< V: I wmm YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FROM THE COLLECTION MADE BY CHARLES SHELDON B.A. 1890 OF BOOKS ON NATURAL HISTORY EXPLORATION • HUNTING & FISHING GIFT OF FRANCIS P. GARVAN BA. 1897 JUNGLE TRAILS AND JUNGLE PEOPLE THE LOTUS EATERS. JUNGLE TRAILS AND JUNGLE PEOPLE TRAVEL, ADVENTURE AND OBSERVATION IN THE FAR EAST BY CASPAR WHITNEY AUTHOB OF "ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS," "HAWAIIAN AMERICA,' "A SPORTING PILGRIMAGE," ETC. NEW YOEK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1905 COPYKIGHT, 1905 By CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Published September, 1905 Press of The New Era Printiho Company Lancaster, Pa TO J. HEI^EY HARPER ¦ rOR THE SAKE OF AULD LANG SYNE A CONFESSION SOMETIMES CALLED "fOEEWOBD" OR "PREFACE " I wonder if it is quite fair to ask an author's "underlying motive" for writing a book. The Publisher declares that it is— and he is a sage in his day and generation. He says the public wants to know ; but I say that the public does not care a "whoop"— if you remember what that precisely signifies. Between ourselves, it is a tradition of bookmaking which exacts toll of you and me with out giving either of us any return of happiness. Besides, suppose the public does want to know, and suppose the desire to be prompted by curiosity rather than by interest, as is more than likely— should the author yield to the demand? To be sure he may owe much to the indulgent reader, who too frequently gets little enough of a run for his money,— but is not the author paying rather too dearly by thus taking the further risk of incurring criticism of his motives in addition to the criticism which may salute his book? It seems to me that to face one risk is enough for one author — cer tainly enough for this one author. Then, too, perhaps the author wants to keep the intimate whisperings of his day dreams to himself ; viii A CONFESSION perhaps he hesitates to voice the call which, un heard by his fellows of the work-a-day world, sounds ever and again to him without warning, insistent and impelling amid the comforts and pleasures and duties of conventional life. Know then, you to whom the message of this book is meaningless, that the "underlying motive" which prompted the journeys recorded in the fol lowing pages, was— flight of a spirit that would be free from the crying newsboys and the pressure of conventions; in a word, — the lust of adventure. Those who open this volume to view the contents as of a game bag, would better close it and thus save time— and money. There is here the hunting and the killing of big and formidable game, but 'twas not for that alone or even chiefly I trav elled far from the habitations of man. The mere destruction of game, always has been of least interest to me in my wilderness wanderings, and I hope I have never given any other impres sion. It is not the killing but the hunting which stirs the blood of a sportsman— the contest between his skill, persistence, endurance, and the keen senses and protective environment of his quarry. I acknowledge to the joy which conies in triumph over the brute at the end of fair and hard chase— not in the pressing of the trigger, which I never do, except to get needed meat or an unusual trophy. A CONFESSION ix The wilderness in its changeful tempers, the pathless jungle, the fascination of finding your way, of earning your food, of lying down to sleep beyond the guarding night stick of the policeman, — these are the things I sought in the larger world of which our conventionalized smaller one is but the gate way. To pass through this gate way, to travel at will, by my own exertions, and un- chaperoned,— and to tell you in my halting style something of the human and brute life which I saw in the big world— that is why I went into the won drous Far East, into India, Sumatra, Malay and Siam. So there you have the "Foreword"— also the confession. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE THE KING'S MAHOUT I CHAPTER II THROUGH THE KLAWNGS OF SIAM 37 CHAPTER III PHRA RAM MAKES A PILGRIMAGE 59 CHAPTER IV HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 87 CHAPTER V HUMAN TREE-DWELLERS Ill CHAPTER VI THE TROTTING RHINO OF KELANTAN 130 CHAPTER VII IN THE SWAMPS 164 CHAPTER VIII IN THE EYE OF DAY: THE LOST SELADANG OF NOA ANAK 186 xi Xll CONTENTS CHAPTER IX JIN ABU FINDS AN ELEPHANT 209 CHAPTER X UDA PRANG— JUNGLE HUNTER 241 CHAPTER XI THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 276 ILLUSTRATIONS THE LOTUS EATERS Frontispiece THE FINAL STAGE OF THE KING'S ELEPHANT HUNT IN SIAM A popular holiday; spectators flock to the scene by the thou- j.a„,„. sands and where the herd crosses the river the stream is ^"s" covered with boats 12 DRIVING THE HERD TOWARD THE KRAAL The shifting, darting crowd of spectators hang constantly on the heels of the elephants 24 NOOSING AND DRIVING THE HERD AROUND THE KRAAL SO AS TO SINGLE OUT THE ROPED ELEPHANTS 32 ALONG THE KLAWNG (CANAL) Fully half of the native house usually develops into verandah 42 A GAMBLING PLACE OFF THE SAJIPENG IN BANGKOK In the background a band is hard at work entertaining the patrons 42 A BUSY KLAWNG IN BANGKOK Passenger-boats. House- and freight-boats 48 A NATIVE HOUSE ON THE KLAWNG TO RATBLTII Picturesquely but uncomfortably (mosquitoes) situated in a grove of cocoa betel-nut trees 56 THE HOUSE-BOAT WHICH SERVED ME WELL 56 PHRA RAM AND HIS BODY SERVANTS 78 SOME OF MY HUNTERS Who assumed the clothing of civilization in an effort to protect their bodies against the briars 84 CAMPING ON THE EDGE OF THE JUNGLE, SIAM 84 THE FAR EASTERN DEER 94 xiii xiv ILLUSTRATIONS FORDING A JUNGLE RIVER IN SIAM ^^ MY THREE SIAMESE HUNTERS DRESSED TO MEET THE THORNS OF THE JUNGLE Thee. Nuam. Wan 108 THE LARGER AND MORE COMMON TYPE OF SAKAI His sole weapon consists of the blow-gun and quiver of poisoned darts, which he shoots with great accuracy 116 THE SMALLER AND LESS COMMON TYPE OF SAKAI A father and his two sons. They carry the poisonous darts in their hair and very closely resemble the Negritos of the Philippines 118 THE SAKAI GROUND-HOUSE 122 SAKAIS CUTTING DOWN A TREE The man cutting is about 30 feet from the ground and the tree is 200 feet high and 6 feet in diameter. They build the scaffolding and fell the tree in one day, using only the small crude axe such as that seen in the topmost man's hand 126 MALAYAN DANCERS Some dances are full of graceful thoiigh monotonous move ment; at times the performers paint their faces fantastically 142 THE MALAYAN WOMAN OF THE COUNTRY Who wears the same skirt-like garment, called sarong, as the men, only she folds it above her breasts 150 THE MALAY BAND The violin seen here ordinarily has no place in the native orchestra 158 CHEETA, MY FAITHFUL TAMIL, A SERVITOR OF ONE CASTE BUT MANY FIELDS OF USEFULNESS.. 168 A MALAY VILLAGE The houses in a Malayan village are ahvays upon the water, if possible, and invariably raised on piles above the ground from six to eight feet 176 THE WILD BOAR AND HIS PUGNACIOUS COUSINS 182 THE LARGE AND FORMIDABLE ORIENTAL WILD CATTLE FAMILY 196 ILLUSTRATIONS XV THE PARTY WHICH NOA ANAK LED ASTRAY FOR SELADANG Lum Yet, the wise. Noa Anak. Scott 206 PACKING THROUGH THE SUilATRAN JUNGLE 218 ELEPHANTINE PLAYFULNESS— BAMBOO CLUJIP BROKEN DOWN AND SCATTERED 230 UDA PRANG Who served successfully both his God and Mammon 242 TIED UP IN THE JUNGLE STREAM FOR NOON MEAL 256 ALONG THE KAMPAR, TYPICAL OF SUilATRA RIVERS.... 256 A "REAL LADY" OF THE SIAMESE JU>iGLE NEAR THE BURMA LINE Dressed for the express purpose of having her photograph taken by the author 268 AT THE HEAD WATERS Disembarking from our dugout and setting out for the interior 268 A GROUP OF INDIAN BEATERS With the panther successfully driven out and bagged 280 STARTING OUT FOR A TIGER DRIVE IN INDIA The howdah elephants and sportsmen leading; the pad or driving elephants following 292 LUXURIOUS HUNTING IN INDIA The camp of a large party, with porters in the foreground. . 302 JUNGLE TRAILS AND JUNGLE PEOPLE CHAPTER I THE KING'S MAHOUT HE was not impressive as to face or figure, yet Choo Poh Lek was a notable character. Of his class he was one of the few energetic, and the only ambitious native little man with whom I became acquainted in the Far East. And, quite as wonderful, he did not gamble. Unques tionably he came honestly by his active qualities, for Choo was a Simo-Chinese ; his father, Lee Boon Jew, being one of the many thrifty Chinese that, thirty-five years before, had found their way, from the crowded Canton district of China, with its desperate daily stiniggle for mere existence, to Bangkok, whose half million people prefer mostly to leave the business of life to Chinamen. Lee began his commercial career humbly as a peddler of fruit and vegetables ; and he prospered. In the very beginning he had carried his daily stock in two 2 THE KING'S MAHOUT heaping bushel baskets hung from a bamboo pole which he swung from shoulder to shoulder, as, staggering under the really heavy burden, he called aloud his wares through the Sampeng and other narrow land streets of the poorer quarter. In one year he had done well enough to enable him to buy a small dug-out, which he paddled through the klawngs* and on the Meinam River, making new acquaintances and new customers, while a plook-peef compatriot in his employ supplied the already established trade from the baskets. In three years he had four boats; and in two more, or five 3^ears from the day of his landing, Lee Boon Jew had a shop in Sampeng, one on the Meinam,— which, in addition to a general stock, did a little trading in bamboo and rattan— a small fleet of boats— and a Siamese wife. In due course a son came to gladden the Chinese heart that always rejoices in boy children, and by the time the fond father was permitted to pridefully ex hibit the gaudily dressed infant in the nearby floating shops, the little son came to be known as * Canals. tPlook-pee is the poll tax exacted of Chinamen, who emigrate to Siam and do not enter Government service. It costs four ticals and a quarter -with a tax seal fastened about the wrist, or six ticals and a half (about $3.90) for a certificate instead of the wrist badge. Lee had paid the extra ticals in preference to wear ing the visible alien sign. THE KING'S MAHOUT 3 Choo Poh Lek, after a celebration which quite dimmed the customary New Year festival. Meantime not only did the business develop, but Lee Boon Jew, who was now one of Bangkok's merchants, attained to such prominence among his compatriots that by the time Choo was fifteen, Lee had become Collector in the Bird Nest Depart ment of the Government Revenue Service; a post for which he was eminently fitted by both name and nature. The cares of office did not, however, necessitate abandonment of the trade, grown now to an extent that kept several large boats of his fleet solely and constantly engaged in rattan and bamboo, for which they made long trips up river. It was Lee's dearest wish that his son should succeed to the commercial enterprise which so confidently prom ised to make wealthy men of them both; espe cially since his most intimate associate, Ho Kee Peck, had been recently appointed Farmer, under the Government, of the Onion, Bees Wax and Rattan Department. Truth to tell, Lee had dreamed rosy-hued celes tial dreams of Choo Poh Lek's opportunities, and the possible prosperity that might easily come to a business having two silent partners in the local revenue service. Between the good offices of the Bird Nest and of the Onion, Bees Wax and Rattan 4 THE KING'S MAHOUT departments, how much profitable trade might not, indeed, and readily, be diverted to the boats of Lee Boon Jew & Son ! But Choo proved a sore disappointment to his ambitious father. He had, it is true, given all of his boyhood and much of his young manhood to Lee's boats, and in fact, was accounted among the shrewdest traders and most skilled boatmen on the river. There were even those who thought the son more astute than his non-talkative but deep thinking Cantonese parent. At all events, Choo attained to such efficiency that his father sent him frequently up the river on the more important mission of trading for rattan and bamboo. And it was on one of these trips inland that Choo crossed the trail of the elephant catchers, and feU under the influence which was to govern, not to say guide, his life's star thereafter and forever more. From that day, it seemed to Choo that boats were the most uninteresting things in all the world, and trading the least ambitious of all pro fessions. He felt the spell of the elephant catch ers, the silent mystery of the jungle, the excite ment of the chase; and then and there he deter mined that an elephant catcher he would be. Choo was naturally of an adventuresome temperament, which is decidedly unusual in one of his race ; but THE KING'S MAHOUT 5 Choo was an unusual type, as already I have inti mated. The humdrum life of the fruit and vege table boats, of haggling over trades in rattan, and of, between times, pulling a heavy oar, had become as iron in his soul long before he found the real trail in the jungle. Deep in his heart was the realization that life for him lacked the spark which makes it worth while ; yet until that eventful day far in the forest, he knew as little of what he really wanted as did his father. On the day he found the elephant encampment, however, Choo found his spark and his vocation. Now filial duty rules strong in the Asiatic son, and Choo had no thought of deserting his father; but by Oriental cunning he brought it about that the rattan business, necessitating up-country trips, became his chief concern in the firm of Lee Boon Jew & Son, while the vegetable and fruit end of the firm's interest fell to subordinates. Thus it was that Choo took up the double life of elephant catching and the more prosaic, if profitable, occu pation of rattan trading. It must be recorded that he neglected neither and prospered in each; to such a degree, in fact, did the rattan and bamboo interests develop that Lee, the father, found his position in Bangkok advanced from small trader to one whose shipments were solicited by the local steamship company. 6 THE KING'S MAHOUT Meantime the son rose from one of the half hundred beaters employed in elephant catching to mahout, for which he seemed to have marked apti tude. Indeed his quick and sympathetic under standing of elephants, and ready comprehension of their management convinced the head man, who had served the king for twenty years, that in Choo he had found a mahout of exceptional promise. It came to pass one day that Chow Chorn Dum- arong— who was a cousin of one of the children of one of the forty-seven wives of the king, and something or other in the War Department- chanced to be at the encampment of elephant catchers and a witness of Choo's really clever handling of a tame tusker just ending a period of "must,"* during which it had been somewhat difficult of control. Choo's work astride the neck of the unruly bull, which he had finally subdued, had been so courageous and so intelligent, that it impressed the king's cousin and he forthwith com manded Choo to be regularly engaged in Govern ment service. So it came about that Choo did more elephant than rattan hunting, increasing his prowess and reputation in one as his activity in the other decreased, much to the mental anguish * " Must " is the temporary madness which now and then, though not invariably, overtakes the male elephant when kept apart from his mates. THE KING'S MAHOUT 7 of his father, Lee Boon Jew, who, although waxing opulent between his own post in the Bird Nest De partment and the sympathetic co-operation of his wise and understanding friend Ho Pee Peck, the Onion Farmer, was aggrieved to the depths of his frugal Chinese soul by the unexplained falling off in the rattan and bamboo branch of his up-river business. But one day, after two years more of mental perturbation, and gradually diminishing rattan profits, the father's heart leaped for joy under the word brought him at Bangkok, that Choo had been summoned into the presence of Krom Mun Monrtee Deeng— another one of the king's mul titude of cousins, as well as a high man in the Interior Department— and regularly enrolled among the royal mahouts who drive in the period ical elephant catch or parade on festive occasions, or personally conduct the jaunts of the king's chil dren when one of his majesty's several dozen goes forth on an official airing. And so ended the double life of Choo Poh Lek ; for henceforth there was no further pretence of attending to the rattan business. Choo's soul was freed from trade bond age. Incidentally I must however add, because I became much interested in Lee, quite a character in his way, that the honor reflected upon the father through this appointment of his son, and the em- 8 THE KING'S MAHOUT ployment of a capable man to look after the up- country rattan interests, combined to place the name of Lee Boon Jew & Son among the foremost traders of the city. I knew Lee weeks before I met Choo; and the first time I saw the latter was in the royal stables within the king's enclosure where I was giving rather disrespectful scrutiny to the sacred white elephants, which, notwithstanding surroundings and attendants, impressed me only because of seeming insignificance in their washed out hide and pale blue eyes. I immediately lost interest in the elephants on discovering Choo. Even had his obviously at home air failed to attract my wander ing gaze, his dress would have arrested my eye, for it was the most resplendent thing in the way of native costume I had seen outside the palace. Not that it was so rich or remarkable in itself, but because the average Siamese is poor and dirty and inconspicuously, not to say sombrely, clad; whereas Choo was clean and brilliant and weU fed. He wore a red and blue check panung,* a yeUow * The panung is a strip of cloth or silk three yards long and a yard broad. It is put on by a turn about the waist, the end being then carried between the legs and up through the waist and down through the legs again before fastened finally to the waist, to thus make a pair of loose, baggy knee breeches that, however, open up the back of the leg as the we.arer walks. Fashioned in this way, the panung is worn by both men and women. THE KING'S MAHOUT 9 silk jacket fastened to the chin, with buttons made from silver half ticals , a round piece of Siamese money worth about thirty cents ; and was bare of head, and legs from knee down to stockingless feet. He was an important looking personage ; nothing like him in fact had I met in the royal enclosure, where I had gone seeking the unusual. But my attempt to engage him in conversation was a fail ure, for he spoke no English. The second time I saw the king's mahout was a few days later, in Lee 's shop on the river, where I was making purchases for my hunting outfit which I was then getting together. Lee knew English fairly well and I often chatted with him, though he had never spoken to me of his distinguished son, so that when I saw Choo walk into the shop and make himself very much at home, I naturally asked about him; then Lee opened his heart, for he was very proud of the boy, and told me the whole story as I have told you. Choo at once became a very interesting person ality to me ; because of the unusual type of Asiatic he represented, and on my own account because, having seen something of elephant catching in India, I wanted also to see the work of rounding up the elephants in the jungle preparatory to their being driven into the kraal at Ayuthia, the old Siamese capital, for what is called the " royal 10 THE KING'S MAHOUT hunt," but what is nothing more or less than a means of adding to the work-a-day elephants kept in the king's stables. Lee comfortingly assured me he thought it could be arranged for me to make a trip with Choo to the elephant encampment ; and sure enough it came about in due course that as his Majesty, Phrabat Somdet Phra Paramendr Maha Chulalongkorn Klou, otherwise and more briefly known as Chula longkorn I, had commanded a royal hunt, Choo and I in season set out on our way up the river in a canoe, carrying no provisions, for we were to stop the nights en route with friends of the firm of Lee Boon Jew & Son. Choo's journey to the jungle resembled the tri umphant march of a popular toreador. 'Twas fortunate we had given ourselves ample time, for we tarried often and long; not that I objected, because I am always on the lookout for human documents, and this trip was full of them, many not altogether agreeable, but interesting, for these were the real people of Siam. Now, the real people of Siam are not always pleasant to live with ; too many of them are poor, and dirty, not withstanding the river flowing past the door— though, speaking of dirty things, it would be diffi cult to find water farther from its pure state than these rivers which serve to sewer and to irrigate THE KING'S MAHOUT 11 Siam. Also the houses as often as not are in wretched condition, for it seems to be traditional with the Siamese not to repair them, but when they have tumbled about their ears, to vacate and build another: not a particularly expensive plan, since the house consists of loosely put together bamboo raised on stilts six to eight feet ; and bam boo grows at everyone's back door in Siam. Siamese food principally consists of dried, fre quently rotted fish, and rice, done into curries which comprise a little of about every kind of condiment, and especially a very popular sauce called namphrik, a chutney-like and thoroughly mixed thing made of red pepper, shrimp, garlic, onions, citron, ginger, and tamarind seeds. The only reason for the fish being putrid is because the natives like it so, for fish are plentiful in the rivers and fishermen numerous, though their ways of catching are rather amusing and antique. One favorite method, borrowed from the Chinese, is beating the waters with long bamboo sticks to frighten the fish into an eight or ten foot squarish net which is lowered into the river from a frame work on the bank by a system of wheels and ropes and pulleys ; and hoisted up again when the catch is complete. I must confess that when the fish in the curry chanced to be dried instead of decayed, I found the concoction toothsome. In fact a really 12 THE KING'S MAHOUT good curry is in a class apart; but one must go to India or the Far East to get it at its best. Some times the natives eat pork and oftentimes chicken, but for the most part, rice and the fish curry con stitute their chief diet, supplemented by the fruit of the country, of which there are many kinds— mangosteen, mango, pineapple, banana, orange, bread fruit, and that most healthful of all Siamese fruits, the papaya, which grows back from the water and is a greenish oval melon that suggests cantaloupe when opened. We did not get really outside of the Bangkok city limits the first day of our up-river joumey, as we spent the night at the home of one of Choo's admiring friends, in the centre of a little floating community, where a " poey " was given in his honor. Now a poey may take several different directions of hilarity, but is always an excuse for eating and gambling. The poey in honor of Choo included about everything on the entertainment catalogue. First was a feast which overflowed from the house of Choo's friend into adjoining ones, attended by two dozen men and women who sat in groups on the floors eating a loud smelling fish sauce with gusto— and with their fingers; neither wine nor spirits were in evidence— the Sia mese as a rule drinking water. Then came ad journment to the river bank, where on a raised THK EIN.XL SIAliE OF IHI-: K[N(;'.S KI.l'.P 1 1 \\ I' IirNT IN SIA.M. A pupiilar Imliday : '-pertalnr-; tluck lo the scene by the thnusand^ and where the herd rnK-^es the river llie 'Stream is cnvcrcd with THE KING'S MAHOUT 13 platform, roofed, but open on its four sides, three girls danced and posed after the gracefully delib erate Siamese fashion, accompanied by the melo dious, always quick time, though dirge-like, music of a small native orchestra. The dancing was of the usual Oriental character, not, as popularly sup posed among Occidentals, of the " couchee cou- chee " Midway variety, but a posturing in which hands and arms and shoulders played the promi nent part. In a word it was a kind of slow walk- around to exhibit and emphasize the movements of arms and hands, the supreme test of the dancer being suppleness of wrist and shoulder; some of the most expert could bend back their hands so that the long finger nails almost touched the fore arm. The band itself consisted of a group of metal cups, ranging in size from five to fourteen inches in diameter, a series of hollow bamboo sticks, also arranged to scale, two drums and a kind of flute ; and the musicians sat on the floor. Nearby, and attracting at least an equal number of spectators, was another platform level with the ground, where gambling proceeded industriously. Siamese silver money seems to have been fash ioned to meet the native passion for gambling. It ranges in value (gold) from six cents up to sixty cents, and in size from a small marble with its four sides flattened (which describes the tical), 14 THE KING'S MAHOUT down to that of a French pea. There is also much flat money made of copper, glass and china, run ning into fractions of a cent. The favorite game is a species of roulette, for which purpose the money is admirably suited to the rake of the croupier. Comparatively recently the Government has been issuing flat ten cent silver pieces, and the extent of gambling is suggested by the great num ber of these coming to one in the ordinary course of the day's business, that have been cupped to facilitate their handling on the gaming board. After four days on the Meinam we turned off on a smaller river somewhere below Ayuthia, and took a northeasterly direction through heavy foliage, and more monkeys than I had ever seen. The first night we stopped at a house dilapidated rather more than ordinarily, where inside a lone old woman sat weaving a varied colored cloth, while outside on the veranda-like addition— whieli is practically half of every up-country Siamese abode— were a girl and a boy making water buckets and ornaments of bamboo. I often wondered what these Far Eastern people would do without bamboo. It is a pivot of their industrial life. Growing in groves ranging from twenty to forty feet in height, though I have seen some higher, it varies in diameter from two to fifteen or even more inches. The tender shoots of THE KING'S MAHOUT 15 the yoimg bamboo are good eating, while the tree in its different sizes and conditions of growth pro vides a valuable article of export, the timber for house making, the fibre for mats and baskets and personal ornaments, while, in hollowed sections, it is made into buckets and water pipes. Another day's travel on the smaller river brought us to the encampment of the elephant catchers. Here were about one hundred men, bared to the waist, and a score of tuskers; the former divided among a small colony of elevated bamboo houses, and the latter scattered at graze in the surrounding jungle, wearing rattan hobbles around their feet, and bells of hollow bamboo at their necks. This was the home camp, where preparations had been making in leisurely and truly Oriental fashion for the start toward the interior ; but on the evening of our arrival a mod erate state of excitement resulted from a native bringing in the report, which he had got third hand, of a large white elephant seen in the jungle. The day was in Siam when the lucky man who discovered a white elephant was raised to the rank of nobility, and in case of its capture, very likely was given one of the king's gross of daughters in marriage. In the old days the catching of such an elephant was a signal for general holiday- making and feasting ; nobles were sent to the jun- 16 THE KING'S MAHOUT gle to guard it, and ropes of silk were considered the only suitable tether for an animal accustomed to the deference of a populous country. When My Lord the Elephant had rested at the end of his sflken tether sufficiently to become reconciled to his encompassed condition, he was taken in much glory to Bangkok, where, after being paraded and saluted, he was lodged in a specially prepared palace. Here he was sung to and danced before, given exalted titles, shaded by golden umbrellas and decorated with trappings of great value. In fact the white elephant was once made a great deal of, but never really worshipped, as some writers have declared. Because of its rarity it is still very highly prized by the king and though capture is unusual enough to create excite ment, yet popular rejoicing and honors for the catcher do not nowadays attend the event. But the white elephants continue to stand unemployed in the royal stables at Bangkok— where westem ideas are becoming evident in electric lighting and trolley cars. There were four in the royal stables at the time of my visit, leading lives of luxurious ease. The real local consequence of the white ele phant rests in it being to Siam what the eagle is to America, the lion is to England— a national emblem. On a scarlet background it forms the Siamese imperial flag, and gives name to one of THE KING'S MAHOUT 17 the highest orders of merit in the gift of the king. So while the little colony of catchers in the jungle lost no sleep and missed no fish curry on account of the reported white elephant, which, let me say here, did not materialize, yet the move ment toward the interior began on the day after our arrival. We moved slowly— very slowly, for the elephant normally does not travel faster than about four miles an hour— through heavy, rather open forest, and stretches of thinnish woodland, where the jungle undergrowth was so dense that even the elephants avoided it. Quite the most interesting jungle thing I saw on these several days of inland travel was the Poh tree, sacred to the Siamese because, it is said, under its shade Buddha had his last earthly sleep. At night we camped in groups; the mahouts divided between two, the beaters or scouts, who walked, scattered among a dozen others. The whole formed a large circle, of which the inner part was filled with little bamboo platforms raised four or five feet above the ground for sleeping. Outside this circle was a larger one around which flamed the many separate fires of each group of mahouts and beaters, that were used first for cook ing, and kept burning throughout the night as a danger signal to prowling beasts, and as an inade- 18 THE KING'S MAHOUT quate protection against mosquitoes, of whieh there were myriads. Choo and I made a group of our own, and although he did not exactly fill the roll of servant to me, he did my cooking, and kept the fire burning. Beyond the outside circle of fire grazed the hobbled elephants in the nearby jungle. The king's mahout had offered me a seat behind where he rode on the elephant's neck, with his knees just back of its ears, but I preferred to walk, and was well repaid by the little side excursions I was thus able to make and the many closer inspec tions afforded of small red deer, flitting insects and fl}dng birds. For a week we continued our north easterly travel by day and our mosquito fighting by night, slowly drawing closer to the section where the scouts reported wild elephants in several herds; for always as we moved in the day the scouts kept well ahead, prospecting. Finally, one night Choo made me understand that our outposts, so to say, were in touch with the enemy. And now began the, to me, only interesting work of reconnoitring the elephants ; of obtaining posi tive knowledge as to the number of herds, the loca tion of each with relation to the others and to the surrounding country, the number of elephants in each herd— their size, and their apparent temper coUectivclv and individually. THE KING'S MAHOUT 19 Elephant catching in Siam differs quite mate rially in procedure and in difficulties from catch ing elephants in India, where also its economical value is appreciated. The Indian Government maintains an official department, with men well paid to study the ways of elephants and the best method of catching and subsequently training them ; which means training schools scattered over the country. In India no systematic attempt is made to consolidate two or more wild herds, but when the scouts have discovered one it is stealthily surrounded, and held together by a ring of men, two about every forty feet, who keep the elephants intact, as well as in control, by days of exploding guns, and nights of crashing gongs and blazing fires. Meanwhile a log keddah (corral) is build ing close at hand with all the speed possible to be got out of several hundred natives by a terribly earnest white headman who sleeps neither day nor night. In fact no one sleeps much in the few anxious days between surrounding the herd and constructing the corral. From two to four days are required to build the keddah, which when com pleted is an eight to ten foot high stockade formed of good-sized logs, one end planted firmly in the ground, and the whole securely bound together by rattan, thus enclosing about an acre of partially cleared jungle, with the big trees left standing. 20 THE KING'S MAHOUT Into this keddah, through a funnel-shaped runway reaching to the human circle, the frightened, scrambling, grunting herd is urged by the beaters on tame elephants ; once within, the wild elephants are noosed one by one by the legs and tied to trees by the catchers mounted on the tame elephants. All the while the human circle is in evidence around the outside of the keddah to help on the deception played upon the huge beasts, that they caimot escape. The native way of catching elephants both in India and in the Far East, is usually by the simple means of digging pitf aUs along their routes to the rivers ; for the elephant is a thirsty beast and when in herds makes beaten paths to water, always returning by the same way. Thus easily they fall into the waylaying pits, which are about eight feet wide on the top, six feet wide at the bottom and eight feet deep. In Siam, catching elephants is a different and an easier game for several reasons; because (1) the region over which they roam is much more con fined than in India, and (2) as the so-called hunt is a periodical event of many years' standing, large numbers of jungle elephants have been rounded up and corralled so comparatively often as to have become semi-tame. Of course there are many in every drive that have not been corralled, and some THE KING'S MAHOUT 21 that do not take kindly to the king's utilitarian and amusement-making scheme. Aside from the white elephant, which is an albino, a freak, there are two varieties in Siam: a smallish kind with tusks, quite easily broken to work if not too old; and a larger, stronger, tuskless species that is not so easily handled, is something of a fighter and is avoided in the royal hunt in favor of the smaUer, some of which, however, carry ivory of splendid proportions. The Siamese elephant belongs, of course, to the Asiatic species, which in size both of body and tusks, is inferior to the African. Of the Asiatic, the Siamese averages neither so large as the Indian nor so small as the Malayan; and sometimes its ivory compares favorably with that of any species. The largest tusk ever taken from a Siamese elephant measures 9 feet, lOJ inches in length, and 8 inches in diameter at the base, and is now in the Royal Museum at Bangkok. Inciden tally I wish to say that almost never have I found tusks of any kind of elephant of the same length, one showing usually more wear from root digging or what not than the other. So soon as the scouts brought back word of our being in touch with the herds, camp was pitched and the tame elephants hobbled ; and then the en tire force spread out till a full one hundred yards separated one man from another, making a pains- 22 THE KING'S MAHOUT taking and wide survey of the country withia a five-mile radius. The camp and the scouts were kept some distance from where the elephants had been located, and withdrew from their immediate neighborhood so fast as others were discovered— because the elephant, being mostly nocturnal and hence with its senses of smell and touch very acutely developed to enable it to distinguish the various kinds of trees and shrubs upon which it feeds, would be warned by the man scent and move off. For that reason our advance party, through all the manoeuvres of locating the elephants, be came a thin brown line of scouts. It was not so difficult to find the elephants, moving casually in herds of varying sizes up hill and down, for they are very noisy and destructive; the difficulty was to escape detection, which in this preliminary sur vey might result in frightening them away. Working in this way the scouts had within ten days located one fairly sized herd and two smaUer ones, besides some scattered, making altogether about two hundred and forty. And this successful and rather speedy result was not to be credited entirely to their efforts on the present hunt; a large share being due the system in vogue. These men are more or less in touch with the elephants most of the time ; in fact, in a measure they are to the elephant haunts what the cowboys are to the THE KING'S MAHOUT 23 cattle range. In a broad sense the elephants are practically always under their eyes— a very broad sense, of course, but they know where to find them and the direction of their migrations. Yet some times weeks and months are spent by these ele phant catchers in rounding up and heading stray ing herds preparatory to starting the final gath ering for the drive toward Ayuthia. With the three herds located, perhaps five miles separating the one on the extreme north from the stragglers at the extreme south, the plan of consol idation was begun. For this purpose the thin brown line stretched its two halves, one across the north and the other to the south of the herds, while the tame tuskers and their mahouts covered the east approach. As the big herd was at the south, the plan was to form a junction by driving the two smaller ones and the scattering individuals down to the larger. Beginning unobtrusively, it was three days before the individuals had joined the smaller herds, and it took two days more before all these were headed south. Short as was the dis tance, it required six days longer to consolidate those herds; patient days and anxious nights, for the danger in elephant catching is the beast's ner vous, fearful temperament which subjects him to ungovernable fits of panic. Writers of romance to the contrary notwithstanding, the elephant is 24 THE KING'S MAHOUT a most undependable beast. Hence everything is done quietly, with no sudden movements to startle the elephants, or any unnecessary direct ness of approach. The entire effort of gathering scattered herds is furtive as much as the circum stances will allow. Once the elephants have been got together into one herd, the line of scouts may become a circle with a human post and a lurid brush fire alternating every ten yards around its length ; or it may simply herd the beasts according to their temper. But no noise is made except in cases where elephants move too closely to the limits of the enclosure; elephants have broken through and escaped, but rarely. Choo's fitness for the post of head mahout was evident from the day of leaving the home camp back on the little river ; but only when the drive of the consolidated herd toward Ayuthia began, did his consummate skill manifest itself. His hand ling not only of his own elephant, but his execu tive ability in placing the other elephants, and the beaters, made perfectly easy of comprehension why he had advanced so rapidly among his fellows. Although he was kind to his elephants, Choo never showed them the slightest affection ; holding them under the strictest discipline and exacting instant obedience under penalty of severe punishment. A trainer of reputation with whom in my boyhood J^^jdttiHttii^^fi IlRI\INr. I'lIK HERD lOWAKI) IIIE KRAAL. The stiifliiif^, daring crowd of spectators hang cuiistaiilly on the lieels 'if the elephants. THE KING'S MAHOUT 25 days I was on terms of daily intercourse, once told me that there are two things you must never do with an elephant if you wish to control it. First, never disappoint, and second, never show affec tion for it, as the animal's own regard for you wUl be sure to diminish in proportion as you are demonstrative. Certainly Choo achieved brilliant success with just such methods. Often, however, he talked to his elephants, sometimes encour agingly, sometimes sharply, as the occasion war ranted, but never tenderly. His usual tone was a complaining one, and though I could not under stand what he said, I have heard him for several minutes at a time in an uninterrupted high-pitched oratorical effort, rather suggesting a father read ing the riot act to a sluggard son. Perhaps it was my imagination— and at aU events I do not offer it as a contribution to the new school of animal story-tellers— but it always seemed to me that Choo's mount showed unmistakable contrition in the, as it appeared to me, absurdly abashed expres sion which came into his face, and the droopiness of the pendent trunk. Often I went into roars of laughter at sight of Choo leaning over the ele phant's ear solemnly lecturing, while the beast blinked its uninviting little pig eyes. At such times the king's mahout included me in the tale of woe he confided to the elephant's great flopping 26 THE KING'S MAHOUT ear. Always Choo wore an amulet of jade and now that he had doffed his yellow silk jacket and, like the others, wore a cotton panung, with bare upper body, I noticed that he also kept around his neck a tiny human image of a kind I had seen Buddhist priests making of tree roots and selling to ease native superstition. Choo's plan of driving the herd was masterful; there was no confusion, nor any sign to indicate that the task was difficult. Perhaps a half nule area was occupied by the gathered elephants when the final drive began, and it was not possible from one side of the herd to see the other side of the jungle. Choo placed four of his largest tame tuskers, two at each opening, as extreme westem outposts of the driving line, and somewhat closer to the herd. The remaining tuskers were divided among the north and south sides and the rear, with more of them at the sides than in the rear, where were the most beaters. So far as I could see, the only apparent anxious movement was tn getting the herd started, and that was finaUy accomplished by half a dozen tame elephants taking positions at the head of the lot. In fact, Choo kept several of these at the head of the herd throughout the drive to the river. Sometimes the elephants would move steadily as though really traveUing with an objective in view; again they fed along leis- THE KING'S MAHOUT 27 urely, scattered over the considerable enclosure within the driving lines. Sometimes several would come against one side of the driving line and be startled into sudden retreat, or stand in questioning attitude before backing into the main body. But always the herd moved on, day and night, though sometimes not over five miles would be covered in twelve hours. It was a leisurely saunter, but never a moment did Choo relax his vigilance. There was not the amount of trumpeting some of us have been led to believe. Once in a while the shrill trunk call of fear would be heard, but more often the low mouth note, a sort of grunting or questioning sound — and not at aU on the drive toward the river was heard the throat roar of rage. It was, in fact, because of Choo 's generalship and individual skill, a very well behaved herd of ele phants that pursued its snaU-like course river- wards without accident. On the tenth day Choo brought the herd to the jungle at the river's edge just in front of Ayuthia, and early the following morning four Siamese im perial flags floated above the kraal as signal for him to begin the final drive into the enclosure. In stanter the camp was in a buzz of serious-faced preparation for the final, and in some respects the most difficult, stage of the elephant catching ; weeks 28 THE KING'S MAHOUT of patient toil and a successful drive might be lost by mishap in getting the herd across the river and the remaining couple of miles. The king's mahout prepared for the test with the apparent confidence and thoroughness that had stamped all his work on the drive. First he put two men on each of his score of tame elephants, the second carrying a bamboo pole; then he sent three of the tuskers thus equipped into the side of the herd nearest the river. These made their way slowly, never hurriedly, yet always determinedly, among the wUd ones, cutting out a group of eight which they headed riverwards. Then two other tuskers en tered the herd and began similar tactics; and simultaneously the tuskers guarding the outer circle, and the beaters crowded forward. Some times one of the wild ones, being moved outside of the herd in the lead, would escape and return. Then shone out in bold relief Choo's unflinching grasp of his business. There would be no chasing of that escaped elephant, no hustling movements by any one to suggest that the unusual had oc curred; but three other mounted tuskers would work into and through the herd in apparent aim- lessness, yet always toward the truant. The es caped one might shift about among its feUows, might dodge, but sooner or later it found itself between two of the tuskers, with the third at its THE KING'S MAHOUT 29 stern; and eventually it was back whence it had broken away, all without fuss or excitement by either the tuskers or the mahouts on their backs. Sometimes an hour would be consumed returning such a one ; but return was inevitable. Choo knew, with the river once in sight, at least half his troubles would be over, for elephants take to water like ducks ; so he maintained the arrange ment of beaters and the several tuskers in the lead, the lot travelling at not more than a mile an hour, until the bank was reached, where the tuskers slipped to one side and the entire herd was soon in the river, bathing and blowing water through their trunks, to indicate in elephantine way their joy of living. With spectators on the banks and afloat in numberless small craft, the drive out of the river into the wings running down to the kraal entrance is always a critical period, so Choo per mitted the herd to wallow and squirt water over themselves to their heart's content; for nearly an hour in fact. Then he placed fully half his tuskers at the head of the herd and with the remainder covering its rear, began the move toward the kraal, less than a quarter mile distant. Happily for Choo the bath had put the elephants in a very com fortable frame of mind and they moved forward, following the tuskers unhesitatingly out on to the bank, despite the fact that all Ayuthia and many 30 THE KING'S MAHOUT besides were holiday making within a few hundred yards. As the herd swung ponderously along into the funnel-shaped enclosure — which is made of massive twelve-foot high posts firmly planted every two feet and leads directly to the gate of the kraal— Choo withdrew from the lead to the rear all save two of the tame elephants. The herd moved peacefuUy however untU a big female, with its little calf walking almost concealed under the mother's stomach, endeavored to break back from the side, and made quite a commotion when checked by the rear guard. Although no general panic resulted, the row seemed to get on the nerves of the elephants, whose questioning, expectant ex pression of countenance suggested painful timor- ousness. As the herd neared the kraal, getting more compact all the time in the narrowing run way, the elephants appeared to sense a trap, crowding together and breaking into groups against the heavy posts, so that Choo had to bring up several of his tuskers whose mahouts prodded the obstreperous ones into harmony. It was pretty much of a rough-and-tumble scramble at the kraal gate, large enough to admit only one ele phant at a time. Perhaps a third of the herd fol lowed the leading tame tuskers into the kraal, but the remainder got jammed, and the ensuing scene of confusion and of wild endeavor to get some- THE KING'S MAHOUT 31 where, tested the rear guard to its utmost and must have given the king's mahout at least a few uncom fortable moments. At length, however, the kraal gate closed on the last elephant, and Choo had brought his part of the royal hunt to a successful conclusion. The Ayuthia elephant kraal was built over one hundred years ago, not long after the seat of the Siamese Government had been moved from this ancient capital to Bangkok. It is an enclosure about two hundred feet square, surrounded by a brick wall averaging perhaps fourteen to fifteen feet in thickness, with a height of nine feet. On each side is a parapet forming an excellent prome nade under the shade of some large trees. About twenty feet inside the brick wall is a smaller en closure made of huge teak logs, planted firmly, so as to leave just space enough between every two for a man to squeeze through, and standing above the ground full twelve feet. In the centre of the kraal is a little house strongly surrounded by logs, which sometimes the superintendent in charge uses to direct the selection of elephants to be caught, and sometimes becomes a house of refuge; and always it serves to break up the herd rounded about it. Three sides of this great square are reached by steps and open to the public. Along one side of the waU and over the centre of it is a covered plat- 32 THE KING'S MAHOUT form which contains the royal box, and other more democratic accommodations for natives of nobility and foreigners. There are two entrances to the en closure, both guarded by very strong heavy timber gates hung on pins from crossbeams above, which, closed, reach below the ground level, where they fit into a groove. Opened, they make an inverted V, just large enough to permit the passage of one elephant at a time. The attitude of a herd on first realizing that it has been trapped and cannot escape, varies accord ing to the temperaments of its members, and is enlightening, not to say enUvening, at times, to the onlooker. For the herd, which without serious opposition has permitted itself to be taken from its jungle and driven, uttering scarcely an objec tion through days and nights, wiU, when once in the kraal, throw off its good manners and become rampant. Some fight the posts, some fight one another; in groups they surge against the stout sides of the enclosure, grunting prodigiously, and wherever a venturesome spectator shows a head between the post, he is charged. Not all the herd are so violent. Some show their perturbation by thrusting their trunks down into their stomach res ervoir and drawing forth water which they squirt over their backs; others express contempt for things generally by making little dust piles which THE KING'S MAHOUT 33 they blow over everything in sight, including their own legs ; some utter the mouthing low note ; some rap the ground with their trunks, thus knocking out several peculiar rattling crackling high notes. The calves squeak through their little trunks shrilly and frequently. The programme extends over three days ; on the first, after the herd is corralled, the head mogul of the royal stables points out the young elephants to be caught; on the second the selected captives are noosed; and on the third day the remaining ele phants are driven out and across the river and into the jungle to wander at will, until such time as his majesty issues commands for another royal " hunt." The most interesting feature of the performance in the kraal is the work of the trained elephants. You would never think from the peaceful, mild countenance of the tusker, that he is in league with the men on his back. He is the most casual thing you can imagine, sidling up to the victim in manner unpremeditated and entirely friendly. It is the same unhurried, unrelaxing work he did in the jungle under the eye of Choo, who is now no doubt viewing proceedings critically from the covered platform. Sometimes a cantankerous elephant is looking for a fight ; and then the tusker is a busi ness-like and effective bouncer, and such " rough 34 THE KING'S MAHOUT house " as results on this occasion you have not elsewhere seen. The tusker moves not swiftly but with overwhelming momentum, and not infre quently an offender is sent quite off its feet sur prised and wiser, rolling in the dust. The actual catching consists in slipping the noose, held at the end of the bamboo prod by the second mahout, over the elephant's hind foot. When the noose is successfuUy placed it is at once pulled taut, and the end of the rope which has been attached to the tame tusker's rattan girdle is let go, to be subsequently, as occasion offers, carried by a dismounted mahout to the edge of the enclosure, where other attendants fasten it to the post, and take in the slack as the captive is pushed back by the tuskers. When the victim is snubbed fairly close to the post comes the putting on of the rattan collar, which is accomplished by mahouts mounted on two tame elephants that hold the victim between them. With the coUar lashed on, the captive is butted out through the gate, where he is pinned between the tuskers and fastened to them by the collars they also wear for this very purpose. Then, thus handcuffed, with noose rope traUing and a third elephant behind to keep him moving, the captive is carried off to the stables and securely tied up. And so endeth the liberty of that elephant. THE KING'S MAHOUT 35 Sometimes the mahout drops to the ground under cover of his tusker and slips the noose ; and it is not so easy as it reads. The elephant's foot must be caught off the ground before the noose is thrown, and sluggish as he seems, the elephant kicks like chain lightning ; the kick of a mule is a love pat by comparison. It is a curious but sub stantiated fact that, while at times there is much fighting, with mahouts, tame tuskers and the wUd elephants in mixed melee, it is rare that a mahout, so long as he is mounted, is injured. Although the mahouts could easily be pulled off their perches, the wild elephants never make even an attempt to do so in the kraal; but the dismounted mahout needs to look out for both trunk and feet. Acci dents are rare, although sometimes when the ele phants are being driven out one wUl break away and require a great deal of prodding and rough handling before brought back into the herd. Sometimes in little groups of twos or threes ele phants will rush at the shifting spectators who crowd near them ; for the Siamese are rather fond of running up, by way of a dare, to an elephant coming out of the narrow gateway and dodging its short-lived pursuit before the mahouts head it back into the herd. This is not so dangerous a game as it sounds, for the elephant is by no means the swiftest thing on earth and a man can easily dodge 36 THE KING'S MAHOUT it if the ground is smooth and firm. Yet fatal accidents have occurred to the over-confident who did not dodge fast enough. And there have been times, too, when, enraged at their failure to catch the tormentor, the elephants have wreaked their vengeance on nearby fences or buUdings or any thing happening to be within reach. The process of elephant catching in India as well as in Siam tends to rather undermine one's settled notions of elephant sagacity, and to create instead the feeling that a lot of sentimental nonsense and misleading, ignorantly conceived animal stories, have been put forth about My Lord, the Elephant. The literal truth is that the elephant, for aU its reputed intelligence, is driven into places that no other wUd animal coiUd possibly be induced to enter; is, in its native jungle, held captive within a circle through which it could pass without an effort, and is bullied into uncomplaining obedience by a force the smallest fraction of its own numbers. Part of this is, no doubt, due to its exceedingly sus picious nature; the other part because of its lack of originality, which latter defect, however, has great value for man since it accounts for the ele phant's notable amenability to discipline. CHAPTER II THROUGH THE KLAWNGS OF SIAM WATERMEN more expert than the Siamese do not live in the Orient, nor in the world indeed, unless it be among the Esquimaux, or the South Sea Islanders ; and Saw Swee Ann was one of the most skilful I met during my wanderings in the Far East. Saw, for so I at once abbreviated his tuneful name, was a " saked " man and bore the indelible mark which all those wear who serve royalty without pay. Not that it is a service of especial honor, but a species of traditional slavery. Nor does every saked man serve the king. In the intricate and far-reaching systems, which cross-sec tion the social fabric of Oriental peoples and per plex the western mind, are provided separate and distinct places for every class of native mankind from royalty to the lowliest subject. Siam has perhaps more than its share of such subdivisions, and so it happened that Saw also had his servant, for that man is indeed low in Siam's social scale who is without a servitor. Saked men, however, are those in the service of the king or those at tached to the person of a noble or a tribal head. Those who serve about the royal palace, and those 37 38 THROUGH THE KLAWNGS in any of the companies connected more or less directly with the king, are marked on the left side, a little below the armpit ; aU others are marked on the fore-arm. And the mark (" sak "), always the insignia of him in whose service the man is enrolled, is pricked into the skin, and then made permanent by applying a mixture of India ink and peacock bile. None but a native, I believe, may be a saked man, and as I traveUed and studied the country, it seemed to me that in the course of another quarter century pure Siamese blood will flow in the veins only of royalty and of the poor est of Siam's inhabitants. The average native is an indolent, improvident, good-natured creature, happy so long as he has enough to keep his stomach from prolipsting, and a few ticals to gamble with. Great Britain, fortunately for the commercial world, controls the export trade of Siam, and the Chinaman is its industrial backbone. More than that, John Chinaman is becoming Siam's small trader as well, and father of the only dependable laborer growing up on its soil; for the Siamese woman marries him in preference to her own coun trymen, because he makes a better husband. The result of this union is called a Simo-Chinese, but really is a Chinaman in looks, in habits— so strongly does the son of Confucius put his stamp upon his progeny. Thus the native Siamese is OF SIAM 39 being crowded into the lowest walks of life. Even in Bangkok, the capital, where reside the king and aU Government officials, he finds it difficult to retain prestige, while the town itself is taking on the motley appearance of an Oriental city turned topsy-turvy by electric lights and trolley cars pene trating quarters of such squalor, one marvels that life can exist there at all. It is a strange, half -floating city, this Bangkok, overrun by pariah dogs and crows ; Oriental despite its improvements, and one of the most interesting places in the Far East. Yet a sad city for the visitor with mind apart from ' ' margins ' ' and time saving machinery. At every turning are evidences of the decay of native art, and in their stead com monplace things bearing the legend " Made in Ger many." One would scarcely believe t(?-day, after a visit to Bangkok, that at one time the Siamese were distinguished, even among Asiatic artisans, in silk weaving, in ceramics, in ivory carving and in silversmithing. Yet the royal museum, with treasures not found elsewhere in the world, serves to remind one how far Siam has fallen from the place she once occupied among art-producing na tions. When, therefore, we behold a people dis couraging and losing their splendid ancient arts, and giving instead a ready market to the cheap trash which comes out of the West, we may hardly 40 THROUGH THE KLAWNGS look for native industrial development. The day is probably not far off when Siam's industries will depend upon foreign guidance; and if England, not France, supplies that impetus — the world will be the gainer. By those people who delight in comparisons— and read travellers ' folders especiaUy compiled for tourist consumption— Bangkok has been variously called the Constantinople of Asia and the Venice of the East. True, there is pertinence in both com parisons. Certainly Bangkok is the home of the gaunt and ugly pariah dog, which spends its day foraging to keep life in its mangy carcass; multi plying meanwhile with the fecundity of cats in a tropical clime, because the Buddha faith forbids its killing. Nor are outcast dogs the only pests of Bangkok, to grow numerous because of native religious prejudice ; more noisy crows perch of an early rforning on your window casing, than in the space of a day hover near the " Towers of Silence " at Bombay awaiting the pleasure of the vultures that are feeding on the earthly remains of one that has died in the faith of the Parsee. Some people imagine Bangkok a city of islands; hence I suppose the comparison with Venice. Bangkok has, indeed, a very large floating popu lation, and the city is intersected by many klawngs or canals; at certain times of the year, OF SIAM 41 too, perhaps half the town and the surroimdmg country is under a foot or more of tide-water. Yet the larger half of Bangkok's four hundred thousand citizens lives on land, though the easiest means of travel throughout much of the city is by boat, and in fact, half of it is reached in no other way. The Siamese woman of the lower class daily paddles her own canoe to the market ; or, if of the better class, she goes in a " rua chang," the cora mon passenger boat which, together with the jin- rikisha, the land hack throughout the Orient, is included among the household possessions of every Siamese who can afford them. The native city has a surrounding wall nine feet thick and twelve feet high, and but a single street where a horse and wagon can travel. For the rest, the streets are no wider than needed for passing jinrikishas, and at least one of them, Sampeng, is too narrow for comfort— even for such*traffic. Most native thoroughfares are mere passage ways, trails; for the Siamese by virtue of their swamp like lower country travel single file, first by neces sity, afterwards through habit. Sampeng is a street of character ; it is the Bow ery of Bangkok. It is a continuous bazar from end to end, with many alley-like tributaries, lead ing, for the greater number, to open-air theatres, or to large crowded rooms where natives squat to 42 THROUGH THE KLAWNGS gamble, and a band sends up uninterrupted melody from out of the darkness at the rear. But the most imposing array of shops is on the Meinam River, the Strand of Bangkok, along which for six miles the city spreads itself in floating shops. On the klawngs, that wind throughout the city with the deviousness, and apparently with all the aimless- ness of a cow path, the natives rear single-room veranda-like houses on stilts, six to eight feet above the water. The Siamese builds his house of one story and on stilts for several reasons. The first, no doubt, is to avoid the unpardonable sin of living on a lower story while an upper one is occupied by other human beings, especiaUy women, who, in Siam, are not regarded as of much importance. The second, and I should say the most practical, if not the most esthetic, reason is to have a waste gate of easy access for the continuaUy flowing sa liva from betel-nut chewing, and household refuse, which may thus be easily disposed of through the crevices of an openly constructed floor. And not the least advantage of this style of house, is the opportunity its elevation affords dogs, pigs, crows and other scavengers, whose immunity from death at the hands of man is only another proof of many why Buddha should have given a religion to this people. A lesser reason is to secure a higher and a healthier floor to live upon above the damp soil^ ALONG THE KLAWN<; (CAXAL). Fully half of the native house usually develops into verandah. pi ^ ¦ iTBBBl A GAMr.MXi; PL\CE OFF THE SAMPENG IX r;.\XGK(iK: In the background a band is hard at work entertaining the patrons. OF SIAM 43 and no doubt yet another is to escape from the snakes, toads, worms and multitude of other crawl ing things which drag their length over the soU of lower Siam. Past the floating houses along the river, and among the stilted houses through the klawngs, flows a scarcely ever ending procession of passen ger boats, house boats, freight boats and canoes of all sizes, for in Siam may be seen the most remark able variety of water craft in the world; and, I may add, of the most graceful lines. Unless it be the Burman, really of about the same stock, no builder anywhere compares with the Siamese, who make their boats large and small of teak, and give them lines unequalled. Here is one art at least in which the natives continue proficient. My travels have never brought me among a peo ple seemingly more contented, more happy, than these Siamese. Their wants are few and easily supplied: a single piece of stuff completes the scanty, inexpensive costume; rice and fruit and fish, to be had for almost nothing, constitute the food ; betel-nuts, which high and low chew, may be gathered. Life moves very easily for them, and they go to their death with unbounded faith that Buddha will take care of the next world, wherever it may be. Living, they hold to their simple faith as conscientiously as the Mohammedans, which is 44 THROUGH THE KLAWNGS tantamount to saying more conscientiously than the Christian sects. Dying, they pass with confi dence into the unknown; and their bodies are burned and the ashes scattered to the four winds. Their attitude towards life is truly philosophic; and friends left behind conduct themselves with equal sanity. If they cannot afford a private funeral pyre, there are public ghats where the bodies of their relatives and friends may be burned. To be sure, at some of these ghats vul tures aid in the disposal of the late lamented, but as a rule fire consumes the greater part of the flesh. The Siamese are not a sporting nation, but if there is any time when they may be said to hold sports it is at a private cremation. As Hibernian clans of Tammany reckon the social importance and poht ical pull of a departed brother by the number of carriages his friends muster at the funeral, so tn Siam the scale and variety of the funeral festivities mark the wealth and status and the grief of the bereaved family. The pyre is built within the pri vate walls of the family estate, and after the simple ceremony of the yellow-robed priests of Buddha, the nearest male relative applies the match. Then while the fiames crackle the grieving family and friends of the deceased make merry over the cakes and sweetmeats and wines provided for the occasion, and sometimes hired talent performs at OF SIAM 45 different games. The bodies of those intended for private cremation are embalmed and usually kept for some time, even for many months. A Sia mese gentleman in inviting me to the forthcoming conflagration of a brother, added that the remains had been awaiting combustion for a year! AU Siam is divided into three parts: (1) That tributary to and dependent upon the Mekong River, which rises far in the north and with a great bend to the east flows south, emptying through several mouths into the China Sea, after a devious course of two thousand five hundred miles. (2) That upon the Salwin River, which also rises far in the north, not more than one hun dred and fifty to two hundred miles to the west of the Mekong's source, and flowing south sweeps to the west, into the Bay of Bengal. And (3) that upon the Meinam— mother of rivers— which rises not so far in the north and flows due south, empty ing into the Gulf of Siam. Politically speaking, all Siam appears to be divided: (1) Into that (Mekong) which French jingoism seems to view as destined by especial Providence as solely for their colonial exploitation; (2) that (Meinam) which no one disputes as being purely Siamese; and (3) that (Salwin) which serves as the extreme boundary of British jurisdiction. Prench geographers since 1866 have been re- 46 THROUGH THE KLAWNGS drafting Siam, and gradually narrowing the lines of native territory. Ever since the Prench marched into Anam, where they did not belong, and became inoculated with territorial expansion, there has been a constant dispute as to where French jurisdiction ends and Siamese begins over Mekong River way. Thus, with Burma (Eng land) on the north and west, and France on the east, the buffer-state-condition of Siam is not the happiest one for its king. But I wish to go on record before dismissing this side of the subject, as saying that whereas Great Britain's influence has developed trade and worked to the country's prosperity, the influence of France, seen largely in the exaction of duties and of tribute for petty offences, has had by comparison an embarrassing and retarding effect. In a word, the influence of Great Britain makes for the betterment of Siam, whereas the influence of France appears to have been detrimental to Siam, and of no appreciable benefit to France. If the past be accepted as a criterion, it would be an unfortunate day for the commercial world if the influence of France in Siam were to be extended. In fact, the more that influence is narrowed the better for Siam and the world. Life clusters along the rivers, throughout Siam. There is comparatively little overland travel in OF SIAM 47 the north and almost none in the south. Thus, these three rivers constitute Siam's highways north and south, while many tributary rivers and klawngs of various width and length make east and west connections all through the lower country. It was through a series of such klawngs and tributary rivers that Saw Swee Ann, the saked man, piloted me to Ratburi, where I intended or ganizing a buffalo-hunting expedition into the wes tern border of Siam and on into Burma. My boat ing party, besides Saw and his servant, a Siamese boy of say twelve years, who was forever balanc ing himself on the gunwale of the tug, consisted of two Simo-Chinese boatmen, a Siamese engineer- stoker, a Chinese cook and my servants. My in terpreter, Nai Kawn, a graduate of Lehigh, and I, lived on the house-boat with one man bow and stern; the balance of the party remained aboard the steam launch. The house-boat, next to the rua chang, is the most common river craft from end to end of Siam, and the one commonly used by the traveller. It may be any size, from one manned by two oarsmen to one requiring eight, four each bow and stern. In the latter case there is a small bit of deck room at either end of the house— none too much, however, to permit of the free use of your hands with murderous intent upon the mos quitoes, which are so big, so numerous, so vicious 48 THROUGH THE KLAWNGS and so persistent, that you feel that you have never heard of mosquitoes before, even though you may have stopped a week's end nearby the New Jersey meadows, or ventured into the region of Great Slave Lake in the springtime. As a rule the house on these boats is barrel-shaped, erected amidships, and made of atap leaves, supplied by the pahn-like plant which grows all over this country and is the Siamese shingle. The boat is propelled by oars, bow and stern, set in a twisted cane rowlock fas tened to the top of a post about eighteen inches or more high and set on the port side of the stern and on the starboard side of the bow. The oarsmen send the boat forward by pushing the oar from them, bringing it back with the familiar canoe- paddle motion without taking the blade out of the water. It is much like the stroke of the Venetian gondolier, only the boat movement of the Siamese is more rhythmical, and becomes graceful in the rua chang, where the left foot of the oarsman clears the deck on the forward push and swingsa in unison with the blade. There is less oppor tunity for pleasing motion on the house-boat where strength rather than grace is the desideratum, and in freight boats laden with rice— which are simply house-boats built heavier and broader— the men heave on their oars without any other regard than getting the boat along ; and this they do with nota- OF SIAM 49 ble success. I have seen freight boats of large size and heavily laden with padi (rice) moving along the klawngs propeUed by two men, one bow and one stern. In open rivers these padi boats sometimes, with a fair wind, hoist sail. I have said that Saw was an expert waterman, but that does not sufficiently describe the skiU he displayed in taking us safely around the many turns of the klawngs, and in avoiding collision with the innumerable and often recklessly piloted craft we were continuously meeting. Seldom have I had a more interesting trip than through these klawngs, literally alive in parts with boats of all sizes, carrying crews of men, women and children. Bvery now and again we passed a settlement, and always there was human life on the water and jungle-life along the banks. Now we come to a squat, heavily laden rice-boat moving ponderously, yet steadily under the two oars of its crew of one Chinaman and a single Simo-Chinese. Then an im portant looking house-boat with teak instead of the usual atap top covering, and crew of four China men, stripped to the buff, working industriously, passes us moving smartly; on its deck stretch two smoking Siamese officials coming down from the Burman border to report at Bangkok. Again, a freighter, carrying squared logs of teak, is creep ing along its laborious way, turning corners awk- 4 50 THROUGH THE KLAWNGS wardly, carefully, and yet with consummate skUl. Always we were meeting peddlers' boats somewhat of the rua chang type, sunk almost to the gunwales under their loads of fruit or betel-nuts or cocoa- nuts, and darting alongside of and among the jour neying craft of the klawng. But the boat most commonly met is a short, narrow dug-out, flat at both ends and shallow. The life on the boats is as interesting as the boats themselves. As a rule Chinamen furnish the motive power with here and there a Tamil (native of Madras, India), for all types except the peddling rua chang and the dug outs, which are generally maimed by Siamese, and as frequently as not by women, who form a large part of the floating population in the smaUer craft. Another boat, a little longer than the dug-out, but of the same character and very numerous, was almost always propelled by women, of which we saw a great many. It seemed to be the house-boat of the poorer native, and I often passed one with its little charcoal stove, in fall blast, boiUng the rice, on the tiny deck at the stern, whUe a lone woman managed the paddle and the domestic econ omy of the establishment simultaneously, and a tot of a baby toddled about, apparently in danger of toppling overboard every instant yet never did^ Although the boat had not more than two or three inches freeboard and often rocked and jumped OF SIAM 51 alarmingly in the waves made by passing craft, kettles, knives and babies adhered to its deck as if fastened. As to the obliging nature and the friendliness of these Siamese, an experience I had one night wiU speak for itself. To save time I hired a steam launch at Bangkok to tow us. If I were making the trip over again at the same season I should confine myself to human motive power, for at given periods of the year the changing tides leave the klawngs so shallow that the deeper-draught launch scrapes the mud bottom more or less of the time : and, with a Siamese crew, to scrape means to stick, for urgency is an unknown element in their mental equipment. We stuck in the mud with such exasperating frequency that I always took ad vantage of good water, even though it came in the night. Thus we travelled a great deal when others were tied up sleeping— somewhat to the disgust of my crew, even of Saw Swee Ann, who didn't like to miss the evening of gossiping and smoking and foraging ashore, in which he always indulged when we laid up at a settlement. One night nearing some houses we scraped bottom and soon the launch stopped, but from the fact that we were well over toward the side of the bank I believed it possible to get off into the deeper water of the centre and under way before the falling tide really held us. 52 THROUGH THE KLAWNGS So I urged the crew to effort, and Nai Kawn, who was an exceptionally energetic Siamese and proved a treasure in more ways than one, bombarded them with native expletives and other impeUing terms, though without the desired result. And so we gradually settled in the mud. WhUe thus hung up, an old man and woman came paddling up to us in one of the little ten or twelve-foot long dug-outs, heaped high amidships with cocoanuts. There seemed hardly more than an inch or so of freeboard anywhere between bow and stern, yet those two friendly old souls, standing respectively on the bow and stern of their boat, pushed and shoved, and lifted and pushed again— meanwhUe keeping their own little craft under them without so much as disturbing a single cocoanut— untU they moved our unwieldly launch into deeper water. AU that they would take in return for their aid was a little tobacco. Such was my experience wherever I went in Siam. I always found the pure-blooded natives obliging, good-natured and the reverse of avaricious. If the surrounding country was fa miliar or the thing I asked within their daily knowledge, their readiness to assist was ever in evidence. On the other hand, I could not hire them for love or money to go inland beyond points they had not traversed or which their fathers before them had not penetrated. And the mixed OF SIAM 53 breed of native I did find inland was less depend able and very much less honest, not honest at all in fact. Always, where we coidd, we tied up for the night at the house of an " umper " (a small official who answers to the Government for the peace of his settlement) , and as I was travelling under the pro tection of the king, we were never molested by thieves with which the klawngs are well infested. On the rivers, on the klawngs, always as we jour neyed, we came at intervals to joss houses for worshipful Chinamen, rest houses for pilgrim Buddhist priests, and " prachadis " standing to emphasize this people's unending propitiation of their patron gods. If there is a dominant trait in Siamese character it is that of " making merit." The one thought of their religious life is to do something that will temper the ill fortune which, the philosophy of life Buddha teaches, is pretty sure to come mortal's way. Hence, always the Siamese is seeking favor in the eyes of those im mortals whom he believes able to influence his joys and his sorrows ; therefore over all Siam you will find little spire-shaped monuments (prachadis), built to propitiate the gods, to make merit, and rudely fashioned after the slender peaks of the " wats," which are convents for the Buddhist priests and worshipful temples for the people. 54 THROUGH THE KLAWNGS The exterior decorations of these wats is fanciful and not always pleasing, but the interior usually presents a lavish display of gold and silver orna ments. Wat Phra Keo in Bangkok has a fortune in vases, candelabra and altar vessels ; not to men tion innumerable gold statues of Buddha, or the Emerald Image of the presiding deity, with its jade body and eyes of emeralds. Countless Uttle brass bells hung around the eaves of this wat tinkle softly with every passing breeze, and you enter the temple through mother-of-pearl inlaid ebony doors of a ton weight. Wats are for the more settled sections, but prachadis of uniform model but vary ing size I found everywhere in Bangkok, on the rivers, the klawngs, in the settlements, even on the road to the jungle. Prachadis marked my path, in fact, to the very edge of habitation. They are built of a kind of earthen composition, often fantastically decorated with broken bits of differ ent colored china, but may be as low as three feet or so high as thirty feet, according to the material prosperity of the supplicant. The more of these one man builds the more merit he makes, conse quently he builds as frequently as the remorseful spirit moves and the purse permits, I recall one small bit of ground belonging to a Siamese on the outskirts of Bangkok that looks like a chess board, so closely placed are the tokens of his merit OF SIAM 55 making. In the small settlements these sacred spires are less elaborate, and at the edges they cease to exist in the common tj^pe and become little altars, built of bamboo and rattan and cane or other material immediately at hand. Many a time, jour neying inland, did I come to one of these simple little structures, built in religious fervor, with an ear-ring, or an amulet made of bamboo, or perhaps only a piece of fruit or a bit of root, or a small rag, offered in all contrition and faith and humility, with the mark of the devotee, so that aU the pass ing world might know that Lim Kay Thai, or Low Poh Jim, or other wandering child of Buddha had left here the token of his merit making. And these little altars stand so long as the elements permit, for none would dare or even think of dis turbing them. Another of the commendable traits of this simple people. Where such credulity abounds, it is natural to find a plenty of priests; if they were fewer the poor Siamese would be better off, for among these yellow-robed holy men of Buddha are many that have been attracted to the cloth because of the easy living it assures, Everjrwhere you meet him, the priest, swathed in yellow cotton, making his daily calls for contribu tions of food; or at the wats in groups you see them standing silently with bronze bowl held out for rice, and a netted bag at girdle for fruit offer- 56 THROUGH THE KLAWNGS ings. And the people hurry to feed them, for it is written that no priest must go hungry, be his numbers never so large. Often where we stopped for the nights there was music and dancing by young girls painted after the Chinese manner, but much better looking than the girls of Bangkok. Saw appeared to think so at aU events, and by the time we reached Ratburi I grew to look upon him as an authority. And the girls danced as well as any I saw— the usual Far Eastern hand and shoulder action; the body-pos turing of India and Polynesia is not seen in this part of Asia, To me the music, Burmese and Sia mese—it is practically the same— is delightful be cause of its entrancing melody, its scale of soft mellifiuous notes, barbaric withal, you would believe impossible to metal cups. For the first days of our travel the banks of the klawng were so low that our boat frequently rode higher than the land adjoining; and at night the fireflies made the trees and brush immediately at hand electrical and beautiful. The jungle on the klawng banlc seemed aflame with the pulsations of light, which come with instant briUiancy and died as suddenly. By day or by night, klawng travel unfolded a panorama of tropical foliage. Sometimes there were the high cocoanut trees, sometimes the betel-nut trees, which are not quite A NATIVE HOUSE ON THE KLAWNO TO RATIiURI. Picturesquely but uncomfortably (mosquitoes) situated in a grove of cocoa betel-nut trees. THE HOUSE-ROAT WHICH SERVED ME WELL. OF SIAM 57 so high as the cocoanut, and have a smaU leaf ; at times only the atap covered the bank in dense growth, impenetrable to the eye and fifteen to twenty feet in height; and always monkeys chat tered in the trees at each side— monkeys of all sizes and of many different expressions of face. Finally we left the klawngs as we reached the river that was to take us direct to Ratburi, and here the banks attained to a height of three or four feet above the water, and the country became more open, with fairly largish trees— the handsome mango, the feather-duster-looking cocoanut, the tamarind, with its fine out-spreading limbs like the oak, and bamboo clumps, of which there were many of especiaUy fine quality. Now on the broadening, open river, occasional pieces of culti vation began to appear, and at intervals we passed rest houses, where Buddhist priests stop the night to replenish their exhausted larder from the slender resources of the near-by inhabitants. Here and there I noticed a muslin fish, or cloth lizard, floating from poles stuck in the bank, for good luck to the flshing boats; and frequently we en countered set nets which we had more difficulty in avoiding than the busy craft of the klawngs. There is bad blood between the boatmen and the flshermen, and often Saw dug an oar into a net- fastening when he thought I could not detect him. 58 THROUGH THE KLAWNGS At length we came to the town of Ratburi, where lived Phra Ram, chief of the Burma-Siam boun dary Une, who was to escort me to the Karens, among whom I hoped to engage guides for my pro posed buffalo hunt. It was worth going to Siam, if only to meet Phra Ram. CHAPTER III PHRA RAM MAKES A PILGRIMAGE THREE things are dearer to the Siamese heart than life itself: (1) chewing the betel-nut; (2) " making merit "; (3) a pilgrimage to the an cestral home. The first is at once his joy and solace, the second his simple method of mollifying Buddha through the building of prachadis, or mon umental sacred spires, of greater or less preten sion; the third the Mecca of his active years, and the comforting reminiscence of old age. Now, although Phra Ram was the governmental chief of the line separating Burma from Siam, the king's representative to the Karens— jungle folk living on both sides the boundary— and an official before whom the common people prostrated them selves, yet was he none the less Siamese. As to temperament he was distinctly native, but exotic in the clever ways and means devised to satisfy appetite and tradition simultaneously. He was an enlightened Oriental who acquiesced in the harmless and somewhat delightful superstitious humbuggery surrounding him— but lost never an eye to the main chance. In the vernacular of the street, he was " sawing wood " all the time. 59 60 PHRA RAM MAKES When, therefore, the king's minister ordered him to escort my hunting expedition to the Burma line, Phra Ram saw his opportunity for making that long deferred pilgrimage through the land of his fathers. The average Oriental is a .bluff, inscrutable for only a brief period if you are a little wise in the ways of the Far East ; Phra Ram was a pastmaster in wearing the disguise. In fact, just to know the chief of the Siam-Burma line, was a liberal educa tion in Far Eastern life philosophy ; not that he had travelled, or was beautiful to look upon, or leamed in his Buddhist faith ; but he was so ingenuous in his ingenuity. You would never have thought he even had ancestors, much less suspect him of plan ning a pilgrimage to their abiding place; on the contrary the preparations making for the journey would have convinced you that the jungle imme diately on the outskirts of Rathburi overflowed with tiger, elephant and buffalo ; especiaUy buffalo —that being the game I sought. And he eould be so important and so busy and so bumptious over the trifles of life ! you eould not persuade yourself that he had a thought above the knotting of his sarong, or the quality of his betel-nut. Really, he was deliciously artful; the most subtle gentleman I ever encountered. Not that I would infer dis honesty—by no means; he was just Oriental. A PILGRIMAGE 61 With all, he was joUy, even-tempered, obliging, and a source of unceasing entertainment through out the journey. He gave me an interesting trip, and an experience which subsequently proved in valuable ; and should this f aU under his eye in the Far East, I hope he will accept the felicitations of a pupil to the master. Despite a cross in his left eye, Phra Ram carried a certain air of distinction which he supported im periously in intercourse with his people. He was about fifty years of age, with a generous stomach, an assortment of wives, and a pair of gray cloth, black buttoned spats he had got from a German on one of his occasional trips to Bangkok, and which he wore, over bare feet, only when in full dress. He was a loud and constant talker, with a voice that even Italian could not have mellowed, and which rasped the nerves of those within reach of its nasal, unmusical, Siamese twang. Seated tailor fashion on a square of cocoa mat ting, with several attendants arranged in semi circle behind him. Ram spent the greater part of the night of our arrival unfolding the extensive plans he had made for my hunting. Between dis closures he consumed betel-nut; and as it was my first intimacy with a betel-nut chewing gentleman, the performance interested me greatly. Prepara tion of the morsel began by the approach of one of 62 PHRA RAM MAKES three attendants, who came servUely forward, bent nearly double, and took his place at the right of the chief, where were displayed a bewildering as sortment of silver boxes of exquisite workmanship. Having made his obeisance by bending first on knees and then to elbows as he pressed the floor with his forehead at the feet of Ram, the attendant settled cross-legged before the boxes. Taking a green leaf he smeared upon it a dab of lime paste tinted with the juice of the aromatic plant tur meric. Into this he pressed several different seed like things, one of which I recognized as cardamon, and over all liberally sprinkled pieces of a betel- nut which he had divided into eighths with an iron pair of cutters elaborately inlaid in gold on handles and blade. Then deftly rolling this cone-shape, he offered it on bended knee to Phra Ram, after diligently smiting the floor with his forehead a few times. During all this process Ram watched his servant carefully, at times crooning in pleasurable antici pation, at times bursting into an impatient loud note of disapproval ; and when he had slowly and deliberately placed the tid-bit well back between his molars, the look of peace that came over his countenance would have put a babe to sleep in con fidence. Silence would now continue while Eam chewed a few moments in undisturbed ecstasy; but A PILGRIMAGE 63 when a bright red juice began to run from the corners of his mouth his tongue was loosed again. OccasionaUy, while he talked, an attendant at his left held up for contribution a silver cuspidor- looking affair ; and Ram was a liberal contributor. Betel-nut chewing is the national diversion of the Siamese. Every one, from high to low, is ad dicted to the habit, and preparation of the quid for those too poor to own ingredients and boxes is, in every town, quite a business of itself; in the smallest settlements one sees peddlers squatting before their trays of little boxes holding lime and seeds and tobacco, and packages of syrah, or green betel leaves. The betel tree is among the most common in Siam, sending up a trunk sometimes full sixty feet, always, like the cocoanut, limbless except for its bush of a top where, again like the cocoa, the nuts grow in closely attached bunches, to harden and redden before gathered. Adding the cardamon-seed, or clove, to the preparation, is an extra of the weU-to-do, and especially of the women ; the common habit among men of the coun try being to add a pinch of tobacco after first rub bing it over their gums. The bright red saliva from chewing is, in the town house, carefully de posited in a handsome silver receptacle ; in the up- country house spaces between the open bamboo flooring obviate the necessity for such niceties. 64 PHRA RAM MAKES But always on formal occasions, even in the jimgle edge, the betel-nut chewer carries his box for the freely flowing juice that stains the teeth a deep red, which, among the better class, with care and attention becomes a highly polished black. And this is true even of Siam's most enlightened classes, whom contact with the outside world appears not to win from the betel-nut and discolored teeth. In Bangkok I talked with one of royal blood and his wife, both of whom had lived several years in England, yet the teeth of each were black as ebony, and the woman frankly expressed her disgust at the white teeth of foreigners. Dogs and other f our footed animals she declared have white teeth. Blessed is contentment ! The betel-nut boxes are to the Siamese what toilet articles are to the Occidental— a necessity made ornamental ; for just as one of us may take pride in the pattern and workmanship of the dressing table equipment, so the Siamese search for the unusual in design and quality, and possess with frank pleasure the series of little boxes which may range from plain brass to handsomely carved sil ver, or even to gold. And you can learn the Sia mese social scale by a study of these boxes. As the Mexican will unhesitatingly put his last dollar into a wondrously and valuably ornamented bridle or saddle, or hat, so the betel-nut boxes of the Sia- A PILGRIMAGE 65 mese may represent the sum total of his worldly wealth. Frequently I saw a native who kept body and soul together with difficulty on the fish that he caught and the fruit that he plucked, bring forth with much pride a betel-nut set which represented money enough to maintain him in luxury and in idleness for a year. I am sure the Siamese would cling to the betel-nut if he had to choose between it and food. In fact, such incidents came under my personal observation. Often I stopped at a native house where, although the larder was empty, they still had betel-nut to chew, and to offer to the trav eller; for the betel-nut is the token of hospitality here as the cup of tea is in the Far North. During the few days following my arrival Phra Ram was the busiest man you ever beheld getting his men and carts together ; and, as each new prob lem necessitated a period of consultation— and betel-nut chewing— and as the latter periods were prolonged by the constant arrival of new coun sellors, the decision of problems rated as about one to the half day. Meanwhile I made acquaintance with Ratburi, and took little journeys up and down the river. Ratburi was soon explored without re sults for, despite its local halo as the one time resi dence of the king, it is none the less an unkempt, dirty, little town, full of Chinese shops and filthy, mangy dogs that skulk at your heels or peer out 5 66 PHRA RAM MAKES f earsomely from behind house corners as you pass : the king showed excellent taste indeed in moving elsewhere. But the river journeys were produc tive. Once I came up with a picturesque group of yellow-robed priests resting in a mosquito net ting camp on their pilgrimage to the far-famed Wat Prabat, where the faithful may view Buddha's sacred footprint. Another time I sought refuge in one of the rest houses, which, at intervals of about a day's journey, are scattered along well defined routes for the free use of pil grims to the many wats around Bangkok, and other travellers less religiously inclined. These houses, which are built at the expense of the king or the Government or of some private individual as a merit-making enterprise, consist of a raised floor covered by a roof supported at its four cor ners by plain teak wood posts and open on all f our sides. As the average journeying priest or Sia mese wayfarer is none too clean, it is weU, if you use the rest house, to be provided with a brand of insect destroyer of unfailing kUling power. If you are thus well armed, you may have a piece of the wooden floor to yourself, and pick up a fruit and fish breakfast from the peddlers who make the rest house a first call on their early route. The day of our departure was heralded far and wide and all Ratburi, with its sisters, cousins and A PILGRIMAGE 67 male relatives gathered to behold our expedition set forth. And no doubt, with Phra Ram afoot leading the procession, closely attended by his group of body servants, we were a sight for the gallery, as we wound our way through the town; for it must not be supposed that the chief missed such an opportunity of impressing the natives. We came out of the town at the end of the main street, and under the king's deserted palace high on the hill we paused while I photographed the outfit. Then for the couple of days it required to reach the jungle edge country, our road wound through padi fields where water stood one or two feet deep. Of our eleven carts, three were devoted to Phra Ram's personal luggage, one to a wife of his, and the remainder carried provisions and the personal luggage of my interpreter, Nai Kawn, and myself. The carts were truly primitive, with long, narrow, high body (about a foot and a half wide, by two feet high and six feet long) and a wheel hub full two feet deep. The bullocks were smaU, having withers raised, like all Asiatic draught cattle, into a well developed hump, and of no great strength; quite appropriate indeed to the cart they hauled. Attached to the nose of each was a small rope on which their drivers laid hold as occasion needed ; but that was not often, for the temperament of the cattle and of the natives 68 PHRA RAM MAKES seemed fittingly harmonious, and mostly com mands were given by word of mouth. There were two drivers to every yoke and they by turn talked almost continuously to the bullocks. Now they would beseech faster gait by such earnest, direct appeal, as " your father left word with me that you were to go on this journey "; again they would threaten to expose the sluggard to the cow mother and aU the bullocks of Ratburi district ; and often there came a singsong of entreaty in a peculiar, whining tone which even Nai Kawn could not in terpret. Rarely did a driver lose patience and upbraid his cattle ; and I do not recall an instance of beating. But nothing quickened their steps. On the third day we came into a more or less open section lying between the lowland and the jungle edge, and then for ten days journeyed in the most attractive country I saw at any time. Here I had the only pleasing, outdoor camp life of my Far Eastern experience. The country was wooded, "but neither densely, except in patches, nor with large trees. Intervals were filled with bam boo clumps and bushes of various kinds— most of the latter more beautiful to view than to touch. And there was scarcely an hour when we were out of the sound of cooing doves. I never saw so many doves in my life, and my reputation as a mighty hunter suffered seriously with my party, because A PILGRIMAGE 69 I would not shoot into the large and close coveys upon which we were repeatedly coming. There were quantities, also, of smaU, brilliantly plumaged paroquets, which zigzagged around us as rapidly as swallows. Also there were vultures, and an ugly appearing kind of hawk. It was entirely de lightful to tramp along with scent of the fragrant, pulsing earth and of the moist forest ascending to your nostrils, while bird voices sounded high and low. Everywhere were patent evidences of refreshment, and all nature united in rejoicing and in thanksgiving for the rain that had quenched its thirst. Of birds there were many and strange ; birds with sombre plumage and voices melodious as our thrush or meadow lark; birds of beau tiful plumage and no voice, like one little canary kind of creature with wondrous golden-red feath ers. Daily I listened to the curiously fascinating, liquid tones of the poot-poot bird, with its nat ural and flat notes sounded simultaneously, for aU the world like a xylophone. Another bird trilled long on a single high note, with lowering and ascending cadence. And perhaps most fre quent and certainly most familiar of all was the caw of the crow. A large woodpecker, black gray and golden nearly overcame my scruples against shooting out of mere desire for possession, so at tractive was it ; but there was another, long-legged 70 PHRA RAM MAKES and about the size of the dove, against which mur derous thoughts ever arose on sight. It had a brown body and wings spotted with black, black and white striped head, with a white ring about its neck, red bill and red eyebrows. 'Twas not its appearance that disturbed, but its voice and its habit. In the jungle whenever we came upon fresh game tracks, we were almost sure imme diately after to hear this bird set up its distracting, incessant cry. Like the teru tero of South Amer ica it is commonly caUed the sentinel of the jungle; and an alert sentinel it is that sounds its warning note on the slightest suggestion of man's approach. Luckily it does not penetrate deep into the jungle. Occasionally we came upon a yellow morning- glory-shaped flower with black centre; and now and then in open grassy spots I nearly stepped on a tiny, blue and white thing growing close to the ground and resembling the forget-me-not. Imme diately about us at all times, butterflies of exquisite and varied coloring fluttered irregularly, uncer tainly, everywhere. Strangely, in this land of tropical extravagance as to foliage, birds and but terflies, there should be no handsome varieties of wild grass. Variety in bushes, however, is not lacking in Siam ; they grow in all sizes and shapes, bearing every kind of thorns, differing in pattern perhaps, but all fashioned to hold whatever has A PILGRIMAGE 71 been secured. There are straight and curved thorns of different lengths; some curve forward, some curve back; and one of the back-curving class has a barb-like addition somewhat like a fish hook. When this double-thorned, unholy thought breeder fastens upon you, do not try to yank your self free, but stop, return smilingly with the limb to the parent bush and there sit you down with a contrite heart and a patient hand to untiringly fol low the back track of the tenacious thorn. And keep your eye open lest it further entrap you. Once as I sat thus engaged— and thinking things- other barbed thorned branches reached out whUe I worked in happy industry, and embraced me by the shoulders, at the collar, at the skirt of my coat, in the pockets, so that when I finally arose I stood in my shirt sleeves. The largest tree we saw, sometimes attained to a diameter of two feet, though half that was usually its average; always its light gray trunk was smooth and bore no branches until at its very top, which stood against the early morning sky grotesquely. Mostly the jungle edge is noiseless. Just at the first light of day when the stars are beginning to fade and the darkness is losing some of its density, birds begin to twitter: one with a voice like the meadow lark ; one, a cross between a bobolink and a canary; another, with a single note, first slow 72 PHRA RAM MAKES and at deliberate intervals, gradually increasing in volume and rapidity ; one chirping like a robin ; a second like a lost chick; a third like a catbird. Then a burst of melody as day breaks, and the gray sky grows lighter and lighter untU it is blue. From out of the southeast, where the sun is soon to shed his rays, a rosier hue shows ; and the rakish tree tops, and palms and festooning canes Ughted by a gray-blue sky make an early morning picture of brilliant beauty. As the sun rises, bird notes grow fewer and when the heat of the day has fuUy developed, the quiet of the grave again settles upon the country; a quiet that reigns always in the in terior of the dense jungle, where one does not see the sun or hear a single bird note. At night, as dusk closes upon the jungle edge there comes the catlike, distressful caU of the pea cock, as it speeds swiftly to its roosting place in the very top of the highest tree it can find. Through the more or less open country ap proaching the jungle edge, the heat increased during the day untU it became close and sultry, though seldom the thermometer registered above 94° (and this was December) but the nights were comfortably cool and insect life comparatively less disturbing. Though mosquitoes were plentiful and persistent, of the small kind requiring a fine mesh of netting, yet the real insect pest was red A PILGRIMAGE 73 ants that took hold of one with no tentative grip and held on. But as to attendants, it was the most luxurious camping that ever I had, for, with our thirty men, there was a servant if you did but raise your hand, Phra Ram had been directed by the king's minister to make this journey in fitting style —at my expense — and he was not leaving anything undone to add to my comfort or to increase the importance of his pilgrimage. Usually we started at daylight and pursued our lumbering way, at the rate of about two and one-half mUes the hour until sundown, with a two-hour stop during the fierce heat of midday for the benefit of the bullocks, which were not up to much and were being pretty well worked by the heavy roads. The night camp, made after much loud direction on the part of Ram and equally much misdirected energy on the part of the natives, was always picturesquely located in a clearing in the jungle ; and while the men ate, the bullocks wandered in and out and around and over like so many dogs, the natives occa sionally chiding them for too abrupt friendliness. Occasionally a bullock made his way to where we pitched our tent just outside the circle of carts; but invariably fled discomfited by the contempt with which my servant reminded it of being " but a slave that had tried to play the gentleman," Bullocks never stray far from camp, however. At 74 PHRA RAM MAKES dark they are driven in to form scattering groups within the circle of carts. Each driver ties his own cattle around him and builds a Uttle fire, which every now and again during the night he awakes with a start to replenish as the bullock plunges on the tie rope in an agony of timorous fancy, suspecting every noise in the surrounding jungle to be a prey-seeking tiger. If wood is scarce, a lantern is kept lighted. The buUocks are quite as fearful of the night jungle as the Siamese themselves; which is saying much— for the low caste are cowardly, beyond any people I ever fell among. Poor, simple souls, they are so supersti tious that supplication and merit making occupy most of their waking hours. A bedraggled young Siamese who came ex hausted into our camp one night, reported having seen the wet tracks of a tiger and of spending his night building a merit making shrine in appeal to his mightiness " the animal " that he be aUowed to pass safely to the camp of Phra Ram for whom he carried a letter announcing the Ulness of his head wife ; news which Ram and his accompanying wife discussed with obvious interest. Wherever natives journey these crude little altars are erected. Sometimes the supplicant offers in tribute articles of comparative value, such as their bamboo orna ments, or a piece of the cloth of which a turban- A PILGRIMAGE 75 like head covering is fashioned ; sometimes it may be only a handful of leaves gathered nearby ; some times fruit. I never saw betel-nut offered. The low caste Siamese of the jungle have few wants, and live like animals, eating chiefly wUd fruits and rice, which they raise in small, cleared spots, wherever they happen to settle temporarily. Like the Karens, the jungle people of Burma, they are always on the move, and in common with aU mixed- caste Siamese are petty thieves of an incurable propensity. Yet they are obedient, servUe to an unpleasant degree from the Westerner's view point. They manufacture nothing save crudest domestic household necessities and personal orna ments from bamboo. Clothes are of slight conse quence. On the jungle edge they go uncovered, men and women, above the waist, the panung reaching within four inches of the knee ; but deep in the jungle they are practically naked. Their single implement is a long-bladed, butcher-like knife used as path maker, as weapon (together with a wood spear) , and industrially, in fashioning out of the ubiquitous bamboo their ornaments, their buckets, their rope, their string, their houses and the food receptacles which take the place of pots and pans and plates. Nearly all of the jungle folk on both sides the Siam-Burma line tattoo the thigh, sometimes from knee to hip, more often 76 PHRA RAM MAKES from the knee to only six inches above. The de sign may be a turtle, or the much dreaded tiger done elaborately, but the one most frequently seen, and the simplest, is a sort of a lace or fringe pattern in the middle of the thigh, or just below the knee, like a garter. The women do not tattoo, believing in beauty unadorned ; heaven knows they need adornment as my photograph of an average looking jungle lady wiU bear me witness. Before we had travelled many days together my doubts concerning the efficiency of the men of our expedition as hunters, became convictions. When we had passed through the comparatively open, park-like country and got weU into the jungle, the attractive, natural settings and the pleasing bird notes were replaced by dense timber and bush growths, which shut out the sun, and an appalling silence that was broken only by the sounds we our selves made in pushing through the forest which so hedged us in that a clear view of fifty yards was unusual. For a few days after reaching the jungle proper we occasionally heard the choking, startling cry of a big, blackish, gray ape— but even that lone disturber of the solitude soon ceased his un even efforts. We were now in what Phra Eam was pleased to term the hunting country, and I have forgotten just how many he declared my bag A PILGRIMAGE 77 should be of buffalo (the animal I particularly sought), of gnuadang (the wild red ox) and of kating (the local name for the Indian gaur and the Malayan seladang) . At least the chief appeared to have full confi dence in his assurances for he hunted diligently. In the open country he went forth regularly with sundown to jack rabbits, while in the jungle he sat up many a night on a platform over a tied-up. bullock in the hope of getting a shot at tiger. To see— and to hear— Ram and his servant escort de parting for and returning from these platforms was perhaps the most impressive event of the pil grimage. He always set out for the platform before dark and returned at daybreak. Long after he passed out of sight as he went, and long before we could see him on the return, we would hear his strident voice reaching up out of the wil derness about us, and the smashing and slashing of brush as his servants cleared his way— and inci dentally announced his approach to all the jungle four-footed folk in the province. In the morning, as the chief emerged from the jungle with trailing servants, bearing his gun, hat, tea-making set, cig arettes, knives, slippers, wraps, lantern, he would make direct for my tent, where he saluted and then recounted to Nai Kawn in voice so loud as to be distinguishable at the farthest corner of our camp 78 PHRA RAM MAKES every thought he had owned and every sound he had heard since the previous afternoon. He always told his experience with great gusto and much good humor, while the servants squatted around him nodding energetic affirmation of the thrilling recital ; for there was sure to be something thrilling. Ram's servants were a picture in themselves. One aged chap carried over his shoulder a pole with native bamboo-made bird cage inclosing Ram's pet dove, swinging from one end, whUe at the other hung a Chinese paper umbreUa, which was held over Ram's head when he ventured from under his covered cart during the strong noon heat. A second servant carried in his arms a rooster which he invariably tethered by a short string to the first convenient bush whenever a halt was made. Why Ram included this rooster in his ret inue I never could learn, but it stayed with us the entire trip to enliven the monotonous silence of the early jungle morning by lusty crowing. A third servant carried Ram's armory of kris and gun. A fourth and fifth shared his personal luggage. A sixth and seventh divided the betel-nut chewing paraphernalia. The eighth. Si, really came very near to eclipsing the glory of Ram himself ; not in raiment, however, for of that there was not enough to mention. Si wore long hair, an unceasing smile A PILGRIMAGE 79 and a G-string, and enjoyed wide distinction among his fellows as being the man who had erected the king's tent throughout the latter's up- country pUgrimage. The honor appeared to have put him in perpetual good humor with himself and the world. He was always laughing or cut ting some kind of monkey shine, and in fact was the cap and bells of the expedition. He seemed to prefer my camp-fire to that of his own, and he and our busy little Chinese cook, who never worked without a fan in one hand, which he alternately devoted to himself and to the fire, were constantly falling foul of one another, for Si was ever playing practical pranks on the Chinaman. The gem of Si's earthly possessions was a short, white jacket, which he informed us had been given him by the king and which as his sole clothing he wore on his body only on very special occasions. At aU other times he wore the jacket on his head fashioned into a kind of turban. One day, as he tormented the Chinese cook, the latter grabbed the coat-turban and cut off a half of one of its sleeves before Si could come to the rescue. And that was the end of Si's jollity; for the remainder of the trip he was content to follow demurely last of the train of Ram's personal followers. The chief was not permitting this pilgrimage to ancestral lands to move unheralded, and probably 80 PHRA RAM MAKES there was not a man, woman or child on the hither side the Burma line who had not heard of our proposed invasion before we left Ratburi. At every camp they came flocking to sweU the expedi tion and to reduce our provisions, until the thirty men of our original party had increased to about seventy-five. Some of these had guns, and many of them professed to be hunters, so on my sugges tion, Phra Ram sent a dozen or two or three of them scouring the country for tracks. Usually they reported either none or old ones. Sometimes they brought tales of fresh tracks and exceUent prospects. As a result of these hopeful stories I made a number of side hunting excursions of sev eral hard days ' duration after buffalo and kating ; but without luck, for though the tracks at times were rather fresh and success seemed imminent, yet after eight or ten hours ' tramping the Siamese usually decided the game had passed into another section and was too far to reach for " that day." The day never seemed long enough for us to reach game. There was plenty of the little muntjac deer, with its reddish coat, white marked breast and rump and dog-like tenor bark. The natives caU this deer by blowing a leaf, making a bleating noise somewhat like that caused by blowing on a blade of grass between the hands. But it is a skulker and not so easy to kill, though many opportunities A PILGRIMAGE 81 offered, of which I did not avaU myself, having already one head as a trophy. Several times I saw a red-necked jungle fowl, about the size of a smaU hen, and counted myself very lucky in the sight, for it is shy; and three times a splendid shot offered at the dark brown Far Eastern sambar deer, which is about the size of our Virginia deer, and carries two to four upstanding, branchless spikes varying from eight to twelve inches in length. After several of these excursions the Sia mese showed a disinclination for further jungle searching, complaining to Nai Kawn that I walked too long and too far, but a little tea, judiciously doled out reawakened their interest and the daily hmiting trips continued. Within two weeks I had seen and had oppor tunity to shoot about everything in the jungle, in cluding elephant, except the buffalo which was the only quarry I wanted, but as we approached the Burmese border we developed into an itinerant police court with calendar so full and interesting that no Siamese could be induced to forego any of its sessions. Apparently the jungle folk had not for some time before been given the chance of tell ing their tales of woe. And they were mostly do mestic tales, unsavory and shamelessly personal and frankly recited. Ram always held court at noon in the most open spot to be found in the 6 82 PHRA RAM MAKES jungle where we might be, and here under the shade of a tree with his servants on either hand, he would sit in judgment upon the cases brought for his consideration. Squatting in humble attitude, in the immediate foreground, were the plaintiff and defendant, and behind them in a semi-circle, reaching back as far as the clear spot would per mit, squatted the entire expedition and the visiting spectators. Whether it was a man seeking to cast off one of his wives who had ceased to delight him, or a woman wishing freedom from a cruel hus band, or a case of theft, the chief read the law without fear of contradiction, and to the apparent satisfaction of aU concerned. And when court adjourned Ram's servants gathered up the pres ents laid before " his honor " in open evidence that the jungle folk knew it wise to humor any man on a pilgrimage to the home of his ancestors, especially when that man happened to be a per sonage so intimately connected with their state as Phra Ram, chief of the border line, and possessor of many wives. Always these proceedings were foUowed by a love feast in which curry and rice and fowl served to bring harmony even to the recent disputants. In time I came to share local homage, because from having given quinine and cathartic pills to some of the men of our party it got noised about that I was a medical wizard. At A PILGRIMAGE 83 every camp I became the object of adoration and petition by individuals, families and groups, aUing from one thing or another, who approached me on bended knee, begging drugs. At times I was prac tically mobbed. It mattered not what the ailment, or whether it was fancied or real ; they had heard of my medicine and would not be denied. In the thought of ridding myself of their embarrassing entreaties, I one day gave out some pills— the bitterest things ever compounded; but the " pa tients," to my utter consternation, chewed them greedily. The more distasteful the stuff, in fact, the more convinced they seemed to be of its medicinal properties. In a foolish moment at one camp, I painted some grotesque figures in iodine on a woman's swollen breast which had been offered for treatment ; and within three days every similarly affected woman dogged my footsteps until I had to appeal to the chief for deliverance from their importunities. Citronelle, too, which I had brought in the delusion of its sparing me from mosquitoes, proved a great favorite with the gentle sex. Personally, I used very little medicine. Al though advised by doctors in town to take five grains of quinine daily, it seemed to me that such a course would get my system so accustomed to the drug that it would not respond when there was 84 PHRA RAM MAKES really need to dose. Days did come when I needed it pretty badly, yet never so badly that I could not travel, and on such occasions I took from fifteen to twenty-five grains to knock out the fever I could feel coming on. And the knockout generally fol lowed, for though I got into some notoriously lun- healthful country here and elsewhere in the Far East, I escaped serious attacks. I always took the precaution to first boil water before drinking it, and, in the most noxious parts of the swampy jungle where we had many times to camp, to keep a fire going all night with the smoke blow-^ ing across me; yet I did not whoUy escape. Another plan I pursued and which I believe in a large measure answered for my good health, was to have my servant bring me at daylight a fuU, large cup of strong, milkless, sugarless coffee, which I drank to fortify my stomach against the early morning miasma. It may have been fancy, but it served me well. Dysentery, which may run into fatal cholera, is the most dreaded of lurking^,, jungle dangers, but though attacked several times chlorodyne safeguarded me promptly and effec tually. Ram continued to hold court day after day and to assure me between sittings of my gettingsthe buffalo I sought ; but by this time I knew that until the chief of the Burmese line had completed his [ ':.m im Q^mraBa » . "'*f^SS''--W. ^n %- ¦' t^J ' r ^%3 ¦^1^ ¦ / 1 iTl'^K V -^1 tm ¦^ HOME OF MY HUNTERS. Who assumed the clothin^.; of civilization in an effort to protect their bodies against the briars. CAMPI.\(; OX THE EDGE OF THE JUXOLE, SIA.M. A PILGRIMAGE 85 pilgrimage and reached the Karens on the border I was not likely to get much game. The Karens I had heard were accustomed to hunting and were experienced in the jungle, whereas the Siamese we had, and were rapidly acquiring, knew nothing of the jungle beyond the beaten paths or the sections immediately near their settlements. So I made a virtue of necessity and became reconciled, abiding the time we should reach the Karens. Meanwhile, during the closing days of the court's circuit, the best sport I had was with peacock, which, as I learned, is a mighty difficult bird to get. I had fan cied it easy until I tried. Seldom do you see the bird during the day, for it is wary and very rarely takes to wing, relying upon its hearing and legs ; and in confidence as it weU may, for it runs swiftly where you make way slowly and with much labor. There fore you listen for the catlike call with which the cock invariably announces his flight to the roosting tree at dusk. He is too high, as he soars swiftly, to reach on wing with a shot gun, even if you see him in flight, and too indistinct a mark in the gathering darkness for the rifle; so you watch where he alights, if you can, or you guess it if you have not seen, as most likely you have not, and then you quietly camp under that tree until dawn. The chances are that you are under the wrong tree, and that while you are trying to locate the bird in 86 A PILGRIMAGE the morning, he will suddenly spring from a nearby treetop and go away so rapidly that you have only time to glimpse his long, trailing tail. He must be located with certainty, for with the very first break of day he leaves his roost with a rush. Many an unrewarded, long night I spent before being favored. It was with great relief that I sighted the Karen settlement and felt Phra Ram's pilgrimage to be finally at an end ; yet the trip had provided me with needed experience and, now qualified to distin guish the jungle man from the town loafer, I set about engaging men for my buffalo hunt on the Burmese border. CHAPTER IV HUNTING WITH THE KARENS. WHEN we left the Karen viUage, we left behind also the assortment of Siamese whom we had been collecting all along the route of Phra Ram's pilgrimage, though it required some strategy to get clear of them, for they were unwilling to allow so well-provisioned an outfit to escape. But the Karens we gathered were little better than the Siamese we abandoned; it came near to being a case of jumping out of the frying- pan into the fire. I had no difficiUty whatever in securing Karens to join our expedition; but alas, the hope, which had buoyed me during the pil grimage, of getting efficient men among these peo ple, was rudely shattered. Real hunters, men who knew the jungle and the wilderness folk— were few and far between. In fact there was not a man of my party, nor could I find one, who had ever seen a buffalo, the game I particularly sought. One chap was presented with much flourish as being the son of a man who at one time had made his way into the interior of Burma and killed buffalo and other game ; but the son, though he had hunted the wild red cattle a great deal, had never 87 88 HUNTING WITH THE KARENS killed buffalo. On the Burma side the Karens are more at home in the jungle, but those of the border line are more like the Siamese, who never ven ture into jungle not known to some of their people. The little village where I picked up my men was the temporary abode of a small tribe, with its about one dozen houses standing on bamboo poles eight feet above the ground, and straggling along a small stream for several miles. Here they had made a clearing and were cultivating rice which, together with a kind of pumpkin (gourd), wild- growing bananas, some jungle vegetables, and chickens constitute their food. The houses were placed to command the rice fields, over which con stant guard is maintained by a system of scare crows and crudely constructed noise-making im plements. For example : running from the house to the padi fields, sometimes as much as one hun dred yards away, were lines of bamboo poles every one with a hole in its top. Through these holes a native-made rope was attached at the padi field end to a very large, thoroughly dried, hollow bamboo placed upon another of the same kind at an angle of forty-five degrees. Always someone is on watch at the house end of this line. When birds or animals steal upon the padi field, the rope is pulled and let go quickly and repeatedly, which alternately lifts and drops one hollow bamboo upon HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 89 the other, making a booming you can hear for a good mile in the jungle. And all this clearing and building is repeated annually, for the Karens are a nomadic people, so constantly changing their abodes that the same piece of ground is not often planted a second time. If during the planting or the ripening of the crop someone should fall ill of smallpox, the afflicted, the house and the rice fields are immediately deserted, because the Karens are deadly afraid of it and fly for their lives on its appearance, setting up sharp sticks on aU roads leading to the settlement to intercept the demon of disease. Like the Siamese, the Karen women are not good to look upon, and do not improve their appearance any by the style of ornaments they affect. When very young their ears are pierced to admit a small, round stick which is gradually increased in diam eter, until by the time the little girls have be?ome women their ears easily accommodate a two-inch disc of blackened bamboo. This stretches the ears hideously, as may be imagined ; and when the orna ment is laid aside temporarily!— well— picture the thin strips of pendant ear lobe! As a rule the Karen women wear their hair long, but, like the Siamese, some cut it short, and others again keep it cropped close, except on top of the head, where it is allowed to grow to its natural length, which 90 HUNTING WITH THE KARENS does not add to their by-no-means over abundance of good looks. Sometimes the unmarried woman wears a breast cloth, but for the most part men and women wear a loin girdle, and sometimes even that is set aside in hot weather. To appreciate thoroughly the Japanese women one should begin the Far Eastem trip at the Malay Peninsula, journeying thence through Siam, Anam, Cambodia and China— though I confess to preferring a good looking Chinese girl to the alleged Japanese beauty. Bracelets and necklaces of bamboo are the other usual ornaments, except when they can afford a narrow neckband of silver which protects the wearer, so it is believed, against many evUs that lurk along life's wayside, even in the jungle. The men also wear this neckband,' and bamboo an inch in diameter and about four inches long stuck through their ear lobes. Some of the boys are rather good looking. They wear their hair in a knot, like a horn— on the forehead, or at one side or the other of the head, or on top ; and usuaUy a turban crowns the topknot. AU in all, the Karens differ not a great deal from the Siamese in phys iognomy, but the people in this section of the Far East shade into one another rather easily. Whatever the Karens know of hunting is ac quired from sitting on platforms in the dry season HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 91 watching waterholes for the drinking beasts; and they do not much of this for they are not a meat- eating people. In a word, the new men engaged were of mighty little service to me except as burden bearers; and so far as increasing the efficiency of my party, I was no better off after my visit to the Karen village than before. My immediate " hunting " force continued unchanged, and consisted of the Sia mese, Thee, Nuam and Wan, who had been secured by Phra Ram as the best three in all the country. And that was true enough, for although a long ways from being good hunters, they were really about the only natives I met in Siam who pre tended to have any jungle hunting experience; and, except for Wan, even their knowledge went no farther than chance gossip. Thee's chief occu pation was courting the ladies of the jungle and of the villages; the moment we crossed the trail of the eternal feminine Thee was lost to our party, I always hoped he was more capable, not to say suc cessful, in this field than he was in the one where I paid for his experience. All three carried muz zle-loading guns which had been presented to them at Ratburi by the chief; but only Wan possessed any markmanship whatever, Phra Ram had in fact laid in a stock of such guns for distribution to the distinguished among the jungle stragglers 92 HUNTING WITH THE KARENS whom we met on the pilgrimage, and they were appropriated with frank pleasure, and carried with much ostentation. But Ram got no thanks from me for his generosity. The natives fired at every living thing which crossed our path, making such a f usilade that hunting was simply out of the question. When I took Ram to task he solemnly assured me that the men would not dare venture into the jungle without the guns ; and when I told him I could get along better without both men and guns he protested that the king would cut off his head if he allowed the " distinguished foreign hunter, ' ' who had been intrusted to his care, to ven ture unprotected into the jungle. So I proceeded to take the law into my own hands by getting pos session of the small supply of caps and deliberately exploding every one of then on Wan's gun, which I borrowed for the purpose. Mutiny followed, but none of the gun owners left I am sorry to say— we had too much good grub. While we stopped at the Karen village reports innumerable came to us of game, especially of elephants, of which the jungles were said to be fuU, as indeed it seemed after we got started. Leaving the little village at daybreak, we had not walked more than a couple of hours before we found broad, defined tracks, and later a wallowing pool. Whether or not you are hunting elephant, it is a HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 93 joy to come upon their tracks, for they make a path easily traversed through jungle of clinging vine and thorn bushes, through which ordinarily you could make way laboriously only by constant use of the knife. Though I was not hunting elephant, the ready-made pathway was quite as acceptable. After a while we came upon buffalo and red cattle tracks in a thickly wooded country of small trees, where the coarse grass grew higher than one's head. Between these stretches were occa sional swamps without timber, covered with the lalang common to all Malaya— and as wet. Not a stitch remained dry after going through one of these places. Picking up the buffalo tracks, for they alone interested me, we followed them unin terruptedly all that first day, coming again to mud- holes in which the roiled water showed plainly their recent passing. Later we got into denser jungle and found fresher tracks. It seemed as though we must at least get sight of the game; but after eight hours' steady going Thee decided we could not reach it that day. As I have said. Thee was the ladies ' man, yet Phra Ram had made him leader of the hunters. I understood later that his people had certain agricultural interests near Ratburi which gave him importance in the eyes of a chief interested in the local rivel toll. 94 HUNTING WITH THE KARENS The experience of the first day was the expe rience of the following two weeks, during which we travelled over the country and across its fre quent streams, making our way towards one par ticular section, which all united in declaring was sure to yield us buffalo if we were not earlier suc cessful. There was scarcely a day in those two weeks that we did not cross elephant tracks, and the tracks of deer, and the Siamese variety of the guar ; several times I had the luck to sight the deer itself. In the Far East is an interesting and exclusive Oriental group of deer (Rusme), which includes the sambar of India, Burma and Siam, with its numerous Malayan varieties; and several closely allied similar forms through Malaya and the Phil ippine Islands. Most important but least nu merous is Schomburger's deer (Cervus schom- durgJci), standing about four feet at the shoulder, and carrying a good-sized head, entirely unique in the whole world of deer for its many-pointed ant lers. This was the only deer at which I should have risked a shot while in the buffalo section ; but, unhappily, I never saw one, as it is very scarce except in the far northern parts of Siam, and not plentiful even there. In fact, good heads are rare. Also in Siam is the little barking (Cervulus muntjac) or ribfaced deer, about twenty inches IHE FAR EASTERN DEER. 1- Hojf deer of Indian plains, Ccmis fnrfinns. Kanges through lUirma. 2^ ft. at shoulder. -. Sambar, common, Ct-i-.-HS 7