Part 22

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 were true, it might have subjected the persons who were summoned to trial and punishment for disloyalty; but it absolutely cleared Noi Siri. An upright judge would have dismissed the case. The Christian witnesses were in attendance to testify as to the nature of the instruction they received; but were not given the opportunity to do so. The accused man was remanded to prison. We waited, but nothing was done. We called once more on the Commissioner; but were told that the case had been referred to Bangkok, and he must wait for a reply. We waited again. At last we made a written appeal on his behalf, and in answer were told that the case was one with their own subjects, and we had nothing to do with it. Meantime Noi Siri had become quite ill, and all that we could do was to get him transferred from his dungeon to the common prison.

Eight months after this, when Mr. Dodd went down to Bangkok to be married to Miss Eakin, he made, through the United States Minister, an appeal to the Prince Minister of the North, who promised an immediate order for his release. As soon as we were assured of that, we went to the resident Prince in Chiengmai, H. R. H. Prince Sonapandit, who promised that the order should be issued at once. The next day we called on the Commissioner to remind him of the Prince’s promise; but he and the Judge had just gone out for a stroll in the city. It was then Saturday afternoon. Next day was our communion service, and I was determined to have Noi Siri present. To do this I had to follow those men up at once. I was a fast walker, and, when necessary, could run. My race after them was the ludicrous sequel of the case. Two high officials closing their office and escaping, in order to keep their victim in chains another night, pursued by swifter feet, and overtaken in the street! The Judge acknowledged that the Prince had given the order. He would attend to it to-morrow. Since to-morrow would be Sunday, I need not come. But I knew that we should not see Noi Siri in time for our worship unless I went for him. So on Sunday morning I called once more on the Judge, who again said that I need not wait; but I had to tell him that I would not return till I saw his release. So the prisoner was called, and I saw the fetters taken off from his ankles.

The second bell was ringing when I entered the church; but Noi Siri was with me. The congregation rose and sang the long metre doxology. There were not many dry eyes in the room. Mr. Dodd preached from the text, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God.” Among the converts who then stood up to make a public profession of faith was Nāng Su, a daughter of Noi Siri—and this happy coincidence was no planning of ours.

Noi Siri’s faith had been tried by fire, and he had come forth from the furnace as pure gold. In addition to his own imprisonment and distress, his wife had been for months very low with sickness, and one of his grandchildren had died during the interval. But from his prison cell he had written to his family not to let their faith be shaken either by his trials or by their own. During the eight months and ten days of his imprisonment, one hundred and thirty-three persons—his daughter closing the list—were received into church-membership. A European in employ of the government, who had cognizance of the whole case, afterwards said to me, “It might be well to get the Commissioner to imprison a few more Christians!” A history of the case was afterwards published by our Board in a leaflet entitled, “The Laos Prisoner.”

Before the close of the year there was an event which for the time came near to overthrowing the government. A new tax, levied chiefly on areca trees, caused much exasperation throughout the country. As usual, the tax was farmed out to Chinese for collection. The local officers in various districts formed a coalition to resist to the uttermost the collection of the tax. Of course, this could not be allowed, since the collectors were the agents of the government. The resistance was centred chiefly in the districts to the eastward of the city, where Prayā Pāp, who had some reputation as a soldier, went so far as to gather a considerable force of the insurgents within a few miles of Chiengmai. A day even was set for their attack on the city. If they had made a dash then, they could easily have taken it, for the sympathy of the people was wholly with them, and the government was unprepared.

Our house was only two hundred yards away from the Chinese distillery, which was the objective of the insurgents. The residence of the Commissioner and that of the Siamese Prince Sonapandit were nearly opposite us on the other side of the river. Our position was further compromised by the fact that the wives and children of a number of influential Chinese had almost forcibly taken refuge in our compound. In any case, we should have been in a position of great danger from the guns on the other side of the river aimed at the distillery. We were strongly advised to take refuge in the British Consulate, whose shelter was kindly offered us. But the whole population in our neighbourhood was watching us. If we stirred, there would have been a general stampede.

Fortunately for themselves and for the country, the courage of the common people failed. One after another they deserted the leader, till at last he also fled. He was caught, however, and with seven other leaders was executed. This was the end of the matter in Chiengmai; but certain parties of the insurgents, escaping northwards, became roving bands of marauders that for some time disturbed the peace of the frontier towns. The rebellion never had any chance of ultimate success; but had the attack on the city been actually made, the immediate consequences would have been direful, and untold calamity would have been entailed on the whole country.

The arrival of Dr. McKean at the close of the year marked an era in our medical work. He was accompanied by our daughter, Miss Cornelia H. McGilvary, now Mrs. William Harris Jun. It was the pleasant duty of Mrs. McGilvary to escort the party up from Bangkok. The appointment of our daughter was no less a surprise than a delight to us. During her school days she always said that she would not become a missionary. When the question came up for final settlement, she fought it out in her own mind alone, and reached her own decision. The Lāo language, which, during her ten years’ absence, she seemed to have lost entirely, came back to her very soon and with little effort.

It has been Dr. McKean’s privilege to continue the work begun by able physicians, and to carry it to a higher degree of efficiency. He has combined, as most of our physicians have done, the two great objects of the medical missionary, the medical and the evangelistic, making the former a means to the latter. While the professional and the charitable features of the work have not been minimized, but rather magnified, no minister has more loved to preach the Gospel, or has been more successful in it. At the same time it may be that the great work now enlisting his sympathy and his strenuous efforts—the establishment of a leper colony and hospital, and the amelioration of the condition of that unfortunate class—may be the one with which his name will be most intimately associated.

XXVIII

CIRCUIT TOUR WITH MY DAUGHTER, 1890

I had been appointed by Presbytery to organize in Chieng Rāi the church which was not found ready for organization on my previous visit. I had planned for a tour longer than usual, to include the eastern provinces as far as Nān, as well as the northern ones, and expected to take with me native assistants only. But upon the arrival of our reinforcement, I was no less surprised than delighted to find that my daughter desired to accompany me; and so it was arranged.

Starting on February 5th, we spent the first Sunday in Lakawn. Here we met another surprise. Mr. Taylor had spent his first year in that annoying work for the new missionary, the building of a house. He was anxious to get out among the people, but feared he was not sufficiently versed in the language to make profitable a tour alone. He and Mrs. Taylor would join us if they could get elephants—a matter which was easily arranged. Mr. Taylor proved to be an efficient helper. My daughter had a delightful companion, and it was a great pleasure to initiate the new missionaries into the evangelistic work which Dr. and Mrs. Taylor since then have carried on so successfully for twenty years. It is still their delight—may they live to carry it on for many years to come!

One of the chief diversions of the trip thenceforward was afforded by the pranks of an uncommonly mischievous baby-elephant which accompanied its mother. On one occasion a footman coming towards us stepped out of the trail and stood beside a large tree to let us pass. The mischievous creature saw his opportunity, and before the man knew what was up, he found himself fast pinioned between the elephant’s head and the tree trunk. The frightened man extricated himself with loud outcry, while the beholders were convulsed with laughter. Our own men were constantly the victims of his pranks; so that, one day, I told them that there would be no trouble if they would only leave the creature alone—adding, by way of clinching my advice, “You see, he never troubles me.” Just then, to the great delight of all, he made straight for me, and if there had been a tree behind me I should have been in the same unpleasant position in which the footman found himself.

Mr. Taylor’s account of the earlier portion of the trip is as follows:

“We left Lakawn on the 12th of February with Dr. McGilvary and his daughter, and in four days reached Mûang Prê. Our tents were pitched by the road just outside the city gate. The advent of four foreigners, two of whom were women, created quite a stir; and we were all kept abundantly busy in visiting and being visited. Mrs. Taylor and Miss McGilvary were the first white ladies to visit the place; and of course, much to their own discomfort, were the centre of attraction....

“The people of Prê seemed very ready to listen to the Gospel; so plenty of auditors were found everywhere. On Sabbath, the 16th, the first convert in Prê was baptized. He is a blind man, Noi Wong by name, who came to Lakawn to have Dr. Peoples operate on his eyes; but as nothing could be done for him, he returned home carrying in his heart some of the teachings there received, and in his hand a manuscript copy of a small catechism I was able to spare him. From his answers before the session, it was evident that he had used his brother’s eyes well in having it read to him.

“On Wednesday we started on for Nān, and arrived there the following Tuesday. We received a very cordial welcome from the officials of that city, who sent a man to put in order a rest-house for us, and another to conduct our elephants to a place for food and water. Next day, after the court closed, some of the officials came to visit us. After wading through the crowds on the first and second verandas, and finally planting himself cross-legged in the middle of the thronged reception-room, their Chief said they thought we would be lonesome; so they had come to visit us. No idea could have been more comical to us; but he was seriously in earnest, and explained that he had never known the people to visit with other foreigners who had come to their city. They would not, however, listen well when the subject of religion was broached, and with one or two exceptions would not attend any of our services.”

The morning after our arrival in Nān, my daughter met in the market-place a daughter of the Prince, and, before she was aware, found herself escorted into the palace. Her newly recovered language stood her in good stead, and she had a pleasant talk with the Prince and his daughters and wives. Next day he sent word that he would be pleased to give our party an audience. He was of venerable age, and second only to our Chiengmai Prince in his influence at the court of Bangkok. He expressed his pleasure at our visit to his country. He was too old to embrace a new religion. We might teach his children and grandchildren. What they would do he did not know.

At Nān the Taylors left us, returning to their station, while we journeyed on. Our next stage was Chieng Kawng, one hundred and fifty miles to the northwest. We usually stopped for the night at large villages, or sometimes in small towns. But once we spent two days in the forest, where bears, tigers, and wild elephants abound. The first evening we just missed the sight of three tigers. Our men had gone on ahead to select a camping-place for the night, and saw a mother with two cubs crossing the road. Next morning one of my elephants, that had been hobbled and turned loose, was not on hand. It was nothing unusual for one of them to be a little belated, so we loaded up the others and prepared for starting. But when an hour had passed, and then two hours, and the elephant still did not come, we unloaded them and waited a long weary day and an anxious night. Early next morning, however, the driver appeared. That was a relief, but still there was no elephant. He had followed her trail over the mountain ridge, down gorges, and across knolls, till, tired and hungry, he had retraced his steps. Night overtook him, and, crouched under a tree, he had caught snatches of sleep while keeping watch for tigers. For two nights and a day he had not tasted food. With an elephant’s instinct, the beast was making her way towards her old range in Chieng Rāi, many days distant. It was a relief to know that she had not joined a large wild herd, in which case her capture would be practically impossible.

We could not remain indefinitely in the forest. So giving the driver food, a gun, and two carriers for company, with instructions not to return till the elephant was found, we moved on five or six miles to the next village, Bān Kêm. This was the noon of Wednesday. Our detention seemed providential. We found the place fever-stricken. Our medicines at once made us friends. Our tent was crowded with visitors, so that I had little time to think of the lost elephant. The people seemed hungry for the Gospel. Three substantial men in the village, on the night before we left, professed a sincere and cordial acceptance of Jesus as their Saviour.

On Saturday, shortly after midday, there was a shout, “Here comes Lung Noi with the elephant!” I was both glad and sorry to hear it. Had I been alone, I should have remained longer. But we had lost so much time, that every one was eager to depart. I promised if possible to come again, but the time never came.

Chieng Kawng was our next point, a place I had visited with Dr. Vrooman seventeen years before. The young lad who then was so much interested in my repeating rifle was now governor, and came running out, bareheaded and barefooted, to welcome us. In the interval I had met him from time to time in Chiengmai, and he always begged that I would make him another visit. I had been better than my word—I had come at last, and brought my daughter, too. His brother, the second governor, had seen us in time to don his audience dress, and he appeared more like a white man than any one we had seen since the Taylors left us. He was ready to start on an expedition to Mûang Sing, five days northward beyond the Mê Kōng. The Prince of Nān had received permission from the King of Siam to repeople that old province. Hence this expedition. The leader had three hundred men, and gave me a cordial invitation to go as chaplain and physician! After this, while the work was well under way, the territory was turned over to France as the result of the long and troubled negotiations over the boundary between Siam and French Indo-China.

The wives of both the governors could scarcely be content with my daughter’s short stay. They would surely become Christians, if she would remain one month to teach them. All I could do was to promise once more to come again if possible. The promised visit was made two years later, but then the “Nāi” was not along.

From there the only travelled route to Chieng Sên was by Chieng Rāi, both hot and circuitous. The alternative was a blind, untravelled track through the forest, made over forty years before, when Siam sent its last unfortunate expedition against Keng Tung. Here was a tempting chance to test the old proverb, Where there’s a will, there’s a way. The governor procured a noted hunter to guide us. Every carrier and driver and servant in the party carried his bush knife, and all promised to aid if we only would take the cooler road. It was, however, literally making in the forest “a highway for our God,” over which several missionary tours have since been made. In the denser parts of the forest, we could force our way only by cutting away branches and small trees, and at times felling clumps of bamboo.

We had a cool place for rest and worship on Sunday. Our hunter had not promised to keep the Sabbath, and we were on his old hunting-grounds, where game of all kinds abounded. At dawn he was off with his gun, and we saw no more of him till sunset, when he appeared smiling, with some choice cuts of beef hanging from the barrel of his gun. He had found and followed, all day, a herd of wild cattle—the Kating—and succeeded in killing one of them near our road, a mile or more ahead of our camp. Though killed on Sunday, we ate it and asked no questions for conscience’ sake. It was surely the most delicious beef we ever tasted. We should have had a mutiny the next day, had we proposed to pass on without stopping to save the meat. And what a huge creature it was. It must have weighed nearly a ton. Our men extemporized frames over the fire, and were busy cutting up the meat and drying it until late at night. Next day each man went loaded with it to his utmost capacity. What we could not carry away, the guide stored in the fork of a tree against his return.

The journey through the forest was shorter and far more comfortable than would have been the regular route. When next I travelled it, it had become a public highway. And as long as I continued to journey that way, it was known as the “Teacher’s Road.”

Chieng Sên was the limit of our trip. Before reaching it, we began to hear rumours of war—that the city was blockaded, no one being permitted to enter or depart. The country population had been called in to defend the city, etc., etc. We were advised to return, but kept on. At the gate the guard admitted us without difficulty.

The disturbance was the aftermath of the previous year’s tax-rebellion, which, as we supposed, was completely ended before we left home. But a portion of the insurgents had fled to Keng Tung, and, gathering there a larger force, came south again as far as Mûang Fāng, where they were either captured or again scattered. It was the fear that this lawless band, on its retreat northward, might attack and plunder the city, that caused the confusion. But the fugitives would have been fools to linger about two weeks after their defeat, when they knew that both the army behind them and the country in front of them would be on the alert for their capture. The governor was delighted to see us, and we were able in some degree to allay his fears. We were there, too, to speak a word of comfort to our own flock, who, like the rest, had been called in to protect the city. The panic gradually subsided, and the people returned to their homes. Owing in part to the unsettled condition of the country, we did not remain long in Chieng Sên; but long enough to visit in their homes every Christian family save one, and to have a delightful communion season with the church on Sunday.

Our special commission on this tour was to organize a church in Chieng Rāi, where our next Sunday was spent. Our governor friend was disappointed that we had not come to take possession of the fine lot on the bank of the Mê Kok which he had given us. At his suggestion a house on it was purchased from his son at a nominal price, with the promise that we would urge the mission to occupy it the next year. On April 13th, the three sections of the church assembled by invitation at Mê Kawn. The obstacles which prevented the organization before were now removed. Fifty-one communicants and thirty-two non-communing members were enrolled, two ruling elders were elected and ordained, and the new church started with fair prospects.

We reached home on April 29th, after an absence of eighty-one days. We found all well, and the work prospering along all the lines. It was none too soon, however. We were just in time to escape the rise of the streams. At our last encampment on the Mê Kūang we had a great storm of wind and rain, with trees and branches falling about us. The trip was a long one for my daughter; but her presence greatly enhanced the importance of the tour. On my subsequent tours through that region the first question always was, “Did you bring the Nāi?” and the second, “Why not?”

On our return we were surprised to find Dr. McKean in a new and comfortable teak house, toward the erection of which neither axe nor saw nor plane had been used when we left. The saw-mill could deliver at once whatever was needed. But _my_ house had been seven years in building!

By this time nearly all the Lāo cities of Siam had been visited by missionaries. In two of them—Chiengmai and Lakawn—we had established permanent stations. For the third station, Chieng Rāi seemed to present the strongest claim. Politically it was not so important as Nān. But Nān, while very cordial to foreigners personally, was very jealous about admitting foreign influence of any kind. And the absolute control of the people by the princes of Nān would be an obstacle in the way of the acceptance of Christianity there until the princes themselves embraced it. In Chieng Rāi province the governor was known to be favourable to the Jesus-religion. Its broad plains and fertile soil were sure to attract a large immigration from the south, where population is dense and land very dear. The city is about equidistant from the five cities of Wieng Pā Pāo on the south, Mûang Fāng on the west, Chieng Sên on the north, Chieng Kawng on the northeast, and Chieng Kam on the east. In our reports to the mission and to the Board, these facts were urged as arguments for the establishment of a station there. The mission gave its cordial sanction to a temporary occupancy. A longer tour was authorized for the next season; but the heavy debt of the Board forbade the expenditure of more than two hundred and fifty rupees for a temporary house in order to secure the land which had been given us. Our long delay sorely shook the good governor’s faith that we would ever come.