knees. From time to time, when he wished to
show unusual politeness, he sat down on his heels. When he left, he
backed toward the door, bowing almost to the floor with every step, and
forgetting his leather sack until he was called back by a member of the
council.
The brilliant clothes that this jungle chieftain wore while calling on
the governor were not his traveling costume, of course. As soon as we
were outside the city, he signed to us to wait, and stepped inside a
hut. When he came out again we hardly knew him. His fine clothes had
been packed away in his sack. The broad strap of this sack was his only
covering save a strip of cotton which he wore about his hips.
He turned at once into the jungle, moving with little mincing steps,
while we stumbled along awkwardly over the uneven ground. The path was
so narrow that the outstretching branches whipped us in the faces. It
was overgrown with tough creepers that entangled our feet. None but a
human being who had lived in the jungle all his life could have followed
that wandering, often hidden path through the thick maze of vegetation.
Had we been alone we should certainly have lost it. Flocks of
brilliantly colored birds flew away before us, screaming shrilly; now
and then we heard a sudden crashing in the underbrush as some wild
animal fled from our path.
Our guide was the most silent of creatures. Never once during the day
did a sound escape him. Where the path widened a bit, he raised his
umbrella and trotted steadily forward. Even swollen streams did not stop
him—he hardly seemed to notice them. With never a pause, he splashed
through the first as if there were nothing in his way, and galloped
carelessly on along the branch-choked path. We hallooed to him as we sat
down to pull off our shoes. If we let him get out of our sight we should
be hopelessly lost in the jungle. He halted a moment, but set off again
before we had waded ashore. We shouted once more, and he turned to stare
open-mouthed while we put on our shoes. He could not understand why we
strange creatures should wear garments on our feet, or why we should
stop to put them on when there were other streams to wade through. When
we had overtaken him, he made signs to show us that we should do better
to toss aside the foolish leather things that made it necessary for us
to stop so often. He could not understand that a mile over sharp stones
and jagged roots would have left us crippled.
As we neared the mountains we came across stream after stream, rushing
past with increased swiftness. By the time we had waded through
thirty-six of these we grew tired of halting every hundred yards to pull
off our shoes and shout after the _boh_, who always forgot to wait for
us.
When we reached the next stream, James tried crossing it on a few
stepping-stones without removing his shoes. But he slipped, lost his
balance, and sprawled headlong into the water. I followed more
carefully, and reached the other bank without falling. After that we
waded through streams that for the most part were over knee-deep, and
marched on with the water gushing from our shoe-tops. It mattered little
in the end, for a sudden storm burst upon us.
He who has never bowed his back to a tropical storm at the height of the
rainy season cannot know how violent they are. With a roar like the
explosion of a powder-mill, a furious clap of thunder broke above us;
then another and another, in quick deafening blasts. Flaming flashes of
lightning continuously chased each other across the heavens, blinding us
with their sudden glare. We half expected to see the mass of plant life
about us burst into flame.
In the falling sheets of water we plunged on; the biggest trees could
not have sheltered us from it. The _boh_ had raised his umbrella. It
kept the storm from pounding him, but could not save him a drenching.
What cared he, dressed only in a cloth the size of a handkerchief? The
water ran in little rivers down his naked shoulders and along the
hollows between his outstanding ribs. Between the crashes of thunder the
thud, thud of the storm drowned all other sounds. Only by speaking into
my companion’s ear as into a trumpet, and shouting at the top of my
lungs, could I make him hear me.
The storm died down slowly at first, then suddenly, and all seemed quiet
except our voices, which continued to be shrill and loud. Quickly the
sun burst forth again, to blaze fiercely upon us—though not for long.
All that day the storms broke upon us one after another so rapidly that
we had no idea of their number. More often than not, they caught us
climbing a wall-like mountainside by a narrow, clay-bottomed path down
which an ever-increasing brook poured, washing us off our feet while we
clutched at overhanging bushes.
The _boh_ led us on by zigzag routes over two mountain ranges before the
day was done. At sunset we were climbing down into another valley, when
we came suddenly upon a tiny clearing in the jungle, and a tinier
village. “Thenganyenam,” the natives called it. There were four bamboo
huts and a dak bungalow, housing thirty-one “wild men” and one tame one.
It was easy to see how many there were, for the natives poured forth
from their hovels to meet us before we had crossed five yards of the
clearing.
At their head trotted the tamed human being. Among all the shrieking,
staring band of men, women, and children, there was no other that wore
clothing. He was a babu, the “manager” of the public rest house. With a
low bow, he offered us welcome, turned to wave back the gazing crowd,
and led the way to the dak bungalow.
“Look here, babu,” I began, as we sank down into wicker chairs on the
veranda. “This is a splendid little surprise to find a dak rest bungalow
and a man who speaks English here in the jungle. But we’re no
millionaires, and the government fee is two rupees, eh? Too strong for
us. Can’t you get us a cheaper lodging in one of the huts?”
“The government,” returned the babu, pronouncing his words very
carefully, “the government have made the _dak_ bungalow for Europeans.
Why, you may not ask me. In two years and nine days that I am living in
Thenganyenam there are come two white men, and one have only rested and
not sleep. But because the dak bungalow is make, all sahibs coming in
Thenganyenam must stop in it. When I have see you coming by the foot and
not by the horses I must know that you have not plenty money. Every day
we are not everybody rich. How strong you have the legs to come from
Kawkeriek by the feet. The two rupees you must not pay. If you can give
some little to the cook, that he make you a supper—”
“That’s the word,” burst out James. “Of course we pay for our chow.
Where’s the chowkee? Tell him to get busy.”
“But,” apologized the _babu_, “this is a very jungly place and we have
not proper food for Europeans.”
“Great dingoes!” shrieked the Australian. “European food? We haven’t had
anything to eat for a day! Bring a pan of rice, or a raw turnip, or a
fried snake—anything. Ring up the chowkee.”
“The other day,” said the _babu_ dreamily, “there was a chicken in
Thenganyenam; I shall send the cook to hunt him.”
A few minutes later we saw the population of Thenganyenam chasing the
lone fowl. He was finally run to earth with a great hubbub, and put to
death while the crowd looked on. After that all was quiet for so long a
time that we became uneasy, wondering if some one else was enjoying our
dinner. Finally, when our overgrown hunger had become very painful
indeed, the chicken appeared before us as tongue-scorching curry in a
generous setting of hard-boiled rice.
Meanwhile we had pulled off our water-soaked rags, rubbed down with a
strip of canvas, and put on our extra garments. The change was most
agreeable. It was not until then that we knew how useful those squares
of oil-cloth were. They had kept our baggage dry. Supper over, we
stretched out on the canvas cots and tried to sleep.
The swamps and streams through which we had plunged that day had swarmed
with leeches, commonly called bloodsuckers. One of these had fastened
itself in a vein of my right ankle. I could not pull it out. A tiny
stream of blood trickled along my toes. When I awoke in the morning I
seemed to be fastened to the cot. The blood, oozing out during the
night, had grown hard, gluing my right leg to the canvas.
Before I had dressed, the Hindu cook and care-taker wandered into the
room, and, catching sight of the long red stain, gave one shriek and
tumbled out on to the veranda. James, who was sleeping in a room next to
mine, was awakened by the scream, and, hearing the Hindustanee word for
“blood,” sprang to his feet in the belief that I had been murdered while
he slept. I was explaining the matter to him when the cook, looking very
frightened, returned with the book in which we had written our names the
night before. Waving his arm now at the book, now at the cot, he danced
about us, screaming excitedly. We could not understand his chatter, so
we stepped past him out to the veranda. The “manager” was just coming up
the steps.
“Here, babu,” demanded James, “what’s wrong with our friend from the
kitchen?”
The Hindu turned to the manager, talking so rapidly that he almost
choked over his words. Tears were streaming down his yellow-brown
cheeks.
“He says,” cried the babu, when the cook became silent at last, “in the
charpoy is much blood. Have you become wounded?”
“It was only a blood-sucker,” I explained; “but what does he say about
the book?”
“The cook asks that you will write all the story of the blood in it,
very careful.”
“What nonsense!” I answered, when James had stopped laughing. “I’ll pay
for the damage to the charpoy.”
“Oh! It is no dam-magé,” protested the babu, “no dam-magé at all. He is
not ask for pay. But when the inspector is coming and seeing the much
blood in the charpoy, he is thinking the cook have kill a man who have
sleep here, and he is taking him to Kawkeriek and making him shot. Very
bad. So cook cry. Please, sir, write you the story in the register
book.”
I sat down at the veranda table and wrote a long story for the visiting
inspector. Only when I had filled the page below our names, and half the
next one, was the Hindu cook satisfied. He then carried the book away
for safe keeping.
We wrapped our dry garments in the oil-cloth once more, and put on the
rags and tatters we had stretched along the ceiling the evening before.
They were still clammy wet. As for our shoes, we almost gave up the hope
of getting into them. When we managed to pull them on at last we could
hardly walk. Our feet were blistered and swollen to the ankles, the
shoes wrinkled and shrunken until the leather was as hard and unbendable
as sheet-iron. However, we hobbled down the veranda steps and away. For
the first hour we walked as if we were crossing a field of hot coals.
Once James slipped and stumbled over the stones like a man learning to
skate. We suffered at every step of our journey from Thenganyenam to
Siam.