Holt S. Hallett

“ The city and villages were hidden by the foliage, and the whole plain as far as we could see looked one great orchard of palm and fruit-trees, with here and there a narrow slip of rice-plain. Nothing can be more deceptive than travelling through such a country, the great hedges of fruit-trees and clumps of handsome bamboos that fringe the fields continually hiding the extent of the cultivation. ”

“ In a jungle-clad country you must watch the foremost elephant as it winds through the trees, and rapidly select the point for your next angle as the animal is just passing from view. A good memory is required, otherwise in noticing the trees, rocks, by-paths, width and depth of streams, breadth of fields, size of villages, and taking sketches of, and angles to, neighbouring hills, you will forget the object, twig, branch or trunk of tree, that you have aimed at. ”

“ As soon as it was light on the morning of April 20th, I left Lapoon; Drs M‘Gilvary and Cushing having started some time before, so as to reach Zimmé in the cool of the day. The road to Zimmé leads for the whole twelve miles through villages with barely a break in the houses between them; and the fine fruit-trees, and beautiful bamboo clumps in the gardens bordering the road, form a magnificent and shady avenue.
It is pleasant journeying amongst human beings and their habitations after a tour in the forest. Here a temple resplendent with gold like a herald’s coat, shone out from the trees ”

“ Here was a group of men and women squatting on the sands, and having a chat before crossing the ford; there men, women, and children, with their garments tucked up above their knees, laughing and joking as they waded the stream; children playing in the water, dashing it about and splashing each other; cattle lowing on the banks on their way to the fields; the sun lighting up the bald pates and yellow garments of the monks and acolytes who were passing in processions and carrying their begging-bowls through the suburbs, which now lined the banks ”

“ His hair tied in a chignon on the top of his head, and festooned with a loosely arranged silk kerchief; his putso, or plaid, serving as a petticoat, with the end jauntily thrown over his shoulder; his clean white cotton jacket with gold buttons, and the flower stuck in his ear,—how could one help enjoying the sight of him, however much one might be put out by his indolence! ”

“ Government imposes taxes upon everything grown for human requirements in the country; fishing-nets, stakes, boats, spears, and lines are all taxed. The Government net is so small that even charcoal and bamboos are taxed to the extent of one in ten, and firewood one in five, in kind. Fancy the feelings of an old woman, after trudging for miles to market with a hundred sticks of firewood, when twenty of the sticks are seized by the tax-gatherer as his perquisite! ”

“ The lights and shades swiftly flitting across its forest-clad slopes, as the clouds coursed betwixt it and the sun; the beautiful bijou views in the early morning, as the mist opened out and closed in when dissolving under the influence of the sun; the foreground formed by suburbs on the other side of the river, embosomed in orchards, amongst which the areca-nut, palmyra, and cocoa-nut palms reared their graceful stems and beautiful plumes; the stream of ever-varying and ever-picturesque life moving along the road and river ”

“ There is a land-tax for each crop of annuals sown, and paddy and rice are both subject to tax; so that three taxes can thus be reaped from one cereal. The burdensome taxation is levied in the most vexatious manner that can be conceived; for the taxes are let out to unscrupulous Chinamen, who are thus able to squeeze, cheat, and rob the people mercilessly. It is no use appealing from the tax-gatherer to the officials. Money wins its way, and justice is unknown in Siam. Every one who has not a friend at Court is preyed upon by the governors and their rapacious underlings. ”

“ Everything has been kept neat and trim by the pious villagers, not even a stray leaf is to be seen, and fresh sand has been scattered about the grounds as a finishing touch. The great white-walled temple, with its handsome many-tiered roof, and its floor raised some feet from the ground, stands with its door facing the entrance-gate, and a broad flight of steps, with handsome side walls surmounted by great plastered dragons embellished with coloured glass scales of various tints, and the bottoms of beer-bottles for eyes, leads up to the double entrance-door. ”

“ Great spurs covered with teak and other valuable trees sloped up from the river, in whose bed shales and flagstones cropped up. The grass and scrub-jungle on some of the spurs was on fire, and my elephant, from fear, was playing a scale sounding like one played on a child’s tin trumpet, and by no means resembling the ordinary roar of the beast. ”

“ The houses in the Shan villages along the river-banks are situated in orchards of fine fruit-trees, separated from each other by palisades. The people, like the Burmese, are very fond of flowers, and rear them in their gardens, and in wooden boxes and earthenware pots placed on the balustrade of their verandahs. Young children encircle the top-knot on the head with orchids and sweet-smelling flowers. ”

“ We have endeavoured to awaken, and have awakened, an intelligent interest in the subject of the importance of connecting India with China by a railway; and by exploration have proved to the satisfaction of every one who has studied the question, that a practical route between these two great empires exists, and that along that route a railway can be constructed at a reasonable cost, which would tend greatly to enhance the commerce of Great Britain and India with its Eastern neighbours—Siam and its Shan States, and the western half of China. ”

“ It is the time of the great Water Festival, when for three days Phya In, or Indra—the rain-god and king of the Dewahs—is supposed to descend at midnight to the earth to stay for three or four days. On the signal of his arrival being given, a formal prayer is made, and jars full of water, which have been placed at the door of each house, their mouths stoppered with green leaves, have their contents poured on the ground as a libation to the god, in order to ensure the prosperity of the household; and every one who has a gun hastens to fire it off as a salute to the rain-god. ”

“ One basket of rice for every fifty or hundred, as the custom of the principality may be, with a small assessment on each house for the tribute paid to the King of Siam, are the principal demands of the Government in the way of taxation, although a small sum may be levied for a special subject on some rare occasion.
“The most oppressive right of the Government grows out of the relation of the people to their rulers, by which they must perform Government work whenever called to do so. The whole of the people are in a condition of serfdom. ”

“ Men often linger out their existence in slave-bondage.
Any person may settle in and cultivate land in the Shan States that is not already under cultivation, and does not become a serf to the chiefs unless he marries a woman of the State; and even then he can remain free, with his wife, and any family that may be born to them, if he pays seventy-two rupees for her redemption. Unless this redemption money is paid, no woman is allowed to remove from the country.
All the Zimmé Shans, except the nobles, are serfs, but have the right to change their allegiance from one lord to another. ”

“ The elephants amused themselves as they went along by showering down bamboo seeds upon the men as they passed among the clumps, and seemed not to care at all for the mahout’s whip with the lump of lead attached to the end of its thong. The climate in the basin of the Meh Low being moister than in the Zimmé plain, the verdure is more luxuriant. I noticed a bamboo 60 feet high growing without soil, rooted in the arm of a tree four feet above the ground. ”

“ A railway might be the best way of strengthening the king’s hands—it would certainly mean the death of serfdom and slavery, and act like a magician’s wand in improving the position of the people; but it could never be made to pay if the present evil condition of the country continued. ”

“ He told me that the valley of the Meh Soo-ay is the private game-preserve of the King of Zimmé, and that no one is allowed to hunt there, or even enter the valley without the royal permission. It is therefore uninhabited, except by deer, tiger, rhinoceros, elephant, wild cattle, and other large game. From slate and quartz being the only pebbles in the stream-bed, it is not at all unlikely that gold may exist in the hills stretching into this valley, as it does in the same geological formation in other parts of the Shan States. ”

“ As we passed up the river we found the land on both banks cultivated as gardens, sugar-cane plantations, and rice-fields; and from the many straggling villages along the course of the rivers and canals, one would conclude that the country was thickly populated—but this is not the case. Agriculture ceases a short distance from the banks, and not more than one-twentieth of this vast and rich plain is under cultivation.
The scenery in Indo-China is indeed exquisitely beautiful: the streams wind continuously through ever-changing foliage ”

“ In describing the river between Kiang Khong and Luang Prabang he says: “The river is a mile wide in places, and where the channel is narrowed it rushes along with frightful rapidity. 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, ever-changing landscapes of woodland verdure and blossom. ”

“ Next morning, the 31st March, the Chow Hona and Chow Nan Kyow Wong, our companion from Zimmé, came to see us off, and were accompanied by the Chow Phya, or head judge of Kiang Hai, who had been told off to conduct us to Penyow. Six large elephants, two of which had babies with them, had been hired for us, and Dr M‘Gilvary rode the elephant he had purchased. I once more chose an easy-going female elephant for myself, and had the amusement of watching the pranks of its big baby during the march. ”

“ In reply she said that she was delighted to hear about the railway. She was one of the largest traders in the country, and would do what she could to further the project. A railway, she knew, would bring wealth to the country, and carry the produce cheaply away. Every one, nobles and people, would be glad if a railway was made to connect their country with Burmah and China.
She went on to say that she had long taken an interest in the currents of trade that passed through Zimmé; and, in her own interests, had endeavoured to arrive at the number of men and animals employed in the caravan trade. ”

“ Neighbours who have not met for a time are chatting together in an ordinary tone of voice. Youths and maidens are joking together, or having a quiet flirtation. Here an aged woman, telling her beads and mumbling her prayers, presses her hands together, and lifting them above her head, inclines her body in a low bow to the great image of Buddha, till her head and hands are pressing the floor. There a mother with her little child on her knee, closes its tiny palms on the stalk of a flower, and teaches the infant how to worship the great lawgiver Buddha. ”

“ As the majority of the non-Chinese inhabitants of Siam are included among the above-mentioned classes, and there is no penalty for their selling themselves and their children clandestinely and fraudulently as slaves; and as the money-masters are told that they can keep them as slaves, and the original laws will apply to them and their children so long as they are permitted by their money-masters to serve the Government for three months in the year as Government slaves,—the law affords no protection to these people, and was evidently not meant to be a protection to them. ”

“ If the slave of one man marries the slave of another, it is the custom for the master of the wife to purchase the husband. If the husband’s master refuses to part with him he can claim his freedom.
The judicial price of a man slave is fifty-four rupees, and of a female slave seventy-two rupees. Amongst the warlike races of the hills the opposite rules, the value of the male being greater than that of the female; but in the Shan States, where the woman does most of the work, the woman is decidedly as a worker worth more than the man. ”

“ Buildings built of wood or bamboos, if vacated in a moist climate like that of the Shan States, rot away in a few years, and leave no trace behind them. Even brick and stone buildings, when deserted, are rapidly destroyed by pipal-trees, and crumbling down, are covered with turf in the course of centuries. Those navvies the ants are ever throwing earth over the masonry records of past generations. ”

“ To any one travelling with his eyes open in China and Indo-China, it becomes evident that Buddhism is merely a veneer, spread over the people’s belief in ancient Turanian and Dravidian superstitions. The belief in divination, charms, omens, exorcism, sorcery, mediums, witchcraft and ghosts, and in demons ever on the alert to plague and torment them individually, is universal, except perhaps amongst the highly educated classes, throughout the country. ”

“ As soon as it is dark, the river becomes alive with joyous pleasure-seeking people hastening to the scene. Offerings, consisting of fairy skiffs and rafts of banana-stalks carrying flowers, betel-nut, seri-leaf, incense, and lighted tapers, are floated in myriads upon the river, and are replaced by others as they disappear in the distance. A similar ceremony occurs in Burmah and Siam at the close of Lent. ”

“ The taxes of the country were farmed to Chinese monopolists, who, being in league with the officials, collected far more than their dues. Everything in the country was taxed—even bamboos, mats for thatching, and firewood. An old woman could not collect a few sticks into bundles for sale without giving up one-fifth of the bundles to the creatures of the monopolists. A man could not fish even in the sea without paying taxes on his boat, stakes, nets, lines, and hooks. The mesh of the Government net was so fine that it missed nothing; everything that was marketable was taxed in Siam. ”

“ It is no wonder that the deep ravines of this great defile are full of terrifying potentialities to people ridden by such nightmare superstitions as are believed in by the Shans. Such places, according to them, are infested by Pee Pa or jungle demons, the spirits of human beings who have died when absent from their homes. These endeavour to cause the death of others by the same means as caused their own. Their victims have to join the company or clan of demons to which the successful demon belongs. Thus the clan increases in numbers, and is ever becoming more potent for mischief. ”

“ When a monk, his life is one of ease and often of indolence. Early in the morning, about daybreak, he is aroused from slumber by the beating of the great gong, drum, or bell attached to the monastery, and, after washing his face, puts on his yellow robes, suspends his iron begging-bowl over his shoulders, hanging under his left arm, and his fruit-bag on his right elbow, and leaves the monastery, by boat or by land, a little before sunrise. ”

“ Jonathan Wilson, who had been with the Mission at Zimmé since 1868, the year after it had been established there by the Rev. Daniel M‘Gilvary. After giving me a hearty shake of the hand, he asked what he could do for me, and was delighted at the prospect of a railway being carried from Burmah through Siam and the Shan States. Railways were the grandest civilisers in the world, and would do wonders in ameliorating the wretched condition of the people and in spreading Christianity through the land. ”