Part 22 (1/2)

Captain Clive said to him, ”Do you think the Chinaman will die?” Looking very judicial the native replied, ”Sir, he _may_ die, and yet, he may live.” ”But,” said Clive, ”he will probably die, won't he?” ”Yes,” was the answer, ”and yet perhaps he will live.” That was all the satisfaction he was able to get.

Clive told us of another native who formerly had been in his company. He had been transferred and one day the Captain met him in Rangoon. When asked if his pay was satisfactory the answer was typical, ”Sir, it is good, but not _s-o-o_ good!”

On the afternoon of our fourth day in Ma-li-pa a heliograph from Rangoon announced that ”The Asiatic Zoological Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History is especially commended to His Majesty's Indian Government and permission is hereby granted to carry on its work in Burma wherever it may desire.” This was only one of the many courtesies which we received from the British.

The morning following the receipt of the heliogram we broke camp at daylight. When the last mule of the caravan had disappeared over the brown hills toward China we regretfully said farewell and rode away. If we are ever again made ”prisoners of war” we hope our captor will be as delightful a gentleman as Captain Clive.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

HUNTING PEAc.o.c.kS ON THE SALWEEN RIVER

From Ma-li-pa we traveled almost due north to the Salween River. The country through which we pa.s.sed was a succession of dry treeless hills, brown and barren and devoid of animal life. On the evening of the third day we reached the Salween at a ferry a few miles from the village of Changlung where the river begins its great bend to the eastward and sweeps across the border from China into Burma.

The stream has cut a tremendous gorge for itself through the mountains and the sides are so precipitous that the trail doubles back upon itself a dozen times before it reaches the river 3,500 feet below. The upper half of the gorge is bare or thinly patched with trees, but in the lower part the gra.s.s is long and rank and a thin dry jungle straggles along the water's edge. The Salween at this point is about two hundred yards wide, but narrows to half that distance below the ferry and flows in a series of rapids between rocky sh.o.r.es.

The valley is devoid of human life except for three boatmen who tend the ferry, but the deserted rice fields along a narrow shelf showed evidence of former cultivation. On the slopes far up the side of the canon is a Miao village, a tribe which we had not seen before. Probably the valley is too unhealthy for any natives to live close to the water's edge and, even at the time of our visit in early March, the heated air was laden with malaria.

The ferrymen were stupid fellows, half drugged with opium, and a.s.sured us that there were no mammals near the river. They admitted that they sometimes heard peac.o.c.ks and, while our tents were being pitched on a steep sand bank beneath a giant tree, the weird catlike call of a peac.o.c.k echoed up the valley. It was answered by another farther down the river, and the report of my gun when I fired at a bat brought forth a wild ”pe-haun,”

”pe-haun,” ”pe-haun” from half a dozen places.

The ferry was a raft built of long bamboo poles lashed together with vines and creepers. It floated just above the surface and was half submerged when loaded. The natives used a most extraordinary contrivance in place of oars.

It consisted of a piece of tightly woven bamboo matting three feet long and two feet wide at right angles to which was fastened a six-foot handle. With these the men nonchalantly raked the water toward them from the bow and stern when they had poled the raft well into the current. The invested capital was not extensive, for when the ferry or ”propellers” needed repairs a few hours' work in the jungle sufficed to build an entirely new outfit.

All of the peac.o.c.ks were on the opposite side of the river from our camp where the jungle was thickest. On the first morning my wife and I floated down the river on the raft for half a mile and landed to stalk a peac.o.c.k which had called frequently from a rocky point near the water's edge. We picked our way through the jungle with the utmost caution but the wary old c.o.c.k either saw or heard us before we were within range, and I caught just a glimpse of a brilliant green neck as he disappeared into the bushes. A second bird called on a point a half mile farther on, but it refused to come into the open and as we started to stalk it in the jungle we heard a patter of feet among the dry leaves followed by a roar of wings, and saw the bird sail over the tree tops and alight on the summit of a bush-clad hill.

This was the only peac.o.c.k which we were ever able to flush when it had already gained cover. Usually the birds depend entirely upon their ability to hide or run through the bushes. After several attempts we learned that it was impossible to stalk the peac.o.c.ks successfully. The jungle was so crisp and parched that the dry leaves crackled at every step and even small birds made a loud noise while scratching on the ground.

The only way to get the peac.o.c.ks was to watch for them at the river when they came to drink in the early morning and evening. Between two rocky points where we had first seen the birds there was a long curved beach of fine white sand. One morning h.e.l.ler waited on the point nearest camp while my wife and I posted ourselves under a bush farther down the river. We had been sitting quietly for half an hour when we heard a scratching in the jungle. Thinking it was a peac.o.c.k feeding we turned our backs to the water and sat motionless peering beneath the bushes. Meanwhile, h.e.l.ler witnessed an interesting little drama enacted behind us.

An old male peac.o.c.k with a splendid train stole around the point close to the water, jumped to a high stone within thirty yards of us and stood for a full minute craning its beautiful green neck to get a better view as we kneeled in front of him totally unconscious of his presence. After he had satisfied his curiosity he hopped off the observation pinnacle and, with his body flattened close to the ground, slipped quietly away. It was an excellent example of the stalker being stalked and had h.e.l.ler not witnessed the scene we should never have known how the clever old bird had fooled us.

The following morning we got a peahen at the same place. h.e.l.ler had concealed himself in the bushes on one side of the point while I watched the other. Shortly after daylight an old female sailed out of the jungle on set wings and alighted at the water's edge. She saw h.e.l.ler almost instantly, although he was completely covered by the vines, and started to fly, but he dropped her with a broken wing. Recovering herself, she darted around the rocky point only to meet a charge of B.B.'s from my gun. She was a beautiful bird with a delicate crown of slender feathers, a yellow and blue face patch and a green neck and back, but her plumes were short and inconspicuous when compared with those of the male.

Probably these birds had never before been hunted but they were exceedingly shy and difficult to kill. Although they called more or less during the entire day and we could locate them exactly, they were so far back in the jungle that the crackling of the dry leaves made a stalk impossible. We tried to drive them but were unsuccessful, for the birds would never flush unless they happened to be in the open and cut off from cover. Apparently realizing that their brilliant plumage made them conspicuous objects, the birds relied entirely upon an actual screen of bushes and their wonderful sight and hearing to protect themselves from enemies.

They usually came to the river to drink very early in the morning and just before dusk in the afternoon, but on cloudy days they might appear at almost any hour. If undisturbed they would remain near the water's edge for a considerable time or strut about the sand beach just at the edge of the jungle. At the sound of a gun or any other loud sharp noise the peac.o.c.ks would answer with their mournful catlike wail, exactly as the domesticated birds will do.

The Chinese believe that the flesh of the peafowl is poison and our servants were horrified when they learned that we intended to eat it. They fully expected that we would not survive the night and, even when they saw we had experienced no ill effects, they could not be persuaded to touch any of it themselves. An old peac.o.c.k is too tough to eat, but the younger birds are excellent and when stuffed with chestnuts and roasted they are almost the equal of turkey.

The species which we killed on the Salween River is the green peafowl (_Pavo munticus_) which inhabits Burma, Sumatra, Java, and the Malay Peninsula. Its neck is green, instead of purple, as is that of the common Indian peac.o.c.k (_Pavo cristatus_), and it is said that it is the most beautiful bird of the world.

The long ocellated tail coverts called the ”train” are dropped about August and the birds a.s.sume more simple barred plumes, but the molt is very irregular; usually the full plumage is resumed in March or even earlier.

The train is, of course, an ornament to attract the female and, when a c.o.c.k is strutting about with spread plumes, he sometimes makes a most peculiar rustling sound by vibrating the long feathers.

The eight or ten eggs are laid on the bare ground under a bush in the dense jungle, are dull brownish white and nearly three inches long. The chicks are sometimes domesticated, but even when born in captivity, it is said they are difficult to tame and soon wander away. The birds are omnivorous, feeding on insects, grubs, reptiles, flower buds, young shoots, and grain.