H. Warington Smyth

“ As day dawns the rays climb down the heights above you into the mists, which forthwith whirl and melt; and then, as you rise above it all, there lies below on all sides a billowy sea of wild forest, high on jagged ridges in the sunlight, or darkened in shadows far down in the deep torrent valleys; in the blue distance eastward the Nam Pat range lies dim, and north and west the eye loses itself among endless cloud-capped ranges.
The sala at Muang Faek is on the west side of the river, and consists of a number of separate bamboo shelters ”

“ They, and the life which goes on within, have been admirably described by Shway Yoe, in his book 'The Burman,' one of the completest pictures which has ever been drawn of any people; and the monastery life of Siam is almost identical. As the monotonous but almost weird chant of the monks floated out across the stream at sunset, we used to tie up for the night beneath: often it would go far on into the night; and then long before day the great gong would begin its clanging, and once more the chant rise among the mists, and for us another day's poling would commence. ”

“ The sight of Nan is the early morning market, to which before sunrise the women are seen coming from all directions, wrapped in their long plaids—for such, indeed, the Lao cloak is, both in pattern and mode of wearing. The market is held within the walls in the open space, in which stands the sanam, or court-house; this is surrounded on three sides by wats, and on the west by the palace, a large house with no very striking features. The women crouch along the sides in rows with their baskets in front of them, as at Luang Prabang and at all the markets one sees in this part of the peninsula. ”

“ Leaving at sunrise, the Laos guide and myself reached the small shelter at Hoay Nai at one o'clock, the rest of my Siamese straggling in well blown an hour later, and the elephants climbing down the steep watercourse at three. This is generally the extent of a day's march, and the average rate of jungle-travelling, allowing for stoppages, is never over 21⁄2 miles an hour, and a six hours' march is as much as the Siamese can do; in these hills the elephants certainly do not do more than 2 miles an hour. ”

“ After some stay, we set out with fresh boats and crews, and were five days passing the wild rapids between here and Wieng Chan. The river finds its way among low hills in a narrow, deep channel between clay-slate rocks alternating with sandstones and conglomerates with a general easterly dip. The rapids are of the whirlpool and eddy character, and extend for miles on end; the water is in places confined to a width of 150 feet, and the rushes, boilings, spinnings, and general deafening pandemonium which results is astounding; not one place is like another, nor one whirlpool like the next. ”

“ In the centre, at first quietly, and with accelerating pace goes the main mass, getting narrower, until with three huge undulations, which send a boat half her length out of water as she jumps down them, it tears into the embrace of the two raging, broken currents coming off the banks, and there it leaps and foams and thunders, echoing off the big black crystalline rocks from age to age. ”

“ A year ago I was in Siam, and the king told me he meant to take the railway to Kong Khai. It will be the best thing for the salvation of his country, and there is no Englishman present who does not wish to see Siam strong, independent, and wealthy, and capable of holding its own. For my own part, I shall never cease to feel the greatest and warmest interest in that singularly attractive country, and my own opinion is, that it is the duty of every British Government to see that the integrity of that country is not wiped out, and that its vitality is maintained. ”

“ Imagine a number of lovely villages clustering among their coconut and areca palms, in a beautiful wide valley surrounded by forests and hills, the glistening yellow paddy-stalks bright in the afternoon sun, with the black backs of the buffalo moving lazily about; the homely red of the little oxen, and the moving islands the elephants make whisking the paddy in their trunks ”

“ He knew and could imitate exactly every forest sound, and as he trotted along the trail he gathered all kinds of unlikely looking plants, which in the evening made excellent additions to our curry. He was a born sportsman, and far more at his ease sleeping out at night under his plaid, with his lads stretched round him, than under any form of roof. The lads with him—for they were mere boys—were like him, and treated him with the usual freedom and familiarity peculiar to the Laos, but which if an order was given, disappeared before complete obedience ”

“ The houses extend all along the river-side for a mile and a half, mostly well shaded by areca and coconut palms. Here once more, on the great plain lying to the south, we saw the tall, gaunt sugar palms standing against the sky, and again saw the kiens, or ox-carts, with their long, black hoods, wending their slow way in single file, the groaning, grunting, and shrieking, which accompanies their every movement and jerk, coming slowly down the wind. ”

“ Camped on some of these huge sandstone blocks, we had a good opportunity of watching the polishing power of the wind-swept sand, which, next to the rushing water, with its enormous burden of sediment, is the agent by which all the rock surfaces of the Mekong get the wonderful polish which makes them so peculiar. The exterior appearances are often entirely deceptive, and the sun glistens off them as off a looking-glass. ”

“ The wats here are very simple, the houses neat, but small; bricks are baked in the valley, and the rice-mills thump cheerily and echo off the hills all day. There were some pack oxen, which came over from the westward; but the Laos who drove them, whether from distrust of us or not, I do not know, would not converse with any of us. The bells of these caravans as they go trotting down the valleys are beautiful. ”

“ Numbers of boats never get through here, as they, in spinning round in a whirlpool or sudden explosion of water, get their ends ashore and smashed on the rocks. It was a most tiring time for the men, deep down in the heat of this great rock ditch, with no wind to cool the air, and above on either hand a good half-mile of rocks and vast spaces of sand shimmering in the hot sun. ”

“ They are worst just about sunset as a rule, and smoke or a strong breeze are the only things to keep them away, and to sleep in a curtain of linen is absolutely necessary. The rains bring them and most other jungle plagues.
From here the river begins to turn away to the south-east, with quite a new phase of Mekong scenery—placid reaches half a mile wide, with gently sloping banks, the hills low and gentle in their curves, more like some upper reaches in the Meinam, or a bit of Thames. ”

“ The central market is carried on all day in a large roofed building near the centre of the city, and all up the road sit the yellow-faced Chinamen smoking their long-stemmed pipes in the shop fronts, and with the aid of their wives (generally Siamese, and good business women) bargaining with the long-haired, dark burned men from the plains, to whom the beauties of the shops in Khorat are a great delight. ”

“ The track is very rough, up the bed of the Hoay Tap for some hours, and then over the watershed, from the summit of which, owing to fires having cleared away the jungle, a magnificent view was to be had to the south-west over the valley. The contrast between the rugged uncompromising character of the Mekong valley behind, and the peaceful expanse of cultivation nestling below us was delightful. The villages are all of substantially built houses; the people are a smart, tidy, and pleasant race of Laos, and they are very rich in cattle and elephants ”

“ At the present moment the ground in Hoay Pakham has only been dug out for a distance of half a mile from the flood level of the Mekong, with a breadth averaging 80 yards. Work is only carried on in the morning, when the pit will be bailed out dry; at noon the digging and washing ceases, and the men return home, and sit all the afternoon in their houses chaffing, talking, and picking over and enjoying the sight of their stones, in which they find great delight. The washing consists simply of cleaning the basket of muddy gravel with water, and picking over the remains twice by hand. ”

“ The camps we formed on the sand spits, lulled at night by the thunder and roaring echoes from the rapids, were wild and beautiful in the extreme. The jungle, too, was full of night sounds—the bark of the deer or the "peep, peep" of the tiger, of which we often heard three or four at a time; and in the morning their tracks were everywhere upon the sands. It is curious and worth remarking that when one got 4 or 5 miles inland on the left bank no traces of tiger were to be found; while, on the other hand, the elephant tracks became very numerous, and were really useful in threading the jungle ”

“ Leaving the beautiful villages outside Khorat, deep in their thick clusters of areca palms, which in places form perfect forests of tall stems supporting the arched roof of leaves far overhead, and making a perpetual cool shade, we had two days alternately over flat sandstone beds and flooded lowlands, where the water was for hours at a time up to our thighs, and at one place for half a mile up to our necks. Our nights were wretched, as the rain was perpetual, and the waggons could not arrive at the monasteries, where we put up, till long after midnight ”

“ It is the custom to bring up for the night, whenever possible, alongside one of these wats, both on account of the convenience of finding a good sala, and the greater security against robbers. There is always a wide clear space beneath the trees which shade the buildings of the monastery, and some of these quiet spots, from which, as one walks up and down in the evening, one sees the long reach of river reflecting the last light in the west, or, in the chilly morning, the first streaks of dawn, are almost ideal places for retirement and meditation. ”

“ There is a muffled sound of subdued chatter and laughter, and the scene is a very pretty one—till at last the mists are gone, the sun is well up in the heavens, and the crowd melts away as silently as it came.
Once inside the walls the town may be described as countrified, the houses standing in their own enclosures among their palms, where the elephants twirl their trunks among the cocks and hens. Very fair roads run at right angles to one another, but are always quiet and shady, like country lanes. ”

“ At the time we were there mangoes were in full swing, and all the women's baskets full of them, bananas, coconuts, ready-rolled cigarettes, brown cakes of palm sugar of an excellent quality, and very often the fruit of the sugar palm, which is very much enjoyed. To the south and west the trails are really like beautiful roads, for they go through a pretty red sand soil, leading to the flat-bedded sandstones of the hills, which makes good walking, and, even when swamped with a foot of water, never causes mud. ”

“ Boat-travelling in Siam is much the same everywhere; and in their boat-life, it may be said, the Siamese have attained a high degree of civilization. Very often the boat is the home of the family, and after the rains they moor alongside the bank and cultivate tobacco, cotton, or melons on the slope on which the rich loam of the floods has settled down; after the rice harvest they will set out laden with paddy for Bangkok, returning later on with salt or other luxuries from the south. The Chinese, who are the most energetic people in the country, carry on extensive trading in this way. ”

“ The remains of such walks lie in every direction round the centre. As for the western building itself, I was much delighted with the interior. One enters a monk's doorway at the south-east corner from a cloister, and is at first lost in gloom. At last the great black columns, with their elaborate gilt ornamentation (the one decoration they understand in Siam) , grow out in the feeble light from the little narrow windows in the low side walls. ”

“ Until, after infinite pains, they are persuaded that they will be dealt honestly by, and treated with the consideration which the wildest from their own hills would never fail to show, you can get nothing but negatives, and small blame to them. It is humiliating in the extreme, after travelling with men for some weeks, to be asked one night over the camp fire why the nai farang (the foreign master) doesn't kick and thrash the men on the march, or flog the Chow Muang into handing over all the rice in the village, and do other not less objectionable things. ”

“ You cannot listen to travellers like Lord Lamington and Mr. Curzon (and when Mr. Warington Smyth comes back we shall listen to him) without finding out that there is a great deal both of material and what we may call moral progress in that distant country. Let me say one word as regards his Majesty the King of Siam, on whose character and personality so much depends. For many years past the king has been known as a man of wide interests, of a very high order of intelligence, and of an unusual charm of manner. ”

“ In the centre of each side there is a gateway surmounted by a gable, there being also similar ornaments at each corner. The beauty and the retired air of the court inside could not be surpassed, and the effect of the green grass, the white walls, the low-reaching red-tiled roofs, and the deep shadows is charming; there is nothing flat, nothing vulgarly gaudy, and very little that is out of repair. And here, as is most noticeable in the remains of the other buildings about, the proportions are perfect. ”

“ With a couple of handfuls of kao nëo, the hill-rice, which they steam over a pot into a glutinous mass, very handy and portable for the day's march, and with some dried fish and a banana, and a long pull at the fresh stream water once in the day, they will go cheerily from morn till night, swinging when necessary their long dhâp (a sword of Burmese style, which every man over sixteen carries if he be a man at all) , to cut and lop the branches and jungle which are for ever blocking the tracks. ”

“ The scenery of this river is very fine, as all the way from Muang Ngoi, to which we went, it winds through abrupt limestone peaks and ranges, covered with dense forest, and often overhanging the deep quiet river below. But the rapids scattered along its course are furious, and, owing to the shallow water and innumerable sunken rocks, are very dangerous, while quite a high sea runs in them. They differ from most of the big Mekong rapids in that they are caused by rough sloping bottoms of rock ridges, over which the water tears its way. ”

“ In the depressions occur the nongs, or swamps, of which the plateau is full, and which in the wet weather, with their mud and deep water, make travelling almost (and in most places quite) impossible. In the neighbourhood of the main streams, which all run from west to east to the Mekong, villages are established, and the scrub jungle gives place to the welcome bamboo clumps and the high betel and coconut palms, which, like church spires at home, announce to the traveller far away that he is approaching the habitations of men. ”

“ Yet the points and pinnacles, especially among the schists, are terribly sharp, often cutting the feet like knives. The polish the red granite takes just west of this, and the beauty of the veined limestone boulders further north, are a delight to look at.
At Wieng Chan, on the north bank, hardly a hill is in sight; all round plains, bamboos, and palms. The site of the old city, which was destroyed in 1827 by the Siamese for rebellion, is a mass of jungle-covered ruins. The remains of the old brick wall, and of the great Wat Prakaon, are very fine ”

“ No resting is possible, for every moment a stop is made the deeper everything sinks into the mud; so it is plunging and struggling to the next little island, where we would stop and cook breakfast with a score of other weary mud-bespattered carts. Besides these, we also met some pack-oxen going north to get salt; but as the water was out everywhere, they would have to wait before returning south. One may roughly say that the salt efflorescence occupies the low grounds, between the slightly higher laterite jungle ridges, which are yet just higher than the surface of the nongs. ”

“ From fording the swollen streams, from continual tumbles in mud and water, and from constant rain, we found nearly everything on the pack oxen had been ruined that could be—photographs and other things. It is a most clumsy way of travelling, without doubt, and the time and labour spent in loading up every morning is enormous. The weights on the two sides must be adjusted accurately, the two men lifting them on a bamboo, through the middle, to test the balance and spending often ten minutes in getting one pair of panniers ready. ”