IN SIAM
The distance to the free state was not great. When we reached the
boundary we came upon a camp of native soldiers. Here we stopped, as was
our duty before crossing into Siam. The soldiers were simple,
good-hearted fellows who showed their astonishment and their sorrow at
the condition of our feet through the language of signs, and did their
best to prepare us a good dinner from the rice and jungle vegetables
they had. It was fortunate for us that they were so generous, for there
were no stores in the jungle land.
The native lieutenant showed a strong curiosity to know what had brought
us so far into the wilds. We tried to motion out our reasons for coming,
but failed to make him understand. Finally he ordered a soldier to guide
us to the first Siamese village, where he was to explain our presence to
the head man.
When the sun had begun to set and the latest storm had ceased, we left
the camp and Burma behind. The river that marked the boundary between
the two countries was not very wide and only waist-deep. We waded across
it easily, and climbed the sandy eastern bank—in Siam at last.
We knew that the first village was no great distance off, so we strolled
easily on through the jungle, pausing to rest in shady thickets so often
that the native soldier left us and went on alone. Two hours later we
met him on his homeward journey. He paused to tell us by signs that he
had delivered his message and that the village was waiting to receive
us.
[Illustration: A freight carrier crossing the stream that separates
Burma from Siam.]
The day was not yet done when we came in sight of the first clearing in
Siam. We were met at the edge of the jungle by a Siamese with ape-like
countenance, who led us to the hut of the village head man.
Picture to yourself a very fat, important-looking brown man, with a face
like an Alaskan totem-pole and the general appearance of a wild man in a
circus, a skin the color of a door-mat that has been in use for many
years, dressed in a castoff dish-cloth, and you have an exact image of
the ruler of this Siamese village. He received us in a misshapen bamboo
shack, sitting with folded legs on a grass mat in the middle of the
floor. Around the walls squatted several of his chief men, dressed like
himself. Through the network partition that separated the city hall from
the family chamber peered a leathery-skinned woman and a troop of dusky
children.
If we had waited for an invitation to be seated we might have remained
standing all night. These Siamese did not appear at all friendly toward
us. We made ourselves comfortable on the floor, with our backs to the
wall. For more than an hour the head man and his advisers sat
motionless, staring fixedly at us, and mumbling in a low tone without
once turning their heads toward those to whom they were speaking.
The sun sank into the jungle, and swift darkness fell. The
leathery-skinned woman drifted into the room and set on the floor an oil
torch that gave a dim, flickering light. I had learned a few Siamese
words from the _babu_ of Thenganyenam. When the talking ceased for a
moment, I put these words in use by calling for food. The head man
growled, and the woman floated in once more and placed at our feet a
small wash-tub of boiled rice.
But I was tired of eating rice. I dragged out my note-book and again ran
my eyes down the list of Siamese words. I had failed to write down the
words for chicken or curry. The only word that appeared to be of any
value at the time was “sugar.” Sugar would make my rice less tasteless.
I shouted the word at the head man. He stared open-mouthed until I had
repeated it several times.
“Sugar?” he echoed, showing great astonishment.
“Yes, sugar,” I cried, sprinkling an imaginary handful over the rice.
The law-makers gazed at each other with wondering eyes, and the word
passed from mouth to mouth: “Sugar!”
“Sure, sugar!” cried James, taking up the refrain.
A man rose slowly to his feet, marched across to us, and squatted before
the dish.
“Sugar?” he inquired, peering into our faces. “No, no!”
He took a pinch of the food between his fingers, put it into his mouth,
and munched it slowly as if he were trying to examine the taste. Then he
shook his head forcefully and spat the mouthful out on the floor.
“No; no sugar, no!” he cried.
[Illustration: My companion, Gerald James of Perth, Australia, crossing
the boundary line between Burma and Siam.]
“Of course there’s no sugar!” shouted James. “That’s why we’re making a
holler. Sugar, you thick-headed mummy.” James thought it was not
necessary to be polite, since they couldn’t understand him.
The official taster went back to his place; a silence fell over the
company. We continued to shout. Suddenly a light of understanding
brightened the face of the head man. Could it be because we _wanted_
sugar that we were raising such a hubub, not because we had fancied some
had been accidentally spilled on our supper? He called to the woman.
When she appeared with a joint of bamboo filled with muddy brown sugar,
the council men rose gravely and grouped themselves about us. I
sprinkled half the sugar on the rice, stirred it in, and began to eat.
At the first mouthful such a roar of laughter went up from the group
that I choked in astonishment. Whoever would have guessed that these
gloomy-faced great ones could laugh? The chief fell to shaking as with a
fit; his advisers doubled up with laughter. They shrieked until they
were heard in the neighboring huts. Wild-eyed Siamese tumbled into the
shack. Within two minutes half the village had flocked into the room to
see those strange beings who ate sugar with their rice.
The head man stopped laughing, then became stern and drove all but the
high and mighty among his people forth into the night. Among those who
stayed was a _babu_. He was a Siamese youth who had been educated in
Rangoon. To satisfy the head man he questioned us as to our plans, and
later told the chief and his followers what we had replied. The company
then talked it over for about two hours. At the end of that time they
told us what they thought of the trip we had planned. They said the
jungle to the eastward was so wild, entangled with undergrowth, and
pathless that even the natives did not try to get through it. Certainly
white men would not be able to make their way through such a place. We
must not try it. There was in the village a squad of soldiers who were
going to Rehang in a week or ten days—we could travel with them. Until
then we must stay in the village.
James and I said we certainly could not wait for so long a time. The
head man replied that we should stay, whether we liked it or not. As it
was late at night, we pretended that we were willing to do as they said,
and told them we were sleepy. The village chief lighted us into one of
the small rooms of his palace, and left us to sleep on the bamboo floor.
We fell asleep at once. Early the next morning, long before the sun was
up, we awoke, grasped our oil-cloth baggage, and tried to get away
before anyone saw us. Softly we entered the council-chamber. But the
chief was already astir. We hurried toward the door, thinking that he
would try to stop us. All he did was to shout at us as we stepped out
into the dripping dawn.
At the eastern end of the town began a faint path; but it soon faded
away, and we pushed and tore our way through the jungle, guided only by
our pocket compass. The war-like vegetation battled against us, tore our
rags to bits, and cut and gashed us from head to ankles. The
perspiration ran in stinging streams along our bleeding skins and
dripped from our faces. Though we fought the undergrowth tooth and nail,
we did not cover two miles an hour.
The sun was high when we reached a spot showing that someone had passed
that way before. It was a clearing not more than six feet square, in the
center of which was a slimy pool, with a few joints of bamboo that
looked as if they had been cut only a short time. With these we drank
our fill of the lukewarm water, and then threw ourselves down in the
shade.
Suddenly we heard human voices. We sprang to our feet, half expecting to
be attacked by murderous savages. Then our fright left us as there burst
into the clearing a squad of little brown soldiers.
There were seven in the party, a sergeant and four common soldiers armed
with muskets, and two coolie carriers, each bowed under the weight of
two baskets that hung from the pole on their shoulders. When they saw us
they gasped in astonishment. Then they rushed for the bamboo cups beside
the water-hole, while the servants knelt to set their baskets on the
grass. For a time we thought they had been sent to bring us back; but
when they let us handle their weapons we knew that we had nothing to
fear. They were on their way to Rehang, but why they had left the
village so much earlier than the time set we could not find out.
They looked like boys playing war. The sergeant, larger than the others,
did not come to James’s chin—and the Australian was not tall. The rest
were weak-looking little runts. An average American school-boy could
have tied any one of them into a knot and tossed him aside into the
jungle. There was nothing war-like in their manners or their babyish
faces. They were dressed in the regular khaki uniform, except that their
trousers came only to their knees, leaving their scrawny legs bare. From
their belts hung bayonets; and around the waist of each was tied a
stocking-like sack of rice.
We talked with them some time by signs. I tried to tell the sergeant
that my own country owned the Philippine Islands, which were not far
from his country. He thought I meant that my country owned Siam. He
sneered at me most cuttingly. The very idea that the white man had any
claim on the free country of Siam! How foolish! He told his soldiers
about it. They scoffed at us, and even the carriers grinned scornfully.
When they had eaten a jungle lunch the soldiers stretched out for their
noonday nap, and we went on alone.
It was long hours afterward that we came to a break in the jungle.
Through the undergrowth we made out two miserable huts. We dashed
eagerly toward them, for we had had nothing to eat since the night
before and our tramp had made us very hungry.
Two thin brown women, dressed in short skirts and broad-brimmed hats
made of big leaves, were scratching the mud of a tiny garden before the
first hut. I called for food and shook a handful of coppers in their
faces; but, although they must have understood us, they would not
answer. We danced excitedly about them, shrieking all the Siamese names
for food that we knew. Still they stared with half-open mouths, showing
uneven rows of black teeth. We had expected this. Even far back in
Moulmein, we had been warned that the jungle folk of Siam would not sell
food to travelers. Far off in this howling wilderness among the
mountains, the people had never used money and did not know that our
coins had any value.
We went on, and just at sunset burst into the scattered village of
Banpáwa. About forty howling storms had poured upon us during the day,
and we had waded through an even greater number of streams. My jacket
was torn to ribbons; my back and shoulders were painfully sunburned; in
a struggle with a stubborn thicket I had lost a leg of my trousers. And
the Australian looked about as pretty as I.
Near the center of the village was a large roof of grass upheld by
slender bamboo poles. Under it were huddled about twenty
freight-carriers, surrounded by bales and bundles. They were the human
freight trains of the Siamese jungle—cross, silent fellows, who, though
they stared open-mouthed when we appeared, would not have anything to
say to us.
They were strong-looking, with great knots of muscles standing out on
their glistening brown bodies. A small rag was their only clothing.
Above it the skin was thickly tattooed to the neck with strange figures
of beasts. Among these the form of a fat pig seemed to be the favorite.
Below the hip-cloth the figures were blue, even more closely crowded
together, but stopping short at the knees.
We tried to buy food from our sulky companions. They growled for answer.
Like the soldiers, each of them wore at his waist a bag of rice. A few
were preparing supper over bonfires at the edge of the shelter; but not
a grain of rice would they sell. A raging storm broke while we were
wandering from one to another offering them our money. When the storm
began to die down, we hobbled out into the night to try to buy from the
villagers.
There were about twenty huts in the clearing. We climbed into one after
another of them, in spite of our aching legs. But it was useless: nobody
would sell. Too hungry to care what happened to us, we climbed boldly
into the last hut, and caught up a kettle, intending to cook our own
supper.
The householder shrieked wildly, and, before we had kindled a fire, a
mob of his fellow townsmen swarmed into the shack and fell upon us. They
were not the fiercest of fighters—we shook and kicked them off like
puppies. But when the last one had tumbled down the ladder we saw that
they had carried off every pot, pan, and eatable about the place.
Besides the bare walls there remained only a naked brown baby, that
rolled about the floor, howling uproariously.
The people of the village were screaming around the shanty in a way that
made us glad we had a prisoner. James sat down, gazed sadly at the
wailing infant, and shook his head.
“No good,” he sighed. “Not fat enough. Anyway, there’s no kettle to cook
it in. Let’s get out of this.”
We turned toward the door. A man was peering over the edge of the
veranda. By the silken band around his brow we knew that he was a Burman
and also that he spoke Hindustanee. We understood enough of his excited
chatter to know that he had come to lead us to a place where food was
sold. As we reached the ground the crowd parted to let us pass; but the
furious natives danced about us, screaming and shaking sticks and clubs
in our faces. A few steps from the hut one bold spirit struck me a
resounding whack on the back of the head. It was a heavy blow, but the
weapon was a hollow bamboo stick and caused no damage. When I turned to
fall upon my assailant the whole crowd took to their heels and fled into
the night.
“All I’ve got to say,” panted James, as we hurried on after our guide,
“is, I’m glad that’s not a crowd of Irishmen. Where would the pioneer
beach-combers of the Malay Peninsula be now if that collection of
dish-rags knew how to scrap?”
The Burman led us through half a mile of mud and brush, and a stream
that was almost waist-deep, to a hut a long distance from Banpáwa. He
went in with us, and sat down to keep us company until our rice and fish
had been boiled. He was quite clever in understanding the few words and
the motions we made. Suddenly he began to wish that he had a tropical
helmet to wear in place of the band around his brow. He pointed at the
one James wore and held up one finger.
“One rupee! Say yes, sahib?” he coaxed.
“Can’t sell it,” growled the Australian. “Think I want to get
sunstroke?”
The Burman shrugged his shoulders, then rose and went sadly forth into
the night.
We turned in soon after on a sort of platform, with nine youngsters who
amused themselves by walking and tumbling over our outstretched forms. A
lizard chorus sang loud and gaily. We slept a little by snatches.
When daylight came the Burman appeared again. This time he pointed at
James’s helmet and held up two fingers. James still refused to sell.
“Then yours, sahib,” begged the fellow in Hindustanee. “One rupee!”
“Only one?” I cried. “Two rupees.”
“One!” he shrieked. “Two for the sahib’s which is new. One for yours.”
The Burman gave in at last, however, and, dropping two coins in my hand,
marched proudly away with my old helmet set down over his ears.
I handed one of the coins to the head of the family, and we hit the
trail again. Out of sight of the hut, we halted to put on the extra
suits in our bundles. From the rags and tatters of my old suit I made a
band to wind around my head, after the fashion of Burma. Even with the
top of my head uncovered to the sun and rain, I did not suffer.