CHAPTER VII. LEAVE MUANG HAUT-LEGEND OF THE RAPIDS-FOOTPRINTS OF BUDDHA - THE TIGER-HEAD MOUNTAIN VALLEY OF MORNINGS-A RIVER SCENE-CHANTING PRAYERS-THE H HAVING loaded the boats, we started from Muang Haut a little after 8 A.M. on the 20th of February for Zimmé. After passing through the fishing-dam at the north of the island which stretches for half a mile above the town, we turned a bend, and at the end of the next loop reached Pa-kin-soo, a celebrated sand-cliff which stands up like an old sandstone castle with towers and buttresses weatherworn and crumbling into ruins. LEGEND OF THE RAPIDS. The legend attached to this cliff has given rise to the names of the rapids in the gorges below Muang Haut, and runs as follows: In ancient days a Shan princess of Viang Soo or Kiang Soo, being crossed in love by her parents refusing their consent to her marriage with a nobleman of a hostile State, determined to levant with her lover. Accordingly, one moonlight night she mounted behind him on a pony and went galloping away towards his home. When nearing the river they heard her father with his followers clattering and clammering behind them. Reaching the 70 FOOTPRINTS OF BUDDHA. bank, they found themselves on the crest of the cliff, with the river a sheer drop of 120 feet below. Her father being nearly at their heels, they had no time to dodge to the right hand or to the left; they must take the leap or be caught. The lover, eager for the safety of the princess, hesitated for a moment, when his lady-love, nothing daunted, sprang in front of him, struck the pony and forced it to the leap. From that time they lived only in story, and the places where their bodies, pony, whip, saddle, harness, and other equipment were stranded, were named acccordingly. Proceeding two and a half miles farther, we halted for breakfast near a pagoda and visited the Phra Bat, a footprint of Gaudama, which is situated a quarter of a mile from the west bank of the river. The footprint is 5 feet 4 inches long, and 2 feet broad, and is impressed on a huge granite boulder, and decorated in the usual manner. Although a place of pilgrimage, no monastery is attached to it, and the temple in which the Phra Bat lies is becoming a ruin. To account for the supernatural size of the footprints, which are found of various dimensions throughout the country, we must remember that virtuous men, the possessors of accumulated merit, have intellectual properties which, besides virtue (dharma), knowledge, calm self-control, include supernatural power (aiswarya), which enables its possessor to make his way into a solid rock, to sail to the sun on a sunbeam, touch the moon with the tip of his finger, expand so as to occupy all space, and swim, dive, or float upon the earth as readily as in water. Through merit, in fact, the intellect (Buddha) attains the "absolute subjugation of Nature," so that "whatever the will proposes, that it obtains." But merit, however vast the stock, is consumed like fuel: thus even those in Indra's heaven who "drink their fill of joys divine," fall again to earth after their accumulated stock of merit is spent, and have to continue their series of births and deaths until they are purified from desire, when they obtain Neiban, become as the winds are, or as if they had never been born. Opposite our halting-place we noticed tobacco-gardens belonging to a village invisible amongst the dense foliage. Our morning's journey had been delightful; the long bends of the river, and the slow movement of the boat as it was poled up-stream, rendered surveying a pastime after the continuous turns and twists, with the accompanying frequent observations, incurred on our land march—the more so after the pitching, rolling, and jolting I had undergone on the elephants. It was most refreshing, after the leafless forest about Muang Haut, to see the magnificent foliage skirting the river. Large bamboos in bunch-like clumps, not the impenetrable thickets we had previously met; the lights and shades on the golden greens of their delicately coloured plumes; and the deep recesses between the clumps, in whose stately presence the scrub-jungle disappears; the cooing of doves; the gaily decked kingfisher watching for its opportunity to plunge on its prey; the lep-pan (silk-cotton trees) 120 feet high, with pegs driven into the trunks to serve as ladders for the cotton-pickers, their white trunks and bare horizontal branches looking like shipping with yards up as we rounded the bends; the flower of the pouk flaming out at intervals; low islands covered with scrub willows, whose leaves glistened in the sun; the mist driving along the face of the water, ascending in little twirls and vanishing; the bell-music of passing caravans; the plaintive cry of the gibbons; the 00-kee-or calling its own name; and little grey and buff-coloured squirrels springing about the trees,— all added a charm to the scene. Even without an Eve, one felt inclined to express one's pleasure in Adam's words : "Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet, The silk-cotton of the lep-pan tree is too short and brittle to be made into yarn or cloth; the soft downy cotton is therefore solely used for stuffing cushions, pillows, and beds. Resuming our journey, we passed Ta Nong Hluang--the |