A Half Century Among the Siamese and the Lāo: An Autobiography

The next Sunday we camped in the monastery grounds at Bān Hūa Ling. The people began to assemble before breakfast, and long before it was time for the morning service the ground...

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 w...

The tour of 1898 was undertaken with two special objects in view: (1) to follow up the auspicious beginnings of work among the Kamu and Lamēt tribes, the largest and most import...

The next stage of our road was bad. In some places we had to cut our way through, and there were difficult passages of brook-beds and gorges. We reached the river at Chieng Hā i...

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 read...

“Dr. and Mrs. Peoples are still left alone in Lakawn, the utmost picket of the foreign missionary line. Mrs. Peoples has not one lady for a companion; and the doctor is dangerou...

Because, as they themselves expressed it, of the lawless nature of the Lāo Prince, and the consequent difficulty of protecting foreigners so far away, our Siamese friends would...

Our Chiengmai Prince, then quite old, was most incredulous as to the possibilities of the wonderful railroad. In his book, _A Thousand Miles on an Elephant in the Shan States_,...

At Chieng Kawng I was sorry to find the governor sadly crippled. In descending a flight of steps he had slipped to the ground, dislocating his ankle and bruising the bone. The j...

We got the elephants; but, as it was, from preference I walked most of the way. Once I paid dear for my walk by getting separated from my elephant in the morning, losing my noon...

The training proposed for this last group was intended primarily to equip the most capable and most promising individuals among the converts for filling well their places as lay...

When, in September, 1869, just before the fatal stroke, the Prince started on what purported to be a three weeks’ fishing trip, we thought that his absence would give us a respi...

But it was important not to leave these people with the impression that we had abandoned them. I had left Sên Chai’s village with the promise to return. So I went up with the Mū...

This was the only specification which the governor gave. The date, it will be noted, was fifteen days earlier than that of Noi Siri’s arrival in Chieng Dāo. If the statement wer...

I Prayā Tēp Worachun, Representative of His Majesty the Supreme King of Siam in Chiengmai, Lampūn, and Lakawn, hereby make proclamation to the Princes, Rulers, and Officers of v...

On my way home that same forenoon I had another interesting talk with our dear old friend, the abbot of the Ūmōng monastery, who had been so true to us during our troubles. On t...

The arrival of young missionaries on the field rendered some kind of physical and social recreation necessary. Croquet had formerly been tried, but it gave very little exercise,...

After a magnificent ride of four miles up the river, we were met at the palace by gilded palanquins for the members of the party, while the letter, in a special palanquin and un...

“And now, after a long and weary night of painful watching, the morning of Tuesday, the 14th, dawns upon them. The hour is come. They are led out into the lonely jungle. They kn...

Our first visits to these new places were intensely interesting. It seemed as if the Gospel would be embraced by whole villages. But the burning of the chapel tells a tale of a...

As I ascended the river, it became plain that the water was too low to permit the latter stage of the trip to be made in my large boat. At Chiengmai I should find a house, but n...

During these four years my relations with the newly organized Presbyterian church had been most pleasant and profitable. There was no resisting the appeal that I should become r...

Heredity and early environment exercise such a determining influence in forming a man’s character and shaping his destiny that, without some knowledge of these as a clew, his af...

In 1878 Chieng Sên, the old abandoned city which I visited in 1872, became the theme of anxious consultation on the part of the government. The Lāo had taken away the inhabitant...

I returned to the palace of the son-in-law, and very carefully vaccinated the young prince on whom so many hopes were centred. I watched the case daily, and my best hopes seemed...

All these provinces that we were now visiting, and others more distant still, were originally settled by refugees driven from the more southern districts by the persecution for...

A year was spent in preparation for the ceremonies attending the cremation of the dead Prince. During the last three months of this time, everything else in the whole land yield...

After the tour, longer than usual, taken with my daughter in 1890, I sent him a report of it. In response he sent me thirty pounds, which aided in the work of 1891 among the Mūs...

Again, as between the policy of maintaining one strong central station, and that of maintaining several smaller ones in different parts of the country, it is often difficult to...

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 63818-h.htm or 63818-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/63...

Lāo Mission: planted, 77; Rev. J. Wilson arrives, 92; first church organized, 93; a gift of land, 95; first native members received, 96-101; persecution, 106-117; mission suppos...