but the younger daughter was at home. She was a person of great
influence, and was by nature hospitable. Things could not have been
better planned for our purpose. The princess remembered me and my wife
from her call on us after our wedding. She now called on us in person
with her retinue; after that everybody else was free to call. It is not
unlikely that that previous acquaintance redeemed our trip from being a
failure. Our sālā was usually crowded with visitors. We had an ideal
opportunity of seeing the heart of the people. They lacked a certain
external refinement seen among the Siamese; but they seemed sincere and
more religious. Buddhism had not become so much a matter of form. Many
of the older people then spent a day and a night, or even two days, each
month fasting in the monasteries. There was hope that if such people saw
a better way, they would accept it. One officer, who lived just behind
our sālā, a great merit-maker, was a constant visitor. Years afterward
we had the pleasure of welcoming him to the communion of the church.
From every point of view the tour was eminently successful. Many
thousands heard the Gospel for the first time. In our main quest we were
more than successful. We were delighted with the country, the cities,
the people. Every place we came to we mentally took possession of for
our Lord and Master. In Chiengmai we remained only ten days; but one day
would have sufficed to convince us. I, at least, left it with the joyful
hope of its becoming the field of my life-work.
From the first we had planned to return by the river through the rapids.
But the prince in charge was very averse to our going by that route. We
knew that the route positively made no difference to him personally. He
had only to give the word, and either elephants or boats would be
forthcoming. Was he afraid of our spying out the road into the country?
At last we were obliged to insist on the wording of our letter, which
specially mentioned boats. Then he offered us one so small that he
probably thought we would refuse it. But we took it; and our captain
afterwards exchanged it for a larger one. We made a swift passage
through the famous rapids, and reached Bangkok on January 30th, 1864.
The first news that we heard on our arrival was that Mrs. Mattoon was
obliged to leave at once for the United States, and that Mr. Wilson was
to take his furlough at the same time. This, of course, ended all plans
for any immediate removal to Chiengmai. We hastened to Pechaburī, where
the McFarlands had been alone during our absence. Three years were to
pass before our faces were again turned northward.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
V
THE CHARTER OF THE LĀO MISSION
In the meantime, with two children added unto us, we were become a
family much more difficult to move. We liked our home and our work. At
the age of thirty-nine, to strike out into a new work, in a language at
least partly new, was a matter not to be lightly undertaken. Might it
not be better that Mr. Wilson should work up in the United States an
interest in the new mission, should himself select his associates in it,
and that I should give up my claim to that place? It was certain that
three families could not be spared for Chiengmai. More than one day was
spent, under the shade of a great tree behind Wat Noi, in thought on the
subject, and in prayer for direction.
Finally—though it was a hard thing to do—I wrote to Mr. Wilson, then in
the United States, suggesting the plan just stated. Feeling sure that it
would commend itself to him, I considered the door to Chiengmai as
probably closed to me. In the meantime Mr. Wilson had married again; and
on the eve of his return wrote to me that he had failed to get another
family to come out with him, and was discouraged about the Chiengmai
mission. Probably the time had not yet come, etc., etc. I was delighted
to get that letter. It decided me to go to Chiengmai, the Lord willing,
the following dry season, with only my own family, if need be. Dr.
Mattoon and Dr. House were absent on furlough. Mr. Wilson and I would be
the senior members of the mission. The Board had already given its
sanction. The mission in Bangkok meanwhile had been reinforced by the
arrival of the Georges and the Cardens. On the return of those then
absent on furlough, one of these families could join the McFarlands in
Pechaburī, and yet there would be four families in Bangkok. Such a
combination of favourable circumstances might not occur again.
When Mr. Wilson arrived in Bangkok in the fall of 1866, a letter was
waiting for him, asking him to visit us in Pechaburī to talk over the
question. On his arrival we spent one Sunday in anxious consultation. He
was still eager to go to Chiengmai, but could not go that year. His
preference would be that we should wait another year.—But that might be
to lose the opportunity. So next morning, leaving Mr. and Mrs. Wilson to
visit with my family, I hurried over to Bangkok. There was no time to be
lost. The Prince of Chiengmai had been called down on special business,
and was soon to return. The whole plan might depend on him—as, in fact,
it did.
It was after dark on Tuesday night when I reached Dr. Bradley’s, taking
them all by surprise. I made known my errand. Another long and anxious
consultation followed. I knew that Dr. Bradley’s great missionary soul
would not be staggered by any personal considerations. It would be but
the answer to his own prayers to see a mission planted in Chiengmai. In
his heart he was glad that it was to be planted by one of his own
family. Earnest prayer was offered that night at the family altar for
guidance in the negotiations of the following day, and for a blessing on
the mission that was to be.
On Wednesday, after an early breakfast, Dr. Bradley accompanied me to
our mission. My colleagues, McDonald, George, and Carden, were easily
induced to consent. Mr. McDonald said that he would not go himself; but
if I were willing to risk my family, he would not oppose the scheme, and
would vote to have Mr. Wilson follow me the next year. Thus another
obstacle was removed.
Taking Mr. McDonald and Mr. George with us, we proceeded next to the
United States Consulate, where Mr. Hood readily agreed to give his
official and personal aid. The two greatest obstacles remained yet: the
Siamese government and—as it turned out in the end—the Lāo Prince[7]
also. The Consul wrote immediately to the King, through our former
Pechaburī friend, who had recently been made Foreign Minister, a formal
request for permission to open a station in Chiengmai. It was Friday
evening when the reply came that the decision did not rest with the
King. He could not force a mission upon the Lāo people. But the Lāo
Prince was then in Bangkok. If he gave his consent, the Siamese
government would give theirs. He suggested that we have an audience with
the Prince, at which His Majesty would have an officer in attendance to
report directly to him.
Footnote 7:
The Lāo ruler was a feudal vassal of the King of Siam, governing an
important frontier province, and granted, within that province, some
of the powers which are usually thought of as belonging to
sovereignty—notably the power of life and death in the case of his
immediate subjects. His title, Pra Chao, like its English parallel,
Lord, he shared with the deity as well as with kings; though the Kings
of Siam claim the added designation, “_Yū Hūa_,” “at the head,” or
“Sovereign.” By the early missionaries, however, he was regularly
styled “King,” a term which to us misrepresents his real status, and
which leads to much confusion both of personality and of function.
Meantime both title and function have vanished with the feudal order
of which they were a part, leaving us free to seek for our narrative a
less misleading term. Such a term seems to be the word Prince, thus
defined in Murray’s Dictionary (_s. v._ II. 5):—“The ruler of a
principality or small state, actually, nominally, or originally, a
feudatory of a king or emperor.” The capital initial should suffice
generally to distinguish the Prince who is ruler from princes who are
such merely by accident of birth.—ED.
So on Saturday morning at ten o’clock we all appeared at the landing
where the Lāo boats were moored, asking for an audience with the Prince.
We were invited to await him in the sālā at the river landing. In a few
moments His Highness came up in his customary informal attire—a
_phānung_ about his loins, no jacket, a scarf thrown loosely over his
shoulders, and a little cane in his hand. Having shaken hands with us,
he seated himself in his favourite attitude, dangling his right leg over
his left knee. He asked our errand. At Mr. Hood’s request Dr. Bradley
explained our desire to establish a mission station in Chiengmai, and
our hope to secure his approval. The Prince seemed relieved to find that
our errand involved nothing more serious than that. The mission station
was no new question suddenly sprung upon him. We had more than once
spoken with him about it, and always apparently with his approbation. To
all our requests he now gave ready assent. Yes, we might establish
ourselves in Chiengmai. Land was cheap; we need not even buy it. Timber
was cheap. There would be, of course, the cost of cutting and hauling
it; but not much more. We could build our houses of brick or of wood, as
we pleased. It was explained, as he already knew, that our object was to
teach religion, to establish schools, and to care for the sick. The
King’s secretary took down the replies of the Prince to our questions.
The Consul expressed his gratitude, and committed my family to his
gracious care. We were to follow the Prince to Chiengmai as soon as
possible.
Such was the outward scene and circumstance of the official birth of the
Lāo mission. In itself it was ludicrous enough: the audience chamber, a
sālā-landing under the shadow of a Buddhist monastery; the Consul in his
official uniform; the Prince _en déshabillé_; our little group awaiting
the answer on which depended the royal signature of Somdet Phra
Paramendr Mahā Mongkut authorizing the establishment of a Christian
mission. The answer was, Yes. I was myself amazed at the success of the
week’s work. On the part both of the Siamese government and of the Lāo
Prince, it was an act of grace hardly to be expected, though quite in
keeping with the liberality of the truly great king who opened his
country to civilization and to Christianity. And the Lāo Prince, with
all his faults, had some noble and generous traits of character.
Later in the day I called alone to tell the Prince that as soon as I
could after the close of the rainy season, I would come with my family.
After the intense excitement of the week, I spent a quiet Sabbath in Dr.
Bradley’s family, and on Monday morning could say, as did Abraham’s
servant, “Hinder me not, seeing the Lord hath prospered me.” Taking the
afternoon tide, I hastened home to report the success of my trip, to
close my work in Pechaburī, and to make preparation for a new station,
which was soon to be a new mission.
[Illustration:
REV. DAN BEACH BRADLEY, M.D.
1872]
[Illustration:
KĀWILŌROT, PRINCE OF CHIENGMAI
(ABOUT 1869)]
The work in hand was easily turned over to Mr. McFarland, an earnest and
successful worker, who had become specially gifted in the Siamese
language. The Presbytery was to meet in Bangkok in November. The last
busy weeks passed rapidly away. At their end we bade good-bye to our
home and friends in Pechaburī.
Friends in Bangkok gave us their hearty assistance. The Ladies’ Sewing
Society made a liberal contribution to the new mission. Dr. James
Campbell supplied us with medicines and a book of instructions how to
use them. The German Consul gave us a Prussian rifle for our personal
protection. All our missionary friends added their good wishes and their
prayers.
We had great difficulty in securing suitable boats and crews for the
journey. On January 3d, 1867, we embarked, leaving Mr. and Mrs. Wilson
to follow us the next year. Mr. George accompanied us as far as Rahêng.
The trip is always a slow one, but we enjoyed it. My rifle was useful in
securing pelicans and other large birds for food. Once I fired into a
large flock of pelicans on the river and killed three with a single
shot. Fish everywhere abounded. My shotgun furnished pigeons and other
small game. The trip afforded fine opportunity for evangelistic work.
Nothing of the sort had ever been done there save the little which Mr.
Wilson and I had attempted on our earlier trip.
Rahêng was reached in four weeks. There we dismissed the boats that had
brought us from Bangkok, and procured, instead, two large ones of the
sort used in up-country travel. We should have done better with three of
smaller size. We spent nearly a month in toiling up the thirty-two
rapids. At one of them we were delayed from Friday noon till Tuesday
afternoon. At another, to avoid the furious current of the main river,
we attempted a small channel at one side. As we slowly worked our way
along, the water in our channel became shallower and shallower, till we
had to resort to a system of extemporized locks. A temporary dam was
built behind the boat. The resulting slight rise of water would enable
us to drag the boat a little further, till again it was stranded—when
the process would have to be repeated. After two days of hard work at
this, our boatmen gave up in despair. A Chiengmai prince on his way to
Bangkok found us in this extremity, and gave us an order to secure help
at the nearest village. To send the letter up and to bring the boatmen
down would require nearly a week. But there was nothing else to do.
My rifle helped me somewhat to while away the time of this idle waiting.
We could hear tigers about us every night. I used to skirt about among
the mountain ridges and brooks, half hoping to shoot one of them. Since
my rifle was not a repeater, it was no doubt best that my ambition was
not gratified. Once, taking a Siamese lad with me, I strayed further and
returned later than usual. It was nearly dark when we got back to the
boats, and supper was waiting. Before we had finished our meal, the
boatmen caught sight of the glowing eyes of a tiger that had followed
our trail to the further bank of the river, whence we had crossed to our
boat.
One of the boat captains professed to be able to call up either deer or
tiger, if one were within hearing. By doubling a leaf together, and with
thumb and finger on either side holding the two edges tense between his
lips while he blew, he would produce a sound so nearly resembling the
cry of a young goat or deer, that a doe within reach of the call, he
claimed, would run to the rescue of her young, or a tiger, hearing it,
would run to secure the prey. The two captains and I one day went up on
a ridge, and, selecting an open triangular space, posted ourselves back
to back, facing in three directions, with our guns in readiness. The
captain had sounded his call only two or three times, when suddenly a
large deer rushed furiously up from the direction toward which one of
the captains was facing. A fallen log was lying about twenty paces off
on the edge of our open space. The excited animal stopped behind it, his
lower parts concealed, but with back, shoulder, neck, and head fully
exposed. Our captain fired away, but was so excited that he would have
missed an elephant. His bullet entered the log some six inches below the
top. In an instant the deer was gone. We found not far off the spot
where evidently a young deer had been devoured by a tiger. We tried the
experiment a number of times later, but with no success.
After we had waited two days and nights for help from the village above,
on the third night the spirits came to our rescue. Either with their
ears or in their imaginations, our crew heard strange noises in the
rocks and trees about them, which they interpreted as a warning from the
spirits to be gone. Next morning, after consultation together, they made
another desperate effort, and got the boats off. It was still several
days before we met the men that came down in response to the prince’s
order. But some of the worst rapids were yet before us. We could hardly
have got through without their aid.
The efforts of a single crew, it must be remembered, are utterly
inadequate to bring a boat up through any of these rapids. Only by
combining two or three crews can the boats be brought up one by one.
Some of the men are on the bank, tugging at the tow-rope while they
clamber over rocks and struggle through bushes. Some are on board,
bending to their poles. Others are up to their waists in the rushing
water, by main force fending off the boat from being dashed against the
rocks. On one occasion I myself had made the passage in the first boat,
which then was left moored in quieter waters. The crew went back to
bring up the second boat, in which were my wife and children. With
anxious eyes I was watching the struggle; when, suddenly, in the
fiercest rush of the current, the men lost control of her. Boat and
passengers were drifting with full force straight against a wall of
solid rock on the opposite bank. It seemed as if nothing could save
them. But one of the fleetest boatmen, with rope in hand, swam to a rock
in midstream, and took a turn of the rope about it, just in time to
prevent what would have been a tragedy.
At night, about camp-fires on the river bank, we were regaled by the
boatmen with legends of the country through which we were passing. One
of these legends concerned the lofty mountain which rises above the
rapid called Kêng Soi, where we were camped. The story was that on its
summit there had been in ancient times a city of _sētīs_ (millionaires),
who paid a gold _fûang_ (two dollars) a bucket for all the water brought
up for their use. It was said that remains of their city, and
particularly an aged cocoanut tree, were still to be seen on the summit.
Since it would take our boatmen at least two days to surmount that
rapid, I resolved to attempt the ascent, and either verify or explode
the story. Starting at early dawn with my young Siamese, zigzagging back
and forth on the slope all that long forenoon, I struggled upward—often
despairing of success, but ashamed to turn back. At last we stood on the
top, but it was noon or later. We spent two or three hours in search of
the cocoanut tree or other evidence of human settlement, but all in
vain. I was satisfied that we were the first of human kind that had ever
set foot on that lofty summit. We had brought lunch—but no water! Most
willingly would we have given a silver _fûang_ for a draught.
The legend of the rapids themselves was one of the most interesting. At
the edge of the plain above the rapids there is pointed out a wall of
rock dropping fully a hundred feet sheer to the water’s edge. The story
goes that in ancient times a youth made love to the Prince’s daughter.
The course of true love did not run smooth; the father forbade the suit.
The lovers resolved to make their escape. The young man mounted his
steed with his bride behind him, and together they fled. But soon the
enraged father was in hot pursuit. They reached the river-brink at the
top of the precipice, with the father in plain sight behind them. But
there the lover’s heart failed him. He could not take that leap. The
maiden then begged to exchange places with her lover. She mounted in
front; tied her scarf over her eyes; put spurs to the horse; and took
the fatal leap. To this day the various rapids are mostly named from
various portions of the equipage which are supposed to have drifted down
the stream and lodged upon the rocks.
Lāo witchcraft was another favourite theme of our Rahêng boatmen. They
were very much afraid of the magical powers of wizards; and evidently
believed that the wizards could readily despatch any who offended them.
They could insert a mass of rawhide into one’s stomach, which would
produce death, and which could not be consumed by fire when the body was
cremated. They could make themselves invisible and invulnerable. No
sword could penetrate their flesh, and a bullet fired at them would drop
harmless from the mouth of the gun.
But we have lingered too long among the rapids. Some distance above the
last one the mountains on either side recede from the river, and enclose
the great plain of Chiengmai and Lampūn. Both passengers and boatmen
draw a long breath of relief when it opens out. The glorious sun again
shines all day. The feathery plumes of the graceful bamboo clumps are a
delight to the eye, and give variety to the otherwise tame scenery. But
the distant mountains are always in sight.
The season was advancing. The further we went, the shallower grew the
stream. Long before we reached Chiengmai, we had to use canoes to
lighten our boats; but presently a seasonable rise in the river came to
our aid. On Saturday evening, April 1st, 1867, we moored our boats
beside a mighty banyan tree, whose spreading arms shaded a space more
than a hundred feet wide. It stands opposite the large island which
forty years later the government turned over to Dr. McKean of our
mission for a leper asylum. Stepping out a few paces from under its
shade, one could see across the fields the pagoda-spires of Chiengmai.
There, prayerfully and anxiously, we spent the thirteenth and last
Sunday of our long journey, not knowing what the future might have in
store for us.
[Illustration:
A REST BETWEEN RAPIDS IN THE GORGE OF THE MÊ PING RIVER]
[Illustration:
POLING UP THE MÊ PING RIVER]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VI
CHIENGMAI
On Monday morning, April 3d, 1867, we reached the city. We had looked
forward to the arrival as a welcome rest after the long confinement of
our journey in the boat. But it was only the beginning of troubles. We
were not coming to an established station with houses and comforts
prepared by predecessors. The Prince was off on a military expedition,
not to be back for over a month. Till he came, nothing could be done. We
could not secure a house to shelter us, for there was none to be had.
Just outside the eastern gate of the city, however, a sālā for public
use had recently been built by an officer from Rahêng, to “make merit,”
according to Buddhist custom. He had still a quasi claim upon it, and,
with the consent of the Prince’s representative, he offered it to us. It
was well built, with tile roof and teak floor, was enclosed on three
sides, and opened in front on a six-foot veranda. In that one room, some
twelve feet by twenty, all our belongings were stored. It served for
bedroom, parlour, dining-room, and study. In it tables, chairs,
bedstead, organ, boxes, and trunks were all piled one upon another. A
bamboo kitchen and a bathroom were presently extemporized in the yard.
That was our home for more than a year.
The news of the arrival of white foreigners soon spread far and wide. It
was not known how long they would remain; and the eagerness of all
classes to get sight of them before they should be gone was absolutely
ludicrous, even when most annoying. “There is a white woman and
children! We _must_ go and see them.” Our visitors claimed all the
immunities of backwoodsmen who know no better. In etiquette and manners
they well deserved that name. Within a few feet of the sālā was a
rickety plank-walk leading over marshy ground to the city. Everybody had
to pass that way, and everybody must stop. When the veranda was filled,
they would crowd up on the ground in front as long as they could get
sight of anybody or anything. If to-day the crowd prevented a good view,
they would call to-morrow. The favourite time of all was, of course, our
meal-time, to see how and what the foreigners ate. Almost never in the
daytime could we sit down to a quiet meal without lookers-on. It was not
uncommon for our visitors to pick up a knife or a fork or even the
bread, and ask what that was. “They don’t sit on the floor to eat, nor
use their fingers, as we do!”