Part 11

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 yielded place to it. Not only was there requisition of men and materials throughout the province of Chiengmai; but all the neighbouring states furnished large levies of men under the personal direction of their princes or officers of rank. Such occasions offer exceptional opportunities for meeting people from all parts of the country, for forming lasting friendships, and for sending some knowledge of the Gospel to distant provinces. In after years I never made a tour on which I did not encounter friends whose acquaintance I had made at the great cremation festival.

The preparations were hastened somewhat because of the unsettled state of the country. Chao Fā Kōlan, the Ngīo freebooter of whom we have already heard, was still at his old tricks. Emboldened by the death of the Prince, and the confusion incident to the change of rulers, he had become more insolent than ever. Villages had been burned within less than a day’s march from the city. Bands of men, euphemistically called an army, were levied and despatched to capture him; but long before they could reach him, he was safe within his stronghold in the mountains.

The dead Prince was born on a Sunday; therefore every important event of his life must take place on that day, even to the last dread summons, which is not under man’s control—and beyond that, to the final disposition of his mortal remains. Sunday, therefore, was the first day of the ceremonies. On that day the body was removed from the summer garden to the “Mēn,” where it was to lie in state to receive the homage of his relatives and subjects until the following Sunday. The morning of each day was devoted to “merit-making” of various kinds—feeding the monks, making offerings to them, and listening to the reading of the sacred books. The afternoons were largely spent in boxing games, a favourite amusement of the Lāo. The evenings were given up to gambling.

Everything went on according to programme until Thursday morning, when the festivities were rudely interrupted. Chao Fā Kōlan, the bandit chief, taking advantage of the occasion, made one of his sudden forays to within so short a distance of Chiengmai that he actually had posted on the city gates during the night an insolent manifesto to the effect that the assembled Princes need not trouble themselves further with the cremation of the dead Prince. He and his band would attend to that! The news produced a tremendous panic. The whole business of the cremation was incontinently stopped. A force was sent out after the marauder—with the usual result. Before the end of the week, however, the panic had sufficiently subsided to permit the ceremonies to be resumed. The cremation itself was carried out on the following Sunday as planned.

During all these years the demand for medical treatment, and the opportunity which its exercise brings, had been constantly growing. I made, for example, a second trip to Lampūn, this time at the call of the Chao Uparāt of that city. The poor man had consumption, and at first sent to me for some foreign medicine, thinking that would surely cure him. Judging from his symptoms as reported, I sent word that I could not cure him; that the soothing mixture which I sent was sent in hope that it might give him a few nights’ rest; but that was all I could do. Presently he sent an elephant with a most urgent appeal that I come to see him. I was glad of the call, for it gave me the opportunity of directing a dying man to something even more urgently needed than medicine. I spent a few days with him, and visited all of the leading families and officials of the place, establishing most valuable and friendly relations with them.

Long before this time, both the demand for medical treatment and the responsibility involved far exceeded what any person without complete professional training could undertake to meet. We had urged upon our Board the claims of our mission for a physician. The following touching appeal, which appeared in the _Foreign Missionary_ for March, 1870, was made by Mr. Wilson not long after the death of his son Frank. After sending an earnest appeal from Nān Inta for helpers, Mr. Wilson says:

“Of course Nān Inta’s call for help includes in it a Christian physician. Who will respond? I am convinced there are many young men in the medical profession whose love for Jesus and whose sympathy with human sufferings are strong enough to bring them all the way to Chiengmai, if they will but yield themselves to this constraining influence. Christian physician, you are greatly needed here. The missionary’s family needs you. This suffering people needs you. You were needed months since, when a voice so sweet and full of glee was changed to piteous shrieks of pain. You were not here to give relief; and if you now come, it will not greet you, for it is hushed in death. You are needed here _now_. A plaintive cry comes to me as I write. It is the voice of our dear babe, whose weak condition fills our hearts with deepest anxiety. May I not interpret this plaintive cry as addressed to you? It is the only way that M. has of saying to you, ‘Come to Chiengmai.’ When you arrive, she may be sleeping beside her little brother. But you will find others, both old and young, whose pains you may be able to soothe, and whose souls you may win from the way that leads to eternal death.”

Great was our joy, therefore, when, in the summer of 1871, we learned that Dr. C. W. Vrooman, from Dr. Cuyler’s church in Brooklyn, had responded to our appeal, and already was under appointment of our Board for Chiengmai. His arrival was delayed somewhat because it was thought unsafe for him to make the river trip during the height of the rainy season. So it was January 22d, 1872, before we welcomed him to Chiengmai. He came with high credentials as a physician and surgeon with experience both in private and in hospital practice. He began work on the day of his arrival. He found Nān Inta at the point of death from acute dysentery; and his first trophy was the saving of that precious life. Had he done nothing else, that alone would have been well worth while. One or two operations for vesical calculus gave him such a reputation that patients came crowding to him for relief. In his first report he writes:

“I was very glad to commence work as soon as I arrived in the field. The number was large of those who came to the brethren here for daily treatment; and such is the reputation which they have established for themselves as physicians, that the demand for our professional services is greater than we can properly meet. I am satisfied that the demand for a medical missionary here was not too strongly urged by the brethren in their earnest appeals to the Board.

“I have already had much professional work to do, and while I am ministering to physical ailments, Brother McGilvary, who is kindly my interpreter, has opportunity to break unto many the bread of life.... Two men have just left who came a long distance, hoping we could bring to life a brother who had died hours before.”

XIII

EXPLORATION

Not long after Dr. Vrooman’s arrival it was decided to undertake our first extended tour. It was important to ascertain the size and population of our whole field; and this could be accomplished only by personal exploration. A journey for this purpose would, of course, afford abundant opportunity for preaching the Gospel; it would, besides, give the doctor a needed change, and would effectually advertise his work. Our objective was Lūang Prabāng, then one of the largest of the provinces of Siam, as it was also the most distant one. A journey to it seemed the most profitable that could be made during the time at our disposal, and the most comfortable as well, since a large stretch of it could be made by boat. It was already too late in the season to accomplish all that we desired; but “half a loaf is better than no bread.” It might be years before a longer trip could be made. As a matter of fact, it was sixteen years before I visited Lūang Prabāng again.

The Prince gave us a passport, sending us as his guests to be entertained without expense; though, of course, we always paid our way. Our letter stated that we went as teachers of religion and as physicians for the sick. It was a virtual proclamation for all the sick to apply to us for treatment. This gave frequent occasion for retort that we did not remain long enough to comply with our letter. We could only reply by pointing to the clouds and the long journey ahead.

The party consisted of Dr. Vrooman, myself, a cook, a body-servant, and eight carriers, with a newly-baptized convert as the only available assistant in the religious work. The elephants required for our transportation over the first stage of our journey—to Chieng Rāi—we had secured, for a wonder, without effort, and very cheaply. Their owner was anxious to get them out of the country to escape an epidemic which then was prevalent. The start was on April 15th, 1872, after a heavy storm which ushered in the rainy season. This was my first trip over the road to Chieng Rāi, afterwards so familiar to me. After leaving the plain of Chiengmai, the road ascends the valley of the Mê Kūang River, fording that stream no less than forty-nine times before it reaches the summit, 3100 feet above sea-level, the watershed between the Mê Ping and the Mê Kōng.[10] Thence it descends to the Mê Kok at Chieng Rāi. The owner of our elephants travelled with us, and was unnecessarily tender to his beasts. In consequence we were ten days making this stage of the trip, which afterwards, with my own elephants, I used to make in less than six. On this trip I walked almost the whole distance.

Footnote 10:

In standard Siamese the vowel in the name of this great river is 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.