undoubtedly long o, and has been so since the days of the earliest
Siamese writing. Such also seems to have been the understanding of the
early travellers who first brought the name into European use, for
Mekong is the uniform spelling of all the standard Atlases and
Gazetteers which I have been able to consult. In the Lāo dialect,
however, the vowel is that represented by _aw_ in _lawn_. This is the
pronunciation which Mr. J. McCarthy, Director of the Siamese Royal
Survey Department, heard in the North, and transferred to the Map of
Siam, which he compiled, as Me Kawng. This, however, Mr. R. W. Giblin,
Mr. McCarthy’s successor in office, recognized as an error, and
assured me that it should be corrected in the new map which he hoped
soon to publish. Mr. Giblin, however, has left the service, and the
map, I fear, has not yet been issued. But since Siamese speech and the
usage of geographical authorities are at one on this point, there can
scarcely be question as to the proper form for use here—ED.
At Chieng Rāi we were cordially received. The governor listened to the
Gospel message, and, I believe, received it in faith, as we shall see
later. Thence we took boat down the Mê Kok to its junction with the Mê
Kōng. The sand-bar where we spent the Sabbath was covered with fresh
tracks of large Bengal tigers.
Shortly after this we passed out of the Mê Kok into the great Mê Kōng,
with reference to which I take the liberty of quoting from a recent
work, _Five Years in Siam_, by H. Warrington Smyth, F.R.G.S.
“Few can regard the Me Kawng without feeling its peculiar
fascination. That narrow streak connecting far countries with
the distant ocean,—what scenes it knows, what stories it could
tell! Gliding gently here, and thundering with fury there where
it meets with opposition; always continuing its great work of
disintegration of hard rocks and of transport of material; with
infinite patience hewing down the mountain sides, and building
up with them new countries in far climes where other tongues are
spoken; it never stays its movement. How few men have seen its
upper waters! What a lonely life altogether is that of the Me
Kawng! From its cradle as the Gorgu River in the far Thibetan
highlands, to its end in the stormy China Sea, it never sees a
populous city or a noble building. For nearly three thousand
miles it storms through solitudes, or wanders sullenly through
jungle wastes. No wonder one sat by the hour listening to its
tale. For though but dull to read of, the wide deep reality
rolling before one had an intense interest for a lonely man.
“Rising in about 33° 17′ N. Lat. and 94° 25′ E. Long. in the
greatest nursery of noble rivers in the world, where six huge
brethren have so long concealed the secrets of their birth, it
flows southeast through Chinese Thibetan territory to Chuande,
where the tea caravan road from Lhasa and Thibet on the west,
crosses it eastward towards Ta Chien Lu and China, over 10,000
feet above sea-level.”
Almost within sight from the mouth of the Mê Kok were the ruins of
Chieng Sên, once the largest city in all this region. Its crumbling
walls enclose an oblong area stretching some two miles along the river.
Seventy years before our visit it had been taken by a combined army of
Siamese and Lāo. Its inhabitants were divided among the conquerors, and
carried away into captivity. At the time of our visit, the city and the
broad province of which it was the capital had been desolate for
three-quarters of a century. Nothing remained but the dilapidated walls
and crumbling ruins of old temples. Judging from its innumerable images
of Buddha, its inhabitants must have been a very religious people. One
wonders whence came all the bronze used in making them in those distant
days. To me it was an unexpected pleasure to find myself in that old
city, the ancestral home of so many of our parishioners. Little did I
think then that twenty years later I should aid in organizing a church
where we then stood. The Mê Kōng is here a mighty stream. It must be a
magnificent sight in time of high water.
A short distance below the city we passed a village recently deserted
because of the ravages of the tigers. The second day from Chieng Sên
brought us to Chieng Kawng, one of the largest dependencies of the
province of Nān. There we spent two very interesting and profitable
days. I had met the governor in Chiengmai. He was delighted with my
repeating rifle, and had us try it before him. There was also his son,
who not long after was to succeed the father; but his story we shall
come upon some twenty years later.
At this place we were fortunate in finding an empty trading-boat going
to Lūang Prabāng, in which the governor engaged for us passage on very
reasonable terms. We left Chieng Kawng on May 3d. The trip to Lūang
Prabāng occupied five days, and was one of the memorable events of my
life. In some respects the scenery is not so striking as that of the Mê
Ping rapids. The breadth of the river makes the difference. You miss the
narrow gorge with overhanging cliffs and the sudden bends closing in
every outlet. But, on the other hand, you have an incomparably greater
river and higher mountains. I quote again from Mr. Warrington Smyth the
following description of one portion of the river scenery:
“The high peaks, towering 5,000 feet above the river, which give
it such a sombre appearance, are generally of the very extensive
limestone series. They present tremendous precipices on some of
their sides, and their outlines are particularly bold.... Some
miles above Lūang Prabāng the large and important tributaries of
the Nam Ū and the Nam Sêng enter the Mê Kawng. The clear
transparent water of these tributaries forms a strong contrast
to the brown sediment-laden water of the Mê Kawng.... In some of
the rapids with sloping bottoms, the first jump over the edge is
very pleasant; the fun then comes in the short roaring waves.
Everybody on board is fully occupied; the men at the bow-oar
canting her head this way and that, the helmsman helping from
the other end to make her take its straight, the men at the oars
pulling for all they are worth, and the rest bailing mightily,
or shouting to any one who has time to listen. If the rapid is a
bad one, the crews land to have a meal before tackling it, and
stop to chew some betel and compare notes after it. So it is
always a sociable event.”
My travelling companion, Dr. Vrooman, thus gives his impressions.
“The current of the Cambodia is very swift, in places so much so
that it was dangerous to navigate. The river is nearly a mile
wide in places; and where the channel is narrow, it rushes along
with frightful rapidity. No scenery is finer throughout the
entire distance we travelled on it. Mountains rise from either
bank to the height of three or four thousand feet. The river
fills the bottom of a long, winding valley; and as we glided
swiftly down it, there seemed to move by us the panorama of two
half-erect hanging landscapes of woodland verdure and blossom.
Only as we neared the city did we see rough and craggy mountain
peaks and barren towering precipices.”
Twenty-six years later I descended the Mê Ū River from Mûang Kwā to
Lūang Prabāng, and then ascended it again. The perpendicular rock-cliffs
at its junction with the Mê Kōng surpass any that I ever saw elsewhere.
Of greater interest to me, however, than roaring rapids and towering
rocks were the evidences of numerous human habitations perched far above
us on the mountain sides. Rarely can their houses or villages be seen;
but in many places their clearings have denuded the mountains of all
their larger growth. It was tantalizing not to be able to stop and visit
these people in their homes. But my first opportunity to make extensive
tours among them was not till some twenty years later. As for the Mê
Kōng, my comment is: If I wished an exciting river trip, and had a
comfortable boat, I should not expect to find a more enchanting stretch
of three hundred miles anywhere else on the face of the earth.
Lūang Prabāng was then the most compactly built of all Siamese cities
outside of Bangkok, which, in some respects, it resembled. It differs
from the other Lāo cities in having no great rural population and
extensive rice-plains near it. Its rice supply was then levied from the
hill-tribes as a tribute or tax. The city has a fine situation at the
foot of a steep hill some two hundred feet high, tipped, as usual, with
a pagoda. The Nām Kêng there joins the Mê Kōng, dividing the city into
two unequal portions. The view from the top of the hill is delightful.
The inhabitants belong to a large branch of the Tai race, extending
southward at least to Cambodia. They are called the Lāo Pung Khāo
(White-bellied Lāo), as ours, because of their universal practice of
tattooing the body, are called Lāo Pung Dam (Black-bellied).
The Prince of Lūang Prabāng was absent from the city hunting wild
elephants, in which game his province abounds. The Chao Uparāt gave us a
hospitable welcome. Behind the city is a noted cave in a mountain, which
the natives think is the abode of the very fiercest evil spirits. No
doubt the real spirits are the malarial germs or the poisonous gas which
later we found to be the chief danger of the Chieng Dāo cave. It was in
this cave that M. Mouhot, a noted French scientist, contracted the fever
from which he died. The natives believed that his death was caused by
his rashness in trespassing upon the domain of the spirits who preside
over the cave. We were astonished at some sorts of fish displayed in the
market, such as I never saw anywhere else. Mr. McCarthy tells of
assisting at the capture of one, a plā buk, seven feet long, with a
body-girth of four feet and two inches, and weighing one hundred and
thirty pounds.
We remained in Lūang Prabāng six days, leaving it on May 14th. I was
very loath to go so soon. The people were eager for books as well as for
medicine. It was the one place where Siamese books were well understood.
We could have disposed of basketfuls of the Scriptures, as Dr. Peoples
did twenty-four years later. It is one of the anomalies of the twentieth
century that when we finally were ready to establish a Christian
mission, after the country had passed from non-Christian to Christian
rulers, we could not get permission.
From Lūang Prabāng we again took boat to Tā Dûa, some sixty miles below.
There we bade good-bye to the wonderful river, and turned our faces
homeward. Our elephants were good travellers, the swiftest we had so far
found. They gave us no chance to stroll on in advance, and rest till
they should come up, as we had done before. They brought us to Nān in
six days, four of which were spent in travel over high mountain ridges.
Our road passed near the great salt wells; but we had no time for
sight-seeing.
Two experiences on this portion of the trip will not be forgotten. One
was a fall from my tall elephant. A flock of large birds in covert near
us suddenly flew up with loud shrill cries. I was reclining in the
howdah at the time, and raised myself up to look out under the hood,
and, while suspended there in unstable equilibrium, another and louder
cry close at hand made the beast give a sudden start backwards, which
landed me in a puddle of water. Fortunately no further damage was done.
Another annoyance, more serious, was the land-leeches which we often
encountered when we dismounted to walk. The whole ground and every shrub
and twig seemed covered with the tiny creatures. Sensitive to the least
noise, each one was holding on by his tail, and waving his head back and
forth to lay hold of any passing animal. We soon found that they had a
special fondness for the _genus homo_. Do what we might, every hundred
yards or so we had to stop to rub them off, while the blood ran
profusely from their bites. We had none of the herbs which the Mūsô bind
on their legs to keep them off.
On Saturday evening we reached Nān, the first place where I found
friends since leaving Chieng Rāi. Chao Borirak, whom I had met in
Chiengmai, nephew of the Nān Prince, and a few others, were soon on hand
to give us welcome and to offer any aid we needed. The Prince was a
venerable old man, with four sons—fine men, all of them. The country was
well governed, though it long continued conservative as regards the
adoption of foreign ways and the welcoming of foreign traders. I fell in
love with Nān at first sight, and marked it for a future mission
station.
On our departure from Nān, Chao Borirak accompanied us as far as Prê,
bringing his own elephants—one of them a colt, which he rode astride
like a horse—the only one, in fact, that I ever saw so used. At Prê we
found our government letter not very effective. Rupees, however, were
effective enough to prevent any long delay. The ruling authority in Prê
has always seemed weak.
[Illustration:
INTERIOR OF A TEMPLE, PRÊ]
There was an amusing circumstance connected with an eclipse of the moon
while we were there. Since the conversion of Nān Inta, I had taken pains
to announce each eclipse as it was to occur. I did so in Prê the day
before it was due. The eclipse took place early in the night, and I
expected to hear the city resound with the noise of every gun and
firecracker in the place. But everything was as quiet as a funeral. It
seemed to be regarded as _our_ eclipse. The silence may have been
intended to test our assertion that Rāhū would renounce his hold without
the noise, or possibly they were unwilling to proclaim thus publicly the
superior wisdom of the foreigner in predicting it. At any rate, they
utterly ignored it, and let the monster have his will unmolested.
My associate had gained all that could have been expected from the tour;
but an aching tooth was giving him great trouble, and we hurried on. We
reached home on June 22d, just sixty-eight days out. We found neither
family in very good health. The doctor’s toothache drove him to such
desperation that he insisted on my trying—all unpractised as I was—to
extract the offending eyetooth. It broke. There was then nothing to do
but to make the trip to Bangkok for the nearest professional help. By
the time he returned, it began to be evident that he could not hope to
remain long in the field.
Between Bangkok, Pechaburī, and Chiengmai, I had been fifteen years in
the field; and my wife had been in the country from girlhood without
change. We had both endured it remarkably well, considering that we had
had the strain of starting two new stations. Before the end of the year,
however, my wife had reached the limit of her strength, and it became
necessary to hurry her out of the country. So, on the 3d of January,
1873, she was carried in a chair to the boat, and we embarked for the
United States.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XIV
THE FIRST FURLOUGH
The tour of the previous season had been so hasty and unsatisfactory,
that I was very anxious, if possible, to duplicate the homeward stretch
of it as far as Nān, then descend the Pitsanulōk Fork to the Mênam, and
so follow my family to Bangkok. But would it be safe to leave my wife to
make the river trip without me, when she was in such weak condition, and
burdened with the care of four children, the youngest of whom was but
two years old? I embarked and travelled with them as far as the landing
for Lampūn—where we must separate, if I were to cross over to Nān—still
uncertain as to what I ought to do. It was then Friday. We decided to
stop there over Sunday, and see how matters looked on Monday morning.
The quiet and rest of the boat were improving her condition somewhat;
and her own bravery made up whatever was lacking there. I had secured a
strong letter from the Prince, calling for the best of steersmen through
the rapids, and for protection where the boat should stop for the night.
So, with some anxiety, but with strong faith that the plan in itself so
desirable would prosper, we separated—one party going by boat down the
Mê Ping, and the other going afoot across country to Lampūn. For the
present we leave the wife and children, to hear their report when we
meet again.
My plan was to rely on getting elephants from point to point. Elephants
are always very hard to get; so it seemed doubtful whether my confidence
were faith or presumption. But I was remarkably favoured. At Lampūn
there was not an elephant nearer than the forests, save two of the
governor’s own. I had trusted to his friendship, and it did not fail me.
I got off in fine style next morning on the governor’s two elephants,
with a letter to all the governors on the route directing them to see
that I was supplied with whatever I needed on the journey.
I felt strong in having with me, in the person of Nān Inta, so wise a
teacher and such a living witness of the power of the Gospel. On our
first visits it has usually seemed wise to spend much of the time in
visiting and making known the Gospel privately to those of reputation,
as we know one wise missionary did in old times. It is necessary to give
the rulers a clear idea of the non-political nature of our work. In
order to do this, we must show positively what our message is—not merely
that we are religious teachers, but that, as such, we have a message
different from all others, not antagonistic or hostile to them, but
supplementing rather that which they offer.
In visiting among the princely families in the old city of Lakawn we met
one most interesting case. It was that of an aged bedridden Princess
high in rank, who received the Gospel with all readiness of mind. By
nature, habit, and grace she had been very religious. She had in her day
built temples and rest-houses, had feasted Buddhist monks, and had
fasted times without number, in order to lay up a store of merit for the
great future. She hoped sometimes that she had laid up a sufficient
store; but the five and the eight commands were against her. She had
killed animals; and the command is explicit, and condemns without a
saviour. That the Creator of all had made these creatures for our use
and benefit was a new idea. That of itself would remove much of the
burden on her conscience. And as one after another of the great truths
of revelation was opened up to her, particularly the doctrine of the
incarnation and atonement of our divine-human Redeemer, it seemed as if
the burden was lifted. Nān Inta was himself a living testimony that the
Christian teaching can and does give instantaneous relief when simply
believed. It is difficult to tell which was more touching, the
sympathetic earnestness of the speaker, or the comfort it imparted to
the hearer. The Princess begged us to come again and often. And neither
of us found any other place so attractive.
After a week spent in Lakawn, we departed on our way to Nān. The next
Sunday we spent in the forest. I look back with delightful memories to
the occasional Sabbaths thus spent in the deep forest after a busy week
with no rest and no privacy—a Sabbath in solitude, away from every
noise, and even every song except the music of the wind and the song of
birds! We always had service with our men; and then, under the shade of
some cool spreading tree, or beside a flowing brook, one could be alone
and yet not alone. No one more needs such retirement than a missionary,
whose work is always a giving-out, with fewer external aids for resupply
than others have.
The next Sunday we spent in Wieng Sā, the first of the numerous little
outlying towns of Nān. On Monday we reached Nān itself, the limit of our
tour in that direction. The country was well governed, the princes
intelligent, and the common people friendly. But the special attraction
that Nān had for me largely centred around one man, the Prince’s nephew,
Chao Borirak—the one that rode astride the young elephant to see us safe
to Prê on our earlier trip, with whom we used to talk religion about the
camp-fires till the small hours of the morning. We left him then
apparently on the border land of Christianity, with strong hope that he
soon would be ready to profess publicly the faith which he was almost
ready to confess to us. His rank and connection would make him of great
assistance in opening a station in Nān, which, next to Chiengmai, was
the most important province in the Lāo region. Again he offered us a
warm welcome, giving up his time to visiting with us the rulers and the
monasteries, in one of which his son had long been an abbot. It seemed
as if Nān Inta’s experience would be all that was needed to settle his
faith. At his request I asked and received permission from the Prince
for him again to accompany us—with his young elephant foal and her
mother—five days’ journey to Tā It, where I was to take boat. Our walks
by day and our talks by night are never to be forgotten. But the
convenient season to make a public profession never came. He lived in
hope of seeing a station in Nān, but died not long before the station
was established.
At Tā It no boat was to be had either for sale or for hire. But my face
was turned toward home, and I would have gone on a raft. I had to do the
next thing—to take a small dug-out which the Prince got for me, and go
on to Utaradit, the next town below. There I was able to purchase a
boat, which I afterwards sold in Bangkok for what it cost me. Nān Inta
was the steersman, and my four men rowed. Our longest stop was at
Pitsanulōk, where the Siamese mission now has a station. On reaching
Bangkok I was delighted to find that my family had made their long trip
down the other river in safety, though not without great anxiety, and
some threatened danger. Our oldest daughter had been quite ill on the
way. Once they came perilously near falling a prey to a band of robbers.
It was only by a clever ruse of the captain that they escaped. As soon
as he caught sight of the suspicious-looking group of men on a sand-bar
ahead, he had the gong loudly sounded. That and the waving American flag
evidently made them think that this was the leading boat of some
prince’s flotilla. They incontinently fled into the forest. At the next
stopping-place our boatmen learned that it was, indeed, a marauding band
that had committed many depredations on passing boats. What a merciful
preservation!
We spent a few weeks in Bangkok, resting and visiting in the home of my
father-in-law, Dr. Bradley, of sainted memory. It proved to be the last
time that we ever saw him. He lived only a few months after that.
In fifteen years the world had moved. Going round “the Cape,” even in a
good clipper ship like the _David Brown_, had become too slow. We took,
instead, the steamship _Patroclus_ from Singapore to London, via the
Suez Canal. The Rev. Mr. Keyesberry, a missionary friend of Dr.
Bradley’s, had been waiting to find an escort to England for two young
sons and a daughter. We gladly undertook that service, and so had a
flock of seven young folks to look after!
We were barely under way when our own children broke out with the
measles. The disease, fortunately, proved to be of a mild type, and our
new charges were not hard to manage. So, on the whole, we got along very
well. In London we had unexpected trouble because the friend who was to
meet Alice Keyesberry at the dock failed to appear, and, strangely
enough, we had received no memorandum of her destination. It cost us two
days’ search to discover her friends at the Walthamstow Mission School.
The boys I had promised to convoy as far as Edinburgh. So, leaving my
family in London, I had the great pleasure of a visit to the beautiful
Scotch capital. The day spent there was to me a memorable one. It was,
however, a matter of great regret that, being so near the Highlands, I
could not also visit the original home of my ancestors.
We arrived in New York on July 11th, 1873, after an absence of fifteen
years. Under any circumstances fifteen years would work great changes.
But that particular fifteen had included the Civil War. The changes in
the South were heart-rending.
Though North Carolina was drawn late into the Confederacy, it is said
that she furnished a larger number per capita of soldiers and had a
larger number of casualties than any other state in the South. The havoc
among my old schoolmates and pupils, and among my flock, was
distressing. In many places, too, the sectional feeling was still
bitter. The wisest of the people, however, were becoming fully
reconciled to the results of the war. The largest slaveholder in my own
section assured me that the freeing of his slaves had been a boon to
him, and that he was clearing more from his old farm under free labour
than he had done before with slaves.