other streams. All were intent upon my having correct information, and various villagers were sent for who had travelled in different parts of the country. After I had finished the map, Dr M'Gilvary asked the people to listen quietly to him, and preached to them the glad tidings that the world was ruled by a God of love, and that belief in Him would relieve them from their gross fears and senseless superstitions. In the afternoon we continued through the rice-plain for a couple of miles, and then passing through the southern gate of the palisaded city of Kiang Dow, entered the city, and shortly afterwards, turning to the right, left the enclosure by the east gate, and camped for the night on the bank of the Meh Ping. A short distance before reaching the city, Dr M'Gilvary noticed traces of what he believed to be petroleum on the bank of a small stream. In connection with this I may mention that Chow Rat, a first cousin of the Queen of Zimmé, who was intrusted with the settlement of Muang Fang, brought specimens of a black encrustation found in the district of Muang Fang, which Dr M'Gilvary forwarded to a professor of Davidson College, North Carolina, who had it examined. It was pronounced to be indicative of rich petroleum wells. If petroleum exists at Kiang Dow as well as in Muang Fang, places 40 miles apart, the field is likely to be a large one; and other fields may be found to exist on the line of our proposed railway. CHAPTER XXVII. KIANG DOW-INVASIONS OF BURMESE SHANS-PRECIPITOUS HILLS-MUANG THE city of Kiang Dow, which is barely a quarter of a mile square, is situated 37 miles from Zimmé, and is 1254 feet above the sea. The whole province contains only 250 houses, 75 of which are in the enclosure. The city is said. to have been resettled in 1809 by seven householders from Ban Meh Lim, which we passed eight miles from Zimmé, and was destroyed by Chow Phya Kolon, a Burmese Shan chief, in 1869 or 1870. On his retiring, it is said to have been at once reoccupied. According to the governor of Viang Pow, whom I subsequently met at that place, two invasions of the country occurred in recent years: one in 186869, when Chow Phya Kolon, the chief of Mokmai, a Burmese Shan State to the west of the Salween, burned six villages in his State; and another in 1872, when the same chief again invaded the district, and burned two villages. Chow Phya Kolon was said to be living in 1884 as an acolyte in a monastery in Moné. About this time, 1868-72, there appears to have been a general downward pressure of the Ngios (Burmese Shans), INVASIONS OF BURMESE SHANS. 335 for, besides the above-mentioned movements, Chow Phya Roy Sam-whose brother A-Chai is at present the chief of Muang Hăng, a State in the upper valley of the Meh Teng -burned Muang Ngai, and drove the Zimmé Shans out of the province in 1869; and as I have previously stated, the upper valleys of the Meh Ping, Meh Teng, and Meh Pai, have been resettled by Burmese Shans, and are under the rule of their chiefs. Whilst the elephants were being unloaded, I crossed the river so as to sketch Loi Kiang Dow, which lies nearly due east and west, and is seen on end from the city. It rises, like the rock of Gibraltar, straight up from the plain, to five times the height of that rock, and can be seen on a clear day from the neighbourhood of Zimmé, 36 miles distant, looming up over the hills, through which the river has cut its way. Its crest towered up apparently to more than a mile above the plain, and we guessed its altitude to be 8000 feet above the sea, or considerably higher than that of the great hill behind Zimmé. The sun was setting over the great precipitous hill as I sketched it, and I had hardly completed its outline and that of Loi Nan (the Lady's Hill), which lies parallel to it, and due west of Ban Meh Kaun, before the sun went down, forcing KIANG DOW 10 162 NAN 107 228 108 Sketch of Loi Kiang Dow and Loi Nan. me to take the angles the following morning. On the north side, as seen from beyond Muang Ngai, Loi Nan looks like a gigantic fortress frowning over the plain. 336 CATCH A KAMAIT. In the evening the governor of Kiang Dow, who has the title of Pau Muang (Father of the State), came with his brother to pay us a visit, and gave us some information about trade routes and the upper course of the river. He told us that the Burmese Shans held the upper valleys of the Meh Ping and Meh Teng, and that the villages in Muang Hăng belonged to them. The nearest Ngio villages on the Meh Ping were two days' journey up the valley, and were called Ban Sang, and Tone Pa Khom. The road to Muang Hăng, he said, passed in a defile through the hills, and crossed no range. Mr Gould, who subsequently visited this Muang, found this information was correct. The next day being Sunday, I halted, according to agreement with my missionary companions, who made it a rule never to travel on Sunday, unless it was necessary to do so. Before breakfast we strolled to the ruins of a city called Viang Chai, some distance from Kiang Dow, where we found a pagoda 25 feet square, built of laterite that appeared to be of ancient date. This Viang was surrounded by a rampart and two ditches, one 40 feet wide and 15 feet deep, and the other 20 feet wide and 10 feet deep. There are said to be three Viang Hau (Chinese cities or forts) in the neighbourhood. When returning, I noticed a man resembling a Kamook, but with wavy hair, sitting with a group of people who were gazing at us; and on inquiry I was glad to learn that he was a Kamait, and seized the opportunity to arrange for taking his vocabulary early the next morning. In the afternoon Dr M'Gilvary and Mr Martin held a service, after which we wandered about and had a talk with the villagers. The following morning the Kamait came accompanied by two companions. I was surprised to find that the Kamait language has a closer affinity to Bau Lawah than to Kamook, although the Kamooks and Kamaits have long been close neighbours. The three languages are evidently derived from a Mon stock. I was so taken up with the translation of the Kamait's vocabulary, that on its conclusion I gave orders for the loading of the elephants, altogether forgetting that we had not had our early morning's meal, and was humorously ENTERING MONASTIC LIFE. 337 remonstrated with by my companions. This was soon served, and we left the city by the north gate. After passing through some rice-fields and a teak-forest, we crossed a low flat-topped spur for about a mile, when we came to the Huay Sai, a small stream which forms the boundary between Kiang Dow and Muang Ngai. Fresh flowers had been placed on an altar erected on the streambank. Just before crossing the stream a road leaves the path for Muang Fang. The boundary cuts the path at 40 miles from Zimmé. A mile farther we came to Ban Meh Kaun, and breakfasted in its temple. A play had been held the previous night at the village in honour of two young men who had become acolytes at the monastery. The temple grounds were crowded with visitors from the neighbouring villages, and a great many offerings had been made to the monks. These were heaped up in the temple, and consisted of new yellow garments, three-cornered and oblong pillows, mats, rugs, water-jars, and tastily arranged bouquets of flowers. Some of the nosegays were built up round the stem of the fruit of a plantain into the form of a large cone. On visiting the temple to bargain with the abbot for two handsomely worked three-cornered pillows that my companions had set their hearts on, he told us that the receipts accruing to him from the play were over a hundred rupees. In conversation with the monks, Dr M'Gilvary was told that it would most likely be countless ages before they would attain the much-wished-for state of Nirvana, and that one transgression at any time might relegate them to the lowest hell to begin again their melancholy pilgrimage. After hearing this I could not help thinking of the young men newly entered into the monastic order-who were sitting devoutly on the raised dais, telling their beads and muttering religious formula,-how hopeless their task seemed to be a very labour of Sisyphus. Yet there they were, attired in new yellow robes, with a scarf of new red print calico crossing their breast and left shoulder, sitting each on a new mat, with a new betel-box and water-jar before him, trying to look solemn whilst enjoying what must have been the Y |