“Now lads,” said our host, as we were finishing a late breakfast the next morning, “I’ll ’ave to ask you to move on. If I was fixed right you’d be welcome to ’ang out ’ere as long as you’re in town, but I don’t draw no viceroy’s salary an’ I’ve got a fair size family to support. Up on the ’ill there, lives an American Christer. Go up an’ give ’im your yarn an’ touch ’im fer a few dibs.”
We did not, of course, take the advice of the Englishman. James and I were agreed that it would not be consistent with our dignity to turn to so base a use as the purchase of currie and rice the funds needed for the distribution of Bibles and tracts among the aborigines. We did call on the good padre, but for no other purpose than to crave permission to inspect his cast-off foot wear. The tramp from Pegu had wrought disaster to our own. My companion wore on his right foot the upper portion of a shoe, the sole of which he had left somewhere in the Burmese jungle; on the left, the sole of its mate, to which there still adhered enough of the upper to keep it in place. He was better shod than I.
But missionaries domiciled in the far corners of the brown man’s land are not wont to be satisfied with a casual morning call from those of their own race. The “Christer” espied us as we started up the sloping pathway through his private park, and gave us American welcome at the foot of the steps. Our coming, he averred, was the red-letter event of that season. Before we had time even to broach the object of our visit, we found ourselves stammering denials to the assertion he was shouting to his wife within, that we were to stay at least a fortnight.
Our new host was a native of Indiana, a missionary among the Talaings, as the inhabitants of this region are known. His dwelling, the Talaing Mission, was a palatial bungalow set in a wooded estate on the outer rim of the city. Its windows commanded a far-reaching view over a gorgeous tropical landscape. Within, it was not merely 411spacious, airy, and lighted with soft tints of filtered sunshine—blessings easily attained in British-Burma, it was hung with rich tapestries, carpeted with downy rugs, decorated with Oriental works of art. The room to which we were assigned was all but sumptuously furnished; and it was by no means the “bridal chamber.” At table we were served formal dinners of many courses; a white-liveried chowkee dar slipped in and out of the room, salaaming reverentially each time he offered a new dish; a punkah-wallah on the back veranda toiled ceaselessly; a gardener clipped away at the shrubbery in the mission grounds; a native aya followed the two tiny memsahibs who drove about the house a team of lizards, harnessed in tandem with the reins tied to their hind legs. In short, the reverend gentleman lived in a style rarely dreamed of by men of the cloth at home, or by the sympathetic spinsters to whose charity the adjacent heathen owed their threatened evangelization.
For all his profession, however, the man from Indiana was one whose acquaintanceship was well worth the making. To us especially, for when he was once convinced that our plea for employment was genuine, he quickly found something to put us at. One would have fancied that a “handy man” had never before entered the mission grounds. There was barely a trade of which we knew the rudiments that we did not take a turn at during our stay. Having served apprenticeship in earlier days as carpenter, blacksmith, shoemaker, and “carriage trimmer,” I repaired the floor and several doors and windows, constructed two kitchen benches, forged wardrobe hooks, half-soled the family shoes, and upholstered two chairs used on “state occasions.” James, meanwhile, recovered the padre’s pack-saddle, overhauled and oiled his fire-arms, put new roosts in his henhouse, and set his lumber room in order. It was not that native workmen were scarce; a small army of servants flitted about the bungalow, leering at our loss of caste. But saddening experience had taught the missionary that Hindu or Burmese workmen not only made a botch of any task outside their narrow fields, but ruined with surprising rapidity the tools of which he had brought a well-stocked chest from his native land.
Our first day’s labor was enlivened with tales of the horrors that would befall us if we persisted in continuing our journey; the second, with pleas for a longer sojourn; the third, with preparations for our departure. As to the route, we could learn no more than the names of three villages through which the “wild men” of the interior 412passed on their way to Siam. To what section of Siam their trail might bring us no man knew.
A few hours over washtub and needle made our rags presentable, and we still had two extra cotton suits. That these and our other possessions might be protected from the tropical deluges, we bought two squares of oilcloth in which to roll our “swag.” My bundle contained one of the two pairs of half-worn shoes that I had come across in the lumber-room. Unfortunately, there was a marked pedal disparity between the Australian and the missionary, and my companion might have departed as poorly shod as he had arrived, had not the good sky pilot insisted on fitting him out in the bazaars. There, the stoutest shoes in stock proved to be a pair of football buskins, imported for some Moulmein exponent of Rugby. These the purchaser chose, in the face of the protest of the prospective wearer, arguing that the cleats made them just the thing for climbing steep mountain paths. In my pack, too, were our earnings at the mission, some four dollars in silver and copper; James having pleaded that he was too careless to be intrusted with such a fortune. Nor should the parting gifts of our hosts be forgotten,—a little pocket compass from the padre, and a bottle of “Superior Curry Dressing” from his solicitous spouse.
We left the Talaing Mission, then, on the morning of May twenty-third, and, boarding a tiny steamer plying on the Gyang river, disembarked as the sun was touching the western tree-tops, in the village of Choung Doa. It comprised two rows of spindle-shanked hutches facing a narrow clearing ankle-deep in mud. In one of the booths, boiled rice, tea, and a few stale biscuits from far-off England were for sale. The population, irrespective of age, sex, or dishabille, formed a gaping circle around us and flocked behind us as we set out, like country boys in the wake of the annual circus parade.
A jungle trail that was almost a highway led eastward through densest virgin forest. We set a sharp pace, for the hour was late and the next hamlet full fifteen miles distant. Not a hut nor a human being did we pass on the journey; only the trail, winding over thick-clothed foothills, gave evidence that man had been here before us.
Black night had fallen when we reached Kawkeriek. As the capital of the most eastern district of the Indian Empire, it posed as a city of importance; yet it was only a larger collection of those same one-story, bamboo huts, ranged in unsteady rows like the soldiers of an inebriated army, in the square clearing which its inhabitants had 413won by force of arms from the militant jungle. A sub-commissioner dwelt there. That much information had reached Moulmein. Perhaps he spoke a smattering of English. We fell to shouting an inquiry for his bungalow as we wandered in and out among the huts. Here and there, where a light cast a flickering gleam into the night, we startled the peace of a quiet family by intruding upon them—and seldom found them in a garb to receive callers. The few belated stragglers whom we came upon in the darkness listened with trembling limbs to our query, grunted unintelligibly, and sped noiselessly away.
It was surely nine and time all well-behaved residents of the capital should have been abed, when we captured a night-hawk on his way home after a little supper with the boys, or a round of the dance-halls. He was of bolder stuff, naturally, and better informed on who’s who in Kawkeriek than his hen-pecked neighbors, and consented like a man ready for any adventure to give us guidance.
Beyond the last row of dwellings, he plunged into a sub-sylvan pathway, and, mounting a gentle slope, paused before a forest-girdled bungalow. We turned to thank him, but he had slipped silently away, anxious, no doubt, to reach his apartment before the elevator stopped running.
The commissioner was reading in his study. He was a Burman from “over Mandalay way,” as much a foreigner in Kawkeriek as we, and so much a sahib in his habits that he had not yet dined. For that we were grateful. To have missed the formal repast to which he invited us would have been a misfortune indeed.
So rarely does England appoint any but a white man to rule over a district, that this native, who had risen so high in her esteem, awakened our keenest curiosity. In appearance he was like any other Burman of the prosperous class. His garb was the usual flowing robe, though his legs were dressed and his feet shod. His long, black hair, a bit wavy and of a thickness the other sex might have envied, was caught up at the back of his head in a “Psyche knot.” Like the police captain of Bankipore, however, he was in all but nationality and dress a European. Without the trace of a foreign accent, he couched even his casual remarks in an English that sounded like a reading from a master of style. His energy, his accomplishments, his very point of view were those of the Occident. Had we entered the bungalow blindfolded, we should never have suspected that his skin was brown. So little of the native was there left in his make-up that, though middle-aged, he was still a bachelor.
414“I have been too busy in my short life,” he confided, “to give attention to such matters.”
There was a dak bungalow in Kawkeriek. The commissioner’s servant escorted us thither, prepared our bath, and arranged the sleeping-quarters for the reception of such distinguished guests. In the morning we took breakfast with the governor. No more important problem, apparently, than the planning of our itinerary had occupied his attention in many a day. He had summoned his entire council, six men of standing in the community, who approached the business in hand with the solemnity of delegates to a Hague conference.
The morning was half spent before the result of their deliberations was laid before us. It was tabulated under three heads. First: the country east of the capital was a trackless jungle overrun with savage dacoits, poisonous reptiles, and man-eating tigers, into which even the people of Kawkeriek dared not venture. Secondly: if we persisted in our suicidal project, would we not spend a few days of our closing existence with the commissioner, who was pining away for lack of congenial companions. Thirdly: if we denied him even this favor, there was outside his door a “wild man,” chief of a jungle village, whose route coincided with our own for one day’s journey.
We suggested an immediate departure. A servant stepped out on the veranda and summoned the boh into the council chamber. He was a “wild man” indeed. In physique, he was thin and angular, a tall man for his race, though small when judged by our standard. His skin was a leathery brown, his hair short and bristling, his eyes small and shifty, with a suggestion of the leopard in them. The chewing of betel-nut had left his teeth jet-black, and the prominence of his cheek bones under a sloping forehead made his face ugly to look upon. All in all, he was a creature who would have seemed in his proper element chattering in the tree-tops of the jungle.
His dress, nevertheless, was brilliant. Around his brow was wound a strip of pink silk; an embroidered jacket, innocent of buttons, left his chest bare to the waist-line; his loins and thighs were clothed in many yards of bright red stuff arranged in the fashion of bloomers. Below the knees he wore nothing. At his waist was fastened a betel-nut pouch. He carried a leather sack of the shape of a saddlebag, and—having fallen under the civilizing influence of Kawkeriek—an umbrella.
His dialect being a foreign language to the commissioner, the importance of his mission was impressed upon the boh through an interpreter. 415He replied only in monosyllables, salaaming, each time he grunted, so low that his head all but touched his knees. From time to time he sat down on his heels as a signal mark of respect. When he retired, he backed towards the door, kowtowing with every step, and forgetting, in his awe, his leather sack, until he was called back by the commissioner’s major domo.
The brilliant garb which the village chieftan had donned for his audience with the governor was not, of course, his traveling costume. On the outskirts of the capital he signed to us to halt and stepped inside a hut. But for his ape’s countenance we should not have recognized him when he reappeared. His regal garments had been packed away in his haversack, the broad strap of which was his only covering, save a strip of dirty, white cotton about his loins.
He plunged at once into the jungle, moving with little, mincing steps beside which our strides seemed awkward. The path was so narrow that the outstretching branches whipped us in the faces. It showed few signs of travel and was overgrown with virile creepers that entangled our feet. None but a jungle-bred human could have followed the erratic, oft-obliterated route through that labyrinth of vegetation. Flocks of birds of brilliant plumage flew away before us, uttering strident screams; now and then a crashing of underbrush marked the flight of some unknown animal. The overbearing sunshine, falling sheer upon us, seemed to double the weight of the “swag” on our shoulders; and the bundles themselves were not light.
Our guide was the most taciturn of Orientals. Not once during the day, to our knowledge, did a sound escape his lips. Where the path widened a bit, he raised his umbrella and cantered steadily forward. Even swollen streams were no obstacle to him. Had he been alone it is doubtful whether he would have noticed them at all. With never a pause he splashed through the first and loped unconcernedly on along the branch-choked path. We hallooed to him as we sat down to pull off our shoes; and he halted a moment, but set off again before we had waded ashore. When we shouted once more he turned to stare open-mouthed until we were re-shod. Why these strange creatures should wear garments on their feet under any circumstances was an enigma to him; that we should stop to put on our shoes again when we must know there were other streams to wade seemed the height of asininity. When we had overtaken him he hinted in awkward pantomime that we should do better to toss aside the foolish leather contrivances that hindered our progress. He could not realize that a 416mile over sharp stones and jagged roots would have left us crippled.
As we neared the mountains the streams increased in number and swiftness. In the beginning we took it upon ourselves, as a duty to beachcombers who might some day appeal to us for statistical information, to count them. When we had forded thirty-six before the sun began its decline, we gave up the attempt in despair. By that time, too, we had grown weary of halting every hundred yards to pull off our shoes and bellow after the boh, who must be reminded at every rivulet of our peculiar custom. James essayed to cross one on a few stepping-stones, lost his balance, and sprawled headlong into it. I was more fortunate, but reached the further bank by no means dry shod. Thereafter we waded through the streams, which for the most part were something over knee-deep, and marched on with the water gushing from our shoe-tops. It mattered little in the end, for a pent-up deluge burst upon us.
He who has never bowed his back to a tropical shower at the height of the rainy season cannot know their violence; and nowhere do they rage with more fury than in the mountains of the Malay Peninsula. With a roar like the explosion of a powder-mill an infuriated clap of thunder broke above us. Then another and another, in quick, spasmodic blasts. It was no such tamed and domesticated thunder as that of the north. Flaming flashes of lightning followed each other in quick succession, half blinding us with their sudden glare. We looked instinctively to see the riotous vegetation burst into flame. In the falling masses of water—to call it rain seems absurd—we plunged on; the densest thicket could not have offered the least shelter. The boh had raised his umbrella. It broke the force of the downpour, but could not save him a drenching. What cared he, dressed only in a loin-cloth? The water ran in rivulets down his naked shoulders and along his prominent ribs, yet on his macilent face hovered the beginning of a haggard smile. Between the crashes of thunder the devil’s-tattoo of the storm drowned out all other sounds. Only by speaking into my companion’s ear as into a telephone receiver, and bellowing at the top of my lungs, could I make myself heard.
Then the storm abated—gradually at first, then suddenly, and with its ceasing our tones were still shrill and strident. Quickly the sun burst forth again, to blaze fiercely upon us; though not for long. All that day the deluges broke in succession so rapid that we had no notion of their number. More often than not they caught us climbing a sheer mountainside by a narrow, clay-bottomed path down which an 417ever-increasing brook poured, washing us off our feet while we clutched at the overhanging bushes.
The boh led us, by zigzag routes, over two mountain ranges before the day was done. At sunset, we were descending into a third valley when we came suddenly upon a tiny clearing and a tinier village. “Thenganyenam” the natives called it. There were four bamboo huts and a dak bungalow, housing a population of thirty-one “wild men” and one tame one. To take the census was no difficult matter, for the inhabitants poured forth from their hovels before we had crossed five yards of the clearing.
At their head trotted the domesticated human. In all the shrieking, gaping band of men, women, and children there was no other that wore more than a loin-cloth or an abbreviated shirt. He was a babu, the “manager” of the public rest-house. With a majestic bow of deepest reverence he offered us welcome, turned to wave back the awe-stricken populace with the gesture of a man born to command, and led the way with martial stride to the government bungalow.
“Look here, babu,” I began, as we sank down into wicker chairs on the veranda, “this is a splendid little surprise to find a dak bungalow and a man who speaks English, here in the jungle. But we’re no millionaires; and the government fee is two rupees, eh? Too strong for us. Can’t you get us a cheaper lodging in one of the huts?”
“The government,” returned the babu, with careful enunciation, “the government have make the dak bungalow for Europeans. Why; you may not ask me. In two years and nine days that I am living in Thenganyenam there are come two white men, and one have only rested and not sleep. But because the dak bungalow is make, all sahibs coming in Thenganyenam must stop in it. When I have see you coming by the foot and not by the horses I must know that you have not plenty money. Every day we are not everybody rich. How strong you have the legs to come from Kawkeriek by the foot! The two rupees you must not pay. If you can give some little to the cook, that he make you a supper—”
“That’s the word,” burst out James. “Sure, we pay for our chow. Where’s the chowkee? Tell him to get busy.”
“But,” apologized the babu, “this is a very jungly place and we have not proper food for Europeans.”
“Holy dingoes!” shrieked the Australian. “Do I hear that old, stale joke again? Bring a pan of rice, or a raw turnip, or a fried snake, anything, only julty karow. That wobbly-legged boh scoffed 418all his sandwiches without saying ‘How d’ye do,’ and that breakfast in Kawky didn’t last an hour. Ring up the chowkee.”
“The other day,” observed the babu, reminiscently, “there was a chicken in Thenganyenam. I shall send the cook to hunt him.”
Through the united efforts of the Thenganyenamians, the solitary fowl was run to earth, with more hubbub than dispatch, and sacrificed in sight of the assembled multitude. A delay that was both painful and unaccountable ensued before it appeared before us as tongue-scorching currie, in an ample setting of hard-boiled rice.
Meanwhile we had pulled off our water-soaked rags, rubbed down with a strip of canvas, and donned our extra garments. The change was most gratifying. It was not until then that we realized the full value of the squares of oilcloth that had kept our “swag” dry. Supper over, we drove the babu forth into the night and turned in on the canvas charpoys.
The swamps and streams through which we had plunged during the day had swarmed with leeches. One of these, having imbedded itself in a vein of my right ankle, refused to be dislodged. At supper a tiny stream of blood had trickled along my toes; but, fancying the flow would cease of itself, I made no efforts to staunch it. I awoke in the morning with the sensation of being held captive. The blood, oozing out during the night, had congealed, gluing my right leg to the canvas of the charpoy.
Before I had dressed, the Hindu cook and care-taker wandered into the room; and, catching sight of the long, red stain, gave one lusty shriek, and tumbled out on the veranda. James, who had slept in an adjoining chamber, was awakened by the bellow, and, hearing the Hindustanee word for “blood,” sprang to his feet with the conviction that I had been assassinated as he slept. I was explaining the matter to him when the cook returned, wild of eye, and bearing the register in which we had inscribed our names the evening before. Waving his free arm now at the book, now at the charpoy, he danced about us screaming excitedly. Comprehending little of his voluble chatter, we waved him off and stepped out upon the veranda. The “manager” was just mounting the steps.
“Here, babu,” demanded James, “what’s biting our friend from the kitchen?”
The Hindu turned to his superior, all but choking himself over his convulsive utterance. Tears were streaming down his tawny cheeks.
419“He says,” cried the babu, when the cook fell silent at last, “in the charpoy is much blood. Have you become wounded?”
“It was only a blood-sucker,” I explained, “but where does the register come in?”
“The cook asks that you will write all the story of the blood in it, very careful.”
“What nonsense,” I answered, when James’ mirth had subsided. “I’ll pay for the damage to the charpoy.”
“Oh! It is no dam-máge,” protested the babu, “no dam-máge at all. He is not ask for pay. But when the inspector is coming and seeing the much blood in the charpoy, he is thinking the cook have kill a man who have sleep here, and he is taking him to Kawkeriek and making him shot. Very bad. So cook cry. Please, sir, write you the story in the register book.”
I sat down at the veranda table and inscribed a dramatic tale for the visiting inspector. Only when I had filled the page below our names and half the next one, did the Hindu acknowledge himself contented, and carry away the book for safe keeping.
We stowed away our dry garments and donned the rags and tatters we had stretched along the ceiling the evening before. They were still clammy wet. As for our footwear, we despaired for a time of getting into it, or of being able to walk if once we did. Our feet were blistered and swollen to the ankles, the shoes shrunken and wrinkled until the leather was as inflexible as sheet-iron. We got them on at last, however, and hobbled down the veranda steps and away. For the first hour we advanced by spasmodic bursts, picking our way as across a field of burning coals. James was in even more uncomfortable straits than I. The football buskins, theoretically just the thing for jungle tramping, had, in actual use, proved quite the opposite. The day before, the Australian had slipped and stumbled over the rubble like a man learning to skate. In drying, the shoes had wrinkled and twisted into a shape that gave anything but a firm foothold, and the heavy leather chafed like emery paper. Wherever he came upon a sharp stone, the sufferer halted to chop viciously at one of the cleats, cursing the missionary’s judgment and snarling like one wreaking his pent-up vengeance on a mortal enemy. Before noonday came, he had pounded off the last cleat, not without inflicting serious injury to the soles; and at the first opportunity he borrowed a knife and transformed the shoes into a decidedly low pair of oxfords. 420But even after these radical alterations he was uncomfortably shod. I much doubt whether the white man has yet devised the proper footwear for jungle tramping. To be foot-sore seems to be one of the inevitable hardships of those who walk in the tropics. We, at least, suffered more or less pain at every step from Kawkeriek to the end of our journey.
Thenganyenam was no great distance from the frontier village. Our guide of the day before had turned westward, but the pathway between the adjacent hamlets was distinctly enough marked to be followed. It was not yet noon when we reached Myáwadi. A few showers had visited their fury upon us; but the brilliant sunshine was again flooding the world about us. Myáwadi was a more populous thorp than that we had left in the morning, pitched along the bank of the stream that marks the limit of old England’s sway. An air of lazy, soul-filling contentment hovered over the tiny jungle oasis. With every puff of the soft summer breeze the tinkling of the little silver bells at the top of the pagoda came musically clear to our ears. Here and there a villager was stretched out on his back in the grass. It seemed ill-mannered to break the peaceful repose of the inhabitants.
Besides the stone and mud sanctuary soaring above the brilliant vegetation, the most imposing edifice was a bamboo barracks, housing a little garrison of native soldiers. Here we stopped, as was our duty before crossing the frontier. The sepoys were childish, good-hearted fellows who made known their astonishment and offered their condolences in expressive pantomime, and did their best to make as appetizing as possible the dinner of rice and jungle vegetables they offered. It was fortunate that they were so open-handed, for we could not have purchased food in the village. This jungle land has not yet reached the commercial stage.
The native lieutenant evinced a strong curiosity to know what errand had brought us thus far from the beaten track of sahibs, and our pantomimic explanation seemed only to increase his suspicions. When he grew querulous we mentioned the name of Damalaku. He sprang to his feet shrieking with delight, and, having danced about us for some time, detailed a sepoy to accompany us to the first Siamese village, with a note of explanation to the head man.
When the sun had begun its decline and the latest storm had abated, we left the barracks and Burma behind. The international stream was little wider than many we had already encountered, and barely waist deep. We forded it easily, and the tinkling of the pagoda bells 421still came faintly to our ears when we climbed the sandy eastern bank,—in Siam at last.
The first village, we had gathered, was no great distance off, so we strolled leisurely on through the jungle, pausing to rest in shady thickets so often that the sepoy left us in disgust and went on alone. Two hours later he paused on his homeward journey to tell us in gestures that he had delivered his international note and that the village was waiting to receive us.
The day was not yet done when we reached the outpost of Siam, to be picked up at the edge of the jungle by a Siamese of ape-like mien, who conducted us to the hut of the village head man.
Picture to yourself a trust magnate of the most pompous and self-worshiping type, with the face of an Alaskan totem pole, the general appearance of a side-show “wild man,” a skin the color of a door mat that has done service for many years, dressed in a cast-off dish cloth, and you have an exact visualization of the man who ruled over M?sawt. He received us in the “city hall,” sitting with folded legs on a grass mat in the middle of the floor. Around the walls of the misshapen bamboo shack squatted several briefly-attired courtiers. Through the network partition that separated the hall of ceremonies from the family sanctum, peered a parchment-skinned female, and a troop of dusky children not yet arrived at the dignity of clothing. If we had waited for an invitation to be seated we might have remained standing all night. The attitude of the Siamese towards the European is quite different from that of the Burman. Their very poise seems to say:—“We are a free people, not the slaves of white men like our neighbors over the border.”
We made ourselves comfortable on the pliant floor, with our backs to the wall, and lighted the saybullies that had done service for three days past. For more than an hour the head man and his satellites sat motionless, staring fixedly at us, and mumbling in an undertone without once turning their heads towards those they were addressing. The sun sank into the jungle and swift darkness fell. The parchment-skinned female drifted into the room and set on the floor an oil torch that gave a poor imitation of a light. At the dictation of the babu of Thenganyenam, I had jotted down a few vital words of Siamese. When conversation lagged, I put this newly-acquired vocabulary to the test by calling for food. The head man growled, the female floated in once more and placed at our feet a small washtub of boiled rice.
422Now this Oriental staff of life is not without its virtues; but to eat one’s fill of the tasteless stuff without any “trimmings” whatever is rather a pleasureless task. I dragged out my notebook and again ran my eyes down the list of Siamese words. Neither currie nor chicken was represented. The only word that appeared to be of any value under the circumstances was that for “sugar.” I bellowed it at the head man. He stared open-mouthed until I had repeated it several times.
“Sugar?” he echoed, with an inflection of interrogation and astonishment.
“Yes, sugar,” I cried, sprinkling an imaginary handful over the rice.
The councillors gazed at each other with wondering eyes, and the word passed from mouth to mouth—“sugar?”
“Sure, sugar!” cried James, taking up the refrain.
A man rose slowly to his feet, marched across to us, and, squatting before the dish, began to run his bony fingers through the rice.
“Sugar?” he queried, peering into our faces. “No! no!” He took a pinch of the food between his fingers, put it into his mouth, and munched it slowly and quizzically. Then he shook his head vigorously and spat the mouthful out on the floor.
“No, no; sugar, no!” he cried.
“Of course there’s no sugar!” shouted James. “That’s why we’re making a bloody holler. Sugar, you thick-headed mummy!”
The official taster retired to his place; a silence fell over the company. We continued to shout. Suddenly a ray of intelligence lighted up the face of the head man. Could it be because we wanted sugar that we were raising such a hubbub, rather than because we fancied that foreign substance had been inadvertently spilled on our supper? He called to the female. When she appeared with a joint of bamboo filled with muddy brown sugar, the councillors rose gravely and grouped themselves about us. I sprinkled half the contents of the bamboo on the rice, stirred up the mess, and began to eat.
At the first mouthful such a roar of laughter went up from the assembly that I choked in my astonishment. Whoever would have guessed that these gloomy-faced dignitaries could laugh? The chieftan fell to shaking as with a fit, his advisers doubled up with mirth, and aroused the entire community with their shrieks. Wild-eyed Siamese tumbled out of the neighboring huts. Within two minutes half the village had flocked into the room, and the other half was 423howling for admittance and a glimpse of those strange beings who ate their rice with sugar!
The surging mob must surely have burst the walls of the frail hut asunder, had not the head man risen to the dignity of his position, and driven all but the high and mighty among his subjects forth into the night. Among those who remained after the general exodus was a babu. He was a Siamese youth who had spent some years in Rangoon, and his extraordinary erudition, like the garments he wore in excess of the diaphanous native costume, weighed heavily upon him. At the instigation of the head man, he subjected us to a searching cross-examination, and later communicated to us the result of a debate of some two hours’ duration. The jungle to the eastward was next to impassable to natives; obviously such notoriously weak and helpless beings as white men could not endure its hardships. There was in M?sawt a squad of soldiers with whom we could travel to Rehang when their relief arrived—in a week or ten days. Meanwhile we must remain in the village as government guests.
James and I raised a vigorous protest against this proposition. The only reply to our outburst was the assertion of the head man that we should stay whether we liked it or not. As the night was well advanced, we feigned capitulation and made ready to retire. The village chief lighted us into one of the small rooms of his dwelling and left us to turn in on the bamboo floor.
Had we anticipated any great difficulty in escaping in the morning it would have been a simple matter to have taken French leave during the night. Bolts and bars were unknown in M?sawt, and even had our door been fastened, it would have needed only a few kicks at the flimsy walls of our chamber to make an exit where we chose. We had no desire to lose a night’s rest, however, and fell asleep with the conviction that the head man would not be as energetic in executing his order as in giving it.
Nor was he. While the mists still hovered over M?sawt, we packed our “swag” and entered the council chamber in marching array. The chief was already astir, but the only effort he made to thwart us was to shout somewhat meekly when we stepped out into the dripping dawn.
At the eastern end of the town began a faint suggestion of a path, but it soon faded away and we pushed and tore our way through the jungle, guided only by the pocket compass. The militant vegetation wrought havoc to our rags and cut and gashed us from brow to 424ankles; the perspiration ran in stinging streams along our lacerated skins and dripped from our faces. Though we fought the undergrowth tooth and nail it is doubtful if we advanced two miles an hour.
The sun was high when we came upon the first evidence that man had passed that way before—a clearing not over six feet square, in the center of which was a slimy pool and a few recently-cut joints of bamboo. With these we drank our fill of the tepid water and had thrown ourselves down in the shade when we were startled to our feet by the sound of human voices. The anticipation of an attack by murderous dacoits turned quickly to that of a forcible return to M?sawt, as there burst into the clearing a squad of soldiers.
There were seven in the party, a sergeant and four privates, armed with muskets, and two coolie carriers, each bowed under the weight of two baskets slung on a bamboo pole. After the first gasp of astonishment the soldiers sprang for the bamboo cups beside the waterhole, while the servants knelt down to set their burdens on the grass. The fear that the troopers had been sent to apprehend us was quickly dispelled by their acquiescence in permitting us to handle their weapons. They were bound for Rehang, but why they had been released from garrison duty at the frontier village so long before the time set, we could not learn.
A formidable force was this indeed. There was far less suggestion of the soldier about the fellows than of half-grown youths playing at a military game. The sergeant, larger than the others, came barely to James’ chin; and the Australian was not tall. The privates were undeveloped little runts, any one of whom the average American school boy could have tied in a knot and tossed aside into the jungle. There was little of the martial air either in their demeanor or in their childlike countenances. They were dressed in regulation khaki, except that their trousers came only to their knees, leaving their scrawny legs bare. On their heads were flat forage caps of the German type; from their belts hung bayonets; and around the waist of each was tied a stocking-like sack of rice.
We conversed with them at some length, so adept had we become in the language of signs. Long after I had forgotten the exact means employed in communicating our thoughts, the ideas that we exchanged remained. Among other things I attempted to impress upon the sergeant the fact that my own country held possessions not far from his own. He caught the idea well enough, except that, where I had said Philippines, he understood Siam. His sneers were most scathing. 425The bare suggestion that the white man held any sway over Muang Thai—the free country—was ludicrous. Even the carriers grinned sarcastically. A strange thing is patriotism. Here were these citizens of a poor little state, stranded between the possessions of two great powers, boasting of their unalienable independence, utterly oblivious of the fact that their national existence could not last a week if one of those powers ceased to glare jealously at her rival. When they had eaten a jungle lunch, the soldiers stretched out for their siesta, and we went on alone.
It was long hours afterward that we made out through a break in the undergrowth two miserable huts. Not having tasted food since the night before, we dashed eagerly forward. Two emaciated hags, dressed in short skirts and ugly, broad-brimmed hats of attap leaves, were clawing the mud of a tiny garden patch before the first hovel. I called for food and shook a handful of coppers in their faces, but, though they certainly understood, they made no reply. We danced excitedly about them, shrieking our Siamese vocabulary in their ears. Still they stared, with half-open mouths, displaying uneven rows of repellant black teeth. We had anticipated such a reception. Even the missionary of Moulmein had warned us that the jungle folk of Siam would not sell food to travelers. The age of barter has not yet penetrated these mountain fastnesses. What value, after all, were copper coins in any quantity to the inhabitants of this howling wilderness?
We waded through the mire to the next hutch. Under it were squatted two men and a woman, and a half-dozen mud-bespattered brats sprawled about a crude veranda overhead. This family, too, received us coldly, answering neither yes nor no to our request for food. We climbed the rickety bamboo ladder into the hut and began to forage for ourselves. The men scrambled up after us. When I picked up a basket of rice, the bolder of the pair grasped it with both hands. I pushed him aside and he retreated meekly to a far corner. In other baskets we found dried fish, a few bananas, and a goodly supply of eggs. Beside the flat mud fire-place were two large kettles and a bundle of fagots. While James broke up branches and started a blaze, I brought rain water from a bamboo bucket, in cocoanut shells, and filled the kettles.
Chimney was there none, nor hole in the roof; and the smoke all but choked and blinded us before the task was done. The rice and fish we boiled in one conglomerate mess, pouring it out on a flat leaf 426basket when it approached an edible condition, and dashing out on the veranda for a breath of fresh air. The householder remained motionless in his corner. Having found, after long search, a bamboo joint filled with coarse salt, we seasoned the steaming repast and fell upon it. James had the bad fortune to choke on a fish bone, but recovered in time to swear volubly when he discovered in the concoction what looked suspiciously like a strip of loin-cloth. By the time we had despatched the rice, a dozen eggs, and as many bananas, we were ready to push on. I handed the downcast native a tecal—the rupee of Siam—which he clutched with a satisfied grunt, as well he might, for a shopkeeper would not have demanded a fourth as much for what we had confiscated.
Just at sunset we burst into the straggling village of Banpáwa. Some forty howling storms had added to our entertainment during the day and we had forded an even greater number of streams. My jacket was torn to ribbons; my back and shoulders were sadly sunburned; in a struggle with a tenacious thicket I had been bereft of a leg of my trousers; and the Australian was as pitiable an object to look upon.
Near the center of the village was an unpretentious Buddhist monastery beside which the priests had erected a shelter for travelers, a large thatch roof supported by slender bamboo pillars. Under it were huddled nearly a score of Laos carriers, surrounded by bales and bundles; Banpáwa being an important station of the route followed by these human freight trains of the Siamese jungle. They were surly, taciturn fellows, who, though they stared open-mouthed when we appeared, treated us like men under a ban of excommunication.
Physically they were sights to feast one’s eyes upon; splendidly developed, though short of stature, with g............