Chapter XXXV: Conclusion 413 (5)

In March, while the scenes of this tragic drama were slowly enacting in Bangkok, and while we were anxiously awaiting the dénouement, we had a pleasant episode of another kind. One morning we were surprised to learn from some natives that out on the plain, not far from the city, they had passed two white foreigners, a man and a woman, and that they were coming to our house. Sure enough, about ten o’clock, who should ride up but Rev. and Mrs. J. N. Cushing of the American Baptist Mission in Burma! What an unexpected pleasure! For three years we had seen but two white faces outside of our own little circle. Some of our latest news from home friends was eleven months old when we received it. What a social feast we did have!

They had started from Shwegyin, Burma, had made a tour west of the Salwin River, crossed over to Keng Tung, come down by Chieng Sên and Chieng Rāi, and now called at Chiengmai on their way back to Burma. Their visit was a real godsend to us in the time of our troubles.

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XII

THE NEW RÉGIME

One of the results of the change of government was that we were able to build permanent houses. For three years and more we had lived within basket-woven bamboo walls that a pocketknife could pierce, neither secure nor wholesome nor favourable for our work. They bore silent but steady testimony that we ourselves did not regard our stay as permanent. The results of our manner of living were already seen in the impaired health of the members of the mission. My wife surely could never have lived another decade in the old sālā with bamboo walls and ceiling, where the dust from the borers in the wood constantly filled the air and poisoned the lungs. Mrs. Wilson bore up bravely for five years, until there was just ready for her reception the permanent house which she was never to enjoy. As soon as they could, the family started for the United States on furlough, all thoroughly broken down. After two years of rest Mr. Wilson alone was able to return to the field, leaving Mrs. Wilson behind. She never regained her health, and they never saw each other again. Her departure was a great loss to the mission. She was a gifted lady, a fine vocal and instrumental musician, and a consecrated missionary. She left one literary work in Lāo, the translation of Bunyan’s _Pilgrim’s Progress_, which has since been published.

But as matters then were, there was much perplexing work to be done before we were at all ready to begin building. I was favoured in getting a lot of first class teak logs delivered at a very cheap rate. Then the trouble began. The logs must be hauled up from the river by elephants to the lot where they are to be sawn. The log is raised and mounted on two strong trestles. A black line to guide the saw is struck on either side. Two sawyers stand facing each other across the log, grasping the handles of a long framed saw with horizontal blade. Then the operation begins. The saw is pushed and pulled back and forth till the cut is carried through to the end of the log. This operation is repeated for every stick of timber put into the house.

But we are already too fast. Where are the sawyers to come from? There were then no good sawyers among the Lāo. No one dared to learn for fear of being appropriated by the Prince, or of being compelled to work on public buildings. There were, however, three pairs of sawyers, debtors to the Prince, whom he had brought up from Rahêng for his own work. Whenever not needed by him or by some other person of rank, they were allowed to seek employment elsewhere. So, at odd times, I was able to secure their services. But if the Prince needed them, they must at once drop everything and go. Scores of times our sawyers were called away, often for weeks at a time, and at the busiest stage of the work.

And now for the carpenter. The Lāo dared not be known as carpenters for the same reason as that given above in the case of the sawyers. They would have been constantly requisitioned for government work. There was in the place only one Siamese carpenter reputed to be a good workman. In order to get him, I had to advance him three hundred rupees, professedly to pay a debt, but most likely to gamble with. He was to build by contract. But he had already received his money, or so much of it that he was quite independent. He soon slashed and spoiled more timber than his wages were worth. So, to keep him from ruining the whole, I had to get rid of him, even at some sacrifice. Just then a Siamo-Chinese turned up, who took the job by the day under my direction, to be assisted by some Christians whom we trained thus as apprentices. The house was built on the plan of the East Indian bungalow—raised ten feet from the ground on posts, with single walls and a veranda all round. Its large lofty rooms, screened on all sides by the verandas, make it still one of the most comfortable houses in the mission. It was more than eight years from the time of our arrival when we entered it; and even then it was not finished.

Although the new government was friendly, yet some of the ruling spirits were in their hearts as hostile as the deceased Prince had ever been, and without his more noble qualities. There were two in particular who soon began to show that their secret influence would be against the mission—and their open hostility, too, so far as they ventured to let it appear. One was the adopted son of the late Prince, and the other the new ruler’s half-brother, who had been made Uparāt, or second in power, when the new Prince ascended the throne. Had these both lived, their combined influence would have been nearly as formidable as that of Kāwilōrot. Unfortunately, too, the actual business of the country was largely in their hands. Prince Intanon was not at all ambitious for power. He liked nothing better than to work without care or responsibility in his own little workshop, making fancy elephant-saddles, and let his half-brother rule the country. During the following year the adopted son went down to Bangkok to receive the insignia of his new rank, but never returned. His death was even more sudden than that of his foster-father. He was taken with the cholera, and died in a few hours. This left the elder of the two avowed enemies of Christianity, and the higher in rank and power. To give an illustration of the kind of spirit we had to contend with in him, I will anticipate an incident of a few years later.

Two native Karens, ordained ministers, were sent by the American Baptist Mission to initiate in Lāo territory a work among the Karens, a hill-people scattered sparsely throughout all the mountain region between Siam and Burma. The native evangelists brought with them letters from the missionaries in Burma, requesting us to aid them in getting Lāo passports. We went with them to the new Prince, and he very graciously gave direction to his brother to see that passports were issued, stating not only that the visitors were to be protected and aided as travellers, but also that they were to be allowed to teach the new religion, and that people were allowed to embrace it without fear.

I was specially interested that they should succeed in the first village which they were to visit, for it was the one where I had vaccinated the whole population during the first year of our mission. Since I had failed to make Christians of them—partly, as I supposed, on account of my ignorance of their language, but more on account of the persecution which followed so soon after—I hoped that when the message was delivered in their own tongue, with official permission to embrace it, the whole village might accept the Gospel. What was the astonishment of the preachers that, instead of being received with the characteristic hospitality of their race, they hardly found common civility! At last they learned the reason. The Chao Uparāt had secretly despatched a special messenger with a letter under his own seal, forbidding any Karen subject to embrace the new religion. All who did so were to be reported to him. What that meant, or what he wished them to infer that it meant, was well understood.

Our readers, therefore, will not be surprised that we found it necessary to keep an eye on the Chao Uparāt, and to use considerable diplomacy in counteracting his schemes against the church. It was my policy in those days to keep up as close an acquaintance as possible with the members of the ruling family. It was the misfortune of all of them that they were ignorant;[9] and ignorance begets suspicion. Some of them were naturally suspicious of the missionaries. They could not understand what motive could induce men who were neither government officials nor merchants, to leave a great country and come to live in theirs.

Footnote 9:

This same Uparāt, whose word ruled the country, was unable to write
his own orders.

Two objects were gained by keeping in contact with the rulers. They saw, then, with their own eyes, and heard with their own ears, what we were doing. In nearly every interview our one great work was magnified alike to prince, priest, and people. I have heretofore specially mentioned princesses, too, as well as princes, in this connection, because the Lāo have a proud pre-eminence among non-Christian races in the position accorded to woman. In the family, woman’s authority is universally recognized. At the time we speak of it was much the same in the government also. The influence of women in affairs of state was doubtless greatly increased during the previous reign, when, there being no sons in the royal household, the daughters naturally became more prominent. They were trained to understand and to deal with public business.

I have already referred to the kindness of the elder daughter, now not, as in former reigns, the head-wife, but the only wife of the new ruler. By birth she was of higher rank than he; and she was in every way worthy of the high position she now assumed. Hers was, in fact, the strong intelligence and steady will that kept her more passive consort from errors into which he would otherwise have been led. At this particular juncture she was needed as a check against the Prince’s more ambitious and less principled half-brother. She had a woman’s instinct to discern a point, and a woman’s revulsion against lawless acts, even when done by her own father. In honesty of purpose she and her consort were one, for his kindness of heart had drawn to him more dependents than any other prince in the land possessed. The murder of the Christians they both regarded as “worse than a crime—a blunder.” For the present, however, there was no indication of the sinister forces which came into play later. All in authority seemed to be honestly carrying out the orders from Bangkok concerning the missionary work.

A year was spent in preparation for the ceremonies attending the cremation of the dead Prince. During the last three months of this time, everything else in the whole land yielded place to it. Not only was there requisition of men and materials throughout the province of Chiengmai; but all the neighbouring states furnished large levies of men under the personal direction of their princes or officers of rank. Such occasions offer exceptional opportunities for meeting people from all parts of the country, for forming lasting friendships, and for sending some knowledge of the Gospel to distant provinces. In after years I never made a tour on which I did not encounter friends whose acquaintance I had made at the great cremation festival.

The preparations were hastened somewhat because of the unsettled state of the country. Chao Fā Kōlan, the Ngīo freebooter of whom we have already heard, was still at his old tricks. Emboldened by the death of the Prince, and the confusion incident to the change of rulers, he had become more insolent than ever. Villages had been burned within less than a day’s march from the city. Bands of men, euphemistically called an army, were levied and despatched to capture him; but long before they could reach him, he was safe within his stronghold in the mountains.

A CREMATION PROCESSION]

The dead Prince was born on a Sunday; therefore every important event of his life must take place on that day, even to the last dread summons, which is not under man’s control—and beyond that, to the final disposition of his mortal remains. Sunday, therefore, was the first day of the ceremonies. On that day the body was removed from the summer garden to the “Mēn,” where it was to lie in state to receive the homage of his relatives and subjects until the following Sunday. The morning of each day was devoted to “merit-making” of various kinds—feeding the monks, making offerings to them, and listening to the reading of the sacred books. The afternoons were largely spent in boxing games, a favourite amusement of the Lāo. The evenings were given up to gambling.

Everything went on according to programme until Thursday morning, when the festivities were rudely interrupted. Chao Fā Kōlan, the bandit chief, taking advantage of the occasion, made one of his sudden forays to within so short a distance of Chiengmai that he actually had posted on the city gates during the night an insolent manifesto to the effect that the assembled Princes need not trouble themselves further with the cremation of the dead Prince. He and his band would attend to that! The news produced a tremendous panic. The whole business of the cremation was incontinently stopped. A force was sent out after the marauder—with the usual result. Before the end of the week, however, the panic had sufficiently subsided to permit the ceremonies to be resumed. The cremation itself was carried out on the following Sunday as planned.

During all these years the demand for medical treatment, and the opportunity which its exercise brings, had been constantly growing. I made, for example, a second trip to Lampūn, this time at the call of the Chao Uparāt of that city. The poor man had consumption, and at first sent to me for some foreign medicine, thinking that would surely cure him. Judging from his symptoms as reported, I sent word that I could not cure him; that the soothing mixture which I sent was sent in hope that it might give him a few nights’ rest; but that was all I could do. Presently he sent an elephant with a most urgent appeal that I come to see him. I was glad of the call, for it gave me the opportunity of directing a dying man to something even more urgently needed than medicine. I spent a few days with him, and visited all of the leading families and officials of the place, establishing most valuable and friendly relations with them.

Long before this time, both the demand for medical treatment and the responsibility involved far exceeded what any person without complete professional training could undertake to meet. We had urged upon our Board the claims of our mission for a physician. The following touching appeal, which appeared in the _Foreign Missionary_ for March, 1870, was made by Mr. Wilson not long after the death of his son Frank. After sending an earnest appeal from Nān Inta for helpers, Mr. Wilson says:

“Of course Nān Inta’s call for help includes in it a Christian
physician. Who will respond? I am convinced there are many young
men in the medical profession whose love for Jesus and whose
sympathy with human sufferings are strong enough to bring them
all the way to Chiengmai, if they will but yield themselves to
this constraining influence. Christian physician, you are
greatly needed here. The missionary’s family needs you. This
suffering people needs you. You were needed months since, when a
voice so sweet and full of glee was changed to piteous shrieks
of pain. You were not here to give relief; and if you now come,
it will not greet you, for it is hushed in death. You are needed
here _now_. A plaintive cry comes to me as I write. It is the
voice of our dear babe, whose weak condition fills our hearts
with deepest anxiety. May I not interpret this plaintive cry as
addressed to you? It is the only way that M. has of saying to
you, ‘Come to Chiengmai.’ When you arrive, she may be sleeping
beside her little brother. But you will find others, both old
and young, whose pains you may be able to soothe, and whose
souls you may win from the way that leads to eternal death.”

Great was our joy, therefore, when, in the summer of 1871, we learned that Dr. C. W. Vrooman, from Dr. Cuyler’s church in Brooklyn, had responded to our appeal, and already was under appointment of our Board for Chiengmai. His arrival was delayed somewhat because it was thought unsafe for him to make the river trip during the height of the rainy season. So it was January 22d, 1872, before we welcomed him to Chiengmai. He came with high credentials as a physician and surgeon with experience both in private and in hospital practice. He began work on the day of his arrival. He found Nān Inta at the point of death from acute dysentery; and his first trophy was the saving of that precious life. Had he done nothing else, that alone would have been well worth while. One or two operations for vesical calculus gave him such a reputation that patients came crowding to him for relief. In his first report he writes:

“I was very glad to commence work as soon as I arrived in the
field. The number was large of those who came to the brethren
here for daily treatment; and such is the reputation which they
have established for themselves as physicians, that the demand
for our professional services is greater than we can properly
meet. I am satisfied that the demand for a medical missionary
here was not too strongly urged by the brethren in their earnest
appeals to the Board.

“I have already had much professional work to do, and while I am
ministering to physical ailments, Brother McGilvary, who is
kindly my interpreter, has opportunity to break unto many the
bread of life.... Two men have just left who came a long
distance, hoping we could bring to life a brother who had died
hours before.”

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XIII

EXPLORATION

Not long after Dr. Vrooman’s arrival it was decided to undertake our first extended tour. It was important to ascertain the size and population of our whole field; and this could be accomplished only by personal exploration. A journey for this purpose would, of course, afford abundant opportunity for preaching the Gospel; it would, besides, give the doctor a needed change, and would effectually advertise his work. Our objective was Lūang Prabāng, then one of the largest of the provinces of Siam, as it was also the most distant one. A journey to it seemed the most profitable that could be made during the time at our disposal, and the most comfortable as well, since a large stretch of it could be made by boat. It was already too late in the season to accomplish all that we desired; but “half a loaf is better than no bread.” It might be years before a longer trip could be made. As a matter of fact, it was sixteen years before I visited Lūang Prabāng again.

The Prince gave us a passport, sending us as his guests to be entertained without expense; though, of course, we always paid our way. Our letter stated that we went as teachers of religion and as physicians for the sick. It was a virtual proclamation for all the sick to apply to us for treatment. This gave frequent occasion for retort that we did not remain long enough to comply with our letter. We could only reply by pointing to the clouds and the long journey ahead.

The party consisted of Dr. Vrooman, myself, a cook, a body-servant, and eight carriers, with a newly-baptized convert as the only available assistant in the religious work. The elephants required for our transportation over the first stage of our journey—to Chieng Rāi—we had secured, for a wonder, without effort, and very cheaply. Their owner was anxious to get them out of the country to escape an epidemic which then was prevalent. The start was on April 15th, 1872, after a heavy storm which ushered in the rainy season. This was my first trip over the road to Chieng Rāi, afterwards so familiar to me. After leaving the plain of Chiengmai, the road ascends the valley of the Mê Kūang River, fording that stream no less than forty-nine times before it reaches the summit, 3100 feet above sea-level, the watershed between the Mê Ping and the Mê Kōng.[10] Thence it descends to the Mê Kok at Chieng Rāi. The owner of our elephants travelled with us, and was unnecessarily tender to his beasts. In consequence we were ten days making this stage of the trip, which afterwards, with my own elephants, I used to make in less than six. On this trip I walked almost the whole distance.

Footnote 10:

In standard Siamese the vowel in the name of this great river is
undoubtedly long o, and has been so since the days of the earliest
Siamese writing. Such also seems to have been the understanding of the
early travellers who first brought the name into European use, for
Mekong is the uniform spelling of all the standard Atlases and
Gazetteers which I have been able to consult. In the Lāo dialect,
however, the vowel is that represented by _aw_ in _lawn_. This is the
pronunciation which Mr. J. McCarthy, Director of the Siamese Royal
Survey Department, heard in the North, and transferred to the Map of
Siam, which he compiled, as Me Kawng. This, however, Mr. R. W. Giblin,
Mr. McCarthy’s successor in office, recognized as an error, and
assured me that it should be corrected in the new map which he hoped
soon to publish. Mr. Giblin, however, has left the service, and the
map, I fear, has not yet been issued. But since Siamese speech and the
usage of geographical authorities are at one on this point, there can
scarcely be question as to the proper form for use here—ED.

At Chieng Rāi we were cordially received. The governor listened to the Gospel message, and, I believe, received it in faith, as we shall see later. Thence we took boat down the Mê Kok to its junction with the Mê Kōng. The sand-bar where we spent the Sabbath was covered with fresh tracks of large Bengal tigers.

Shortly after this we passed out of the Mê Kok into the great Mê Kōng, with reference to which I take the liberty of quoting from a recent work, _Five Years in Siam_, by H. Warrington Smyth, F.R.G.S.

“Few can regard the Me Kawng without feeling its peculiar
fascination. That narrow streak connecting far countries with
the distant ocean,—what scenes it knows, what stories it could
tell! Gliding gently here, and thundering with fury there where
it meets with opposition; always continuing its great work of
disintegration of hard rocks and of transport of material; with
infinite patience hewing down the mountain sides, and building
up with them new countries in far climes where other tongues are
spoken; it never stays its movement. How few men have seen its
upper waters! What a lonely life altogether is that of the Me
Kawng! From its cradle as the Gorgu River in the far Thibetan
highlands, to its end in the stormy China Sea, it never sees a
populous city or a noble building. For nearly three thousand
miles it storms through solitudes, or wanders sullenly through
jungle wastes. No wonder one sat by the hour listening to its
tale. For though but dull to read of, the wide deep reality
rolling before one had an intense interest for a lonely man.

“Rising in about 33° 17′ N. Lat. and 94° 25′ E. Long. in the
greatest nursery of noble rivers in the world, where six huge
brethren have so long concealed the secrets of their birth, it
flows southeast through Chinese Thibetan territory to Chuande,
where the tea caravan road from Lhasa and Thibet on the west,
crosses it eastward towards Ta Chien Lu and China, over 10,000
feet above sea-level.”

Almost within sight from the mouth of the Mê Kok were the ruins of Chieng Sên, once the largest city in all this region. Its crumbling walls enclose an oblong area stretching some two miles along the river. Seventy years before our visit it had been taken by a combined army of Siamese and Lāo. Its inhabitants were divided among the conquerors, and carried away into captivity. At the time of our visit, the city and the broad province of which it was the capital had been desolate for three-quarters of a century. Nothing remained but the dilapidated walls and crumbling ruins of old temples. Judging from its innumerable images of Buddha, its inhabitants must have been a very religious people. One wonders whence came all the bronze used in making them in those distant days. To me it was an unexpected pleasure to find myself in that old city, the ancestral home of so many of our parishioners. Little did I think then that twenty years later I should aid in organizing a church where we then stood. The Mê Kōng is here a mighty stream. It must be a magnificent sight in time of high water.

A short distance below the city we passed a village recently deserted because of the ravages of the tigers. The second day from Chieng Sên brought us to Chieng Kawng, one of the largest dependencies of the province of Nān. There we spent two very interesting and profitable days. I had met the governor in Chiengmai. He was delighted with my repeating rifle, and had us try it before him. There was also his son, who not long after was to succeed the father; but his story we shall come upon some twenty years later.

At this place we were fortunate in finding an empty trading-boat going to Lūang Prabāng, in which the governor engaged for us passage on very reasonable terms. We left Chieng Kawng on May 3d. The trip to Lūang Prabāng occupied five days, and was one of the memorable events of my life. In some respects the scenery is not so striking as that of the Mê Ping rapids. The breadth of the river makes the difference. You miss the narrow gorge with overhanging cliffs and the sudden bends closing in every outlet. But, on the other hand, you have an incomparably greater river and higher mountains. I quote again from Mr. Warrington Smyth the following description of one portion of the river scenery:

“The high peaks, towering 5,000 feet above the river, which give
it such a sombre appearance, are generally of the very extensive
limestone series. They present tremendous precipices on some of
their sides, and their outlines are particularly bold.... Some
miles above Lūang Prabāng the large and important tributaries of
the Nam Ū and the Nam Sêng enter the Mê Kawng. The clear
transparent water of these tributaries forms a strong contrast
to the brown sediment-laden water of the Mê Kawng.... In some of
the rapids with sloping bottoms, the first jump over the edge is
very pleasant; the fun then comes in the short roaring waves.
Everybody on board is fully occupied; the men at the bow-oar
canting her head this way and that, the helmsman helping from
the other end to make her take its straight, the men at the oars
pulling for all they are worth, and the rest bailing mightily,
or shouting to any one who has time to listen. If the rapid is a
bad one, the crews land to have a meal before tackling it, and
stop to chew some betel and compare notes after it. So it is
always a sociable event.”

My travelling companion, Dr. Vrooman, thus gives his impressions.

“The current of the Cambodia is very swift, in places so much so
that it was dangerous to navigate. The river is nearly a mile
wide in places; and where the channel is narrow, it rushes along
with frightful rapidity. No scenery is finer throughout the
entire distance we travelled on it. Mountains rise from either
bank to the height of three or four thousand feet. The river
fills the bottom of a long, winding valley; and as we glided
swiftly down it, there seemed to move by us the panorama of two
half-erect hanging landscapes of woodland verdure and blossom.
Only as we neared the city did we see rough and craggy mountain
peaks and barren towering precipices.”

Twenty-six years later I descended the Mê Ū River from Mûang Kwā to Lūang Prabāng, and then ascended it again. The perpendicular rock-cliffs at its junction with the Mê Kōng surpass any that I ever saw elsewhere.

Of greater interest to me, however, than roaring rapids and towering rocks were the evidences of numerous human habitations perched far above us on the mountain sides. Rarely can their houses or villages be seen; but in many places their clearings have denuded the mountains of all their larger growth. It was tantalizing not to be able to stop and visit these people in their homes. But my first opportunity to make extensive tours among them was not till some twenty years later. As for the Mê Kōng, my comment is: If I wished an exciting river trip, and had a comfortable boat, I should not expect to find a more enchanting stretch of three hundred miles anywhere else on the face of the earth.

Lūang Prabāng was then the most compactly built of all Siamese cities outside of Bangkok, which, in some respects, it resembled. It differs from the other Lāo cities in having no great rural population and extensive rice-plains near it. Its rice supply was then levied from the hill-tribes as a tribute or tax. The city has a fine situation at the foot of a steep hill some two hundred feet high, tipped, as usual, with a pagoda. The Nām Kêng there joins the Mê Kōng, dividing the city into two unequal portions. The view from the top of the hill is delightful. The inhabitants belong to a large branch of the Tai race, extending southward at least to Cambodia. They are called the Lāo Pung Khāo (White-bellied Lāo), as ours, because of their universal practice of tattooing the body, are called Lāo Pung Dam (Black-bellied).

The Prince of Lūang Prabāng was absent from the city hunting wild elephants, in which game his province abounds. The Chao Uparāt gave us a hospitable welcome. Behind the city is a noted cave in a mountain, which the natives think is the abode of the very fiercest evil spirits. No doubt the real spirits are the malarial germs or the poisonous gas which later we found to be the chief danger of the Chieng Dāo cave. It was in this cave that M. Mouhot, a noted French scientist, contracted the fever from which he died. The natives believed that his death was caused by his rashness in trespassing upon the domain of the spirits who preside over the cave. We were astonished at some sorts of fish displayed in the market, such as I never saw anywhere else. Mr. McCarthy tells of assisting at the capture of one, a plā buk, seven feet long, with a body-girth of four feet and two inches, and weighing one hundred and thirty pounds.

We remained in Lūang Prabāng six days, leaving it on May 14th. I was very loath to go so soon. The people were eager for books as well as for medicine. It was the one place where Siamese books were well understood. We could have disposed of basketfuls of the Scriptures, as Dr. Peoples did twenty-four years later. It is one of the anomalies of the twentieth century that when we finally were ready to establish a Christian mission, after the country had passed from non-Christian to Christian rulers, we could not get permission.

From Lūang Prabāng we again took boat to Tā Dûa, some sixty miles below. There we bade good-bye to the wonderful river, and turned our faces homeward. Our elephants were good travellers, the swiftest we had so far found. They gave us no chance to stroll on in advance, and rest till they should come up, as we had done before. They brought us to Nān in six days, four of which were spent in travel over high mountain ridges. Our road passed near the great salt wells; but we had no time for sight-seeing.

Two experiences on this portion of the trip will not be forgotten. One was a fall from my tall elephant. A flock of large birds in covert near us suddenly flew up with loud shrill cries. I was reclining in the howdah at the time, and raised myself up to look out under the hood, and, while suspended there in unstable equilibrium, another and louder cry close at hand made the beast give a sudden start backwards, which landed me in a puddle of water. Fortunately no further damage was done. Another annoyance, more serious, was the land-leeches which we often encountered when we dismounted to walk. The whole ground and every shrub and twig seemed covered with the tiny creatures. Sensitive to the least noise, each one was holding on by his tail, and waving his head back and forth to lay hold of any passing animal. We soon found that they had a special fondness for the _genus homo_. Do what we might, every hundred yards or so we had to stop to rub them off, while the blood ran profusely from their bites. We had none of the herbs which the Mūsô bind on their legs to keep them off.

On Saturday evening we reached Nān, the first place where I found friends since leaving Chieng Rāi. Chao Borirak, whom I had met in Chiengmai, nephew of the Nān Prince, and a few others, were soon on hand to give us welcome and to offer any aid we needed. The Prince was a venerable old man, with four sons—fine men, all of them. The country was well governed, though it long continued conservative as regards the adoption of foreign ways and the welcoming of foreign traders. I fell in love with Nān at first sight, and marked it for a future mission station.

On our departure from Nān, Chao Borirak accompanied us as far as Prê, bringing his own elephants—one of them a colt, which he rode astride like a horse—the only one, in fact, that I ever saw so used. At Prê we found our government letter not very effective. Rupees, however, were effective enough to prevent any long delay. The ruling authority in Prê has always seemed weak.

INTERIOR OF A TEMPLE, PRÊ]

There was an amusing circumstance connected with an eclipse of the moon while we were there. Since the conversion of Nān Inta, I had taken pains to announce each eclipse as it was to occur. I did so in Prê the day before it was due. The eclipse took place early in the night, and I expected to hear the city resound with the noise of every gun and firecracker in the place. But everything was as quiet as a funeral. It seemed to be regarded as _our_ eclipse. The silence may have been intended to test our assertion that Rāhū would renounce his hold without the noise, or possibly they were unwilling to proclaim thus publicly the superior wisdom of the foreigner in predicting it. At any rate, they utterly ignored it, and let the monster have his will unmolested.

My associate had gained all that could have been expected from the tour; but an aching tooth was giving him great trouble, and we hurried on. We reached home on June 22d, just sixty-eight days out. We found neither family in very good health. The doctor’s toothache drove him to such desperation that he insisted on my trying—all unpractised as I was—to extract the offending eyetooth. It broke. There was then nothing to do but to make the trip to Bangkok for the nearest professional help. By the time he returned, it began to be evident that he could not hope to remain long in the field.

Between Bangkok, Pechaburī, and Chiengmai, I had been fifteen years in the field; and my wife had been in the country from girlhood without change. We had both endured it remarkably well, considering that we had had the strain of starting two new stations. Before the end of the year, however, my wife had reached the limit of her strength, and it became necessary to hurry her out of the country. So, on the 3d of January, 1873, she was carried in a chair to the boat, and we embarked for the United States.

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XIV

THE FIRST FURLOUGH

The tour of the previous season had been so hasty and unsatisfactory, that I was very anxious, if possible, to duplicate the homeward stretch of it as far as Nān, then descend the Pitsanulōk Fork to the Mênam, and so follow my family to Bangkok. But would it be safe to leave my wife to make the river trip without me, when she was in such weak condition, and burdened with the care of four children, the youngest of whom was but two years old? I embarked and travelled with them as far as the landing for Lampūn—where we must separate, if I were to cross over to Nān—still uncertain as to what I ought to do. It was then Friday. We decided to stop there over Sunday, and see how matters looked on Monday morning. The quiet and rest of the boat were improving her condition somewhat; and her own bravery made up whatever was lacking there. I had secured a strong letter from the Prince, calling for the best of steersmen through the rapids, and for protection where the boat should stop for the night. So, with some anxiety, but with strong faith that the plan in itself so desirable would prosper, we separated—one party going by boat down the Mê Ping, and the other going afoot across country to Lampūn. For the present we leave the wife and children, to hear their report when we meet again.

My plan was to rely on getting elephants from point to point. Elephants are always very hard to get; so it seemed doubtful whether my confidence were faith or presumption. But I was remarkably favoured. At Lampūn there was not an elephant nearer than the forests, save two of the governor’s own. I had trusted to his friendship, and it did not fail me. I got off in fine style next morning on the governor’s two elephants, with a letter to all the governors on the route directing them to see that I was supplied with whatever I needed on the journey.

I felt strong in having with me, in the person of Nān Inta, so wise a teacher and such a living witness of the power of the Gospel. On our first visits it has usually seemed wise to spend much of the time in visiting and making known the Gospel privately to those of reputation, as we know one wise missionary did in old times. It is necessary to give the rulers a clear idea of the non-political nature of our work. In order to do this, we must show positively what our message is—not merely that we are religious teachers, but that, as such, we have a message different from all others, not antagonistic or hostile to them, but supplementing rather that which they offer.

In visiting among the princely families in the old city of Lakawn we met one most interesting case. It was that of an aged bedridden Princess high in rank, who received the Gospel with all readiness of mind. By nature, habit, and grace she had been very religious. She had in her day built temples and rest-houses, had feasted Buddhist monks, and had fasted times without number, in order to lay up a store of merit for the great future. She hoped sometimes that she had laid up a sufficient store; but the five and the eight commands were against her. She had killed animals; and the command is explicit, and condemns without a saviour. That the Creator of all had made these creatures for our use and benefit was a new idea. That of itself would remove much of the burden on her conscience. And as one after another of the great truths of revelation was opened up to her, particularly the doctrine of the incarnation and atonement of our divine-human Redeemer, it seemed as if the burden was lifted. Nān Inta was himself a living testimony that the Christian teaching can and does give instantaneous relief when simply believed. It is difficult to tell which was more touching, the sympathetic earnestness of the speaker, or the comfort it imparted to the hearer. The Princess begged us to come again and often. And neither of us found any other place so attractive.

After a week spent in Lakawn, we departed on our way to Nān. The next Sunday we spent in the forest. I look back with delightful memories to the occasional Sabbaths thus spent in the deep forest after a busy week with no rest and no privacy—a Sabbath in solitude, away from every noise, and even every song except the music of the wind and the song of birds! We always had service with our men; and then, under the shade of some cool spreading tree, or beside a flowing brook, one could be alone and yet not alone. No one more needs such retirement than a missionary, whose work is always a giving-out, with fewer external aids for resupply than others have.

The next Sunday we spent in Wieng Sā, the first of the numerous little outlying towns of Nān. On Monday we reached Nān itself, the limit of our tour in that direction. The country was well governed, the princes intelligent, and the common people friendly. But the special attraction that Nān had for me largely centred around one man, the Prince’s nephew, Chao Borirak—the one that rode astride the young elephant to see us safe to Prê on our earlier trip, with whom we used to talk religion about the camp-fires till the small hours of the morning. We left him then apparently on the border land of Christianity, with strong hope that he soon would be ready to profess publicly the faith which he was almost ready to confess to us. His rank and connection would make him of great assistance in opening a station in Nān, which, next to Chiengmai, was the most important province in the Lāo region. Again he offered us a warm welcome, giving up his time to visiting with us the rulers and the monasteries, in one of which his son had long been an abbot. It seemed as if Nān Inta’s experience would be all that was needed to settle his faith. At his request I asked and received permission from the Prince for him again to accompany us—with his young elephant foal and her mother—five days’ journey to Tā It, where I was to take boat. Our walks by day and our talks by night are never to be forgotten. But the convenient season to make a public profession never came. He lived in hope of seeing a station in Nān, but died not long before the station was established.

At Tā It no boat was to be had either for sale or for hire. But my face was turned toward home, and I would have gone on a raft. I had to do the next thing—to take a small dug-out which the Prince got for me, and go on to Utaradit, the next town below. There I was able to purchase a boat, which I afterwards sold in Bangkok for what it cost me. Nān Inta was the steersman, and my four men rowed. Our longest stop was at Pitsanulōk, where the Siamese mission now has a station. On reaching Bangkok I was delighted to find that my family had made their long trip down the other river in safety, though not without great anxiety, and some threatened danger. Our oldest daughter had been quite ill on the way. Once they came perilously near falling a prey to a band of robbers. It was only by a clever ruse of the captain that they escaped. As soon as he caught sight of the suspicious-looking group of men on a sand-bar ahead, he had the gong loudly sounded. That and the waving American flag evidently made them think that this was the leading boat of some prince’s flotilla. They incontinently fled into the forest. At the next stopping-place our boatmen learned that it was, indeed, a marauding band that had committed many depredations on passing boats. What a merciful preservation!

We spent a few weeks in Bangkok, resting and visiting in the home of my father-in-law, Dr. Bradley, of sainted memory. It proved to be the last time that we ever saw him. He lived only a few months after that.

In fifteen years the world had moved. Going round “the Cape,” even in a good clipper ship like the _David Brown_, had become too slow. We took, instead, the steamship _Patroclus_ from Singapore to London, via the Suez Canal. The Rev. Mr. Keyesberry, a missionary friend of Dr. Bradley’s, had been waiting to find an escort to England for two young sons and a daughter. We gladly undertook that service, and so had a flock of seven young folks to look after!

We were barely under way when our own children broke out with the measles. The disease, fortunately, proved to be of a mild type, and our new charges were not hard to manage. So, on the whole, we got along very well. In London we had unexpected trouble because the friend who was to meet Alice Keyesberry at the dock failed to appear, and, strangely enough, we had received no memorandum of her destination. It cost us two days’ search to discover her friends at the Walthamstow Mission School.

The boys I had promised to convoy as far as Edinburgh. So, leaving my family in London, I had the great pleasure of a visit to the beautiful Scotch capital. The day spent there was to me a memorable one. It was, however, a matter of great regret that, being so near the Highlands, I could not also visit the original home of my ancestors.

We arrived in New York on July 11th, 1873, after an absence of fifteen years. Under any circumstances fifteen years would work great changes. But that particular fifteen had included the Civil War. The changes in the South were heart-rending.

Though North Carolina was drawn late into the Confederacy, it is said that she furnished a larger number per capita of soldiers and had a larger number of casualties than any other state in the South. The havoc among my old schoolmates and pupils, and among my flock, was distressing. In many places, too, the sectional feeling was still bitter. The wisest of the people, however, were becoming fully reconciled to the results of the war. The largest slaveholder in my own section assured me that the freeing of his slaves had been a boon to him, and that he was clearing more from his old farm under free labour than he had done before with slaves.

Unfortunately in the churches the feeling was more bitter. My old associate, Dr. Mattoon, had accepted the presidency of Biddle Institute at Charlotte—now Biddle University (colored). For a time he was very coldly received except by such broad-minded men as his old Princeton classmate, and my friend, Dr. Charles Phillips. By virtue, however, of his noble Christian character and his conservative bearing, Dr. Mattoon overcame these prejudices, and lived to be welcomed in the largest churches in the state. I spent most of my furlough in North Carolina; and personally I received a welcome almost as warm as if I were a missionary of the Southern Board. Returned missionaries were not numerous then. It was not an uncommon thing for me to lecture in churches which had never before seen the face of a foreign missionary.

Soon after our arrival in the United States news came of the resignation of Dr. Vrooman; and my first duty was to find a successor. For myself, and even for my family, I could endure to return without one. But I could not face the distressing appeals from the sick whose ailments I was powerless to relieve. In my visits among friends in North Carolina I met a young medical graduate, Dr. M. A. Cheek, who received from warm friends of the mission flattering recommendations for the place. He himself was pleased with the opening, and would willingly accept it, if he could first take a graduate course in surgery. This was easily arranged, and he was ready to return with us the following summer.

The hardest thing to face was the parting with our children. But the bitterness of this pang was softened by the kindness of friends which opened the best of Christian homes and schools to receive them. We can never sufficiently express our gratitude for the kindness shown us in this matter by the late Mrs. E. N. Grant and Miss Mitchell of the Statesville Female College, and to Mrs. McNeill, the widow of my old pastor.

These two great questions settled, we left North Carolina in March, 1874—my wife with the two younger children, to visit friends and relatives in the North; and I, as I hoped, to visit the churches and the seminaries in search of recruits. But a cold contracted on the trip north ran into a dangerous attack of pleuro-pneumonia, followed by a slow recovery. Thus I missed my visits to the seminaries and the meeting of the General Assembly in St. Louis.

The return to the field was by way of San Francisco, and we reached Bangkok on August 27th, 1874. On November 14th a son was given us to take the place of the children left behind. In December began our river journey to Chiengmai. The river was low, and we were a month and a day from Bangkok to Rahêng. There we found four missionaries of the Nova Scotia Baptist Board seeking to establish a station among the Karens of Siam. But they found their villages too small and too widely scattered to justify the establishment of a station. So they were returning to Burma. On Saturday night we all dined together, and had a sociable hour. On Sunday evening we drew up our boats side by side, and had a prayer-meeting that we shall long remember. There was something delightful in thus meeting and enjoying Christian fellowship on a sand-bar, and then passing on to our respective fields of work. Some of these men afterwards went to India, and started the Telegu mission, which has had phenomenal success.

There were still the rapids and four more weeks of travel before we could reach our Lāo home. But the home-coming at last was delightful. Our faithful old coolie, Lung In, with his wife, met us in a small boat three days’ journey below Chiengmai, with fruit and fowls lest we should be in want. Then the tall figure of Nān Inta, with his face like a benediction!

It was February 7th, 1875, when at last we drew up alongside our own landing-place, and felt the warm handshake of old friends. Among the Lāo at last!—and no place that we had seen would we exchange for our Lāo home. For the first time since our arrival in 1867 we had a permanent house to enter!

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XV

MÛANG KÊN AND CHIENG DĀO