THE LONE VILLAGE.
Thud could not be persuaded to mount Ma Ping again. Io pleaded to be
allowed to walk, at least for a part of the stage; so she and Maha
descended the elephant ladder, and for an hour Thud had the howdah all
to himself. Coldstream then made the lazy lad descend, to walk the rest
of the way, while his sister and her attendant resumed their places.
Thud grumbled not a little, and thought the stage interminable. However,
the halting-place for the night was reached at last: it was under a
thick banyan tree, whose dense foliage would protect from the night
dews those who had to sleep on the ground. The servants were busy
pitching the small tent which Coldstream had brought for his wife.
“I can’t sleep on the bare earth,” said Thud doggedly; “it is so hard,
and I should catch my death of cold.”
“I am going to sleep on the ground,” observed Oscar. “We have plenty of
rugs and wraps. I have often made my bed beneath a tree.”
“_You_, I daresay; but I’m different. I’ve a theory that development of
brain makes the bodily frame more delicate, and that philosophers need
to sleep softer and fare better than other men.”
“You were forewarned as to what you would have to meet,” was Oscar’s
quiet reply.
“And then on the ground one is not safe from all sorts of
reptiles――ants, caterpillars, centipedes, scorpions, snakes!” cried
Thud, raising his voice to more emphatic pitch till he reached his
climax of horrors.
“Specimens for your natural history collection,” said Oscar.
“O Thud! look at that glorious full moon rising over the plain; feel
the fresh, sweet air on your cheek. There is pleasure――luxury, in this
camping out!” cried Io.
“For those who like it,” growled Thud.
The night passed peaceably with the travellers; even Thud had no
cause to grumble. Coldstream was up with the first dawn of light. A
magnificent imperial pigeon, and two green ones brought down by his gun,
afforded the travellers a sumptuous breakfast, and put even Thud into
comparative good-humour. Moreover, he put some of the feathers into his
bag.
Then put howdah on elephant, saddle on tat, burdens on mules, and off
and away!
The country soon changed its character as the travellers wended on
their way. Instead of paddy-fields, bamboo clumps, and occasional
groups of trees, the ground rose into hills, and progression became
more difficult. The elephant came at last to places where it seemed to
be impossible that so heavy an animal should make its way. At one spot
there was an incline so steep that Io, though a girl of spirit, became
a little nervous.
“I do not think that we _can_ get down there,” she said to her husband.
“I should be frightened to see you attempt to ride down on the tat; the
elephant would certainly come to grief.”
“Can he manage it?” asked Coldstream of the _kahaut_, who was perched
on the animal’s neck.
“He manage it cleverly,” was the reply.
And the creature did manage the descent cleverly. A sudden movement,
which jerked Io and Maha backward in the howdah, and made them cling
to its sides, gave notice that the huge beast which they rode had knelt
on his hinder legs; then, putting the thick fore legs together, the
elephant slid down the steep incline, and perfectly preserving his
balance, landed safely at the bottom.
“I say, that’s what I call clever!” cried Thud. “I should not like to
have been on the back of the beast!”
“My brave wifie!” exclaimed Oscar; “you did not look in the least
afraid.”
“But I felt so――rather; and I held on very fast,” was the candid reply.
The descent was also cleverly managed by the active little tat and the
sure-footed mules. Only Thud concluded his performance of the feat by a
roll in the dust.
After proceeding for another hour the travellers came in sight of a
village nestling under the shelter of a palm-crowned height.
“What a picturesque little place, with its bamboo huts and thatched
roofs!” exclaimed Io. “I wish, Oscar, that you had brought your
sketch-book as well as your gun.”
“The village would make a good subject for a picture, and is pleasing
at a distance,” said Oscar. “But peaceful and fair as it looks, how
much of vice, misery, superstition, and idolatry are likely to be found
in its dwellings!”
“I do not like to think that,” said Io. “See the cattle grazing
about, and the goats with their kids; look at the buffaloes enjoying
themselves in the big pond, with only their snouts and horns above the
surface of the water.”
“Where there are cows I have an idea that there must be milk,”
observed Thud. “I’m as thirsty as a frog, and as tired as a hack on
Holborn Hill.”
“Oh! a drink of milk would be a luxury,” cried Io.
“I will try to procure some at once,” said her husband.
“Might we not go to the village ourselves?” suggested Io; “it would be
something so novel, so amusing.”
Io’s slightest wish was a law to Oscar. The little ladder was at hand,
and he helped his wife to descend from her lofty perch. Maha, as before,
needed no assistance.
“She’s a kind of monkey,” observed Thud with contempt.
The party proceeded towards the village, Io leaning upon the arm of
her husband. By the side of the path sat a very old man, wrinkled and
bent. He lifted up his head at the sound of strangers’ feet, and the
Coldstreams then perceived that he was quite blind.
“Blind, poor, and so old!” exclaimed Io. “Oscar dear, have you a coin
about you?”
The coin was produced and silently dropped by Io into the old man’s
hand.
“The Lord reward you!” ejaculated the old native in the Karen tongue.
The Coldstreams were surprised at the expression used.
“You have had a hard life, father,” said Io gently.
“There is a better life to come,” was the Karen’s reply. “I shall soon
be with my Saviour.”
“Who is your Saviour?” asked Io.
“The Lord Jesus Christ,” answered the blind Karen, reverently bowing
his hoary head.
“From whom have you heard of Him?” asked Oscar with interest.
“From our brother, Ko Thah Byu,” was the slowly-uttered reply.
A little farther on, a small girl, very scantily dressed, was happily
engaged in sucking a bit of sugar-cane. She took it out of her mouth,
and looked up in innocent wonder as the Europeans approached her.
“She will be our little guide,” observed Oscar.――“My child,” he said to
the girl, “will you take us to the house of your mother?”
The girl understood him, but shook her black locks. Oscar repeated his
question.
“Mother up there――with the Lord,” said the child, pointing to the blue,
cloudless sky.
“Who told you that your mother had gone to the Lord?” asked Io.
The same reply came from the child as had been uttered by the old man,
“Brother Ko Thah Byu.”
“This is very striking――very, very interesting,” said Io. “Hark! is not
that the sound of a gong? There are boys gathering under yon tree.”
“I daresay to worship some hideous idol,” suggested Thud. “It is
not safe to disturb savages at their horrible rites.” Thud had not
understood a word of the Karen language spoken, and his ideas of
savages were principally taken from “Robinson Crusoe.”
“There is no idolatry here,” observed Io. “The boys, in orderly
fashion, are sitting down in a circle. This looks for all the world
like a little school. The gong only summoned the pupils.”
“We will go nearer and inquire,” said Oscar.
Yes, it was a school in that secluded village in Siam. The master was
a simple Karen peasant, and his lesson-book a portion of the Bible. The
Coldstreams felt as if they had unexpectedly lighted on a jewel.
“Who started this school?” inquired Oscar of the Karen teacher, who
rose from his squatting position in surprise, whilst all his young,
half-naked pupils forgot their lessons to gaze open-mouthed on the
apparition of a white lady wearing a hat and veil.
“Who started this school?” repeated Oscar.
“Brother Ko Thah Byu,” was the reply.
“He must be a very remarkable man,” observed Oscar to his wife. “I am
very sorry that I did not meet him when he was actually passing through
Moulmein.”
“I would give anything to see this Karen apostle,” said Io.
The visitors were hospitably treated in the Karen village: not only
milk, but _kur_ (coarse brown sugar) and rice were placed before
them, and when Oscar offered payment it was refused. Further inquiries
regarding Ko Thah Byu elicited the information that this evangelist
had successfully preached the gospel in many places, both in Burmah
and Siam, but that it had been most welcomed by those of his own Karen
race, who were scattered in both countries, often greatly oppressed,
except where protected by the power of the English, to whom the Karen
Christians seemed greatly attached.[2]
“Our white brothers, who came by water as our great father foretold,
spread a big shield over the poor Karens,” said the village teacher;
“our white brothers are welcome.”
The Coldstreams and Thud remained some time in the hospitable village
of Mouang. Maha was delighted to find herself amongst her own people,
and laughed and chatted gaily with the women. The party quitted Mouang
with regret, and Io said that the hour spent with the Christian Karens
had been amongst the happiest of her life.