Part 26 (1/2)
TENGYUEH (MOMIEN) TO BHAMO IN UPPER BURMA
CHAPTER XXV.
_Last stages of long journey_. _Characteristics of the country_. _Sham and Kachins_. _Author's dream of civilization_. _British pride_. _End of paved roads_. _Mountains cease_. _A confession of foiled plans_.
_Nantien as a questionable fort_. _About the Shans_. _Village squabble, and how it ended_. _Absence of disagreement in Shan language_. _Charming people, but lazy_. _Experience with Shan servant_. _At Chiu-Ch'eng_.
_New Year festivities_. _After-dinner diversions_. _Author as a medico_.
_Ingrat.i.tude of the Chinese: some instances_.
The Shan, the Kachin and the abominable betel quid! That quid which makes the mouth look b.l.o.o.d.y, broadens the lips, lays bare and blackens the teeth, and makes the women hideous. Such are the unfailing characteristics of the country upon which we are now entering.
By the following stages I worked my way wearily to the end of my long walking journey:--
Length Height of Stage Above Sea
1st day--Nantien 90 li. 5,300 ft.
2nd day--Chiu-Ch'eng (Kang-gnai) 80 li. --- 4th day--Hsiao Singai 60 li. --- 5th day--Manyuen 60 li. 2,750 ft.
6th day--Pa-chiao-chai | Approx. 1,200 ft.
7th day--Mao-tsao-ti | 55 English 650 ft.
8th day--Bhamo (Singai) | miles. 350 ft.
Shans here monopolize all things. Chinese, although of late years drawn to this low-lying area, do not abound in these parts, and the Shan is therefore left pretty much to himself. And the pleasant eight-day march from Tengyueh to Bhamo, the metropolis of Upper Burma, probably offers to the traveler objects and scenes of more varying interest than any other stage of the tramp from far-away Chung-king. To the Englishman, daily getting nearer to the end of his long, wearying walk, and going for the first time into Upper Burma, incidentally to realize again the dream of civilization and comfort and contact with his own kind, leaving Old China in the rear, there instinctively came that inexpressible patriotic pride every Britisher must feel when he emerges from the Middle Kingdom and sets his foot again on British territory. The benefits are too numerous to cite; you must have come through China, and have had for companions.h.i.+p only your own unsympathetic coolies, and accommodation only such as the Chinese wayside hostelry has offered, to be able fully to realize what the luxurious dak-bungalows, with their excellent appointments, mean to the returning exile.
Paved roads, the bane of man and beast, end a little out of Tengyueh.
Mountains are left behind. There is no need now for struggle and constant physical exertion in climbing to get over the country. With no hills to climb, no stones to cut my feet or slip upon, with wide sweeps of magnificent country leading three days later into dense, tropical jungle, entrancing to the merest tyro of a nature student, and with the knowledge that my walking was almost at an end, all would have gone well had I been able to tear from my mind the fact that at this juncture I should have to make to the reader a great confession of foiled plans.
For two days I was accompanied by the Rev. W.J. Embery, of the China Inland Mission, who was making an itinerary among the tribes on the opposite side of the Taping, which we followed most of the time. He rode a mule; and am I not justified in believing that you, too, reader, with such an excellent companion, one who had such a perfect command of the language, and who could make the journey so much more interesting, you would have ridden your pony? I rode mine! I abandoned pedestrianism and rode to Chiu-Ch'eng--two full days, and when, after a pleasant rest under a sheltering banyan, we went our different ways, I was sorry indeed to have to fall back upon my men for companions.h.i.+p.
But it was not to be for long.
Nantien is, or was, to be a fort, but the little place bears no outward military evidences whatever which would lead one to believe it. It is populated chiefly by Shans. The bulk of these interesting people now live split up into a great number of semi-independent states, some tributary to Burma, some to China, and some to Siam; and yet the man-in-the-street knows little about them. One cannot mistake them, especially the women, with their peculiar Mongolian features and sallow complexions and characteristic head-dress. The men are less distinguishable, probably, generally speaking, but the rough cotton turban instead of the round cap with the k.n.o.b on the top alone enables one more readily to pick them out from the Chinese. Short, well-built and strongly made, the women strike one particularly as being a hardy, healthy set of people.
Shans are recognized to be a peaceful people, but a village squabble outside Chin-ch'eng, in which I took part, is one of the exceptions to prove the rule.
It did not take the eye of a hawk or the ear of a pointer to recognize that a big row was in full progress. Shan women roundly abused the men, and Shan men, standing afar off, abused their women. A few Chinese who looked on had a few words to say to these ”Pai Yi”[BD] on the futility of these everyday squabbles, whilst a few Shans, mistaking me again for a foreign official, came vigorously to me pouring out their souls over the whole affair. We were all visibly at cross purposes. I chimed in with my infallible ”Puh tong, you stupid a.s.s, puh tong” (I don't understand, I don't understand); and what with the noise of the disputants, the Chinese bystanders, my own men (they were all acutely disgusted with every Shan in the district, and plainly showed it, because they could not be understood in speech) and myself all talking at once, and the dogs who mistook me for a beggar, and tried to get at close grips with me for being one of that fraternity, it was a veritable Bedlam and Tower of Babel in awfullest combination. At length I raised my hand, mounted a boulder in the middle of the road, and endeavored to pacify the infuriated mob. I shouted harshly, I brandished by bamboo in the air, I gesticulated, I whacked two men who came near me. At last they stopped, expecting me to speak. Only a look of stupidest unintelligibility could I return, however, and had to roar with laughter at the very foolishness of my position up on that stone. Soon the mult.i.tude calmed down and laughed, too. I yelled ”Ts'eo,” and we proceeded, leaving the Shans again at peace with all the world.
Shans have been found in many other parts, even as far north as the borders of Tibet. But a Shan, owing to the similarity of his language in all parts of Asia, differs from the Chinese or the Yun-nan tribesman in that he can get on anywhere. It is said that from the sources of the Irawadi down to the borders of Siamese territory, and from a.s.sam to Tonkin, a region measuring six hundred miles each way, and including the whole of the former Nan-chao Empire, the language is practically the same. Dialects exist as they do in every country in the world, but a Shan born anywhere within these bounds will find himself able to carry on a conversation in parts of the country he has never heard of, hundreds of miles from his own home. And this is more than six hundred years after the fall of the Nan-chao dynasty, and among Shans who have had no real political or commercial relation with each other.[BE]
I found them a charming people, peaceful and obliging, treating strangers with kindness and frank cordiality. For the most part, they are Buddhists. The dress of the Chinese Shans, which, however, I found varied in different localities, leads one to believe that they are an exceptionally clean race, but I can testify that this is not the case.
In many ways they are dirtier than the Chinese--notably in the preparation of their food. And I feel compelled to say a word here for the general benefit of future travelers. _Never expect a Shan to work hard!_ He _can_ work hard, and he will--when he likes, but I do not believe that even the Malay, that Nature's gentleman of the farther south, is lazier.
As servants they are failures. A European in this district, whose Chinese servant had left him, thought he would try a Shan, and invited a man to come. ”Be your servant? Of course I will. I am honored.” And the European thought at last he was in clover. He explained that he should want his breakfast at 6:00 a.m., and that the servant's duties would be to cut gra.s.s for the horse, go to the market to buy provisions, feed on the premises, and leave for home to sleep at 7:00 p.m. The Shan opened a large mouth; then he spoke. He would be pleased, he said, to come to work about nine o'clock; that he had several marriageable daughters still on his hands and could not therefore, and would not, cut gra.s.s; he objected going to the market in the extreme heat of the day; he could not think of eating the foreigner's food; and would go home to feed at 1:00 p.m. and leave again finally at 5:00 p.m. for the same purpose. He left before five p.m. Another man was called in. He was quite cheery, and came in and out and did what he pleased. On being asked what he would require as salary, he replied, ”Oh, give me a rupee every market day, and that'll do me.” The person was not in service when market day rolled round, and I hear that this European, who loves experiments of this kind, has gone back to the Chinese.
Chiu-Ch'eng (Kang-gnai) was going through a sort of New Year carousal as I entered the town, and everybody was garmented for the festival.
I had great difficulty in getting a place to stay. People allowed me to career about in search of a room, treating me with courteous indifference, but none offered to house me. At last the headman of the village appeared, and with many kindly expressions of unintelligibility led me to his house. A crowd had gathered in the street, and several women were taking from the front room the general stock-in-trade of the village ironmonger. Scores of huge iron cooking pans were being pa.s.sed through the window, tables were pushed noisily through the doorway, primitive cooking appliances were being hurled about in the air, bamboo baskets came out by the dozen, and there was much else. Bags of paddy, old chairs (the low stool of the Shan, with a thirty-inch back), drawers of copper cash, brooms, a few old spears, pots of pork fat, barrels of wine (the same as I had blistered the foot of a pony with), two or three old p'u-kai, worn-out clothes, disused ladies' shoes, babies' gear, and last of all the man himself appeared. Men and women set to to clean up, an old woman clasped me to her bosom, and I was bidden to enter. New Year festivities were for the nonce neglected for the novel delight of gazing upon the inner domesticity of this traveling wonder, into his very holy of holies. I received nine invitations to dinner. I dined with mine host and his six sons.