152 WORSHIPPING DECEASED MONKS. If neglected, having nothing to live on, they become savage, and sit like Giant Despair, gnawing their nails; being thenceforth classed amongst demons, or malig a state View of Loi Kook Loi Chang at 1.3 P.M. 14th March. nant spirits. If a temple is not totally abandoned, and offerings are made to only one image by a worshipper, the envious spirit of another is apt to avenge himself by startling the votary; and should the person afterwards become ill, or should accident or other misfortune happen to him, the image is thenceforth regarded by the people as the embodiment of a malign spirit. Ancestral spirits and those of a family clan, if not worshipped and fed every three years, likewise become malignant in their inclinations. When an abbot, celebrated for his learning and virtue, dies, it is the custom for those who have spent their monastic life under his instruction, to prepare a shrine for him in some part of their house, or, if still in the monastery, in their dormitory, where flowers and food are placed for the acceptance of the spirit of their deceased teacher. If he is treated with neglect or disrespect, he may become a spirit of evil towards his former pupils. Apparitions may be caused by good or evil spirits. With reference to his having told me that the Shans were a romantic people, Dr M'Gilvary said that suicide amongst them was by no means unusual. If a man considered that he had been slighted or ill-used in any way, he was apt to brood over the fact, and work himself into when he would take his own life. Only a year or two ago one of the princesses being crossed in love, hung herself from a branch of a tree; and two of her maids, AN IMMENSE PLAIN. 153 finding her suspended, in sorrowful despair at having lost their sweet mistress, sought to accompany her in death by dangling from the same branch. Starting early the next morning, we crossed a few low spurs and then descended to the great plain of Kiang Hai. As we passed near the first village, my elephant, which had taken a trunkful of water at the last brook, made a bad shot, and sent it flying over me and my survey-book. This feat made Portow, who was walking by the elephant to translate for me, nearly die of laughter; his sense of fun for once becoming greater than his sense of his own dignity. We halted for the night at the large village of Don Chi. The villages in the neighbourhood belonged to three Kwangs, or sub-districts, and contained 600 houses. In one of the villages I noticed several papaw-trees in the orchards. The juice of the fruit of this tree renders any tough meat tender, and has been successfully employed in the removal of the false membrane in diphtheria. We put up for the night in the hunting residence of the Chow Hona, or second chief, of Kiang Hai, who arrived in the evening, but courteously insisting that we should remain, put up elsewhere. From the large plain near the village we could see Loi Poo-ay eleven miles to the east, stretching away to the south, and giving rise to the small hillocks that separate the sources of the Meh Low from those of the Meh Ing; and to the west were Loi Kook Loi Chang, and some smaller hills on the south of the Meh Khoke. CHAPTER XV. PRINCES IN THEIR BEST CLOTHES-A PROCESSION-REACH KIANG HAIDILAPIDATED HOUSES-THE MEH KHOKE-NGIOS FROM MONÉ-KIANG HAI-FORMER SIAMESE CAPITAL-EARLY HISTORY OF SIAM-VISIT THE CHIEF-POPULATION-RUINED CITIES-ARRANGEMENT BETWEEN BRITISH SHANS AND SIAMESE SHANS- RECENT ENCROACHMENT OF SIAMESE-NAME ENTERED AS BENEFACTOR IN ROYAL ANNALS-VISIT FROM LA-HU-OVAL FACES-KNOWN BY THEIR PETTICOATS-MONOSYLLABIC LANGUAGES DIFFICULT TO TRANSLATE-LA-HU A LOLO TRIBECOMPARISON OF VOCABULARIES. THE following morning I noticed that Chow Nan and his son had cast their travelling attire, and were gorgeously arrayed, looking like gay butterflies. The prince was resplendent in a new red silk panung, a blue jacket with gold buttons, and, for the first time since we left Zimmé, in shoes and white stockings. His son, similarly shod, was adorned with a green satin jacket and a yellow silk panung. Dr Cushing with the help of the Chow, who had set his heart upon entering Kiang Hai in state, marshalled the procession. Ten armed men led the way, and were followed. by the prince's elephant, some attendants, Dr Cushing's elephant, some attendants, Dr M'Gilvary's elephant, some attendants, my elephant, five loaded elephants and the babyelephant, and a long train of servants, porters, and elephant grooms. I could not help laughing as we went along, as we appeared so like a travelling circus advertising itself in a provincial town. Leaving the Chow Hona's house at half-past six, we marched through the plain, passing several laterite hillocks, and crossing one to avoid a swamp-and skirting five vil REACH KIANG HAI. 155 lages, until at the village of Sun Kong we came in sight of the crenelated walls of Kiang Hai. Thence we traversed the graveyard of the governors of the city, and shortly afterwards that of the abbots of the monasteries, entered and crossed the city, and halted at the rest-house lying between it and the Meh Khoke. The rest-house is situated 3521 miles from Hlineboay, and 1320 feet above the sea. One of the tomb pillars in the cemetery of the governors was six feet in height, and had a pyramidal cap ending in a flame-like ornament. For one foot from the ground the pillar was six feet square. Five steps, or offsets, occurred in the next foot in height, reducing the sides of the square for the following foot to four feet; then three offsets, together measuring three and a half inches in height, supported a cap five feet square, upon which the pyramid rose in offsets of two inches. In front of the pillar was an altar, on which flowers and vegetable-wax tapers had been freshly laid. The rest-house in which we put up was in a very leaky condition, owing to the thatch not having been renewed, and to the devastation wrought in the leaves and rafters by the bamboo-beetles. The Chow's rest-house, which was next to ours, was in a still worse condition, as many of the floorplanks and girders were rotten, and the floor was thus a succession of man-traps. This was soon remedied, for as soon as the Chow Hluang heard of our arrival he despatched men with new bamboos and thatch to render our habitations more secure and comfortable. Kiang Hai, whose Pali name is Pantoowadi, is picturesquely situated on the south bank of the Meh Khoke. From the crest of the small hillocks near the city, when the air is free from haze, the eye can range 20 miles westward up the river valley; 18 miles eastward to Loi Tone Yang; the same distance to the south, or farther if there was anything high enough to see; and to the north as far as the low hillocks, 15 miles distant, which divide the Kiang Hsen plain from the valley of the Meh Khoke. A series of low laterite hillocks spring up from the plain to the west of the city. This plain, and that to the north of the river, is inundated in places for a depth of two feet in the rains for eight and nine days at a time. Two of the hillocks serve as portions of the ramparts on the north and west sides of the city. The river rises in a plateau two days' journey to the southwest of Kiang Tung, and its sources are separated from the Kiang Tung plain, which is 2500 feet above the sea, by Loi Kum, the Loi Peh Muang which divides the Kiang Tung State from that of Moné, a State lying to the west of the Salween. The Meh Sim, which enters the Salween, rises near the sources of the Meh Khoke; and the head of the pass, crossed by Dr Cushing in 1870, between Kiang Tung and the head-waters of the Meh Sim, is 6500 feet above the sea, or 4000 feet above the Kiang Tung plain. At the sources of the Meh Khoke, according to some Ngio Shans whom I interrogated, is the district of Muang Khon, which comprises several villages. Two days farther from Kiang Tung, down the Meh Khoke, is Muang Khoke, from which the river takes its name. Six days from Kiang Tung, still down the river, lies Muang Sat, or Muang Hsat, and a day farther Muang Khine and Wang Hung. Still lower down is Muang Tat Pow, then Muang Nyon and Ta Taung. The latter is distant four days by water from Kiang Hai, and five or six miles above the entrance of the Meh Fang into the Meh Khoke. The above Muangs, or provincial States, are situated in extensive plains, and Muang Sat has frequently formed the base of Burmese operations. against Siam. As Muang Sat has been incorporated by us in the dominions of the chief of Muang Pan, one of our Shan States lying to the west of the Salween, it will be seen that we have already carried our protection over the hills which divide the waters of the Salween from those of the Meh Kong into the valley of the Meh Khoke. Above Ta Taung the valley of the Meh Khoke lies in the British Shan States. From thence eastwards, half-way to Kiang Hai, the Meh Khoke forms the Anglo-Siamese boundary; the frontier then turns in a north-eastern direction to the Meh Kong, which it reaches a few miles above Kiang |