Leaving Luang Prabang
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We are making for a fine peak,
Pu Sunn, at the foot of which are several small villages lying
amidst many acres of rice-fields; and now we come across the curse
of Siamese administration. Half a dozen irresponsible servants
of the not too-wise sub-Commissioner of Chieng Kawng, are careering
on ponies from village to village unnecessarily harassing the
inhabitants. On leaving the administration of Luang Phrabang,
it is as though we were entering a country with a people of entirely
different customs; there all was order and discipline; here all
is confusion, and everybody acts on his own responsibility. It
is very difficult sometimes to follow the drift of methods of
government. Some Siamese are ultra-Darwinists, and consider that
so strong is the association between brutes and men, that the
same treatment should be given to arrive at similar results.
When elephants are captured, a method of training them is first
of all to employ elephants and men to goad them to madness. Presently,
however, the man directing the proceedings comes to the assistance
of the elephant, drives off his tormentors, and offers him sugar-cane.
So with men, he who has been directing some leader begins by
inflicting countless evils, and afterwards comes forward as a
liberator and dispenses sugar-cane.
We pitched our tents in the
wat grounds of Lao Pon Tawng, and were waited upon by the sub-Commissioner's
servants, who pretended they did not know who we were nor what
was our business. Each one gave himself a title, and demanded
to know the reason of our coming. I asked for their authority
to put these questions, and they replied that their persons were
as good as letters. I showed them the Kra, and they wished to
take it to the sub-Commissioner, to which I readily agreed, as
I had other copies. I then asked for an explanation why they
had threatened the men whom I had sent to look after the rice-store,
and then sent one of them to tell me they would not allow me to
come. This they denied having done. I was prepared for all this
tomfoolery, and thanks to the Commissioner of Luang Phrabang,
was independent of any assistance from the district, until such
time as they should get orders from Prince Phrachak, the Royal
High Commissioner of Nawng Kai
.
We ascended Pu Sunn, on the
22nd of November had as clear a day as possible. The previous
day there had been rain, and after it the atmosphere was beautifully
clear. With the telescope of a Traughton and Simm's 8-inch theodolite
I was able to distinquish our basket signals on Pu Nang Wang and
Pu Sang Nam, each distance being over one hundred miles. The
basket signals are the same pattern as those made by Colonel Woodtrope
during his explorations of the wilder parts of Assam. They are
made of split bamboo, oval inshape, with the white side out, and
when new, however dark the background, can be readily distinguished
on a sunny day at great distances. From the top of the hill-which
is of granite, a peculiar feature of the main watershed in these
parts-there is a magnificent view of the greater and most beautiful
part of the Puann plateau.
No words can depict the beauty
of the scene. The country lies unfolded before one, and it appears
as though there were waving corn-fields, orchards and gardens,
with numerous streams meandering through them, now hidden in the
shady recesses, again appearing as streaks of silver to be again
lost in the distant mountains, thickly clothed to the top by forest
trees. There are grassy and treeless slopes with their paths
at such regular intervals of from three to four feet as to suggest
the laying out of contour lines; but it is not so, they merely
indicate the thousands of herds of cattle that grazed over the
plateau in the days of its prosperity, up to the jagged yet well
defined line of virgin-forest, which seems as though some forest
laws had said, "Thus far and no further."
From Pu Sunn, which is a sentinel
on the north-east of the plateau, a view of not less than one
thousand square miles of the plateau is obtained. Close by to
the east is Pu Sunn Nawi, a flattopped, well-wooded and well-watered
hill, which would make an excellent sanitarium. It shuts out
the view of the fields of Tung Chieng Kumm, where the Siamese
lost a number of men before they drove the Haw from the stockade.
Two excellent signal trees were left standing and a huge basket
signal. Not far from Lao Pong Tawng is Ban Mawn, where there
are extensive iron mines, the iron being of excellent quality;
the knives and axes made from it have a great reputation all over
Siam.
Continued
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