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William Clifton Dodd, D.D.

TRANSCRIBER NOTE

People think of Foreign Missions by countries. As there are Tai Missions there must be a country called “Tai.” When students and supporters of missions fail to find “Tai” on the political map of the world, like the child with the star they “wonder what you are.”

“Tai” is not the name of any political division or country of the world. It is the name of a race. In their early history they were called Lao. This name is now properly used only for the people of the Laos State in French Indo-China, though until recently the North Siam Mission was called The Lao Mission and the people of North Siam were called Lao. It is pronounced as “low” in the word “allow.” To be strictly accurate it should have the broad pronunciation of certain sections of English speakers, who would then “allaow that naow yew know haow.” As shown in Chapter I, Lao or Ai-Lao (I ’low) is the race-name of a people older than the Hebrews. Before Abraham was they were. The name was changed to Tai at the time of the Burman Conquest. The race’s home is four countries, in parts of China, Tongking, Burma and all of Siam, none of them called “Lao” excepting the Laos State in Indo-China. The people is one race, now called the Tai.

Like the Tibetans, with the exception of the Siamese, the Tai are an inland people. Hence, although mission work has been in operation among them for over half a century their bibliography is very brief. “The Laos of North Siam,” by Mrs. L. W. Curtis, Presbyterian Board of Publication, gives a very interesting and accurate general view of only one branch of the Tai People, the Yuan of North Siam, their customs, their home, religion, superstitions, and mission work among them. “Laos Folk Lore” by the late Miss Katherine Neville Fleeson, same publishers, gives what its title promises, in a bright, fascinating style. An autobiography, of the late Rev. Daniel McGilvary D.D., LL.D., (Revell & Co.), gives much valuable hitherto unpublished history of the North Siam or Lao Mission, especially in its early days. The latest book of general information concerning the Mission, its field and work, is entitled “An Oriental Land of the Free,” by Rev. J. H. Freeman, (Pres. Board of Pub.). Its viewpoint is almost wholly that of the North Siam Mission’s present organized work in Siam, although it gives an occasional glance beyond. The books on Bangkok and the Siamese are more numerous, from “The Kingdom and People of Siam,” written by Sir John Bowring in 1855, to the more modern works of the present day.

This present treatise is, however, the pioneer in treatment of a large part of the Tai field and people, viz., those outside of Siam, and of the Tai Race as a whole. Chapter I blazes the way for later comers in looking up the Tai people historically. The closing chapter attempts to summarize our up-to-date knowledge of the whole race and territory. The other chapters are for the most part frankly and unambitiously narrative. No attempt has been made to heighten the literary effect by changes of names, or the introduction of any fictitious matter. The characters are all real, down to the pack animals and the dog. And while the merely diary style has been avoided, the story is that of actual journeys of missionary exploration.

Many friends have urged the writing of this book. They share with the writer the hope that, with the blessing of God, its publication will open up to the Home Church the Vision of the magnitude of the task, the urgency of the call and the greatness of the opportunity to enlighten and Christianize the Tai Race.

The purpose of many introductions is to increase the sale of the book being published. The author gets some one who is more widely known than himself to perform this task. Not so with this book. The author’s reputation in certain religious circles is world wide. That of the one writing the introduction is very limited. His introduction is not designed to help the sale of the book, but to tell why the book was written and why it is now published.

Perhaps the undersigned is in a large degree responsible. Being intimately acquainted with Dr. Dodd for many years he knew he held the pen of a ready writer. He also knew of his extensive knowledge of a numerous and interesting people living in a land little known to the American public. Certainly, what he wrote would be worth while and would be greatly appreciated in certain quarters. He therefore urged Dr. Dodd again and again to perform this service. Especially did he urge him to write an extended account of the remarkable tour of investigation taken in the year 1913—a journey of some two thousand miles. It was supposed to have been made by pony but was actually made in large part on foot. Dr. Howell S. Vincent writes of it: “A task which for moral stamina and fortitude, as well as for physical courage and prowess and its pure altruistic aim, is comparable with the great task of any great man of any age.” It began at Chiengrai, North Siam, and extended to Canton, China, passing through the provinces of Yünnan and Kwangsi, and thence down the West River to the sea.

Dr. Dodd hesitated to comply with the suggestion for several reasons. He disliked to thrust himself into the lime light as a hero. Then he was too much engrossed with his work as a Gospel herald to take the needed time. But a more potent reason can be found in the mold of the man. He wanted to do a bigger thing than to relate what was but an incident in his busy life. He wanted some day to write a book on The Tai Race, comparable with their greatness, numerically and racially. He wanted so to visualize them to the Christian Church that it might be induced to set itself to the glorious task of their evangelization. He had no thought of self glorification but a burning desire that the Tai might be saved.

Toward the close of his days he began to think of this bigger undertaking. He began to select the material and put it in writing. But the night, that comes to all, overtook him before this work was done.

With the word of his passing I learned what had been in his mind. I urged Mrs. Dodd to put the material in MSS form and I promised that I would see it through the press, and would do what I could to secure funds for its publication. She responded with gladness and did her work in a most admirable way in circumstances most heroic. This would make a very interesting chapter if it could be told.

This is how The Tai Race—The Elder Brother of the Chinese came to be. It would have been published much sooner save for the financial difficulties encountered.

My part in this undertaking has been one of great joy, because of the high esteem in which I have held Will Dodd since we met on the campus of Parsons College, Fairfield, Iowa, in the autumn of 1879. No man during all the intervening years has so touched and molded my life, save the Man of Galilee.

Having thus told how the book came to be I beg the reader to consider my limitations for carrying out this project. To have been able to have done this perfectly one should have had knowledge equal to or greater than the author. What then could be expected of one who when he began knew not a word of Siamese, Chinese, or Tai?

While the imperfections in it may mar it somewhat for the knowing ones, I trust that it will not in any large degree lessen the worth of the book for all those who are interested in the speedy evangelization of The Tai Race. Dr. Dodd, notwithstanding the work of many others, will go down in the history of Missions as The Apostle to The Tai.

J. F. Hinkhouse

First of all a disclaimer. This key is not intended to apply to English, Burmese, Chinese or other “foreign” words: only to Lao words.

And then a second disclaimer. This key would not be a complete one for the use of an English-speaking student of the Lao language. In general no attempt has been made to indicate Lao tones, fine vowel distinctions, and aspirations of consonants. But in the Romanization of Lao names in Burma the English system of Romanizing colonial names has been followed, and in Romanizing Lao names in China I have followed the custom most generally in vogue among foreigners there, thus: hpayā (in Burma), and T’o (in China) indicate aspirate p and t respectively; while kuang is pronounced as if spelled quang. With these exceptions the aim is to use a separate character for each Lao sound, and to use it consistently.

The consonants retain their ordinary English sounds.

As a general rule the vowels have the continental rather than the English sounds:

Unmarked vowels are short, and when final are pronounced explosively.

Who is the Chinese? Not, who was he, but who is he? The last word in answer to this first question, who was he, has apparently been said. Professor Terrien de Lacouperie, the eminent English authority on all things Chinese, speaks with an air of satisfying finality. He says:

That would seem to settle it, but now cometh Parker and with him a host of irreverent critics who openly challenge the English professor with the French name, and proceed to spin theories of their own, just as if the question had not been settled. “It’s all so puzzly.”

As to the second question, who is he today, there is more unanimity among the authorities, at least as to one point: he is composite. To quote Lacouperie again, first of all:

Holt S. Hallett, M.T.C.E., F.R.G.S., writing of the Tai or Shan Race, says:

And Major Davies, author of the latest and most standard book on Yünnan, is authority for the statements that,

Similar quotations might be cited to show that the present-day Chinese, who regards all surrounding peoples as inferior barbarians, has not only much Tai blood in his veins, but also blood of Lō-lōs and other Jung tribes; blood of the Yang, or Karens, and other Tek tribes; and even blood of the (by him) despised Miao and Yao and other tribes of the great Mon-Hkmer family: all these on the south; and more modern representatives of the old Altaic and Ugro-Finnish stock coming as a constant renewal on the north, through the Mongols and other of the so-called “Turanians.” Like all the rest of us, the Chinese must concede that his race is a resultant one. Holt Hallett says:

By consensus of above opinions, one of the chief elements in the resultant Chinese people of today is that of the great Ai-Lao race, latterly called Tai, and by the Burmans called Shan, who are older residents of China than even the Chinese themselves. Much has been written, justly and eloquently, as to the antiquity of the Chinese, as a race in China. The Rev. J. T. Gracey, D.D., says:

In the light of the quotations from Lacouperie, Hallett, and Davies the applicability of Dr. Gracey’s eloquent panegyric must be restricted, until nearly the time of the Christian era, to a limited area in northern China. Thus restricted, no word of detraction is possible, or desired. Rather do we cite this encomium to accentuate the still greater antiquity of the Tai Race as fixed residents in China, living under stable governments which endured for millenniums before they were overthrown. We do not know what may yet be unearthed as to the origin and history of the two races previous to their residence in China. But so far as citations by Professor Lacouperie and others from the Chinese Annals prove anything in situ, the Ai-Lao is the Chinese’s older brother.

The first mention of him cited by Professor Lacouperie occurs in the time of the Great Yü, who began to reign 2208 B.C., Mr. Hallett tells us. In a geographical survey which goes under the name of this ancient ruler we hear of the “Ta Mūng,” i.e., the Great Mūng, in what is now the northwestern part of Szechuan Province, or western central China. Now the name Mūng does not sound much like Lao or Tai or Shan. Yet it is as truly one of the race-names as any of these. Holt Hallett states that in a slightly modified form this is the name by which the race is still known to the Annamese. And Professor Lacouperie tells us that the Mūng formed the leading family in the agglomeration of tribes which united to form the well-known and powerful Ai-Lao kingdom at Tali-fu, Yünnan Province, in the seventh century A.D. He says that they (the Mūng) also did the same in several other agglomerations in later times.

We are not ignorant of the objection of a certain school of critics that says the Annals are untrustworthy at so early a date. And there is undoubtedly good ground for rejecting some statements of these early chronicles; they are manifestly mythical. But, with Ball, author of Things Chinese, we hold that where there is so much chaff there must be some wheat. The task of the discriminating student of history is to segregate these precious grains of truth, not to dump wheat and chaff alike into the waste-heap. Now one of the certainties in Chinese history is the presence of aborigines in what is now China when the Peh Sing or Chinese first came from the west into the Flowery Land. Another certainty is that the members of the Ai-Lao Race, whether known to the Chinese today as Chung Chia, Tūng-jen, Lūng-jen, To-jen, Tū-jen Pā-yī, or what not, are universally called “aborigines” by the Chinese. Another historic certainty is a general migration in very early times from a western Asiatic center outward in all directions. Most modern writers do not hesitate to put that migration as early as about 3000 B.C. For example, Mr. Hallett says, “In the earlier hymns of the Rig Veda (about 3000 B.C.) we find the Aryans on the northwest frontiers of India.” And Dr. Arthur H. Smith tells us that “The important fact is that thirty-five, forty, or perhaps even forty-five centuries ago the institutions of the Chinese people, their language, arts, government, and religion, had begun to develop on lines from which no departure has ever been made.”

The mention of the Tā Mūng in Chinese Annals as early as 2200 B.C. is therefore consonant with these historical certainties: The Mūng belong to the Ai-Lao race; the Ai-Lao belong to the aborigines; the aborigines preceded the Chinese in the migration from the west; the Chinese themselves came earlier than 2200 B.C.—probably much earlier.

Further marks of credibility there are. The earliest migrations of the Ai-Lao into the south, which were well within historic times, were from this same region where the race is located in the first mention. The second mention of tribes of the race, as we shall see, is in this same region. This region is the most westerly of the whole tract inhabited by the race in later times, and best accords with the general trend of migration in those times, as the first residence of the race in China. In short we may say that if the Annals did not mention them about this time and in this locality, they would be inconsistent with the whole later history of the race. Incidentally it is worthy of note, also, that the very name given in the Annals is a further mark of credibility. The race is called a “Great” one. While it is perfectly natural to find these early chronicles calling one of their own rulers the Great Yü, it would be inconsistent with Chinese custom and their well-known assumption of superiority to call a small and unimportant tribe of aborigines great. The Mūng must have been well established and have been already an important people in order to wrest this name from the Chinese. Races do not attain greatness at a bound. Racial development is slower than national development. The inference from this application of the title “great” to the Mūng is that they must be much older as a race than the time of 2200 B.C. And this accords with the other facts already mentioned.

According to Bishop Ussher’s chronology, at 2200 B.C. Babylonia and Assyria were less than twenty years old, and Menes or Mizraim had not yet founded Egypt. This would make the Ai-Lao race considerably older than either of these three great peoples of antiquity. The saner conclusion would seem to be that while these three great nations were developing farther west, possibly the same wave of migration from the common center as brought the Aryans to the northwest frontiers of India brought the Mūng to the extreme west of China, where they, simultaneously with the Babylonians, Assyrians, and Egyptians, were being differentiated into a separate race—the one which the Chinese found when a later wave of migration brought them also to China. As a race, the Ai-Lao were in at the beginnings of history, whenever that was.

The second mention of tribes belonging to the Ai-Lao race which Professor Lacouperie cites from the Chinese Annals occurs some two hundred years later than the first. The Chinese ruler Ki of Hia is reported to have sent his minister, Mang Tu, to the Pā People in western Szechuan. Near the Pā lived the Lūng. This time the Annals give a definite date, corresponding to our 1971 B.C.. According to the Ussher chronology, this was fifty years before Abram entered the land of Canaan.

The Lūng, and more especially the Pā, play an important part in the subsequent history of the race. Anticipating our narrative a little, I found both these tribes in southern Yünnan in my journey of A.D. 1910, or 3881 years after this mention of them in Chinese history. They still bear the ancient tribal names, Lūng and Pā. Modern Chinese call them Lūng-jen, i.e., the Lūng people, the Pā-yī, the Pā barbarians; at least this is the interpretation given me of these two names. Their own speech is Lao or Tai as I found out by talking with them and hearing them talk. Professor Lacouperie calls them “the transformed representatives” of the Pā. The transformation has at least left them recognizable by one who knows the modern Tai.

We note that at the early time of their mention in the Annals the Pā were living under a government of their own; for a Chinese minister was sent them. Whether or not their government was one with that of their Mūng brethren, already so well established in the same general region, is matter of conjecture, not of record. And whether the three kindred tribes of the race living in western Szechuan at that pre-Hebraic time had taken on the race-name Lao or Ai-Lao or not, is matter for another conjecture. They may easily have done so and the name not appear in the record. For it is a common thing today for members of this race to bear at the same time the race-name and also a tribal name. The modern Pā call themselves Tai, but would appear in any Chinese record as Pā-yī. The Lü, Hkön, and other tribes of the Tai acknowledge both race-name and tribal. What the modern Pā do, their ancestors may have done. No argument against a race-consciousness or a race-name can be drawn from the silence of history about them, or the occurrence of tribal names, either in 1971 B.C. or 2200 B.C.

We may go farther and say that it is not only possible but it is probable that the Tai-speaking race called themselves Lao from the earliest times. For this word “lao” in their language originally meant “man” or “person.” I discovered its use in this archaic sense during my journey among the illiterate Tai in China, who use many words in a sense lost or discredited among their literate brethren. Since then my eye has fallen upon a confirmation of this discovery from the highest authority upon all matters linguistic and racial pertaining to the Siamese, Colonel Gerini. In an article originally published in the Asiatic Quarterly, Colonel Gerini says in part:^[1]

I will only add that I have verified Colonel Gerini’s assertion as to the meaning of the word “Hkamu,” as used by the Hkamu themselves, and could add to this list that of Kaw and several others. By analogy of other races and their usages, Lao or Ai-Lao “persons,” “male persons” (for the singular and plural form is the same) would be the names applied to themselves by the race to whose language the words belonged, from the earliest times.

It was not long, as historic ages go, after the second mention of the race under tribal names, Lūng and Pū, before the race-name appeared in the Annals in one of its many cognate forms. Kieh, the last ruler of the Hsia dynasty, was exiled among the Tchao or Chao by the new Shang (Shan?) dynasty, in 1558 B.C., Lacouperie asserts on the authority of the Annals. These Chao lived at a long distance from western Szechuan, in what is now An-hui Province. Yet it was at the eastern terminus of an almost continuous mountain range, connecting the two foci of the race. The Lao Shan, i.e., the Lao Mountains, at the intersection of the modern provinces of Hunan, Hupeh, and An-hui, in eastern central China, are said by tradition to be named for the Lao Race. And the cognate forms of the name Lao, such as Leao, Chao, Ngai-Lao, Shen-Lao, etc., were common all along the whole range from An-hui to Szechuan. The Ai-Lao, also called Ngai-Lao, extended well westward along this Lao-Shan and its continuation, the Kiu-lūng range. Westward of this chief center of the Ngai-Lao, but still hugging the foot of the Kiu-lūng, were the Leao, as their name was locally pronounced. But when Tsin advanced over this range farther west, into Ssu-chuan, in the third century B.C., they found the race locally known there as Ai-Lao, although the tribal names were still in vogue, Mūng, Lūng, Pā, etc., as is evidenced by their persistence down to the present time.

By the time of this third citation by Professor Lacouperie of distinct mention of the Lao race in the Annals, in 1558 B.C., the race had evidently spread itself over territory extending nearly across the whole width of modern China, from west to east, following the impulse and direction of their original migration from western Asia. Let it be particularly noted also that, contrary to the impression generally prevalent, the records show that this first home of the race in China was north of the Yangtze River, not south of it. And we shall see that the records further show that it was milleniums, not merely decades nor even merely centuries, before they were driven from these aboriginal seats of power into the south, only to form new and wider kingdoms there.

If the Ussher chronology may be accepted as to contemporaneous history, the Ai-Lao were extended thus over the width of China, north of the Yangtze, before Moses was born, or Troy or Athens had been founded, not to speak of the founding of Rome, some eight hundred years later. And this home of the race was in what has so aptly been termed “the belt of power.” In that rugged clime this hardy, virile race not only solved its own problems and wrought out its own destiny, but both then and later it furnished, as Holt Hallett says, “one of the chief ingredients that compose the so-called Chinese race.”

No mention is made, in any of the authorities consulted on either the Chinese, Burmese, or Siamese side, of the cause or of the exact date of the first great migration of the Ai-Lao race from China southwards. Speaking in general terms, the cause was the constant feuds, often amounting to real warfare, between the Ai-Lao and the growing power of the Chinese. Lacouperie says that under the Shang-Yu and Chou dynasties, 1766-255 B.C.—the Chinese “dominion, though not extending more than midway between the Huang-ho and the Yang-tze-kiang, was an area much too large for their own race; it was in fact interspersed with the aborigines who were kept in check by the higher culture which the newcomers endeavored to impart to them. When the yoke happened to be heavier under the pressure of the extraordinary growth of the suzerain people, who required a more positive territorial extension, the feudal states had to yield, and their population was mixed with and absorbed by the Chinese, or else they objected to the complete assimilation. In the latter case they either migrated, or, if strong enough, resisted bodily.” The first great southern migration was undoubtedly caused, as we know that subsequent ones were, by an armed “objection” to assimilation—which proved ineffectual: hence the migration.

As to the date of it, we know from Lao and Siamese sources that a migration of large proportions was in progress at least as early as the sixth century B.C. For the Möng Mao state, destined to attain such power and proportions in later times, had been founded in what is now the most westerly section of Yünnan Province (near the 24th degree of north latitude) some considerable time before the middle of the sixth century B.C. And in the early part of that century, if not earlier, the Ai-Lao had built several large towns in what was then Yûn (Karen) country. Among these were Möng Lem and Chieng Rūng, both now included in Yünnan Province, China; Chieng Tūng (officially spelled Kengtūng), now under Burma; and Chieng Sên, the oldest town in what is now Siam. According to the local Tai history, which I have read, in the year 543 B.C. the Ai-Lao by strategy threw off the Karen yoke in all these towns. But they got thereby the Karen name: for “the Burmese call the country to the east of the Salween Yûn, and the Shans who inhabit it Yûn Shans,” says Hallett.

It was evidently people of the same migration who founded Möng Nai (Mone the Burmese call it) in 519 B.C.; Hsenwi (Theinni) in 441 B.C.; and Hsipaw (Theebaw) in 423 B.C. These are Shan (Ai-Lao, or Tai) towns in Burma, west of the Salween River. This general period is the time of Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes in the Medo-Persian empire; of Thales, Pythagoras, and Herodotus in Greece; and of Daniel, Ezra, and Malachi in Judah. The lapse of twenty-three centuries finds all these Yûn towns and those to the west of the Salween still extant as Tai towns. But such an enormous stretch of time, bringing with it for most of the whole period different political relations, and introducing differing cults of Buddhism and differing alphabets, has pretty thoroughly differentiated these Yûn Tai and their Tai brethren to the west of the Salween.

If the specific occasion of the first great migration of the Ai-Lao is unrecorded, the occasion of the second great migration is matter of record, and the exact date when it began is given. While the Ai-Lao immigrants were growing great in the south, and beginning to call themselves Tai, “the free,” in contradistinction from the races which they subjected, the neighbors of their brethren in the old home in the north were becoming increasingly aggressive. A state called the State of Tsin was encroaching upon the Ai-Lao in northern Szechuan. This state did not represent the Chinese power in general, but was one of the petty states growing up within the general region governed by China. In 338 B.C. this Tsin state conquered the tribe of Ai-Lao who were locally known as the Pā. This resulted in a gradual migration of the Pā Lao, which has during the intervening centuries scattered the “Pā-yī” throughout Yünnan and the country far to the south of it. The modern Lü are called Pā-yī by the Chinese—more distinctively, Shuie-Pā-yī, “Water-Pā-barbarians.” Now the Lü are found not only in their proper home in the Sip Sawng Panna, in southern Yünnan; but also in the eastern section of Kengtūng state, the French states east of Kengtūng, and all through the Yûn states of North Siam. For example, the people of Lampun are Lü by a large majority—Shuie-Pā-yī. And the Lü form a very considerable part of the million Tai people of Chiengmai state, bulking large also in Lakawn, Pre, Nan, and the large tract which we call Chiengrai.

This second migration, which has given the present Mission so much of its local constituency, was later than the first migration by a longer period than our American republic has yet existed; yet it was still a very early migration. True, the Ai-Lao race had most certainly resided in its northwestern Szechuan home for 1900 years by this time, as long as the present age of our Christian era; and it is almost equally certain that they had been there for several centuries longer than that. But it will help us to realize how early the date 338 B.C. falls in the world’s history, if we recall that Alexander the Great had not yet entered upon his career of eastern conquests; the Romans were at this time engaged in the Samnite War; and there were as yet no intimations of the coming kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

It must be understood, of course, that emigration from the ancestral seats, east as well as west, was constantly going on to a smaller or larger degree. It will be recalled that our authorities tell us that there was constant friction between the growing power of the Chinese and the older regime of the Mon-Hkmer and of the Ai-Lao, both in Szechuan and as far east as An-hui. As the Chinese represented a later migration from the original home of the human race, they brought with them a higher degree of civilization, and with it a patient, persistent, pervasive power of centralization. They absorbed much of the best blood of the Ai-Lao race—which helped some. But much of the best blood shook off the dust of its feet for a testimony against the cruelly certain growth of the newcomer’s power, and, a few at a time or in large waves of migration, took up their beds and walked south. Yet we must also remember that during all this time, while petty states might gain temporary advantages and start migrations, the Ai-Lao power was still supreme over nearly all its original belt across central China, and was rapidly spreading from the eastern focus down south “from An-hui Province into Chiang-hsi Province, and from the western focus over the whole western part of Szechuan and southwards.”

There was an interval of four hundred years between the second great migration and the beginning of the third, 338 B.C. to A.D. 78 In this third migration we are not only furnished with date and cause, but with some interesting particulars. As related in the Chinese Annals, these particulars do not reflect credit upon the Ai-Lao; possibly the Annals do not intend that they shall. In the first place, the Ai-Lao “appear again in A.D. 47, making raids on the Chinese territory, descending the Han and Yangtze rivers on bamboo rafts.” Much as we love the Ai-Lao race we must agree that it was an injury for them to make raids on Chinese territory (although it may have been in the way of reprisal). And it was adding insult to injury for them to descend great rivers into civilized Chinese territory on bamboo rafts (the only method of navigation possible, in those times of such streams as these, so broken by rapids). Next we are told that “in the year 69” (while Titus was besieging Jerusalem) “Liu Mao, their general-king, submitted to the empire, with 77 chiefs of communities, 51,890 families, comprising 553,711 persons. As they had extended over the whole western part of Szechuan and southwards, they were officially recognized by the Chinese government in the east of Yünnan.” Just why this small section of the great Ai-Lao race thus submitted, the Annals do not say; possibly pressure had been brought to bear! But “in A.D. 78, having rebelled against the Chinese officials appointed to represent the suzerainty of China”—alas, what wrongs they had that made them do this wicked thing we are not told, “their king, Lei-lao, was defeated in a great battle, which caused many of their tribes to migrate into the present country of the northern Shan states;” thus Lacouperie.

Those were troublesome times in the world’s history. Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jewish race scattered. Mount Vesuvius overwhelmed the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii. And Nero was persecuting the Christians most inhumanely. Mars must have been in the ascendancy. Still we are told that the Ai-Lao “soon recovered from this blow,” and went on to great power still in Yünnan for yet many centuries, as we shall see.

More than 250 years elapse before we have record of another great migration, the fourth. Gaining at least temporary victories over the Pā Lao and the Ai-Lao, in the west, Chinese power was evidently growing to the east. While not yet able to cope with the Ai-Lao in An-hui, and Chiang-hsi, we are informed that the Chinese subjected the Leao, farther west along the Kiu-lūng range, “to a regular slave-hunting when the Chinese were able to take the offensive and to quash their successive rebellions. The result was to drive them southwards: they spread all over the south after A.D. 345.”

The Ai-Lao seem to have enjoyed comparative quiet in China from this date onward for some six centuries. In Europe it was a time of turmoil, with Mars still ascendant. The Goths and Visigoths, the Vandals and the Franks, Saxons and Saracens—they kept the political pot boiling. The Roman empire fell. Mahomet arose in Asia, and his followers carried their conquests into Spain. The Middle Ages began. Christianity gained great ground numerically, and lost much spiritually.

During this long period the Ai-Lao, still strong in their eastern home, grew increasingly powerful in the southwestern part of China itself. By A.D. 629 they had “developed and formed the agglomeration which became the great state of Nān-chao, which afterwards extended in all directions,” and lasted over six centuries. The seat of this kingdom was at Tali-fu, western Yünnan. As previously noted, Lacouperie fathers the statement that the leading family of the Nān-chao agglomeration was the Mūng, whose emergence into Chinese Annals, had occurred some 2,800 years before this time.

Beyond the borders of China the Ai-Lao, now the Tai, reinforced by this time by four migrations in addition to the constant infiltration of Ai-Lao into Indo-Chine in between times, had spread over what is now Tongking and the French Laos states as far south as Luang Prabang and Wieng Chan; and into northern Siam as far down as Lampun. The Lao histories give the date of the founding of Lampun as A.D. 574 And Wieng Chan, in the modern French states, must have been founded some time before: for the first ruler of Lampun married a daughter of the ruler of Chandrapūrī, or Wieng Chan. Judging from modern dialectic and other differentia, confirmed by what historical data we have, it was the “Yün Lao” from the region of Möng Lêm, Chieng Rūng, Chieng Tūng and Chieng Sên, who pushed down and founded Lampun; and it was the people of the fourth great migration from the Kiu-lūng range who peopled Wieng Chan and that region. The different migrations naturally would follow the course of the great streams and valleys wherever possible. This fourth migration would be likely, therefore, to come in the direction of Wieng Chan and the east. And this fourth migration was one of the most widespread of them all, and would reach as far as Wieng Chan. “An author of the thirteenth century speaks of them (i.e., the people of this migration) as having extended, in more than one hundred subdivisions, to fifty days’ journey from the frontiers of the Tali kingdom.”^[2]

The fifth great migration of the Ai-Lao occurred in the tenth century of the Christian era. The eighth and ninth centuries constitute an age of mighty conquests on the part of the Chinese. Dr. Arthur H. Smith says that the inhabitants of the south coast were incorporated into the main body of the people, and the empire was extended to the banks of the Caspian Sea. We could wish that Professor Lacouperie had been a little more specific as to the date of this fifth migration: but he locates it in this period of Chinese conquest. Writing of the Lao in An-hui and Chiang-hsi provinces, he says:

This expulsion of the Ai-Lao from their ancestral seat at the eastern focus occurred when Europe was still young, and very zealously engaged in the pious crusades. There was as yet no Great Britain: for England, Scotland, and Wales each had its own separate government. But can we realize the length of time that the Ai-Lao had held sway right there in An-hui? Rome existed but a trifle over 1200 years, Greece slightly more than 1300. The Medo-Persian Empire was short lived. And even the great Babylonian Empire did not attain quite 1700 years. But from the time when the Ai-Lao are first mentioned in An-hui, already a well established race, until their final expulsion, was more than 2500 years.

The discriminating student of history will say that, while the great empires of the west passed away, the races which they represent did not. This is equally true of the Ai-Lao of An-hui and Chiang-hsi and that region, as well as of those in Szechuan. They shifted their habitation, but continued their history. Possibly, however, the aforementioned student may wear Chinese glasses, and regard the Ai-Lao as “barbarians,” savages, whose history may be long, but is really worthless. It seems worth while, therefore, at this point to cite the estimate of the present-day Tai or Shan race which is held by some of those who know it most intimately. In his book Yunnan, on page 20, Major Davies speaks of them as “this very civilized and very widely spread race.” And on page 38 says, “Certainly the Shans (or Tai) are in many ways a much more civilized race than the Chinese.” From my own more than a quarter of a century’s contact with both races, especially the Tai, of course, I would not put the Tai civilization above that of the Chinese, except in the matter of personal cleanliness. Climatic conditions bring many differences in the outward signs of civilization; but where I have seen the two races in the same localities they seemed about equally civilized. Both Chinese and Tai live in rather primitive style in remote and inland regions. But the Tai are as capable of accepting and assimilating anything worth while which they find in our boasted Occidental civilization as are the Chinese. This has been demonstrated by those of the races who have come into coastwise contact with it. In an appreciation of the late Chulalangkorn, King of Siam, published in The Youth’s Companion, October 15, 1908, an enumeration is made of the advances toward our ideals of civilization which had up to that time been made under His Majesty’s beneficent rule. This enumeration includes: abolition of slavery; the opening of canals, roads, and railways; telegraph lines all over the kingdom constructed; taxation reformed; lighthouses and buoys placed all along the coast and in the lower rivers; postal facilities established; legislative, judicial, and executive procedure reorganized; and religious liberty proclaimed. “Probably,” says an American traveler, “the greatest social revolution in the world has taken place here and all without any fuss.” With apologies for this apologia, we resume the historical narrative.

The sixth great Ai-Lao migration began in the year A.D. 1053 The occasion was another war of conquest by the Chinese. In Burma, page 110, Sir George Scott says of the period between the third century of our era and the downfall of the T’ang dynasty—which occurred A.D. 907 according to a chronological table given by Dr. Smith:

The inhabitants of the south coast may have been incorporated nominally into the main body of the Chinese people, as Dr. Smith asserts, during the T’ang dynasty. But the Ai-Lao kingdom at Tali-fu was at its zenith; and citations could be given from various authors to prove that the Tai were really in control everywhere south of the Yangtze River until A.D. 1053 During that year, in a series of great battles along the whole navigable course of West River (the Canton River), including a long siege of the city of Canton itself, the Tai, as we shall hereafter call the race, lost to the Chinese. Canton thus became a Chinese city thirteen years before William the Norman conquered England. And another great Tai migration began, reinforcing and extending the Tai invasion of Tongking and eastern Siam.

Although the Tai were shorn of power in the southeastern part of China, their rule was not broken in the southwest. The Ai-Lao kingdom continued on for nearly two hundred years longer, with its influence extending far beyond the confines of China proper. The Ai-Lao Race was also earning its new title of Tai “The Free,” by extensive conquests outside of China. The Möng Mao state, founded some six or possibly seven centuries before, had by this time become a great Tai kingdom. According to Holt Hallett, in A.D. 1229 its sway covered all of what is now Upper Burma, Assam, parts of Aracan in Lower Burma, and the upper Yün states of Chieng Rūng and Chieng Tūng. Conquest of the Mon-Hkmer race had been pushed down far past Wieng Chan in the east and Lampun and modern Rahêng in the west of the Yün Lao territory. And by this time, A.D. 1229, the Tai had become so numerous and powerful in the southern half of Siam that they were menacing the rule of the Mon-Hkmer (who had preceded them in the exodus from China), the kingdom of Cambodia, which had ruled there for some six hundred years, the Siam Directory says.

The seventh and last great wave of migration of the Ai-Lao from China to become the victorious Tai farther south, followed the overthrow of the great Nān-chao Kingdom at Tali-fu, in A.D. 1234 This kingdom had existed for a little over 600 years: and it was not overthrown by the Chinese but by the Mongols under Kubla Khan. That cataclysm marks the end of autonomous Ai-Lao rule in Chinese territory. And our detailed historical study of the Chinese’s Older Brother ends here, when Europe was in the darkest of the Dark Ages, with the Inquisition in full blast.

It remains for us to note only a few of the more epochal dates in Tai history in the 677 years since the fall of the Tali kingdom. For it was a period of Dark Ages in the Orient as well as the Occident. Until the coming of more stable conditions, with the advent of Christian powers into India and Indo-China, the history of Indo-China is, perhaps even more than that of China, a dreary succession of wars and reprisals, conquests and defeats, speedy spoilation and slow recuperation. Burmese, Peguans, Cambodians, Annamese, Tai, and Chinese, all took a hand as they could in tangling the thread of history. Uneasy lay the head that wore the Tai crown, but through it all, the Tai race had been shaped by a beneficent higher Power.

By A.D. 1257, a scant quarter century after the fall of the Nān-chao kingdom, the Siamese had completely shaken off the Cambodian yoke and had founded the Sukhothai kingdom. By the end of that 13th century, when Edward I was on the throne of England, the Möng Mao kingdom embraced all of Burma and Assam, and “the Malay Peninsula as far south as Tavoy,” and the Mao Tai had even “made their power felt in Java, Malacca, and Cambodia:” so says Hallett. Besides what influence the Tai exerted in Java and Malacca, they were in autonomous rule over nearly all of Indo-China.

The Siamese capital was transferred from Sukhothai to Ayuthia in A.D. 1350, while Wickliffe was busily engaged in translating the Bible into the English language. This transfer of the capital site marked also the transference of royal power from the hands of one Yûn Tai dynasty to those of a more recently arrived, and therefore a more pure, Yûn Tai dynasty. With only a break of about fourteen years, 1768 to 1782, during which time our own American republic was launched, this Yûn dynasty has been in control of Siam ever since. By the fortunes of war the capital was changed from Ayuthia to its present site at Bangkok, in 1768.

We cannot here enter into a discussion of the complex causes which have through milleniums differentiated the Tai race into its three great modern divisions. These divisions are, the Tai of the extreme south, known as the Siamese, and numbering some 5,000,000; the Tai of Burma and Assam, known as Western Shans (or, popularly as “Shans”), the Hkamti and the Ahom, in all perhaps 2,000,000; and the rest of the Tai race, north of the Siamese and east of the “Shans,” who apparently do not know any distinctive and comprehensive name, but are called Thai, Tho and Tu as well as Laung Mung, Chung, Chong, etc. South of China, we knew before our tours of exploration that these Tai numbered about 6,000,000. How many of them there might be in China, more akin to the Yûn Tai in speech than to either of the other two great southern divisions of the Tai race, we did not know.

In general it may be said that the causes already pointed out as differentiating the Yûn Tai and their Tai brethren of the same migration who settled west of the Salween, operated differentially everywhere. These causes were, their gradual segregation into kingdoms; their contact and partial assimilation with different races; their reception of Buddhism through different channels; and the resultant differing Buddhist cults and alphabets. Yet the three great divisions of the Tai Race, after more than 4,100 years of history recorded in Chinese, Burmese, Yûn, and Siamese annals (in addition to the previous unrecorded history) speak strongly marked dialects of one common Tai language, rather than three languages. The Tai of the North have come less into contact with other great races than either the Siamese or the Shans have, in the south. They therefore speak a purer Tai language, and are purer Tai in blood than the two smaller modern divisions of the race. They not only bear the old race-name, but are best entitled to it.

In putting before the reader the present-day habitat of the Tai race it seems best to come in at the back door, or in other words, begin with what might geographically be called the northern frontier, viz: Southern Szechuan and Southeastern Kweichow. We will then follow them down in the order of their migrations, rather than to follow the order of the different tours of exploration or the established work of the different missions. I hope that in this way the reader will get a better view of the Tai people as a geographical unit, even though politically divided among four governments. The Tai people of this region, however, cannot in any sense be called pioneers, the vanguard of civilization. Rather they are the last lingering wave in the tide of migration, or possibly a receding wave, caught and stranded by the lofty mountains and settling down in the sequestered valley of Southern Szechuan and Kweichow.

Far from being a homogeneous people, the different groups of the Tai race, scattered far and wide like a “far flung battle line,” separated by almost impassable mountain ranges, by many tribes and many tongues, often are ignorant of the very existence of their far distant brethren. To those we have met in the far north, the southern Tai country is known simply as “the glutinous rice country,” (muang kow no). Some of their fathers and brothers have at different times gone away to that unknown land and never returned to tell them of its glories or its terrors.

In his book on Yünnan, Major Davies says: “I was surprised to find that a few of the villages in this valley (The Pū-tū Ho) were inhabited by Shans (Tai), a race I certainly never expected to find so far north. They say they came here hundreds of years ago from Ava. This is rather vague but possibly they came originally from some Shan state which was at that time tributary to Burma. No priest accompanied them in their migration, and they consequently have lost their written language and their Buddhist religion. They still however speak Shan. It would be interesting to know how they got to this out of the way spot. They seem to have no idea themselves why they came or exactly where they came from.”

There seems to be no accurate information as to just how widely extended or how numerous are the Tai of Szechuan. Major Davies speaks of “A few scattered families of the race whom I found in Northern Yünnan and in Tibetan Szechuan.” In a footnote he says, “Garnier mentions Shans at the junction of the Yalung and the Yangtze. I believe there are a certain number of villages of this race scattered about this part of the Yangtze valley. It is possible that they are the remnants of a former Shan population.”

This, however, was nearly twenty years ago. Our Yangtze friends in Yünnan say today, that they have traveled eight days south of the Yangtze and still found Tai villages. They do not know what is beyond that for they have not gone any farther. They say, “In this region there are only scattered villages. But north of the Yangtze in Szechuan they are much more numerous. There are many valleys of them. Wherever there is water for their rice fields the Tai live. They do not live in the mountains.” They insist that their brethern over in Szechuan call themselves Tai just as they do. And they do not like to be called anything else, though the Chinese call them Tu-li or Tu-ren.

The branch of the race living in Kweichow do not seem to be called Tai. According to the late S. R. Clarke, author of Among the Tribes in Southwest China, they are generally known as the Chung Chia, or sometimes Tū-jen or Tu-ren. A dictionary compiled by one of the Roman Catholic fathers of Kweichow calls them the Dioi, which I have heard is the Spanish Romanization for Yoi. In 1910 I found many people in Kwangnan prefecture calling themselves Tai Yoi, or as we would put it in English, the Yoi Tai. These Kwangnan Yoi Tai speak a dialect of the Tai language which I could understand in the main at the first hearing. On the other hand, in travelling from the Yangtze to Wutingchow in Yünnan in 1918, I was told one day that there were some Chung Chia men near, and I left my party and made a slight detour in order to meet them. I found I could converse with them though with some difficulty.

Mr. Clarke estimated the Tai of Kweichow at not less than two millions. Major Davies on his map of Yünnan has Shan marked as inhabiting the upper courses of the West River in Kweichow as well as in Yünnan. The introduction to the Franco Dioi Dictionary states that the Tai, known locally as the Dioi, inhabit all the West River drainage in both Kweichow and Yünnan. I have verified this as far as the general region of Southeastern Yünnan is concerned and have no reason to think it is not equally true of Southwestern Kweichow.

Mr. Clarke did much for the Tai of Kweichow, or the Chung Chia as he calls them. He translated the Gospel by Matthew into the Chung Chia dialect and had it printed in Romanized, and did much evangelistic work among them. During one of my long tours I spent much time in reading and studying a copy of this Gospel in the Chung Chia vernacular. It is impossible to say what proportion of the vocabulary is common as between the Tai of North Siam and the Chung Chia, until one hears the Chung Chia actually spoken; for the Romanization is a little obscure without any accompanying key. But before I had finished it, I rarely opened the book at random without being able to “read at sight.”

In the chapter on “The Chung Chia or Shan Tribes” in his book “Among the Tribes,” Mr. Clarke says: “We shall now deal with that portion of the Tai or Shan race which is to be found in the province of Kweichow. Some of these people drifted into Kweichow from the West one thousand years ago. Within ten miles of Kweiyang, the provincial capital, are some of the Miao and probably 200 villages and hamlets of the Chung Chia, some of them containing as many as 200 families.”

Ten years ago Edgar Betts travelled across country from Tushan to Singyifu, a journey of seven days, nearly two hundred miles as the crow flies, through a region entirely occupied by the Chung Chia. There were no highroads and no inns; the people for the most part were well-to-do, and readily offered hospitality at the end of each day’s journey.

I have taken the liberty of quoting so at length from Mr. Clarke’s book, not only because it is of so much interest, and because his work is the best authority for the Tai people of that region among whom he lived and worked, but because what I have quoted so closely resembles what we know of the Tai of North Siam.

From a commercial standpoint we have the testimony of Consul T. S. A. Bourne, given in the Blue Book, 1898, in a report on the Trade of Central and Southern China. Of the people of Kweichow he says:

This little festive scene from the pen of Consul Bourne will also be interesting, especially as the bamboo organ pipes must be like those in use among the Tai of the French Laos state of Indo-China:

In 1915 a letter came into my hands from a missionary in Kweichow asking for help in acquiring the language of the tribes people, rather asking if our system of writing would help them to indicate the tones in the language he was trying to master. I sent him what help I could, though as his work was among the Miao any thing in Tai would be of little use to him. They can best be reached through the Pollard script, though I did not know that at the time. His letter was addressed to the Manager of the Presbyterian Mission Press, Ban Taw, Siam. He said, “I do not know who you are and I cannot locate your place on any map I have at hand,” which was not surprising.

I only mention this to show the importance of differentiating between the different mountain tribes of the Mon Hkmer and kindred families and the different branches of the Tai race. It also shows how far apart the two extremes of the Tai habitat are, and how little is known even by the missionaries of the northern border of the missionaries and their work on the southern border, and vice versa. Exploration, correspondence, and the linking up of work are now drawing them ever closer together, to the benefit of the work as a whole, and we gladly welcome all such requests as the above to that end.

As a means of bringing remote peoples into closer relationship with each other, the main arteries and routes of travel are the most effective. After the pioneer who blazed the trail comes the iron horse next as a civilizing agency. I hope there is a promise of good yet to be fulfilled for the Tai people of Kweichow and adjacent provinces in the following item which appeared in the London Times in 1913:

There is no doubt that the cataclysm of the World War which worked ruin to all plans for world progress for the time, prevented the carrying out of this agreement. We can only hope that of the railways now being planned and projected in China, this may be among the first to be put through.

I need hardly point out what a revolutionizing thing this will prove to the majority of all the Tai people of Kweichow (estimated as two millions or more), Kwangsi (not less than two millions more), and those of eastern Yünnan (about a million more), as well as to the Chinese and mountain tribes. It is the very region of these millions of Tai that will be traversed by this Yunnanfu-Singyifu-Nanning railroad.

But will the iron horse work good or ill to these quiet pastoral people in Kweichow? Civilization alone cannot lead a people out of the wilderness and fit them to take a place among the great nations of the earth. Christianity is the power that makes a people or an individual truly great. Only the Gospel of Christ can make a nation a power for good or fit its people for the Kingdom of heaven.

Let the messengers of Christ follow closely in the wake of the steamers, the daily press, and the railways, lest we find conditions crystallizing rapidly and this simple hearted people filled with the things of this world, the “lust of the eye, and the pride of life,” and the “one thing needful” shut out.

On June 6, 1913, an S.O.S. call was sent out by Mr. Gladstone Porteous, from Wutingchow, Yünnan. It was addressed to “The Presbyterian Laos Mission, Bangkok, Siam,” and in due time it came to me. His letter enclosed a printed clipping which stated that the Laos literature reached not only the Laos of Siam, “but those of Northern Annam and the related Tai people of the Chinese provinces of Yünnan, Kweichow, and Kwangsi.”

However this came to be published, it was of course largely prophetic. At all events it inspired Mr. Porteous to write to us for help. His letter told of a number of villages of Tai people in his district, up on the Yangtze, some of whom had “recently shown an interest in the Gospel and would like some Christian literature in their own language.” He spoke of their use of the Pollard script in their work among the mountain tribes but they did not find it usable for the Tai. He asked for a few samples of our literature with a key to its pronunciation and enclosed a list of words gathered from the Tai people there so that we might know if the language was the same as spoken by our Tai people in the south. Of the thirty-seven words in the list only four were foreign to our Yun Tai!

If the letter had been found in a bottle washed up from the depths of the ocean from some unknown island, we could hardly have been more astonished and interested. We had never imagined there were Tai people on the Yangtze, and never before heard of the C.I.M. workers of that region. Nor could we have felt more helpless to give aid in response to their call. It was nearly a two months’ journey from Chiengmai to Wuting and in the minds of our Tai helpers, a journey to the moon would have been almost as feasible; especially as our people did not know Chinese, which would be necessary in order to make the journey. A correspondence ensued between Mr. Porteous and myself, and Arthur G. Nicholls when Mr. Porteous was absent on furlo. This correspondence extended over a period of about five years before it resulted in any thing of direct benefit to the Yangtze Tai people.

Great interest was aroused among the members of our mission when these letters were read at annual meeting in Chiengmai in 1914. To hear that these people so far away were praying in the language of our Chiengmai people and begging for the Gospel in their own tongue, went to our hearts. As Dr. Briggs said after reading them, “Those letters from Yünnan must make your blood run a race to keep up.” Mr. Nicholls’ letters informed us of the existence of a whole valley full of Tai to the north of his station. This valley is that of a tributary of the Yangtze, and contains several thousand households of Tai. At last accounts some seventeen households had accepted Christ. They are illiterate in Tai but some of them can read Chinese. He asked if we could spare them a Tai Christian worker, and if we could introduce our Tai literature among the Tai of northern Yünnan. I invited him to meet us at Szemao; but he replied that he could not leave his station on account of building and other work, much as he should have been delighted to do so.

In order that you may have the situation more in detail, and that it may appeal to your hearts, as it has to ours, I will quote at some length from letters received:

In reply to my invitation to meet me at Szemao, he writes:

Gentle reader, isn’t that enough to stir your blood? And if you had already met in person and talked with thousands of Tai in Southern Yünnan and knew you could talk with those in the north, and if allowed could give them the gospel in their own tongue, would not you just ache to get at them? We did—both.

Finally the opportunity came in 1917 with the opening of Chiengrung station—which the Chinese call Kiu Lung Kiang—in Southern Yünnan, and the beginning of work for the Tai of China. The station was opened by Dr. Mason and Mr. Beebe on October 15, 1917. We were appointed to the new station with Dr. Mason and family but were urged to take our furlough first. So it came about that we were trying to hasten back after a nine months’ furlo, in April of 1918, to join our lonely colleagues in Chiengrung.

A journey in war times meant many unexpected delays, changing steamers, and long waits in port cities. Ours was no exception in the way of delays, but we enjoyed exceedingly this enforced opportunity to see something of missionary work in the ports of Japan, China, and the Philippines. We decided to make the latter part of our journey to Chieng Rung by way of Haiphong and the French railway, rather than up through Siam. This is the more direct way and we hoped to be able to reach our station before the heavy rains set in. This gave us the opportunity of meeting missionaries of other denominations at work in Tongking and Yuna. We met the Christian and Missionary Alliance family at work in Hanoi, Mr. and Mrs. Cadman, and we enjoyed their hospitality for a night enroute. Mr. Cadman also helped us through the inevitable interview at the police station over passports. We had to go early in the morning, as we expected to take the 9:30 train, and going through the passport catechism is evidently a time consuming business in Tongking. The French officials went a little farther even than the Japanese in their kind inquiries after our parents and grandparents; they wrote a verbal picture of us each one and then when we had begun to breathe freely and think breakfast and train were yet possible they asked for our photographs. We all looked blank and thought “Goodbye train for today,” when I suddenly remembered I had some and produced them. Our thoughtful U. S. Government had informed us we would need extra ones, if we were passing through any belligerent country, and here we did, and we had them. Breakfast and train were ours.

The French railway is the most magnificent piece of engineering we have ever seen. It is subject to inundations and landslides annually at present. But these are diminishing gradually, and in time will disappear altogether, in all probability. There are 154 tunnels in the three days’ ride from Haiphong to Yunnanfu, and many of them are in the day’s journey from the Tongking border to Amitchow. For about half the day we followed up the “turbulent, tumbling, turbid Ti,” a muddy little stream in the rainy season but very picturesque. On the side of one mountain we saw what we thought was another road above a dizzy height but a few minutes later we were on that road and the former track was far below. We traveled around mountain peaks, sometimes the circular terraced fields full of water looked like basins down below. We are told the loss of life was appalling in the construction of this railway. We cannot but hope, however, that in spite of difficulties it may sometime be put through to Singyifu and Nanning.

Our meeting with the missionaries was all that we expected, and as to numbers more than we expected. We met at Mengtze, two ladies of the Pentecostal Missionary Union (P.M.U.), and at the capital, Yunnanfu, the missionaries of the China Inland Mission (C.I.M.), the Church of England (C.M.S.) with P.M.U. and Y.M.C.A. workers. We were most hospitably entertained at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Collins of the Y.M.C.A., both at the beginning and the end of our stay in this region. Indeed, the kindness and hospitality of all these friends is long to be remembered. Mr. and Mrs. Collins lived in an old Confucian Temple fitted up for a modern dwelling. All the missionaries in Yünnan live in rented Chinese houses, except Dr. Thompson and family of the C.M.S. and those at the headquarters of the P.M.U. who have built in foreign style. Our visit to the capital was a pleasure we had been looking forward to for several years.

Our regular route through Yünnan would have taken us from Mengtze, on the French railway, by caravan stages to Szemao and thence six days’ stages south to Chiengrung. But the Chinese authorities reported the road unsafe from Mengtze westward, on account of numerous robber bands with which their few soldiers were unable to cope, and requested us to come up to the capital where the soldiers are more numerous, and go from there by caravan.

Arriving by rail at the capital, we received word from Mr. Porteous of the Wutingchow station that a conference at the capital was out of the question, and cordially inviting us to come on up to this Sapushan center for conference, and for Tai work. Unusually heavy rains for the season, and the failure of our heavy baggage and freight (supplies for the caravan journey) to arrive by rail for some time, soon showed us that it was impossible for us to press on to Chiengrung until after the rains. The hand of the Lord was plainly pointing the way. So it was decided that we go to Sapushan and offer our services at that time.

Accordingly we left the capital June 5th, being conducted by Mr. Parker, a C.I.M. worker living a solitary life among the Kopu in the Wutingchow region. As our “kit” had not arrived the Y.M.C.A. and C.I.M. ladies generously furnished us with everything needful for the journey of three days, including food, so we made the trip in comfort as to the “inner man.” As it was our first long distance ride in sedan chairs we had an interesting journey through an uninteresting country and the usual line of filthy Chinese towns and villages.

We arrived in Sapushan June 7th. It is a delightful mountain station over 8000 feet above sea level. We arrived in time to witness their annual school drill. All the schools in their district, seven in all, gathered for this festival. There were 300 boys from seven tribes and races; the Lisu, Laga, Nosu, Kopu, Hwa Miao, Tai, and Chinese. Their drill was very interesting; but still more so was the communion service on Sabbath afternoon. There were 700 in attendance. The singing was wonderful. They had four services that day, the two longer lasting for four hours with a half-hour intermission.

Two Tai men and two school boys had come in to the festival. We found we could talk with them and they and all who heard agreed that we had the same language. On Monday night we had a conference with them and with our missionary brethren, Messrs. Porteous, Metcalf, and Parker. The Tai men begged us to stay and visit them in their village and teach them. They said, “There are many villages of Tai who say they will become Christian if there is some one to teach them in their own language.”

The conference lasted till late. After much prayer for guidance it was decided that we should stay and do what we could to help them in the three months at our disposal, and that Mr. Metcalf should be put in charge of the Tai work, to carry it on after we left, although he already had charge of the Laga work and later temporary charge of the Lisu comprising many villages and hundreds of believers. He began studying the Tai language at once under our instruction. The Tai men left after arranging to return a month later for Mr. Metcalf and myself to visit their village. Mr. Porteous wished us to prepare a tract of religious instruction and a number of hymns, also a primer with alphabet tables, etc., all to be finished and printed on his Roneo before we went down to their village, saying, “We must have something to offer them that they can go to work on, and that we may be able to get into close touch with them as soon as possible.”

It must be gratefully remembered that this was not the first work to be done for these Tai people here. Overworked as these C.I.M. missionaries have long been in the care and direction of great mass movements among “the tribes,” several of them have taken time to visit the village of believing Tai repeatedly, situated some three days northwest of Sapushan, and given them instruction through the medium of the Chinese language. Mr. Porteous, on these flying visits, had prepared a small Tai primer, using the Pollard script as best he could. But the Pollard script, admirable as it is for use among tribes having no final consonants and few tones, is inadequate for writing Tai. The Tai have six final consonantal sounds and the local Tai here are blessed with ten tones. Moreover we found these isolated Tai as proud of being “The Free” as are their literate brethren farther south. (“Tai” means free.) And they wish work for them done in their own written and spoken language. So we set to work at once after it had been arranged that we should stay, and that Mr. Metcalf should study their language, not only to give him daily lessons, but to prepare a Tai Primer in Tai characters. As we proceeded with this primer work, we found the work that Mr. Porteous had done in his primer was so well done that much of it was incorporated in the new primer, after expunging a few Chinese words, and at his request making his hymns rhyme.

We had scarcely begun this entrancing work, when I fell ill and was kept in bed from June 10th to June 26th. Mrs. Dodd in addition to nursing me gave Mr. Metcalf his two hours of study daily for about two weeks, when he left us for the tour on which I was to have accompanied him. The Tai people were much disappointed in not seeing me. They however selected three women and three men to come in and study with us for a month. On the way back from the Tai village Mr. Metcalf was also taken ill and had to be carried into the station. These two long illnesses interrupted our work and delayed it greatly.

From June 26th to July 6th we roamed the hills enjoying a holiday with book or camera. The magnificent mountains talked to us, and the bracing air gave new strength to us. We became so familiar with the mountains we gave names to them, Old Craghead, Ingleside and the Palisades being our favorites. We explored the paths made by the feet of the hundreds of mountain people, as they go up singly or in groups to the Sabbath services or in bands with banners flying, to gather for the great conferences in Sapushan, “Whither the tribes go up.” We are told there is no evangelistic work left to do among the Miao of this region as all their villages are Christian. God hasten the day when this may be said of the Tai.

On Saturday, July 6, the delegation of Tai arrived and Mrs. Dodd opened a little school on the following Monday with these six pupils. They were all grown and most of them married but they were all perforce in the primary grade. Their leader was a young girl of nineteen who had studied some in a Chinese school. They had both Chinese and Tai names, and her Chinese name was Lee Chow. She was bright and pretty, winning though wilful, graceful as a Pocahontas or a Minnehaha. She had many little thoughtful ways such as putting Mrs. Dodd in an easy chair when she was tired and getting a pillow for her back. All the women were eager to learn and made good progress from the first. They were all more easy and free in their manners and more demonstrative in their affection for us than any Tai we have ever known. They ran over the steep hill sides like goats to gather wild strawberries for us and flowers which they brought as votive offerings. They adopted us at once and haunted our room, holding out our Chiengmai hymnbook saying, “Teach me the book.”

We had no books with us but two hymnbooks and a New Testament. To our surprise we found a small stock of our books from the Chiengmai press at the B. and F. Bible Society rooms in Yunnanfu. They got them from Shanghai but of course no one in this region could read them. We secured copies of Matthew and Luke from them, but the most of our work was done by blackboard, especially the alphabet table and lists of words and simple sentences to show them how to use these little characters so unfamiliar to them. Spelling is most incomprehensible to them as they have never known anything but the Chinese ideographs, but when they once get the idea it will be “worth a fortune.”

There are several problems in the task of teaching them to read. Their dialect is so different that while we understood each other and could talk together freely after the first few days, there were comparatively few words that we pronounced alike. Their tones are in many cases entirely different. They make diphthongs out of some of our single vowels and single vowels out of some of our diphthongs. In some cases the initial consonant is the same as ours and the rest of the word entirely different, and in some cases vice versa.

Added to this, like other non-Buddhist Tai, these Yangtze Tai lack all Pali terms. Many religious terms in use in our Tai literature are Pali. For many of the connecting words in sentences these northern Tai use Chinese, although they know the Tai equivalents of most of them. Then there are some of the most frequently used verbs and nouns for which Chinese terms are used. There are also many terms that are distinctly Siamese localisms. Again, in the course of many generations of isolation without the crystallizing influence of writing, the pronunciation of many individual words and many classes of words has become modified.

Yet the language is so essentially Tai that, by diligent search for substitutes for the missing Pali terms—generally finding Tai terms and in a very few cases using Chinese—in less than two months we found ourselves comparatively at home in the local dialect. Not only did the Christians and we come to understand each other, but the Tai villagers visited on the way back to the capital remarked that there was very little difference between their speech and our primer! It still remains an open question whether our school books and most of our Christian literature will be available for use among the converts. It is certain that for evangelistic work and the work of interesting new believers, more special literature will be necessary.

So while we were teaching we were also studying day and night. It was the most fascinating and most strenuous work we ever did. As soon as possible our pupils were put to studying the printed Gospel of Matthew in the Yun Tai with some oral interpretation pari passu. They were very fond of the familiar words. This study of Matthew was a great help. They soon learned the words we had in common and the effort to explain the unfamiliar words brought to light their substitutes for the abstract and religious terms which we were trying to find. The day we discovered their words for love, faith and trust we felt as if we had found a gold mine. According to my diary it was only four days after our pupils first came to us.

Soon after the organization of the class in Sapushan devotional services were begun, both at the opening hour in the morning and at 9 p.m. At first there was much stumbling on the part of the conductor on account of the differences of dialect. Gradually these were sufficiently mastered so that considerable fluency in prayer and preaching was attained.

In just three weeks after they first came, we had our first Sabbath service entirely in Tai. We held the service in our own room while the Miao and Chinese service was going on down in the chapel. They said they understood nearly every word. That was a red letter day for them as well as for us. They joined with fervor in singing the hymns and in prayer. It is wonderful how quickly and accurately they learned a new tune.

While this school was in progress Mrs. Dodd and I were busily engaged in putting hymns and prayers and the foundation principles of our Christian faith into shape for the primer. I found the stenciling in the Tai character a slow and laborious task, but the primer was finally printed and contained not only the alphabet tables and exercises written from memory but also considerable teaching in the form of condensed statements of truth, twelve hymns and a prayer, five of the hymns were Mr. Porteous’ work. But it is all glorious work. For it means opening up the word of God to possible millions of Tai people. For the work we are doing here will be of great service elsewhere among the non-Buddhist Tai.

On August 13th six Tai boys came in according to agreement to take us to their village. As we came to our room that evening there were eleven Tai gathered around the table in the school room, the old pupils teaching the new arrivals what they had learned. It was a sight we rejoiced over. The work of giving the Gospel to the illiterate Tai is started and will go on. How the prayers of years are being answered.

It was arranged for Mrs. Dodd to go with us and the following description of our journey is taken from her diary:

Living in the midst of this Tai family we were interested to note to what extent they had become Sinicized. The younger women and girls wore the loose jacket and trousers of the Chinese. They said they could not buy anything but Chinese clothes. The young girls wore a pretty embroidered cap and apron and the old women wore a very full pleated skirt such as the Miao and Naso wear. The following a Chinese custom was very noticeable in the back part of the room we occupied, where a long coffin was evidently waiting for the old grandmother of the family.

As it was a busy time in the fields only the women came to study during the day. The woman who was the most diligent in study, who came every day with her baby on her back, gave the best answers in their examination for baptism. Some of her answers were touching. When asked what Jesus had done for her she said, “He was born for me and He died for me.” In answer to another question she said “The Holy Spirit taught us before you came and He will teach us after you are gone.”

In the evenings they all gathered in, filling the living room and the veranda and on moonlight nights overflowing into the open court. They came as soon as it was dark, bringing their sleeping babies. There was an hour or more for study, usually some blackboard drill in the alphabet tables, words and sentences and prayers, then singing drill. The new Tai hymns were very popular. They soon made the place ring with them. The evening service followed which was both in Chinese and Tai but the singing was always in Tai. Both men and women prayed. During the latter part of our stay, I preached a sermonette each evening and longer sermons twice or thrice on Sabbath, while Mr. Metcalf also preached in Chinese. There were three services on Sabbath, one in the early morning, one from ten to one in the afternoon and one from seven to ten in the evening, and then they did not seem tired. The spirit of the old Covenanters surely did not exceed that.

As has been reported previously, Tai from other villages had repeatedly assured our fourteen families that when instruction was given in the Tai language, they would come and learn. Partly in view of these assurances many missionaries and converts from the various tribes and peoples of the region were praying that, if it be God’s will and God’s time, a mass movement might begin at this time among the Tai, similar to that among the Miao and other tribes. Soon after our arrival in the Christian village with the precious primer, our men went to many villages in the region and invited the Tai to come for study. Some made other excuses; but the usual reply was that if we were intending to stay two or three months it would be worth while for them to come and study. The fact that none came while we were there was a disappointment to our Tai Christians and to us and will be to many others. But it is not to be taken as settling it that none will come in future, or that there will not yet be a mass movement among them; especially when there are evangelists of their own race and dialect to teach them.

Several factors must be taken into account in regard to a mass movement among them. One is that the Tai are not simply one tribe of a racial family: linguistically, racially they are a family in themselves, like the other three great families in this region, the Chinese family, the Mon-Hkmer family, (including Miao Yao, etc.) and the Tibeto-Burman family (including Lisu, Naso, Kopu etc.). Like the Chinese, the Tai family—even these isolated representatives of it—are more individualistic than the Mon-Hkmer or Tibeto-Burmans. It will at least take longer to get a movement started among them. Apparently they want to see a good preparation made first, both in the way of written and spoken equipment for teaching, and also teachers in sight to teach them. Possibly this is the Lord’s plan also. One way He answers prayer is by showing us the necessity and possibility of our taking measures for ensuring the answers ourselves. But the hearty responses we met in the Tai villages on the way back to the capital convinced us that work for the Tai in their own dialect, promises a rich harvest.

An earnest of future blessing was vouchsafed us, during our stay in Nong Luang. Three families from that same village destroyed their idols and put away all traces of demon worship, accepted Christ and came for study faithfully. There are but thirty families in the village and twenty of them are now Christian. Another earnest of future blessing was that on the last evening of our stay, after searching examination, eighteen candidates out of twenty who came were deemed worthy and received baptism. For the first time in the history of the world not only was the baptismal formula heard in the Tai language in the extreme north of Yünnan, but the Eucharist was administered in both Tai and Chinese languages. The dream of more than two decades was realized: the work of the Siam Missions had joined with sacramental seals the work of the China Inland Mission. We who were present at that historic scene will never forget it. An unusual solemnity pervaded that audience of merry, happy-go-lucky Tai, many being melted to tears.

Four Christian Tai young men have volunteered to accompany us to Chiengrung for some two or three years instruction. With their help we expect to prepare more evangelistic literature which we hope will be available for the non-Buddhist Tai, both here and in southeastern Yünnan. We trust in time that these four young men may return for evangelistic work among their own people.

Certainly the return journey has further encouraged us to look for fruitfulness in work for the Tai here, if adequately manned and vigorously prosecuted. The first night of the return journey was spent at a Tai village on the Yünnan bank of the Yangtze River. There, at their own request, Christian services were held, and a large number of Tai heard the Gospel message for the first time in their own language. Much animated discussion followed divine service. One old gentleman remarked with fervor that the hymn about giving up liquor drinking which the leader from Nong Luang had suggested our singing “entered his ears:” which is the elegant Tai way of saying that it entered his heart. A vigorous Tai dame of middle age wanted to know what her deceased ancestors would have to eat and drink if she gave up spirit worship. She was assured that the demons she worshipped are quite distinct from human beings, dead or alive: and she repeated several times as a new truth to her, “The spirits hate and oppress us, God loves us.” The next day we passed through several Tai villages and a market town where we met Tai people from other villages. In the two villages where we stopped and in the market, we showed the primer and gave some exhortation. All listened well to religious teaching in their own language. Evidently there is much pride of race even among these scattered Tai, who form so small a part of the total population of the region, instead of being its principal component as in many parts of southern Yünnan, in much French territory, some of Burma and all of Siam, as well as in a large part of Kwangsi province. One of the villages visited that day said that their ancestors came from the glutinous rice country (to the south) eleven generations ago. And the old gentleman whose ears took in the liquor-banning hymn, said with manifest pride, “We are real Tai.” It seems that work for them must be done in “real Tai” in order to gain a hearing, but there is every promise that such work will not be fruitless.

We had only three weeks to stay in Nong Luang. The time was all too short, and there were many tears over our parting. We can only trust the work to the Lord of the harvest, and those who out of their overfull lives have undertaken to lead them. So, we feel sure that the work will go on. We have since heard that Lee Chow is teaching them every night and they are faithful in studying.

On the way back to the capital we visited Taku, the C.I.M. Lisu station. We greatly enjoyed the hospitality of Mr. and Mrs. Gowman and a glimpse of the Lisu work centering there. The Lisu costume is most interesting and picturesque with the gaily embroidered bonnets of the girls and the black miter-board caps of the women, reminding one of the college graduate. Their dresses are much trimmed with floral designs in applique work.

On Sabbath we saw 108 Lisu baptized. The service lasted five hours with a short intermission. At about the same time, Mr. Porteous baptized 109 Naso in another district. Mr. and Mrs. Gowman accompanied us to the capital. The road on this part of our journey, either when overgrown with underbush or so steep as to be almost impossible, was very trying both for chairbearers and rider. Other places were even more difficult for pony travel—the roads of China—some times like stone stairways and again boulders set in mud.

We enjoyed the social life of the capital for twelve days while waiting for convoy, when the missionaries of all denominations united in entertaining us. If we have given something to this work we have also got much out of it, besides the preparation for work among the illiterate Tai elsewhere. It has been a continuous pleasure to be associated with the missionaries of the various societies and the independent missionaries in the province. We have especially enjoyed it since we came back to the capital. Siam is like a newly discovered country to the people there. I was in constant demand for addresses about the Tai in general and about our work among these northern Tai in particular. I addressed the C.I.M., the C.M.S., the P.M.U., and the Y.M.C.A., some of them twice, also a union prayer-meeting. All these addresses were given in English, but several of them were interpreted into Chinese, sometimes by Chinese, sometimes by English speakers. The great interest taken by all there in the new station at Chiengrung will mean many prayers in behalf of the Tai work in China, and it is giving us a wide missionary acquaintance and leverage for the future. There is a wide spread and generous appreciation of the magnanimity of our Board in thus loaning us for the Tai work there. I am sure that the Mission and the Board will be more than repaid.

We left the capital on September 30th and in spite of rain and mud and robber scares we arrived safely at Chiengrung on October 23rd, thirty days actual travel from Nong Luang on the Yangtze.

THREE LIFE-LONG CHUMS

The vision came when, in 1893, Rev. Dr. McGilvary and Rev. Robert Irwin made a tour which crossed over into French territory, and then over the southern boundary of China, and brought back a report which thrilled us all with its possibilities. To be sure the “Grapes of Canaan,” the ripe fruits of faith and hope and love were only just being planted; but it was a “goodly land” a kind and hospitable people, no giants, but “just folks” and “our folks” too, the same people as those to whom we were already giving our lives and our best endeavor. But it was the longing to be in at the planting, which stirred the blood of pioneer ancestors in my veins.

A second vision we had in 1897, when Dr. W. A. Briggs and I, while on a tour in Kengtūng state, also crossed over into China and saw for ourselves something of this promised land.

It was not, however, till about ten years later, during a four years’ residence in Eastern Burma, that the call came to us personally;

Some women visiting in our home said, “You talk like our books! Come to our country. We live twenty days away, up in China. Come and teach my people your books. You will find us in the Chief’s house when you come.” A man in our market chapel said, “I live in China many days north of this. Give me some of these books to take back with me that my father may hear the Good News.” The Tai Nüa or Northern Tai, from the villages around us often pleaded with us with uplifted hands, “Come with me to my country, that my people too may have the Word of Life.” And so the Macedonian calls kept haunting our waking dreams, “Come over into China and help us.” And after we went back to live and work in Siam, down deep in our hearts under all the stress and strain of a strenuous missionary life was the hope that some day we might be free to go and find those other sheep of the Tai fold, lost among the mountains of China.

So it was, in 1910, when we were preparing for furlough, with something of a start as when a dream is suddenly brought to the light of reality, that I heard the suggestion from Dr. Briggs, my special friend and colleague in our station. “Why not travel through southern China on your way home for furlough and visit the Tai of the far north.” Had we not prayed for and dreamed for years past of this opportunity and here it was.

Our mission’s task was far from complete. The habitats of the Tai in north Siam and eastern Burma we already knew. And we knew that our mission possessed the press and Christian literature and command of the spoken language that could be best used in at least a portion of the French territory to the east and in some of the southern provinces of China. Equipment spells obligation. Ability to evangelize means responsibility to evangelize. But without further exploration we could not know the bounds of our responsibility. We could not know to what extent the Eastern Tai population of China had been Sinicized, had migrated or had remained Tai in Chinese territory; or that of Annam had been absorbed by the Annamese; or if still Tai in China and Annam, to what extent identical with the Tai people farther south, or how closely allied to them. Nor did we know whether or not any Protestant missionary work had been planned or undertaken for the Tai of China.

It may seem strange that after forty-three years the mission should still be exploring. But the reasons are not far to seek.

The land of the Tai race lies almost as wholly inland as that of the China Inland Mission. Unlike Japan, the Philippines, most of the China Mission, India, and most other mission lands, their habitat is off the highway of the seas. Except the able treatment of the western portion of it in The Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States, Part II, Vol. I, and a few statistics gleaned here and there from books of travel, little is known about the home of the Tai in the north, except what the missionaries themselves have learned and reported. No peripatetic laymen visit our field.

It is a backward region. There are natural resources, gold, silver, precious stones, iron, tin, coal, asphalt, salt and other minerals; petroleum, teak, mahogany, rosewood, ebony, and other valuable woods; and the products of field, pasture and garden. But these resources are for the most part undeveloped. Ingress and egress are mediævally slow. There are mighty rivers in the country. But for the most part these streams are not navigable or are difficult of navigation.

For these reasons the missionaries find it almost impossible to do exhaustive exploration during their terms of service on the field. Care of the organized routine work by the few who are on the field at any one time is prohibitive of such slow and laborious journeys so far afield as the southern provinces of China. Thirty days inland from the remotest station under our Board would seem to bring us to one of the “ends of the earth,” and I would say that even now, nine years later, after coming to live in that same region it seems so still.

Granted permission and passports, was it possible to get through overland to Canton, China? If so, was the route I had selected a feasible one? Was it the best one? Was any route safe for foreigners? We had heard of foreigners being murdered en route through these inland provinces. Had they been indiscreet? or were they provided with passports and the passports failed to protect them? At all events it was clear that I must count on at least three months with no physician, indeed, no white companion. And I had recently been troubled with rheumatism when on tours.

We knew no Chinese, except the few terms common to the Chinese and Tai languages. Could we secure interpreters, if needed? Or was the Tai language so prevalent that we should not need interpreters? We certainly should need a cook, muleteers and some porters. Would any of our Christians appreciate the opportunity, and be willing to risk the long absence from home, and the return journey over villainous roads in the rainy season? For the rains would be on before we could reach the Chinese end of the tour.

There are no banks in the north country, and no paper money. Could negotiable paper be cashed anywhere before reaching Canton? Or must we take enough silver money along with us for the whole tour?

After sleeping and praying over it for a night, and not much sleeping either, it was decided that this rare opportunity must not be allowed to lapse. We had but recently been compelled with shame to give some rather meager and picturesquely indefinite answers to some of the questions sent out in advance of the Edinburgh Conference, as to unoccupied mission fields in our part of the world. Our lamentable lack of definite, first-hand knowledge of our vicinage was therefore quite fresh in our minds. That southeast corner of Asia was largely terra incognita. As good business men in charge of the King’s business we must learn our territory as well as our goods. Then there was the vision, the dream, the call, “something lost,” “something missing,” “Come and help us.” As the King’s messengers we must go. The tour must be taken.

The response of our Christians was a surprise. The first one to whom the project was broached was Nan Su-ya, a newly ordained elder of the Pa Pau Church. His dark eyes kindled and his face lit up as the plans were unfolded to him, and he said, “I had no idea that you missionaries had such comprehensive plans for the Christianization of the whole Tai race. This projected tour is the biggest thing I ever heard of.” He must have told others at once, for the next day Ai Fu, my cook, asked me for the privilege of going on the Chinese tour with me. He said, if his wife was willing, he would go all the way to Canton and Hongkong. A young man, a baptized Christian, who is a Tai of Yünnan Province, was secured as muleteer. As to porters or carriers there were offers galore.

There were at that time no inns or hotels, in our sense of the word, anywhere along the line of the whole journey. After the larger Chinese towns are reached in eastern Yünnan, Chinese inns afford shelter and food if you have grace to endure the conditions, and courage to eat the food, but comfort and rest seem to be unknown terms. For the greater part of the tour however, one must provide his own food and sleeping outfit, as well as the books and other furnishings for his religious work. Usually, among the Buddhist Tai people, we can count on sleeping in Buddhist monasteries or temples. But we took a tent along as a precautionary measure, just as we did some delicacies in the way of food in case of illness.

As for outfit, first and always a mosquito curtain. A folding cot too, is an obvious necessity either in a Siamese rest house or a Chinese inn, if you wish to sleep undisturbed by undesirable bedfellows. Outside of beds and bedding, pots and pans, boxes, bottles and tin cans, we had over a mule load of Christian books and tracts, a well selected roll of large pictures of scenes in the life of Christ, Sunday School chart size, a good gramophone and selection of records, a good stock of medicines, one cook, two muleteers, three carriers or porters, one riding pony, two pack ponies and two pack mules—the missionary and his dog.

Ai Fu, although his name sounds suspiciously Chinese, was a typical Tai man. He had been born into a heathen family, and had been received into the Christian church less than four years previous to that time. His pretty wife justified her name of “Golden Eldest Daughter” by giving hearty consent for him to go the whole length of the tour.

So, with our equipment reinforced by some cheques for possible buyers and some gunny bags heavy with English rupees and French dollars, our caravan slowly filed out in the foggy mists of the early morning, the last words and goodbyes were said, and we set out.

My wife and daughter were left to store our goods, pack our trunks for furlough, and as soon as they heard that I was ready to cross the Chinese border they were to start by the ordinary route of travel by Bangkok and Hongkong, to Canton, where I expected to meet them, when and how we did not know. We forded the river and when the mists had swallowed up our homes on the other side and the loving watchers on the bank, I turned, mounted and we were off. Our hearts were strong with the spirit of adventure, but underneath and uppermost with me was the thought of One who has promised both to “abide” with those who stay and go before those who follow new and untried paths, and I was content.

The start from Chiengrai station in northern Siam was made January 8, 1910. The following two months and a half were spent in oversight of our Mission’s work in eastern Burma.

Our first, objective point was Kengtūng, capital of the state of the same name. Neither the name nor the population is Burmese. The name is Tai and the population prevailing Tai, using “Tai” in its generic sense as embracing all who speak the language of North and South Siam. Outside this Tai population, the inhabitants of Kengtūng State are not Burmese but illiterate hill peoples. The making of political maps in eastern Asia within the past few decades has been a rather exciting and sometimes amusing pastime of the great powers. The incorporation of Kengtūng State into Burma is a conspicuous instance of total disregard of racial lines in the delimitation of civil and political territory. So, although our North Siam Mission has a work in eastern Burma, it is not among the Burmese but among the Tai People, who are the same as those in northern Siam.

Kentūng, the capital of the province, lies a few miles west of a straight line north from Chiengrai but the road takes us some distance east of a straight course, and then back again. So it is usually, ten or eleven days, as traveled, from Chiengrai to Kengtūng. The only ancient and honorable way of measuring distance in the Tai country is by time. Young Siam and the British are introducing “miles” and “metres” as rivals of time for measuring lines, but they are deservedly unpopular! The great body of the Tai people calmly continue to calculate distances between villages by the number of pots of rice which would be steamed in succession during a pedestrian’s progress between said villages. Long journeys are still measured by days, not by the linear table.

To the oriental traveller, the amount of time spent in travel is a more constant and a more practical measuring unit than is the distance covered. For, with the same expenditure of time and generation of bodily heat, a far greater distance can be covered on good level roads than on bad mountainous ones; the time factor remains constant! To the pilgrim sweltering under the tropical sun or stewing under steamy clouds, the practical question is, not how many lengths of a rod or a chain, but how many days or hours. Who said the oriental is not practical? Even his travel unit proclaims his good eye for the main chance.

Also conservation of energy is a racial virtue of the Tai. Eleven days from Chiengrai to Kengtūng, not this or that number of miles.

We used formerly to have choice of two main roads to Kengtūng both highly hilly. But within the past few years the Sawbwa, or Chief of the State, under the constraining counsel of the British government, has found a third route which is singularly free from mountain climbing. All this portion of Burma east of Salween River is for the most part a mass of mountains, spurs of the Himalayas, with level valleys interspersed here and there at very irregular intervals. These valleys are well populated by the Tai, while the mountains shelter a very sparse hill population. So the Tai really outnumber the hill tribes although the mountains are estimated to cover some fifteen square miles to every square mile of plains. In such a region it is remarkable to find so long a road without steep or long gradients.

What a fine natural route for a railway is the caravan road from Lakawn and Chiengrai to Kengtūng! The Siamese railway from Bangkok has already reached Lakawn. By following the Kengtūng Sawbwa’s new road, no physical obstacles worthy the name are encountered between Lakawn and Kengtūng, over three hundred miles. For this new route follows the trend of mountain ranges and streams, it does not run counter to them.

An extension of the Siamese railway as far as Kengtūng would tap the Chinese caravan trade at the latter point. For Kengtūng is both a converging center and a distributing center for the caravan trade from different parts of Yünnan Province to Lakawn, Maulmein, Mandalay and Rangoon.

At present the entire annual tonnage of this caravan trade is not startlingly large. But railroads stimulate production and exploitation. The natural resources of this region are as yet undeveloped, but in minerals, timbers, oils, rubber, etc., they are known to be large. The valleys too, could be made to produce vastly more grain, the hills could support myriads more cattle. Transportation facilities create the necessary stimulus in the form of local markets, besides bringing the world’s markets near. It would seem that a patient railway policy is certain to reap rich dividends eventually. And what would it not mean to our Tai people! For a railroad to Kengtūng would not stop there forever. It would inevitably be pushed on nearer the sources of the Chinese caravan trade, and would thus tap the region of our Tai people in China and connect them with their kindred in the south.

We arrived at Kengtūng on January 18th. I will here quote from my letters to Mrs. Dodd as to the work:

During this tour our gramophone, the picture roll, the Tai books and pamphlets, and the preaching in a temporary booth, attracted large audiences each big bazaar day. Daily services were held in our chapel, in a village just outside the city wall, usually twice a day. And special services were held each Sunday. Christians, catechumens and inquirers were visited in their homes, some of them repeatedly, and Sunday afternoon services were conducted in the homes of several of the Christian families.

As to attendance on evening services during the week, I wrote:

And this as to attendance on Sunday services:

And this by way of rebuke and stimulus:

In addition to this distinctly pastoral and evangelistic work, we had social duties and many business arrangements to perfect. The higher native officials all had to be called on. This was not a hard duty, as it might be in some lands, but a delightful task. For all were genuinely friendly, as shown by helpfulness in various ways.

All the British officials were kindness itself. One of our staunch friends among them insisted upon my accepting from him the latest published authority upon Yünnan Province, China. This consists of a book and a map which is at once geological and ethnological. The work was prepared by Major H. R. Davies, 52nd Oxfordshire Light Infantry, who, as the donor said to me, has spent the greater part of his official life in collecting the experiences and other material for it. It is entitled, “Yünnan, The Link Between India and the Yangtze.”

The Baptist missionaries in Kengtūng dined me, and in many ways showed fraternal kindness. Dr. Harper carefully put me up a supplementary stock of medicines for the remainder of the journey. The Baptists have a great and promising work among the hill tribes of Kengtūng State and farther north.

Fresh porters were at length obtained for the overland journey, a goodly number of rupees were exchanged for French dollars, and we bade good bye to all at Kentūng town on Feb. 16th, bound for a pastoral visitation of the rest of our outstations in Kengtūng State.

In the eastern and southeastern portions of Kengtūng State our converts are at the same time more numerous and more scattered than at the Capital. Shorter stops were therefore made in the several villages of believers and inquirers. As at the Capital, there were new converts this year in each village, where we had previously had Christians. Some of these professed conversion during our stay with them. And the work of instruction of converts in this new portion of our field had been satisfactory during the preceding months, everything considered.

Once more I quote:

On the afternoon of Thursday, March 24th, the passports came, and we were up and away bright and early the next morning.

A passport of this kind is no Jonah’s gourd. Our application passed through the hands of the Political Officer at Kengtūng; the office of Sir George Scott, Superintendent of the Southern Shan States; and the office of the Lieutenant Governor of Burma, at Rangoon. In order to expedite the issue of it, after correspondence and telegrams had “satisfied the law’s demands” in these three offices, the Lieutenant Governor’s office cabled the British Consul General at Yünnan-fu to issue passports. He sent them by regular monthly mail from Yünnan-fu to the Political Officer at Kengtūng, who posted them by special messengers to me, waiting on the Burma-Chinese border. This seemingly endless chain had been wound up and set a-going the preceding November. Thus do we “hustle the East.”

The finished product of this mill of the gods was worth the waiting. Like every thing else British this passport was substantial. And its issuance at all to a citizen of another government was a highly appreciated courtesy. The text is in Chinese. Our interpreter assured us that it stipulated that we were to be allowed to travel freely for the period of one year through the three southern provinces of China, viz: Yünnan, Kuang-hsi, and Kuang-tung. Safe conduct was to be provided us from place to place, and no delays allowed on the part of the Chinese Government officials. No extortion was to be practiced in selling us supplies, nor were any indignities to be offered our persons. In case anyone insulted us we were at liberty to strike or even beat him, and were not to be answerable therefor—a provision of which we did not once avail ourselves! There were two antiquated pieces of firearms in the party, but I did not carry even a revolver. High Heaven, and on the human side the passport, were our safeguards. That afternoon we crossed the border at boundary pillar No. 57, and slept that night in Yünnan, China.

At last we were ready to begin the journey of itineration and exploration eagerly looked forward to, “up in China.” But we were still many days distant from the habitation of the Chinese proper.

Ban Lao, our first stopping place, is a small village of Sām Tūan people. Like many villages of mountaineers, it is at a little distance from the main road, so we slept in a watch-house in a paddy field near the village.

The Sām Tūan belong to the Mon-Hkmer family. This family gets its name from the Mon or Peguans of Burma and western Siam, on the one side, and the Hkmer or Cambodians on the other side of Indo-China. Sir George Scott says of the family that Forbes and Gamier unite in the conclusion that in the earlier ages kindred tribes of the Mon-Hkmer dominated the whole country from the Irrawaddy eastward to the China sea and down to the Gulf of Siam, till they were split and wedged apart by Tai invaders from the north. And of their language he says that it seems probable that it once covered the whole of Farther India.

The Sām Tūan are members of the Wā-Palaung group of the Mon-Hkmer family, whose numerous children we shall be meeting constantly in China as we have met them in Burma, Siam, and the French “Laos” states east of Siam. They are mostly illiterate, as for example the Kamu of the French Laos states, and the wild Wā of Burma. But there are some members of the Wā-Palaung group who are literate, such as the Sen Chun, Sam Tao, and these Sām Tūan. They were originally wild Wā, but have been Buddhists for some six centuries or more, according to their locality.

The Sām Tūan live among the Lü, one of the Tai groups; are literate in the Tai character; are Buddhists of the Yuan type, in contradistinction from the Burmese type on the one hand and the Siamo-Kambodian on the other, and in addition to their own Wā language they speak good Lü. The difference between the Lü brogue and that of the Chiengmai and Lakawn is about as great as between a Bostonian and a Hoosier, one of accent and the use of a few differentiating localisms: “only that and nothing more.” Like all Yuan-monastery people, therefore, wherever found, these former Wā head-hunting savages read and speak the Tai language and follow the Yuan cult of Buddhism. It was like being among our own Tai people by birth to stop over night with them. Their headmen were attentive to our wants, and we conversed pleasantly and left a few tracts.

Bān Lao is in the Lōng Circle of the Sip Sawng Pannā. This technical phrase may be translated into United States speech. In the Lao language the adjective follows the noun except in the case of numerals. Bān means village. Lao is the name of that particular village. Lōng Circle is English, its Tai equivalent being Müang Lūang or Mōng Lōng, depending upon what “brogue” is used in pronouncing. A Müang or Circle includes all the territory and inhabitants within a given area of some considerable size. The circle is the British designation of a muang or district. There are eighty-six circles, for example, in Kengtūng State from which we had just come. Mōng Lōng is one of the principal circles of the Sip Sawng Pannā. Sip Sawng means twelve, pan a thousand and nā a paddy field.

Just why the original home of the Lü people as a distinct tribe of the great Ai-Lao race should be called Twelve Thousand Paddy Fields I do not know. My conjecture is that originally the whole district consisted of twelve circles, of a thousand fields each.

Noon of the following day found us at the town which is the civil center of the Lōng Circle, the home-town of its feudal lord. This feudal lord is called “Chao Müang,” lord of the circle (literally owner of the circle). The Chao Müang may have, in addition, a rank-title, as Pū-Mün, Pū Sên, or Chao Hpayā. The Lōng Circle’s lord is a chao hpayā, for his circle is a large one and his rank is high.

In all this Lü country there is an officer in each district whose special duty it is to care for the entertainment of travelers of other races than the Tai. By the Lü he is called Paw Möng, Father of the Circle. When we entered the official town of the Lōng Circle, our muleteers who were leading our party, made the mistake of stopping and unloading the packs at a market stall and loading up their stomachs, before going to the Paw Möng. It was a short-sighted policy thus to neglect the official etiquette which would secure my own and their prestige, and with it future meals and much comfort. We did not get the proper escorts and other attentions we were entitled to until we reached the capital of the Sip Sawng Pannā, several days later. It was a lesson the muleteers did not forget. The Paw Möng took his time to escort us to the Chao Hypayā and the latter took his time to finish his dinner in a very leisurely manner before attending to our needs. But he was courteous when he did come out of his dining room to us, and we got from him what we actually needed.

The Chao Hypayā and others remembered the visit to the place which was made by Dr. McGilvary and Rev. Mr. Irwin, in 1893. And they were very cordial in their invitation for us to stay at the town some time to preach and teach. We did preach for over an hour, and let go over three hundred copies of our precious Tai literature. Then we called a halt, although the calls almost amounted to demands. We feared lest we should run short of literature before the end of our journey. That journey would be long—just how long we did not know. And the rains would be on before its completion. After dinner we started on again.

Like all other Tai official towns, that of the Lōng Circle is situated in a plain, although many villages of non-Tai hill peoples are found within the circle. The plain is about twenty miles long and prosperous looking. Like Dr. McGilvary, we were struck with the stone masonry in the town and by the long line of fine villages we passed through. The Lü people of this plain are large and look well-fed and well-groomed. Very little opium is used by them, we were told; and their own appearance and that of their whole district seemed confirmatory. Officials told us that the circle contains about seventy Lü villages, about twenty Akhā or Kaw, and about three of four each of Sam Tüan Musö (La-hū), Yao, and Miao.

We stayed that night and the next day, Sunday, in a monastery in the village of Bān Yāng Kuang, which being interpreted is “Wide Pond Village.” It is a typical one of those prosperous Lü villages in the Lōng Plain. We never spent a busier Sunday than we did there. Early in the morning I managed to let the abbot catch me reading one of the Tai palmleaf books belonging to the monastery. This commanded his respect, and I heard him tell many of his parishioners that day the wonderful fact that “the foreigner” not only speaks Lü, but he reads it! He soon got into a discussion with me, which ended by his becoming eager to see and hear more. I gave him three books, and brought out a few more for the villagers. They were soon taken. Then we had gramophone and the picture chart of scenes in the life of Jesus, with explanations for some two hours. I did not have any trained evangelist with me, and had to do all the work myself. We managed to get in a brief service for our Christian party, which was attended by the abbot and some others. I ran away to a paddy field to get a few free breaths and take some notes. I found a crowd awaiting me upon return, to hear the gramophone—mostly people from a neighboring village. We then had supper, a visit from the headman of the village, and some of his “leaders” with talk and more gramophone. Late at night we retired, leaving a disappointed crowd clamoring for a fourth gramophone entertainment. No one but God knows how many heard that day for the first time the story of Jesus and His power to save from sin.

Our next night, March 28, was spent with the Lü people of Bān Kōa Sūng, High Bridge Village. During the day we had passed out of the Lōng Circle into that of the capital of the Sip Sawng Pannā, Chieng Rūng by name; the Kenghung of British maps. Again we slept in a monastery. Apparently nearly the whole population of the high bridge village, an eager crowd of typical Lü men, women, and children, listened after supper to gramo and gospel till the lateness of the hour compelled me to dismiss them. Some of the villagers here remembered the visit of Dr. McGilvary and Mr. Irwin, seventeen years before. Some had visited us in Kengtūng (properly Chiengtung, like the other Chiengs) and had obtained books there. Never before do I remember seeing such an impression produced by the announcement that “The Coming One” had already come. We let them have only a few books, by this time we could easily have disposed of a pony load of literature.

The next day, Tuesday, March 29, we arrived before noon at the capital town, Chieng Rūng. Profiting by their experience in Mōng Lōng, the muleteers took us directly to the home of the Paw Möng. He was absent but his wife sent for him. Meanwhile she shewed herself as perfectly at ease and conventionally well-bred as any lady I ever saw. At first she was reserved, but as our party conducted itself decently, she soon thawed out and told us of experiences with travelers in the past which quite accounted for her reserve and also for the emphatic stand her unmarried daughter at first took that “if those foreigners were going to have to sleep in the house, she wouldn’t.”

The Paw Möng is himself an hpayā, while the autocrat of the Sip Sawng Pannā rejoices in the ambitious title of Chao Fā, lord of the sky. It must be only a limited portion of the celestial region to which he lays claim. Or if he is lord of it all, he is only one of many stockholders. For the King of Sīam, the Sawbwa of Kengtūng, and the Sawbwas of all the petty Ngio of W. Shan states west of the Salween River are all “lords of the sky.”

The Hpayā Paw Möng sent for an interpreter and had my Chinese passport read to him. Evidently it impressed him. He hastened at once to gather up the court officials into special session to receive us, and also arranged for me to call on the Chao Fā.

The court made me out a good Tai passport of the same tenor as the Chinese one. It required officials as far as Szumao to furnish an escort of four men from stage to stage, and free lodgings for men and beasts. The court also allowed me to copy out in their presence the names of twenty-eight districts, of which Chieng Rūng is the capital. Fifteen of these districts of the modern Sip Sawng Pannā are west of the Mekong River, and thirteen east of it. There used to be fifteen on the east side but we were told that the French have taken over two of them. These thirty districts do not cover all the Lü country. Kengtūng state contains quite a number of Lü districts, such as Yawng, Lūīe, Yū, Len, and others. And the French now have quite a number also besides the two which formerly belonged to the Sip Sawng Pannā.

In return for its courtesies, the court intimated in true Oriental fashion that it would be pleased to receive some presents from me. I told them I was not a highly paid official or a man of wealth, but a missionary who could only give them of things pertaining to his own work. It was a fine opportunity to preach, and I preached. I gave a few lead pencils to the leading members of court, and distributed as many books as we could spare. Then I entertained them at length with the gramophone.

The Chao Fā was evidently primed for our visit. He asked for the gramophone almost at once, and seating himself in a comfortable chair, ordered a small rattan stool brought for me. When I politely asked to take leave because I had no place to sit, he had a good chair produced and a box upon which to place the gramophone. It simply would not have done for me to sit upon his little stool, it would have given an impression of great inferiority. After that little matter of credentials had been settled, all went off smoothly. As noted by Dr. McGilvary, the poor fellow is an opium user.

It was dark by the time the visit closed, so we did not get to see much of the town. It is much hidden, both by forests and by the hilly character of the site itself. We saw the tile-roofed courthouse, the present big, barnlike “palace” of the Chao Fā, roof of thatch, walls of bamboo, the ruins of a former brick palace, burned by the Lü of Möngs Hpong and Lā in one of the petty wars for which the Sipsawng Pannā is famed, and a little bit of the rest of the thatched-roofed town. It is built at a big bend of the Mekong, and so has that noble stream skirting it on the north and also the east. The view from the town is superb. The place might be made very attractive, it will be when it is Christianized.

But it will not be so long as opium holds the Chiengrung people so firmly in its grasp. We were told that from three-fourths to four-fifths of the men are victims. This is a very much larger proportion than anywhere else in the Lü country. Yet these townspeople showed themselves as friendly, as eager to hear the music and to take books as people elsewhere. Tired as we all were, we had to give a second gramo entertainment at the Paw Mong’s place in the evening. Our hostess arranged for this concert, with her official friends in reserved gallery seats (on her verandah) and the main audience room (the door yard) packed; and they all got gramo in homeopathic doses and gospel in allopathic doses. Next morning both husband and wife expressed the judgment that we were all right.

Strategically important as we considered this capital town, we had only one night to give it in this exploring tour. From this point we were to push on into regions where no missionary had ever preceded.

The first stop was at the Möng Yāng Circle and was notable as being the only place among Buddhist, literate Tai, where we slept and did not preach nor even give a gramophone concert. The Paw Möng was very attentive, but we had no time for making acquaintances. He gave us the information that his district consists mostly of Tai, there being only eight villages of hill peoples as over against more than thirty villages of Tai. It is a most interesting and needy circle. The next morning we met one of the M. Yāng nobility bringing down a Chinese bride from Szumao. Both bride and groom were fine looking. One of our escorts from M. Yāng told us that this Lü groom does not use opium, neither do any of the officials of the circle, and but few of the common people. What a contrast to the capital town!

The day had brought us the longest day’s land travel we had in the whole tour. But there were no real mountains, so we were not so utterly exhausted as we sometimes were. In order to avoid having all our time occupied after arrival in getting supplies, we sent on ahead two of our escorts, with the Lü passport; so we found grass for ponies and all other needed supplies awaiting us. The whole village was awaiting us. It is a small village of the Lā Circle, tributary to Chieng Rūng. The people are Lü, which is a synonym for warm-hearted, frank folks, good hosts, and on occasion good haters. They have never learned to dissemble or disguise their curiosity.

Tired as we all were, I had hung up the picture roll out in the court of the monastery where we were stopping. By the time I had finished my bath, the Lü were making all sorts of wild guesses about those wonderful pictures. At first they meant nothing sacred to them. Indeed, if you could have heard and understood their comments you would have concluded that they meant nothing to them but entertainment. When their curiosity had been somewhat sated, I explained the pictures. It was a fine sight to see their mirth change to reverence, then to deepest interest. The message was absolutely new to them, and many of them lifted their hands in adoration. As the adoration was directed neither to me nor the picture, but to “The Coming One” whom I was heralding, I did not forbid.

One man said, “Is this Yesū (Jesus) he whom we call Ariya Mettēya?” I replied, “Yes, because Ariya in Sanskrit means Aryan, high-born, and Mettēya means merciful.” I then proceeded to show that Jesus is highest-born of all who ever came to earth, and that he is all-merciful. As I was speaking, the man’s countenance fell, and he said sadly, “And so the Coming One has already come, and we did not see Him.” At once I understood the man’s sorrowful reception of what ought to have been the best news he ever heard. Buddhist books teach that Ariya Mettēya, the next Buddha, or self-illumined one, will deliver from the otherwise ceaseless round of re-births all who are alive on this earth at that time and who have accumulated a sufficient stock of merit and have become sufficiently pure so that they can see him; for only the pure can see him, even when he is incarnate. (Compare Matt. 5:8). In all the countless ages, this is the one chance for salvation; and the poor man’s first thought was that he and all the rest of them had missed that one chance. But quick as a flash from heaven came a light into his face, a reflection, I doubt not, of the illumination of the Spirit in his heart, and he added, “We did not see Him with our eyes; but we see pictures of Him. We see His Book, we hear His message, we are here when His religion comes, and that is enough.” I believe fully that he accepted the message.

After supper we had gramophone, pictures again, and let the people have a few books. One of the escorts who had come from Möng Yāng with us that day expressed the deepest interest in the message and regret that we had not shown the picture roll and preached in his district. Note, that he did not say gramophone, which was merely entertainment, but picture roll of incidents in the life of Christ, as text for preaching Jesus. At his earnest request, we let him have twenty books to be taken back to M. Yāng, the next day, not enough to supply one for each village of Lü. We ought to have had at least two mule-loads of Tai literature instead of one.

Although this M. Lā village, two days north of Chieng Rūng, had never heard of Jesus before, it shows how completely our work in Siam, Burma, and China is one, that there was one man in this village who knows one of our converts at Möng Yawng, eastern Burma. That Yawng convert was originally from Möng Chê, the largest of the circles tributary to Chieng Rūng; and his friend in this village seemed much impressed by the news that this M. Chê man had got relief from the accusation of witchcraft through the religion of “The Coming One” brought to M. Yawng from Chiengmai and Chiengrai, in north Siam. The people is one, the language is one, the Buddhist cult is the same, the superstitions regarding demons and witchcraft are the same.

The same missionary equipment in the hands of so very few missionaries is slowly reaching out to them all. The new believers in this M. Lā village ought to have been urged to take a definite stand for the Lord Jesus, and been enrolled as catechumens. Here are some of the Lost Sheep. I can only commend them to the Good Shepherd and pass on. Oh, for a faithful undershepherd to remain here and feed His sheep!

On Saturday, April 2, we reached another of the 28 Lü districts of the Sip Sawng Pannā, Möng Ring by name. The route thither was over country characteristic of much over which we had come in our journey thus far in China. From our stopping place in the village in the Lā Circle we first had a long, steep climb, then a ridge road, with some ups and downs, and on the evening of the second day a long descent into the M. Ring plain. The ridges are so high and have been so thoroughly denuded of timber that they are like prairies. What few trees are left are different in character from those of lower altitudes; and once denuded for cultivation, these hills do not become overrun with copse as lower hills do, but are covered with prairie grass.

We noted that some of these hill-Chinese women bind their feet, although they work like coolies; also, that the several villages we passed consist of detached clumps of houses, not one clump or group, as among the Lü and most people farther south.

In Möng Ring we stayed over Sunday in the big new house of the Hpayā Chao Möng. He told us that there are some fifteen villages of hill peoples and but seven Tai villages in the circle, four Lü and three Tai Nü. This latter term means Northern Tai, and is applied to the literate Tai living north of the Lü country. These Tai Nü in M. Ring had come from Möng Baw, the home of our chief muleteer and of the washwoman of Kengtūng, and one of our chief objective points. The Hpayā and the elders of the village say that it will not be many years before all the Tai of this district will emigrate and leave the valley as well as the hills to the Chinese. When pressed for the reason, they said that the hill-Chinese all around them are inveterate thieves, stealing horses, cattle, and buffaloes from the Tai; and it is impossible to get convictions against them. This is one way of acquiring territory: is it any less creditable than methods employed in some Christian lands and by some nominally Christian powers in nominally heathen lands? The hpayā and his friends told me that Szumao, once Möng Lā Lōng and Pu-Erh, once Möng Mên, have thus had their Tai inhabitants replaced almost wholly by Chinese. In some places farther north there has been some amalgamation of the races, Chinese men taking Tai wives, and the children all being reckoned Chinese. Millions of the Tai have in former times thus become absorbed into the Chinese Race. But in this immediate region and in our times the effect of Chinese aggressiveness seems to be not so much amalgamation as emigration. Wars of conquest stranding thousands of unmarried Chinese soldiers among the Tai have ceased, so the number of the Tai race is not on the decrease, but on the increase; only that there is change of habitation in favor of a more restricted area, and hence more accessibility for missionary work with a given missionary force.

Somebody must have told the people of this Ring village about our gramophone, for they came in such numbers and clamored so hard that I finally yielded, even though very tired and suffering much from rheumatism. They got a gramo entertainment that night. On Sunday we had a quiet service with our men, but it attracted quite an audience. And then a big audience assembled for gramo. I preached from the picture-roll text first, and let the people have twenty-five booklets, wishing we had ten times that number to spare. There is a good proportion of literate men. The proportion of opium-smokers is said to be small. Another preaching and gramo service closed the day.

Next day’s short stage brought us to the last of the Lü in this direction, Möng Rān, another small segment of the Lā Circle. This segment consists of three Lü villages in the plain, surrounded by a considerably larger number of villages of hill peoples. As usual, Möng Ring being an exception to the rule, we slept in a monastery. In the evening we gave a concert and preached to a very appreciative audience and distributed some books.

From the last of the Lü a short stage brought us to Möng Lā Lōng, now almost universally known by its Chinese name Szemao. As the town is 4700 feet above sea level, the Chinese took possession generations ago; and in the surrounding plain it was reported to us that there are only three Tai villages left. If the level had been under 4000 feet, it is altogether likely that the Tai would not have been crowded out.

Major Davies and other English and French writers have described this commercial metropolis of southern Yünnan. We cannot pass over in silence the generous hospitality of M. d’Anjou, the French collector of customs, and the kind and delightful treatment our whole party received from him and his Italian associate, M. Bartolini. For nearly two months the only English I had heard was the sound of my own voice in private devotions. Both these gentlemen spoke English; it surely did sound good.

This was my first opportunity to communicate with my family by wire since leaving Kengtūng, nearly two months before. According to agreement they ought to have been in Petchaburi, lower Siam, at this time visiting Mrs. Dodd’s brother, Rev. J. A. Eakin, D.D., and family. Like most other Chinese towns and cities, Szemao has a telegraph office in charge of a Chinese who can read and transmit messages in English. All charges for telegraphic messages in the Orient include the address as well as the message. Each word cost nearly a French dollar. My message itself contained the single word “well.” I afterwards learned that Mrs. Dodd had not yet reached Petchaburi and that my message was delivered as “welt.” The friends there studied the code book in vain, and being missionaries and used to having to employ their wits on all sorts of problems, they finally guessed it right and forwarded it to Mrs. Dodd up in Lakawn. By that time I was out of Szemao wondering where wife and daughter were.

M. d’Anjou had assured me that for the purposes in view my proposed itinerary was not only feasible but the best. My caravan journey was to continue up to Pū Erh-fū; thence make a detour from the main route to Möng Baw and return; thence to Mengtzu; from that point a railway trip to Yünnan-fu and return; then by caravan again to the head of navigation of the southern branch of the Si Kiang, or West River, at Pai Sê; thence by “junk,” he said, two or three days to Nānning fū; thence by steamer to Canton. In the main he was correct as I afterwards learned. But in some of the details there was costly divergence from this program.

With no interpreter but our Tai Nüa head muleteer, Hō Kōat, but escorted by Chinese gendarmes and equipped with big red Chinese calling cards for official calls, we started bravely out for the Tai Nüa country on the morning of Thursday, April 7, via Pū Erh-fū.

We had to traverse some territory where there were no Tai. In planning the tour originally, we had hoped to have at least a month for exploration and evangelism in the Tai Nüa country. But owing to the delay in arrival of passports and the consequent lateness of the start, that was clearly out of the question now. We could not cross over to the western side of the Mé Kawng at all. Many providential fingers were pointing us to Möng Baw on the eastern side. Besides being the old home of some of our Christians and other acquaintances, including most of the members of our present caravan, Möng Baw is the largest and most important of the four principal Tai Nüa circles east of the Mekong; and fortunately for us, it is the most easily and quickly reached from Pū Erh-fū, where we would leave the main caravan route for the detour. The detour cost us nine days of extra hard travel, and including our stay in Möng Baw itself, lengthened our tour by thirteen days.

We found scattered villages of Tai Nüa people for more than two days’ travel before reaching the plain of Möng Baw itself. One of these villages boasts a Buddhist monastery and calls itself a Möng-Möng Lai. So far as we could ascertain, this is the most eastern village of literate Tai in the Tai Nüa country. It is situated but a few points west of the 101st degree of longitude east of Greenwich and but a few more points of a degree south of the Tropic of Cancer. It is two days southeast of Möng Baw plain. Other villages a little farther east could understand the Tai speech, but were illiterate. In one of them, whose name sounds suspiciously Tai, Mān Kū, I gave a gramo entertainment and gospel talk which was apparently as well appreciated as in the literate Tai villages.^[3]

En route to Möng Baw we made but a noon-day stop at Möng Lai. Taken unaware as we were, our Tai books were all packed away too securely to be untied at this stop. But we gave a picture-roll talk and a gramo entertainment to both of which the whole village gave the most interested attention. The children flocked around me in the most confiding and insinuating way. No Chiengmai or Chiengrai village which had known me for decades could have been more naïvely trustful. Then the elders of the village were most hospitable, pressing us to take salt and other food gratis. On our return from Möng Baw we arranged our stages so as to sleep in the monastery in this Möng Lai village. Again the whole village seemed to turn out en masse to the gramo concert, and the preaching service. And again they warmed the cockles of our hearts by pressing their hospitality upon us.

Möng Baw itself was reached before noon of Wednesday, April 13. The approach from the southeast was over long level stretches commanding a magnificent view of the beautiful valley, and affording an easy descent into it. Major Davies says that the plain itself is some twelve miles long and three miles broad. “Baw” (locally “waw”) means a well; and the town and circle are named from the salt wells, or mines, of which there are several in the valley, affording considerable trade with the neighboring districts. Unlike Möng Lā Lōng, which has become a Chinese town, Möng Baw is chiefly a Tai town and circle, only a small section of the town being Chinese. One is led to suspect that the chief reason why the Chinese do not crowd into this circle is that the valley is only about 3000 feet above sea level, and the place is considered to be feverish and unhealthful. The Chinese portion of the town seems old, indicating no new Chinese immigration. We learned that there are as many Tai monasteries in the plain as there ever have been within the memory of any one now living. There are thirty-two. So this district, although it may lose some of its people by immigration to Kengtūng, shows no signs of becoming Sinicized before it can be evangelized. The altitudes of Möng Kā and Möng Pan, the other chief Tai Nüa circles east of the Mekong, are both below 4,000. So we were in a region of Tai people with apparently an assured Tai future.

It was with peculiar sense of responsibility and with many prayers for divine guidance that we entered the city, and put up at the principal monastery. We had an inauspicious beginning. The āchān^[4] of that monastery was in doubt about the propriety of our sleeping within the sacred walls, as we ourselves would have been if the case had been reversed, and he had been asking to sleep in one of our Christian churches. He inclined to the opinion that we would best sleep on the verandah, which was narrow and would have been very inadequate in every way. But whether our Möng Baw muleteers got in some fine work, or from whatever cause, the abbot, a fine fellow, came to me and very respectfully asked me, pointing to two sections of the monastery separated from each other by huge pillars, “Will the teacher sleep in this section or in that?” It did not take long to decide, and we were soon snugly ensconsced in the best situated section of the monastery, feeling sure that the heart of the abbot was in the hand of the Lord, and that He would take care of the ruler of the synagogue. Without delay or apology we put up the picture roll and set out a few of our booklets in a prominent and honored place.

And the Lord did take care of the āchān. Drawn by curiosity, and impelled no doubt by a sense of his responsibility for the character of religious instruction to be disseminated in that monastery, he took up one of our tracts, “The Way to Happiness,” and read it aloud with sonorous intonation from alpha to omega. Long before he had finished he and all his large audience were disarmed of solicitude, apparently, as to heretical religion having come into their midst. They were ready for the preaching with the picture roll as text. They got that and gramophone concerts. The people literally flocked to us all afternoon and until late at night. Before we left we had taken down a vocabulary of over two hundred words, carefully selected after the model of the British government in testing various languages and dialects; words in use in ordinary life mostly, rather than recondite religious terms; and only one in fourteen differed from what we are accustomed to use in the vernacular among the Tai farther south. And of course the religious terms are identical passim. For the Buddhism of this region came from Kengtūng between 270 and 280 years ago, we were told; and we have it from Kengtūng history that Buddhism came to Kengtūng from Chiengmai about 660 years ago, or to be definite, in A.D. 1253 The religious books are identical with Siamese, the French Laos states, the British Shan states, and these Chinese Tai states.

In the evening I found that my cook and I were threatened with a far more serious matter than it would have been to sleep on the verandah of the monastery. The head muleteer told me that he and the three other Tai Nüa men of our party wished to return to Kengtūng from this place. To have allowed them to do so would have subjected ourselves to a great deal of delay probably, annoyance surely, in providing ourselves with muleteers. It was only natural, perhaps, that these Kengtūng men, having reached their old home and had opportunity to visit old friends, should wish to return from this point as soon as possible, so as to avoid the rains, the consequent bad roads, and be in good time for paddy farming. But their written contract called for their going with me as long as I really needed them. I firmly insisted, but very kindly, on their carrying out the contract. I agreed, however, to a fair allowance for increased cost of food in the portion of our journey from Szemao onward. On the return journey they were to have three days’ full wages for every four days of our onward journey, reckoned by the straightest route. Both they and I were without precedent to guide us as to wages on such a long journey as this. They finally agreed to these new definitions of terms of contract, and promised to stay with me as far as Mengtzu.

I gave two gramo entertainments to “a crowded house,” that is a crowded monastery; and I lost the count on the sermonettes on the picture roll. These really religious people seemed to care more for the teaching than for mere entertainment. They protested that they understood every word I said, although I spoke with what to them was something of a “brogue.” And by the late afternoon, all the three hundred books and all the tracts which I had so carefully hoarded up for this Tai Nüa country were gone. I cautiously brought out a few more which I had reserved for the remainder of the tour; and in a short time these were gone, too. The number of fluent readers surprised me; and the demand for our Christian literature was more surprising still.

Regarding racial and linguistic conditions the following extract from my diary is quite explicit:

Major Davies gives the names of twenty-four circles of Tai Nüa people in the region between the Mekong and the Salween, besides the four of the east. This makes twenty-eight, just the same number as are now included in the Lü Sip Sawng Pannā. While in Möng Baw I identified the names of all but seven of these Tai Nüa circles of Yünnan east of the Salween River, through first-hand knowledge of residents of Möng Baw itself. The other seven, being probably among the smaller of the circles west of the Mekong, were not know to my informants. Their testimony and that of Major Davies fix the northwest corner of our Yuan-monastery people at 25° north latitude, at the intersection of that parallel with the Salween River. As already noted their eastern boundary we found at Möng Lai, near the intersection of the Tropic of Cancer with the 101st degree of longitude. The Salween is the western boundary. The southern boundary of the Tai Nau is quite irregular. The Tai Nau and the Lü are kindred tribes of Yuan-monastery people; both are subject to China hence the boundary line between is not clearly defined. At Möng Lem the Tai Nau people extend as far south as 22 degrees and 20 minutes north latitude. The total area of the Yuan-monastery Tai Nau country is some 22,500 square miles. The Tai occupy nearly all the valley in this extent of territory. The hills are occupied by a variety of tribes, most of whom have already been named. According to the conservative way of reckoning population followed by Major Davies, this territory contains over a half a million of the literate Tai people in this southwestern part of Yünnan Province.

The whole area in Yünnan inhabited by the literate Tai, one in race, language and religion with their brethren in eastern Burma, northern Siam and the French Laos states, is a trifle over 32,000 square miles. This is equal to the combined areas of New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.

Our hearts lingered longingly with those last literate Tai. When shall the last of the Tai in every direction and in every village have heard of “The Coming One,” whose coming they so eagerly await? The answer is with us who heard centuries ago, became transformed from savages into civilized Christians, and then closed up in our own shells, and let generations of Tai go on in the darkness. How much of the spirit of Christ do we really have? As Anglo-Saxons we pride ourselves on our sense of fair play: have we given the Tai people a square deal?

We left Möng Baw early Monday morning, April 18. The Tai Nüa people whose acquaintance we had made lined the streets to say good bye. One “Lydia, whose heart the Lord had opened,” followed us from the monastery to the point where the road passed her house, and then bade us a reluctant good bye, one of the lingering kind that makes life on earth the better worth living. This woman spent more time in devotions in the Buddhist monastery where we had been staying than anyone else did. She seemed to be first to come and the last to go, and to bring more offerings, and to pray more devoutly than any one else. And, as so often happens, this most earnest devotee of Buddhism was the very one apparently most interested of all the women patrons of that monastery in the message of Jesus Christ.

From Möng Baw we took with us not only our original party and the usual two or more escorts, but in addition a Tai Nüa man to act as interpreter with Chinese officials. This Tai man, Hō Nāmma Kōat by name, was not an ideal interpreter. In fact the ideal interpreter is rara avis. One who does not know enough is apt to be shown disrespect by the officials, as Hō Kōat, our head muleteer and interpreter pro tem, found out to his dissatisfaction. There is in almost every Oriental country an official or court language. Among the Tai this is usually the literate form of Tai, in contradistinction from what the Tai call “market-woman’s talk” (compare our term billingsgate). For this reason our missionaries, speaking good literate Tai, comparable to good standard literary style in English, have a certain prestige everywhere among Tai officials, whether in Chiengmai, Chiengrai, Chiengtung (Kengtūng), Chiengrung, or Möng Baw. But Chinese officials require good Mandarin; and I fear that Hō Nāmma Kōat, not being literate in Chinese, but speaking more like a coolie than a courtier, was not much of an improvement over Hō Kōat, the muleteer. On the other hand, an interpreter who knows enough is more than likely to know too much. He will understand many things which you do not wish him to know, and he will assume too many airs and charge many times what his services are worth. Besides, there was only Hobson’s choice: it was Hō Nāmma Kōat or none. And who knows but that the Gospel may have found a lodgement in his heart during the time he was with us? One part of our work is to bring men and women into contact with us, in the hope that our lives may speak to them of Jesus.

Dr. and Mrs. Claude Mason en route to Chieng Rung

Bazaar Day in Kengtūng

For more than four days we retraced our steps toward Pū-Erh-fū. Then we cut across a saddle in the mountains; and they are proper mountains in that region—and struck the main road to Mengtzu, near Mohei. Took tiffin at that point on Friday, April 22. This is formerly a Tai town, called Möng Ho, of which name Mohei is manifestly a Chinese corruption. In our short noon-day stop we did not find any Tai. I suspect there are plenty there; but neither the new interpreter nor I were well broken into the still hunt for the illiterate Tai yet. Tiffin is English colonial for the light noon meal.

But we did see and hear plenty of them the next day. For we were in the upper waters of the Black River, called Pa-pien by the Chinese; and our noon-day stop on Saturday, April 23, was at a place called Hsia-pa-pien by the Chinese, but Mōng To by the Tai. It was a sorrow to us that the lateness of the season and the length of our remaining journey prohibited a stay of some length with these Black River Tai. After tiffin we pressed on. During the afternoon we crossed an iron suspension bridge. It was a miserably shaky affair. We were glad to be safely over it. And were gladder still to find at the farther end a Tai woman selling bananas! We slept at a place called Shao Hpai by the Chinese.

The next morning we had a quiet Sunday morning service with our own men in the miserable Chinese inn. By dint of considerable perseverance I succeeded in getting it into the grey matter of the interpreter that his chief business was to hunt up Tai. When this had penetrated, he went out and made good. For Shao Hpai is one of the branches of the Black River; and the lower Black River valley is almost exclusively inhabited by Tai. So in a very short time the interpreter returned to the Chinese inn with the intelligence that the principal portion of the town is Tai! It will probably be unnecessary to state that we were not long in hunting up those Tai. And they soon came to us at the inn in large numbers to hear the gramophone. We told them a little about the Saviour, but they could not understand much. They are illiterate Tai and seem to have no religious terms in their language. Barring this we could converse with some ease. In the main, their dialect is near to that of the Tai Nüa. Our Tai Nüa interpreter could talk with them more readily than I could. Some of their pronunciations are like the Lü. And I even heard one man say “nit noi,” an expression I never heard elsewhere except from a Siamese.

They told us that they came from Chiengtung Ting, nearly half way up to Tali-fu some twenty or thirty generations ago. They were probably a part of the great Nān-chao Kingdom, and they may have migrated when that kingdom surrendered to Kubla Khan in A.D. 1234 Like the Lü, they are a part of the Pā contingent of that kingdom, for the Chinese call them Pā-Yī. One peculiarity of the Tai of this Black River region, at least at this place and its environs, is that they are here hill-peoples. The townspeople told us that across the stream to the south the hills were cultivated by Tai people. The next afternoon we met a company of Tai men who told us that they live in the hills north of the road. There are four of five villages of them, they said. They also said that their ancestors came from Chiengtung Ting; but how many generations ago they did not know. It was easier to talk with them than with the townspeople at Shao Hpai. They probably spoke a purer Tai, less mixed with Chinese. Their speech was very like that of the Tai Nüa, except that they had no religious terms whatever, so far as we could ascertain. They did not even know the usual word for religion. They worship demons and ancestors, they told us; but it is certain that they have no connection with any of the great ethnic religions or superstitions. Outside of the Loi people of Hainan, these Black River Tai are the only members of the race we have ever met with or heard or read of who were hill-dwellers.

One cannot but deplore finding representatives of the great “Free Race” who are illiterate hill peoples. For as a race the Tai are superior to the many illiterate hill tribes of Indo-China. And then these Tai were undoubtedly Tai speakers; one feels almost compelled to apologize for finding Tai illiterate hill people. But so far as their vocabulary goes (excluding the few Chinese terms incorporated) it is nearly all Lao, in contradistinction from Siamese or Western Shan. Its chief failure is that it lacks all the religious terms which Buddhism has brought to the twelve or thirteen million Buddhist Tai people. Whoever teaches Christianity to these Black River Tai will have to introduce his own religious terms. Manifestly this can best be done by those who have command of nearly all the Tai vocabulary of the region. But it must be frankly confessed that for the present, my tongue was tied in the matter of preaching to Tai people in the Tai language. It was purely explorative work from now onward, except such evangelistic preparation and value as may inhere in making friends of people and giving them some little pleasure.

From Monday morning, April 25, till Saturday noon, April 30, was a week of as stiff mountain travel as I ever experienced. We were crossing the mountains separating the Black and Red rivers. Occasionally we had the good fortune to follow a ridge for some time; but for the most part we were having ups and downs. The roads were good as mountain trails go. The scenery in many places was grand, almost majestic. The weather was fine. My rheumatism was at its worst. The inns were execrable.

The people in this region of mountainous masses are mostly illiterate hill tribes belonging to the Tibeto-Burman family, according to Major Davies. Although our quest was the Tai, we were intensely interested in their neighbors, Lō-lōs, Kātūs, Pūtūs, Piōs, Maheis, and Akhās. The last tribe is known to us in Burma as the Kaws, whom we have already met and spoken of at Möng Lōng. The Maheis our party saw at Szemao and were intensely interested by them. Major Davies classes the Kātū, Pū-tū, Pi-ō, Mahei and Ak’ā under the general Chinese name of Wō-nī. This, he says, is “a general name given by the Chinese to a large number of tribes who live in southern Yünnan and speak dialects of the Lō-lō Language. It is a convenient term by which to denote these races, who while Lō-lō in language are inferior to that race in physique and appearance.” For he says that the Lō-lōs are a very fine tall race, with comparatively fair complexions, and often with straight regular features. Indeed, Lacouperie does not hesitate to say that the Jūng or Nūng stock from which they come was “a mixed offshoot of the white race to which we belong.” The comparatively few real Lō-lōs whom I have met impressed me as among the finest specimens of the genus homo that I have met with anywhere.

Scarcely less interesting, and scarcely less inferior, seemed to me to be the Wō-nī whom we met that week. In Tūng Kuān, which we passed through on Monday, are to be found few Chinese, as the population is chiefly Lō-lō, Wō-nī and Tai. And Ta-Lāng Ting, where we slept Wednesday night, is said by Major Davies to be the real home of the Wō-nī. Here he says they form the bulk of the population; and they certainly seemed to. Major Davies records meeting both Lō-lōs and all the various tribes of Wō-nī in various sections of Szechuan and Yünnan provinces. He may be accepted as authority. He says:

To me the most interesting and picturesque part of the Wō-nī woman’s get-up by far is the “long piece of square cloth” attached to the turban. One wonders how comfortable it is; but woman’s garb often raises that mental query outside the Wō-nī country. And this woman’s annex to the turban certainly does look coquettish and fetching.

It is easy for me to accept Major Davies’ classification of these Wō-nī tribes, the La-hū and the Lī-sū, as all belonging to the Lei-sū, i.e., the Lō-lō group of the Tibeto-Burman Family. The Wō-nī very much resemble the Lō-lō whom I met. The La-hū, or as the Tai and Burmese call them, the Mū-sō, whom we have among us in northern Siam and all through Kengtūng State, are often fair and tall, and of regular features. Even more regular are the features of the Lī-sū, known to us Tai speakers as Lī-saw, whom I have met in Kengtūng State and just beyond Kengtūng State west of the Salween River. Also, as recorded in Chap. II, we met hundreds of them in the Yangtze region and witnessed the baptism of 108 persons in Taku the center of the great work among them. Mr. Fullerton also reports many hundreds of Lī-sū among the converts in the work recently opened up in Szemao. But when it comes to classifying the Ak’ā, whom we call Kaw, as belonging to this Lō-lō group of the “Mixed offshoot of the white to which we belong” I shall have to be shown first. The Kaw are a very interesting race, and are more numerous in Kengtūng State than any other hill tribe. If their language can be shown to have any affinities for the Lō-lō, it seems to me from the appearance and manners and general get-up of the Kaw that the Lō-lō language must be a late acquisition of the Kaw.

The Lō-lō and kindred tribes of China possess peculiar interest to us because of the great missionary success among them in late years farther north, in the real home of the Lō-lō. The great ingathering of the La-hū in Kengtūng State and farther north, by the blessing of God upon the labors of our Baptist brethren at Kengtūng, bids fair to join up with the work among their kindred the Lō-lōs in China. May the missionary societies in charge be given the men and the means and the divine energizing which shall speedily bring about that blessed consummation. It will be one of the big missionary movements of our times.

Although the Tai are now in the minority in the mountains separating the Black and the Red rivers, they were once evidently more numerous. Both the principal towns passed that week in the mountains have Tai names, in addition to their Chinese ones. Tūng-Kūan is the Chinese translation, I am told, of the original Tai name of the beautifully situated town we passed through on Monday. The Tai still call it Möng Sūng, the High Circle. It is situated on a beautiful and evidently fertile plateau 5,200 feet above the sea—just within a mile high. And the T’ing town, T’a-Lāng, the people at Shao hpai, in the Tai circle of Möng Tē, told us is really named Möng Talawng. I had so many business matters to look after that in this latter town I did not get much time to join in the hunt for Tai people. The continuous mountain climbing taxed my endurance to the utmost, leaving me unfit for much in the way of investigation in our night stops. My pony was too tired to carry me up hill, my left leg refused to support my weight, and I had to drag it painfully after me and my boys helped me undress at night. So to go out to find the Tai people in that region was left to the interpreter. He reported that he found some. He was even told that at Möng Tön-kūng, about two days distant, the Tai have a monastery.

The Red River valley, is full of Tai to some considerable distance above where the caravan road crosses it. On the afternoon of Saturday, April 30, we descended into this valley at the town and circle called in the Chinese language Yüan-chiang Chou; the Tai call it Möng Chūng. It is a lovely green valley, some two days travel in length. Although at this season no plowing had been done for paddy, or rice, in Siam or Burma, the paddy fields in this valley had been planted about two months and the whole valley was green with it. It was a wonderful sight to us after traveling for so many days in the sombre mountains. It added to the feeling that we had got home again to the land of the Tai. The plain is only about 1500 feet above sea level, and we passed a large betel palm grove, and saw many cotton trees growing at various places. And we had the familiar sweltering feeling all the time we were in that valley. Our old-time friend the mosquito was singing his well-remembered song in our ears all night long just outside the net. But rheumatism and mosquitoes and malaria, Turkish-bath atmosphere counted all as but naught. For that valley contains only the few Chinese in the poor little town, and all the rest is Tai; thirty-six villages, they told us.

The Tai of this valley are of two varieties, known to the Chinese as Shuie Pā-yī and K’aw Pā-yī. These were translated to us as meaning respectively “Water Pā barbarians” and “Striped Pā barbarians.” The latter name is evidently given because of the striped skirts worn by the women; striped horizontally like the skirts worn by the Tai women farther south. These Red River skirts are brief. But they are not hobbled. We could not ascertain in the short time we were there the origin of the name “Water Pā barbarians.” But evidently both these varieties of “barbarians” are come from the ancient Pā stock, older than the time of Abraham. Possibly they represent two migrations somewhat widely separated in time.

For not only do their names differ, and the garb of the women, but their dialects are considerably different. On that Saturday afternoon I took the interpreter along with me to a “Water Tai” village. We could not understand all that each said to the other, although most of the nouns, and many of the verbs we named are identical with theirs. The participles and conjunctions and auxiliary words gave us some trouble. Still the nouns and verbs being ours, the speech and the people are Tai. A comparatively short time would enable us to converse freely. They told us that there are no Buddhist monasteries anywhere in the plain.

The next day, after an early Sunday morning service with our own party, the interpreter and the guards, or escorts acting as guards, went out to a “Striped Tai” village. Here we had little difficulty in conversing freely with the people. Not only the nouns are identical, but also all the verbs, and idioms for the most part. Here one of the men volunteered the opinion that if he were with us a couple or three months he would understand us perfectly. This is true, so far as original Tai words go. But, like the “Water Tai,” they seem to have no religion and no religious terms. They have no connection with the so-called ethnic faiths. And they have no knowledge of such religious terms as their Buddhist Tai brethren have got through the Pali and the Sanskrit. The Tai Nüa interpreter was quite disgusted with them. I asked what religion they had. They asked me what I meant by the word “religion,” sāsanā. I asked them what they worshipped, putting my hands into the posture used for reverence. They said, their rulers. I said, “No, I do not mean your rulers; I mean one above them,” pointing upward. They said they knew nothing of such a one. Then the interpreter took it up; he asked, “When you are startled or hurt, do you not say, Buddho, dhamo, sangkho?” “Never heard those words before.” And the interpreter said to me on the way home to our inn: “People who do not know the word for religion even, and can’t swear by the Buddha and the law and the clergy don’t know anything!”

Unlike the Water Tai village of the day before, this Striped Tai village contained no man literate in Chinese or any other language. Yet they were people who looked naturally intelligent. They conversed like bright folks. Their village had a prosperous air. They are our brothers and sisters, and attractive ones, too. It is evident that Tai Nüa evangelists to them will have an advantage over even any other Tai. For their vocabulary is nearest to that of the Tai Nüa east of the Salween of all literate Tai. Still I noted a number of particulars in which the accent was decidedly Lü. The Lü, and indeed any dialect of the literate Tai, would have but little to learn from them in order to converse freely, so far as any dialect can teach people who are ignorant of all its religious terms. In this Möng Chung Circle the Water Tai outnumber the Striped Tai. But they told us that Mosha, a hard day’s journey up the river, is inhabited solely by the Striped Tai, the others can be reached also. A comparatively short time will be required to master the differences of dialect.

The Buddhist Tai call all these illiterate Tai, Tai Yā. They say that the Lord Buddha once tried to teach these Tai, but found them so “thick” that he desisted, saying “Yā kou tö,” “desist (from) them!” Leave them. What Buddha is said by his own followers to have given up as a bad job has fallen to the lot of Christ and His followers. These Tai have been given Him as His inheritance. And to think of the utter selfishness of the religious world makes us wonder if we are all self-righteous Pharisees. These Pā people lost the knowledge of God, possibly before the time of Abraham. And the religious world of Hebrews and Christians has had it all the 3,900 years since, and has not yet taken it back to the Pā. The Red River valley would be as likely to become Christian en masse as the Karens or La-hū of Lō-lō. It is precisely among such illiterate, non-Buddhist, non-Confucianist people, yet withal races of such blood as the Karens and the Lō-lō family and the great Tai race, that mighty mass movements occur. Visions of such a movement in this valley began to come to me; and visions of consecrated young men and young women in America prayerfully seeking a life investment of service where it will count most for the Master. Think of the privilege of ministering the word of life to people awaiting it before the birth of the Hebrew nation.

The next week’s travel brought us to Lin-ān-fū, or Ling-ān-fū, as it is locally pronounced. On leaving Yüan-chiang and fording the Red River, we had the steepest climb of our whole journey to get up on the mountain ridges again. Fortunately for me, I was free from rheumatism. My diary notes that this was the first day’s travel since leaving Kengtūng that I had been thus free from it. The next two days were also rough mountain travel. But at the end of the third day we came upon the great plateau of southeastern Yünnan which we were to follow so many days; and to us travel-worn pilgrims, the last of three days’ journey that week seemed like a holiday excursion, over those gently rolling prairies, with no real mountain climbing. One could use a bicycle to advantage on this plateau.

Before we reached this prairie country we noticed great numbers of walnut and butternut trees. Persimmons, pomegranates, apples, peaches, pears, plums and cherries grow wild. Cherries, blackberries and raspberries were in season, and so we helped ourselves liberally.

One day as we were descending a steep mountain we met a caravan of about eighty mules, all loaded with Standard oil in tins. We noticed this as remarkable, so far inland. And the next day we met a still larger caravan all loaded with Standard oil. Following at a little distance we met a company of porters carrying cheap tin lamps in which to burn the Standard oil. Not a great distance behind these was a company of men carrying chimneys to put on the lamps to burn the Standard oil! Great is American enterprise. American sewing machines are all over Siam, Burma, and China. Our American minister once counted over four hundred American bicycles in inland Chiengmai, north Siam. Everybody burns Standard oil, if he wishes to have a good light. American cutlery is running out cheaper grades in Siam and Burma. American railway engines are all over the East. The Standard Oil Co., or the Baldwin Locomotive Co. could afford to pay the total cost of foreign missions in the East from their expansion of trade there, following the trail of such missionary pilgrims as we were.

Mere traveling was about all we and our jaded beasts could manage, especially the first part of the week. We heard of Tai occasionally a little off the highway, but did not meet any till Wednesday. They had been attending big bazaars in Shing P’ing. They were “Striped Pā-yī,” the kind we found it easiest to talk with in the Red River valley; but we did not get any talk with these in eastern Yünnan. Saturday as we were nearing Lin-ān-fū, we heard of more Striped Tai. We were still in the Red River drainage, and the Striped Tai are comparatively numerous, even at the great heights of these plateau streams.

Lin-ān-fū, where we spent the Sabbath, May 8, is a good town in a broad valley with two streams in it. The altitude, 4,900 feet, and the open nature of the surrounding country, would seem to make it a desirable residence site. There is a good market, and like most of the towns on this big caravan route, there is a post-office and a telegraph office, both in charge of men who can read English and speak it a little. The surrounding country is full of valleys. It is two long stages or two short ones to Mengtzu and the new French railway from the Tongking coast up to Yünnan-fu. As roads go in this part of the world these are good roads. It used to be noted that the Lin-ān-fū people are strongly anti-foreign. Of this I saw no evidence. There are plenty of foreign goods on sale. I was courteously treated, and saw evidence that the pro-foreign spirit is already on.

From about noon, Wednesday, May 11, till Tuesday morning, May 17, was spent in Mengtzu, the most important town in this corner of Yünnan. It is only a little distance from the railway, and presents a lively appearance. The valley is the largest I saw in Yünnan, and one of the most prosperous looking. But I did not find any Tai people there. F. D. A. Bourne, then H.B.M. Consular Agent at Chung King, reported in 1888 that among the people of Mengtzu were Tai in large numbers.

Except Sunday, my time was wholly occupied in business and social duties. All our party returned from here, according to agreement, except the cook, Ai Fū, and the Tai Nüa interpreter, Hō Namma Kōat. The former wished to go all the way to Canton; and the latter was willing for an increase of pay to go on to the head of navigation. Whether to go on overland in this way or not was a question to be decided. I could very much shorten the time to Canton by taking the railway down to near the coast, then running up as far toward Nānning fū by another branch road as the border of Kuāng-sī Province. Thence it was said to be only a few days’ overland travel to the West River. Mr. Freeman, of our Mission, had taken this tour, however, just shortly before. It was highly desirable that I should make my investigations as much in wholly new territory as possible. So I decided, against advice of friends in Mengtzu, to continue my overland journey to Pö-sö, or Pai-Se T’ing, and wired Mrs. Dodd, “Canton about June 20.”

I was very much disappointed in not hearing from my wife here. My wire to her from Szemao had gone to her brother in lower Siam and had been forwarded to her in Lakawn. By that time it was too late to catch me with a reply at Szemao, and so she had not wired.

Another disappointment was that I could not run up to Yünnan-fu and see the missionaries without spending at least five days, including Sunday. It was too late in the season for me to think of such a delay.

Providences all pointed to my continuing overland. The foreign community was very kind and helpful in many ways. One of the kindnesses was the cashing of some negotiable paper by a French firm there. It was out of their line, and was done purely as an accommodation to me; one which I thoroughly appreciated.

Four easy days, fifty odd miles, to the next big plain and circle, that of K’ai Huā. The plateau character of the country continues, with many fertile little valleys, and prosperous villages everywhere. We found some Tai people en route, and doubtless there are many more at a little distance off the main road. We found plenty of Tai in the K’ai Huā plain. But it was with difficulty that we could find words in common with them though we noted down a few in the short time we had for investigation. They are unlike the Red River valley and Black River valley Tai, in that they say they have adopted the Chinese religion and literary culture. This may have been confined, however, to the one village which we visited near the town. At first we put the K’ai Huā Tai down in our doubtful list; doubtful whether a mission to the Chinese could not reach them. But they are Tai; and if a great movement toward Christianity were in progress in their region, among the race which is their own by ties of blood, they would probably feel a stronger pull than toward a similar movement among the Chinese. The women still wear the characteristic Tai skirts, instead of Chinese trousers.

There are good roads all the way from K’ai Huā to Kūang-nān fū, five days about seventy-five miles. Indeed the road is good all the way from Mengtzu to Kuāng-nān fū, about one hundred and thirty miles. We kept hearing of the Tai all the way, but always a little distance from the road. But when we got into Kuāng-nān prefecture, Wednesday, May 25, a rainy day, we found Tai again with whom we could converse rather freely. We found that our noon-day stop was among Tai altogether. They told us that at least three-fifths—they said “six-tenths”—of the population of the whole prefecture is Tai. The Chinese do not call these Tai people Pā-yī, but T’ū-jen. Unlike the Tai of K’-hūa, these Kuāng-nān Tai do not worship at Chinese joss-houses although some few of them are illiterate in the Chinese character. They told us that once a year they go to make offerings to the “spirits of the tigers and the spirits of the region,” hoī sü, hoī möng, in a building set apart for that purpose. The offerings consist of pigs and chickens. They said that away from the big roads the women and even the men do not speak Chinese. While I detected some difference of vocabulary between the people here and anywhere else I had hitherto been, it seemed to me that the tones and accent seemed more like that of Chiengmai than like Lü, or Tai Nüa, or any other Tai dialect than that of the north of Siam. The people at that noon-day stop said that their ancestors came from Nān-chin, eight or nine generations ago, and that their relatives still live there. Some Tai missionaries ought to go to Nān-chin and investigate!

At the prefectural city, Kuāng-nān fū, we had a royal time. Incidentally we noted that it is situated in a long plain, over 4,000 feet above the sea; that it has a good market, where we purchased some tinned pineapples and a waterproof blanket (for the rainy season was well on now); and that we had a good inn, measured by the usual standards of inns in China. But what chiefly interested us was the fact that we were among Tai people with whom we could converse with considerable ease.

I had with me two pocket knives. For one of these I succeeded in hiring a nice looking young man who looks like Hkam Ai, son of Elder Noi Inta of Chiengrai, to give me slowly and distinctly, the local equivalents for about 250 Lao words, as I knew them farther south. It was after 11 o’clock when he finally insisted on going to bed. Upon counting up I found that only a little more than one word in eight seemed essentially different from the standard literary Tai. This was the best test I had yet made among the illiterate Tai. I fully believe that one reason was that I did it all without any help (?) from the interpreter. How business men manage to conduct their large business concerns through interpreters in the Orient surpasses my comprehension. If I had made as thorough tests before, I might have found the Black River and Red River Tai speech even nearer to that of Chiengmai than I supposed from a shorter vocabulary, which I succeeded in getting from them in both places. Still, I had not before this run up against any nice young man who wanted a pocket knife in exchange for 250 words of his own language.

The next morning while out making some purchases I saw coming toward me an old gentleman dressed like a Chinese scholar. All the Tai men in China wore queues at that time, but the most of them dressed like coolies rather than scholars, because most of them are not Chinese scholars, I suppose. But this grandfather affected the Chinese beard, mustache, and pointed chin beard, wore the scholar’s cap and immense spectacles, the light blue long-coat and trousers, the white stockings and shoes, and the cane. And he came on with truly oriental deliberation and dignity.

As the rest of the people here seemed to be Tai, I accosted him politely as paw htao, the Tai for grandfather. He drew himself up with great dignity, and I asked him if he were not a Tai man. He gave the polite affirmative grunt, pleading guilty. Pointing to my eye I said, “Do you not call this tā?” Affirmative grunt. Pointing to my nose I asked, “Do you not call this dăng?” Same grunt, but a little more animated. Pointing to my mouth, “Do you call this sōp or pāk?” “Pāk.” “It this kāng?” pointing to my chin. Louder grunt. “Kō,” pointing to my throat. Excited grunt. “And is this ock?” the breast. By this time the old gentleman had become so thoroughly roused that he had forgotten all his scholarly dignity, and turning to the crowd which had assembled, he said, in a high, excited voice, “He says tā, he says dăng, he says pāk, he says kang, he says kō, he says ock;” and by this time he was fairly shouting in the joy of having found a white man who could speak his language.

When I was ready to start that morning, instead of the usual escort of from two to four men, our humble missionary party marched out escorted by twenty of the local soldiery, four of the number being mounted officials. In answer to inquiries we were told that there was no special danger in that part of the land. Evidently it was a guard of honor to the white man who did not speak Chinese, and did speak Tai.

It was Friday, May 27, that our caravan was so royally escorted out of Kuāng-nān fū. During the morning several of the mounted officials among our escort chatted quite freely with me about the distance from their home to that of the southernmost Tai, of whom they had just heard from me; and the distance to America, knowledge of which had reached them from the same source and simultaneously. When asked if they wished to visit America, they showed that they had at least partially comprehended the distance, by replying that they could not do so unless I should pay their traveling expenses. One of them said that within a month we could understand each other perfectly. But the thing which particularly touched me was the question, “How many years will it be before you return.” God is my witness that if it were possible to fly back, not one year would elapse. We all love loyalty. We honor the sturdy Highlander who clings to his Gaelic, and stocky Welshman who will not desert the Welsh gutturals. Shall not our hearts go out to these loyal Tai, defeated at Kuāng-nān fū by the Chinese in A.D. 1053, and at Tali-fu by the Mongols in A.D. 1234; defeated but not conquered, still loving their own race and their own language, and open to the message of Him who comes with a like love in His heart? How many years shall it be, Christians of America, before such a one returns to them to live and preach Christ?

In the afternoon we had only ten escorts, and the next morning the number was still further reduced. The American way would have been to do a big thing in the way of honor, and then withdraw it all at once when the job was finished. But not so the Orient. “Face” must be saved, both theirs and mine. And to save face requires avoidance of haste. Deliberation, suavity, gentleness, these count more in the Orient than incisiveness, even than honesty and honor, sometimes.

That night we slept in a village of Tai people, the last of the section of T’ū-jen which the Chinese call P’ū-nöng, or P’ūnūng, or P’ū lūng. We heard them called all three of these pretty names. And the subjects of these names substitute Tai for P’ū in all three. Tai Lūng I regard as their real name.

Or it may be that the Chinese, who knew the name Lūng farther north and earlier in time, have fastened it upon the people from An-hui and Chiang-hsi in their new southern home.

The third and most easterly section of Tai in Kūang-nān Prefecture call themselves Tai Lōng, “The Large Tai.” They reinforce this pretentious name by another, Kōn Yai, “Great Folks.” As they are slightly undersized, these big names must perforce refer to some kind of greatness other than that of stature. The Chinese include them in the generic Lūng-jen, along with the Tai Lūng. For the last four days of our overland trip we were among these Tai Lōng. The vocabulary taken among them showed about the same proportion of unfamiliar words as among the Tai Yoi, i.e., a trifle more than one in seven. Like the other representatives of the ancient Ai-Lao in this prefecture, we found them a warm-hearted, lovable people who completely won our hearts. They are not big-headed although both their big names imply that they are. It was to a party of them that I finally sold our two pack mules and one of the pack ponies. The other pony had succumbed, and been left behind with friends. (It may have been foolish sentiment; but I someway felt better to let the mules and Mrs. Dodd’s ex-riding pony go into the hands of Tai men than into the hands of Chinese.)

It is significant that all the Ai-Lao people whom we met in Yünnan Province, clear up to the border of Kuāng-sῑ at Pāk-ai (Pongai), call themselves Tai. Beginning at the southwest, there are of the literate Tai, the Tai Lü, and the Tai Nü; and of the illiterate, non-Buddhist Tai there are, Striped Tai, Water Tai, the Tai of Kai-huā, Tai Lūng, Tai Yoi, and Tai Lōng. This use of the conquerors’ title, “The Free,” would seem to indicate that all of them had been in connection with the victorious Ai-Lao kingdom at the Tali-fu. Anticipating a little, I did not find the race using the name Tai in Kuāng-sῑ or Kuāng-Tūng Provinces, where the connection with the Tali-kingdom is less probable.

Our caravan reached Pāk-ai on Saturday, June 4, and stayed over Sunday the 5th. Here we were to take a small boat to Pai-se, so our long overland journey was ended, four months and twenty-seven days from the time we left home in Chiengrai, North Siam. Two months and ten days of this time had been spent in the Yünnan Province. We had traveled not less than one thousand miles by caravan. Of our original party, only two remained, Ai Fū the faithful cook and I. And of the ponies only Pū Chan, the ex-riding pony, (he of the gentle mien and firm hand figuratively speaking) reached Pāk-ai. The dog had long since disappeared—possibly gone to piece out some (Chinese’s) dinner menu.

It seems a cheeky thing for an American to go exploring among so venerable a people as the Tai, especially in this region where history was made so long ago. We are less than a century and a half old. They are older than the Chinese or the Hebrews. Yet we have something to give them that makes it justifiable for us “younger brothers” to go to them, and to go to all of them. Not curiosity draws us, but duty sends us; not in a spirit of patronizing superiority, but as brothers to brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus. For His sweet sake and in His spirit we are here.

Pāk-ai is quite a business center. It straddles the upper waters of the West River, and hence is partly in Yünnan Province and partly in Kuāng-sī. Our inn-keeper and his wife were Kon Yai, or Tai Lōng, like most of their fellow townsmen. Indeed the “yamen,” or palace (?) of the highest official seemed Tai-like in structure, and the official himself talked Tai to us, a thing which no Chinese would have done, even if he could. Our host and hostess at the inn listened with apparent interest to the Sunday morning service which Ai Fū and I conducted.

We were to secure a small boat to carry us down the rapids to the head of navigation for large craft at Pai-se, about a day and a half distant by boat. The local officials strongly insisted on my retaining the Tai Nüa interpreter until after the negotiations were closed for the large boat, in Pai-se, for the reason that neither Ai Fū nor I knew any appreciable amount of the Chinese language. Of course we had absorbed a few words in the past few months, but only a few, because we had been looking up the Tai, and we held ourselves strictly to our quest. But technically our interpreter was due to return from Pāk-ai, for the land journey was finished. He had opportunity to return as far as Mengtzu with the men who had conducted us from that point, twenty days distant. Companionship and protection were in that opportunity. He was a long way from home, and the rains had begun nearly a month ago. The roads would be getting worse all the time, both on account of deepening mire and deepening streams, some of them unbridged. As he insisted on returning we would not say him nay, although we might have insisted on his going as far as to the real head of navigation at Pai-se. So that Sunday evening at Pāk-ai, after much prayer for guidance, it was decided that the interpreter was to return, and Ai Fū and I would do the best we could in negotiations with Chinese officials hereafter, with the help of any Tai escorts whom we might happen to have from one “yamen” to another. It was apparently a great risk, thus to put ourselves at the mercy of people whose language we did not know; and it was done contrary to official advice. But we felt it was a practical application of the Golden Rule. And we looked to the Author of that rule to see to it that we did not take harm.

Monday morning, June 5, we were astir bright and early, getting our belongings stored away in the little Tai boat. It was not so very unlike the Tai boats to which we had become accustomed in our travels between Bangkok and Chiengmai. The interpreter was very helpful in getting all the arrangements completed. Let us hope that he appreciated the risks we were taking for his benefit. He had been with us for more than a month and a half. For the first month he had been in close contact with very young Christians of the same dialect with himself, Tai Nüa men from his home at Möng Baw. Association in such circumstances is a fine test of men. It used to be said in the days of ’49 gold excitement in California, that if you wished to know a man you must cross the plains with him to California. Translated into modern parlance, you must go to the Klondike with him. Hō Nāmma Kōat had been going to the Klondike with the young Tai Nüa Christians and with Ai Fū, an older Christian from the north of Siam, but a fellow-Tai, and with the missionary. For more than half a month past he had been in still more intimate contact than before with just Ai Fū and me. It was with peculiar thankfulness that I received from his own lips, shortly after the other Tai Nüa men had returned, assurance that he was “holding” the Christian religion, because he had in the past months come to believe in it. In proof—a strong one among people who had never before done anything altruistic—he asserted that, had it not been for this, not two French dollars a day, instead of the one he was getting, would have tempted him to come so far from his home at the beginning of the rainy season. I should hesitate to enroll him as a catechumen, without further test in more favorable circumstances. Yet he protested that he intended to go all the way down to Chiengrai from his Yünnan home, in order to study the Christian teaching and learn the Christian practice. It would be the answer of my prayers if he should do so, and should become the first-fruit of our tour to the real home of the Tai Nüa in China.

Our boat journey from Pāk-ai to Pai-se was like getting back home again, so similar was it to a trip down any of the main branches of the Menam toward Bangkok, especially a trip through the rapids.

We arrived at Pai-se about 9 o’clock Tuesday morning, June 7. I went with the escorts to the T’ing, i.e., the official of the rank which is known to the Chinese by that title. He seemed to be Chinese; whether he really was or not I do not know. But he was unusually cordial. Chinese is the court language, and our conversation was carried on through one of the court attendants who understood my Tai well enough to get it into Chinese for the T’ing. It may have been a case similar to what I am told is the rule in the palace in Bangkok. The late King understood English as well as the present one does. But all official communications with His Majesty had to be brought through the medium of the Siamese language. His majesty would gravely listen to a message for himself in English which he thoroughly understood and then patiently attend to the interpretation of it into the Tai! I imagined that His Excellency, the T’ing, understood our Tai just as well as the Tai interpreter did.

He had me take tea, and in bowing me out went unusually far out from the inside of the yamen, made an unusual number of very profound bows, and altogether seemed uncommonly glad to see me. He detailed a Tai courtier to take me to an inn kept by a Tai family. He had him attend to getting me a large boat to start for Nānning fū the next morning, and to getting our baggage from the small boat to the inn today. Then the courtier and I managed to say all to each other that we required for our business purposes although my north-of-Siam Tai speech must have sounded very “broguish” to him. He agreed to have boatmen and porters at the inn by 7 o’clock the next morning, to take us to the wharf. The gentle reader who has sympathetically followed us in our hesitation in letting our Tai Nüa interpreter go to Pāk-ai, will comprehend our sense of relief and thankfulness when these business matters were so easily and satisfactorily adjusted without an interpreter of our own, here at Pai-se the dreaded.

But this was not all. During the day I sold my cot and little alarm clock, and made a number of purchases in the bazaar, without any interpreter. In fact Tai seemed to be spoken almost exclusively at the inn and in the market stalls. The bazaar section of the town looked like a section of Canton or any other Chinese city. But the people were prevailingly Tai. We could buy and sell and make all of our wants known without difficulty.

Another surprise awaited us. We found the people calling the name of their city not Pai-se, or Pö-sö, a la Chine, but by the good Tai name Pāk-sak. Although it is situated at the head of motor-boat navigation and of navigation by larger Tai craft, and at the confluence of two large streams, and is an important city, nevertheless the Chinese do not seem to have made much headway in the occupation of it. So far as I could judge it is a characteristically Ai-Lao town. Ai Fū and I had a sense of being much at home in Pāk-sak; the lions we feared were indeed chained. With apologies to Bunyan, perhaps a better figure would be to say that they seemed to be tame Tai lions, such as we played with for a quarter of a century.

Wednesday morning, June 8, according to a promise, an official turned up a little before the appointed time, with boatmen and porters. Ai Fū and I had breakfast and prayers and we went at once to the wharf. There a man stopped our baggage for customs inspection. But when our passport was produced, we were allowed to go aboard a Tai boat. It was fairly roomy, but had little provision for comfort. Evidently it was not intended to cater to the foreign passenger traffic. In fact I could never make out just what the status of that boat was and our status on it. The T’ing had assured us that we need not pay anything to the boatmen. It seemed to be a cargo boat but partially loaded and requisitioned for our use. There is a line of motor boats running now from Nānning fū to Pāk-sak. One would be in again in a few days. But we preferred to take the Tai boat, so that we could make frequent stops among the people.

Once aboard this Tai boat, and rowing down Nānningwards, we fancied our troubles past. But that evening we had an amusing awakening. It must have been that Pāk-sak officials had not told our escorts or any one else what our destination was. When we reached a town called Fau Chou, about 5:30 p.m. one of the escorts asked me, in the Tai language, if I were not going ashore. I was very busy writing up vocabularies, and said I did not care to go. Instead I sent up my big red Chinese calling card and passport. These credentials soon brought the dazed local officials down to the boat. They did not know what to do when they got there. I was in rather cramped quarters and certainly did not present a very imposing appearance. The pomp and insignia which my credentials had led them to expect were all wanting. They continued to bow and wring their hands in the most approved fashion of clerks and scribes and others who do not know what else to do. They said something to me in Chinese. I shook my head and pointed them to the best seats I had. They continued the wringing and bowing process, but failed to try Tai on me. Evidently concluding that I was an unusual specimen of the genus barbarian, and not capable of understanding human speech, they began to point at various articles of my baggage, and then to the town on the shore. At last it percolated through my skull that they were trying to land me. Then I found my Tai tongue, and told them that I did not wish to land; that I was going to Nān-ning, and Canton, and ’Me-co (America). They were so relieved that they sat down. Then one of them copied a good deal of my passport, and wrote in the Chinese character on my new white fan which I had just purchased at Pāk-sak a message which he said in good Tai, that I was to show to future officials, along with my passport. I have that fan now as a souvenir of the trip. Every time I see it, I also see in imagination some dangling queues, and some very much puzzled Tai owners, trying to land an equally puzzled barbarian who didn’t wish to land.

The next day we stopped quite a while at a town where a bazaar was going on. I seemed to hear mostly Chinese spoken in market. It was quite a contrast to Pāk-ai. Yet I heard some Tai words. And nearly all the people in the market seemed to have Tai faces. All the women were barefoot. I imagine that in their homes most of them talk Tai; but this we did not have time or opportunity to verify or disprove. And then the vocabularies taken in Kuāng-sī territory show a little more divergence from the standard written Tai than any we had taken previously. This being the case it is but natural that we should find it the most difficult to catch by ear that we had met. If I was directing the conversation and hence knew the subject of it, I could usually catch enough of what the people said to get the meaning. It was still our Tai language. The wonder is that so far separated in time and space, the different representatives of the race can so readily understand each other’s speech.

One of the best illustrations of that kind of self-control which appeals most strongly to the Oriental was afforded us at a point a little lower down in our journey. We were to change boats there if we could find a more suitable one than we then had. Two boats were under consideration for this purpose. The Tai woman who owned one of them did not wish any passengers. She protested that her boat was already full; which was not far from the truth. But the obsequious official, supposing that I wished to go in that boat, let out on that woman in what seemed a torrential rage. Then the next moment he turned to me, all smiles and blandishments. If it was the thing to storm, he could storm “good and proper;” and when good form required smiles, the smiles were forthcoming. Evidently he had himself well in hand. But we decided, after all, not to change boats there.

Monday, June 13, was a marked day. We reached a village early in the forenoon where the boatmen began to deliver oil and other cargo. They said they would go on after breakfast. But after breakfast they all left under pretence of going to collect pay for the goods sold, except one poor fellow who was too ill to go. Our escorts did not seem worried by the departure of the boatmen, but declared they would return soon and resume the journey. We put in the time marketing, doing a little laundering, and then some more marketing. Late dinner came and we dined. Then the escorts, who had gone ashore came to me in the boat and rather excitedly confessed that I had been warranted in my fears. They said they had found one of the boatmen, who had told them that the boatmen had all gone each to his home, and did not intend to take us any further. This they thought they could do at this point because there was no yamen there. The escorts said I would best go up and capture that one bolting boatman whom they had found. I said it was their business, but they protested that I could better do it than they, in the absence of officials. I then went with them and found the unlucky boatman who had been captured. I drew my passport on him, and told him that its provisions required my transportation from yamen to yamen without delay, and that he and his fellows would get into serious difficulty if they did not pass me on to the next yamen. By this time quite a crowd had collected, and they assented to all that I said. The lone boatman said apologetically that he was a new man, picked up only the day before, which was true, and that he did not know all about this that I had just told him. He asked the bystanders if any of them would help him to cross over the river and secure a small row-boat which we could see anchored there. I have thought it worth while to relate all this detail in order to show how thoroughly we could understand the speech of the escorts, the boatmen and the townspeople, at this place more than a thousand miles distant from our most northern station in Siam, as well as make ourselves understood there in Kuāng-sī Province.

To resume the thread of the story; two of the bystanders volunteered, they and the boatman rowed over—and all three disappeared! Here we were deserted by all the boatmen. In this emergency a little knowledge of steering a Tai boat which I had acquired in Siam, seemed handy. I persuaded two of the three escort men and Ai Fū to row, and I steered, with the intention of getting on down to the next yamen. But the boat—I don’t know yet whose boat it was—was still heavy, although much lightened by the sales of the morning. This weight and the head wind proved too much for our small force. About a half mile down the escorts insisted upon stopping. We stopped much against the steersman’s will. When asked what they proposed to do about it, the escorts said we would go and hunt up the absconding men. “Do you know where they live?” “Yes, in that village we passed just now.” It seemed to me like hunting the proverbial needle in a haystack; but what was there to do if we did not attempt that? So I started with two of them. I quote from my diary:

On Tuesday morning, June 14, we started off bravely, bright and early, with six oarsmen. My apartment was at the stern. It had several advantages. It got the full benefit of all the smoke and most of the heat from the cooking fires, as they were just forward of it. In addition to this it possessed the advantage of being cozy. Seated in the middle of it, I was able to reach any article in it without rising. I could also scratch the top of my head on the ceiling without rising. In fact I could, by taking up a plank in the cabin floor, let my feet hang down toward the rudder in the most comfortable way, and could then sit up quite straight. I did not rise at all, except to crawl out occasionally. I wore a towel as a turban. I can recommend it as a great scheme, to any one who may be situated as I then was.

During that day we made quite a stop at a large Tai village. As I had no special business, and no special topic of conversation to introduce, I caught only occasional Tai words. By this time I had learned that I must expect this to be the case when listening to Tai people conversing together freely and rapidly in a dialect new to me. I can remember how amused, and also confused, some of us used to be in Chiengmai and Lampun, when we were comparatively young students of the language, by occasional bursts of Lü eloquence from some newcomer from the Lü country; and now Lü is as easy for me to understand as is the “Yûn” dialect of Chiengmai. When taking a part in the conversation it is different from listening to two others talking. This we had demonstrated anew only the day before, in connection with the bolting boatmen. And Ai Fū’s testimony was also confirmatory on this point. While therefore it was a little disconcerting to listen to others and catch so comparatively little at first, we could even now understand most that was said directly to us, and could be understood fairly well by the people. The principal trouble was in the pronunciation, rather than in essential differences of vocabulary. This was shown by the fact that in our vocabulary list taken in Kuāng-sī Province, out of a list of more than 250 representative nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, and conjunctions, only about one in six differed from our standard literary Tai in more than some slight twist of pronunciation. We agree in the judgment so frequently expressed by the people themselves, that a comparatively short residence among any of the illiterate Tai whom we met in either Yünnan or Kuāng-sī would give me a good working command of the local dialect. And that means it would do the same for any Tai missionary who has a good knowledge of pure Tai as found in standard literature.

The people in the village where we stopped that day, June 14, looked like Tai people. Their houses looked like Chinese houses and the market looked Chinese. This we had come to expect everywhere. Indeed, the costume of the Tai men in China is Chinese everywhere except among the Lü in the extreme southwest. And, as among other races, the distinguishing mark is the costume of the women. The women among the Lü, Tai Nü, and the Striped and Water Tai all wear striped skirts, instead of the Chinese trousers. So do the Tai women everywhere to the south of them in Burma, Tongking and North Siam. These stripes differ in different localities. Those of the Tai Nü women are peculiar in that they are vertical, while the others are horizontal. The lengths of the skirts vary, also, until those of the Black and Red River valleys do not leave much room for further abbreviation. Whether jackets are considered a necessary part of the wardrobe or not depends upon latitude and altitude almost as much as upon contact with foreigners and other races who cultivate jackets. In the sunnier south, a coquettishly disposed scarf used formerly to be all that was necessary in addition to the skirt, for dress occasions. Of course, in doing heavy, rough work a coarse blue jacket was a good protection to the body and was often used. Now the white jacket and semi-foreign blouses are coming into more common use, either with or without the scarf. In the cooler regions of Kengtūng State and Sip Sawng Pannā, and the farther north, the jacket of some kind is universally worn. Ever since reaching the home of the illiterate Tai of Kuāng-nān, instead of the striped skirt I had seen a dark blue skirt, or more properly a kilt, reaching about half way from the waist to the knee. Under this was a pair of longer blue trousers. Consul Bourne mentions that in 1888 “these excellent Tai were troubled by a proclamation ordering them to adopt the Chinese dress.” Evidently what I saw was the resultant compromise between the ancient Ai-Lao skirt and the Chinese trousers. Consul Bourne speaks of the Tai women of Nānning fū as wearing “dark coloured clothes, silver ornaments and bare feet.” This is true yet of all tribes of illiterate Tai in China. Among these illiterate tribes, the women wear their hair long. The Siamese women are the only Tai women I have seen who wear short hair. In China it is either combed back straight from the forehead and coiled at the back, much the same as in North Siam, or else it is parted in the middle like the Chinese way, or occasionally falls over the forehead in short bangs. They have no foot-wear, no betel stains or other discoloration of the teeth. Altogether, the Madamoiselles and Mesdames Laotienne of China are a robust, vigorous, and by no means unattractive section of our sisters. It goes without saying that they wear silver rings, bracelets, bangles, and other articles of feminine adornment which mere men are not supposed to understand nor be able to describe.

The next day the boatmen made but one short stop. They seemed really in a hurry to reach Nānning fū. The short stop was to buy shamshu, or karack or fire-water, or any other euphemism which may be preferred as a name for the devil’s concoction from distilled rice. These heathen Tai, most of them illiterate, and presumably ignorant of much moral teaching from any source, seemed to drink this distilled rice-water instead of drinking water. It is mostly drunk at meals, however; and while it loosens their tongues a good deal for a short time, I have seen no drunkenness. Injurious as this moderate drinking undoubtedly is, it is vastly less so than the use of opium. In this connection I am glad to add my testimony to that of others to the effect that in the three southern provinces of China which I passed through there is a determined and for the most part effective effort to exterminate the cultivation and use of opium. Only as we were entering Yünnan from Burma, in the Long Circle of the Sip Sawng Pannā, did we see any poppy in cultivation. A few of the illiterate hill peoples there still cultivate it by stealth, in that region, the remotest from effective administration by the central government at Peking. China’s evidently sincere efforts to stop this moral plague deserve the coöperation of laggard Christian governments.

We arrived at Nānning fū about 3 p.m. Thursday, June 16, the ninth day after leaving Pāk-sak (Pai-se T’ing). Our Tai escorts were very attentive and helpful, not merely in taking us to the yamen which they were in duty bound to do, but in hunting up the missionaries with and for us. They took us first of all to the French Catholic Mission, where we did not meet any of the Fathers; and then to the English Protestant Mission. Here we were finally almost beside ourselves with joy, Ai Fū and I, in meeting the first missionary we had seen since we left our Baptist friends at Kengtūng, more than a thousand miles distant, on February 16, just four months earlier.

We were taken to the Emmanuel Medical Mission, affiliated with the Church of England, but conducted independently by Dr. and Mrs. Clift. They have been established here but a comparatively short time, working through the medium of the Chinese language. In this short time a church had been gathered, a permanent residence and chapel built, and a fine medical plant was in process of evolution when we were there.

The only other Protestant Mission is an American one, that of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, represented by Rev. and Mrs. Landis. Mrs. Landis and family were in the United States on furlough, and Mr. Landis was away from the station, itinerating in the country.

Like the English Mission, the American one is conducted in Chinese. So there is no Protestant mission for the Tai people here. Dr. Clift tells me that the Catholics claim that the work among the “aborigines” is very much more promising than among the Chinese of this region. But I did not get any talk with the Catholic Father, although I met him at Dr. Cliff’s when I first arrived; that was before I had properly recovered my breath.

Dr. Clift soon made me realize that I had found in him a new brother in Christ, a man of spirituality as well as mentality. He made us perfectly at home just as soon as our baggage—luggage he would call it—could be got to his hospitable home. Ai Fū and I both needed a little respite. It is my opinion that a man of less rugged constitution than I would not have reached Nānning fū, by the route and modes of travel that we had employed, and at the season of the latter portion of the trip. No one can be more conscious than the author of the omission in this narrative of many legitimate sidelights upon the main theme of the story. But to the author these sidelights were not accessible; they might have been to a stronger man. It taxed my strength to the limit to do the daily stunt of travel, much of it so mountainous that the pony could not carry me, and I had to walk; gather information about the vital matters of races, languages, history and religious conditions; make notes of these daily; plan and execute the business part of such a long and unusual journey; conduct daily devotions; and, so long as we were among the literate Tai, conduct evangelistic services every night till a late hour. Day after day, lengthening out into weeks, and finally into months, I dragged myself into camp in the dreary, comfortless Chinese inns, stiff with rheumatism, and footsore and fagged, with barely strength left, after a few inquiries, to wind up the tired interpreter, make as full notes of the day as I could, have evening prayers after supper, and then all off to bed. The next morning we had to be up at 4:30 by the little alarm clock, and at the same round again.

Imagine the change from Chinese combination inn-and-stable lodgings and cramped, smoke-house boat cabins, to the Emmanuel haven—a clean, roomy English home, with a congenial, English-speaking, Protestant missionary host for a companion. We were in touch with a very live wire from the lands of Christian civilization once more.

This touch brought me a letter from Mrs. Dodd, after a gap of more than three months. She and the daughter were well and would meet me in Canton or Hongkong. God had been leading them as he had me; our trust had not been in vain.

A little more than two days was spent in this rest haven, with our headquarters at Emmanuel. A letter of introduction from Mr. Klatt of the Customs services at Mengtzu brought me into very pleasant relations with the French Commissioner of Customs at Nān-ning, M. Tannant. This gentleman speaks good English, and was thus enabled to show me very kind and intelligent interest in the ethnological and linguistic quests of my tour. He invited Dr. Clift and me to dinner at 7:30 p.m., but Dr. Clift had a meeting which he could not forego, so I went alone. I found Madame Tannant a very bright, attractive Chinese lady, dressed in faultless European costume, and speaking good English or French to her guests, according to requirement.

One of the fellow-guests was H.B.M. Consul General at Canton, J. W. Jameison, who had just arrived from Canton by gunboat. During dinner Mr. Jameison mentioned his having been asked, while in London recently, to review Major Davies’ book on Yünnan, and the careful study he had consequently given it. While compelled to take issue With Major Davies in some of his conclusions as to railways, Mr. Jameison said that Major Davies is quite reliable as to facts, racial, linguistic, topographical, etc. He also said that the whole of Kuāng-sī and Kuāng-Tūng Provinces are Tai ethnologically and linguistically.

This is not given as an official opinion of Mr. Jameison. It was given out at a social function, and must not be pressed too far nor too literally. But it certainly does give us occasion to open our eyes to the present-day distribution of the Tai race in China.

And yet the city of Nān-ning gives but little hint to the passing traveler of anything but Chinese population. Even Dr. Clift was surprised when he found that I could converse with his masons and carpenters, whom he had supposed to be full-fledged Chinese. Quite unlike Kuāng-nān fū, Pāk-ai and Pāk-sak, the prefectural city of Nān-ning is decidedly pro-Chinese and the trend is Chineseward in all things. In town, therefore, these Tai carpenters and masons talked good Chinese and Dr. Clift had not detected their racial origin. Dr. Clift told me that the Chinese have a college in the city, and are talking of removing the capital of the province hither.

It would be a great mistake, however, to suppose that because pro-Chinese, Nānning fū is therefore anti-foreign. On Dr. Cliff’s center-table I noted a picture of himself and Mrs. Clift in Chinese costume. When I asked the good doctor why I did not now see him in Chinese costume, as in the picture, he replied that that picture was taken some years ago when it was good form and also good policy for foreigners to don the Chinese costume if they wished to gain the good-will of the Chinese. They “made face” if they dressed like Chinese. But he said that such a complete revolution of attitude towards everything foreign has taken place since then that a foreigner now “loses face” if he does not stick to his foreign costume. The Chinese are taking it to themselves. And he said that if I were to go to the Chinese college in the city I would hear the Chinese themselves, without any foreign assistance, doing their best to teach English!

And yet the prefecture as a whole is predominantly Tai, or T’ō as it is locally called—the T’ū-jen of the Chinese. It cannot be much less Tai than it was in 1888, when Consul Bourne wrote, “nine-tenths of the population of Nanning Prefecture are Tai.” One of Mr. Landis’ Christian helpers in his Chinese work is a T’ō man. On the second day of our stay, Dr. Clift arranged for this helper to take us to a T’ō village a short distance down stream. It was a distinctly Tai place. Evidently the helper was well and favorably known. He talked in Chinese mostly, however, to the people in the market place. But he and they talked the Tai language to me. I not only succeeded in getting a large part of my 250-word vocabulary list filled in, much of it right there in market and in the freest and most unconventional way, and the rest from the helper, as we were riding the boat, going and coming; but, probably because missionaries are known and trusted here, the people were quite open and frank with me in every way. The children followed us around from shop to shop, and grew quite interested in telling me the names for various articles on sale, and laughing when I gave them the slightly different southern equivalents of some of them. Many names were identical which pleased the children—not to say the missionary. We were sorry to have to hurry away so quickly from these warm-hearted Tai.

Dr. Clift was insistent that work for these T’ō people should be done by Protestants in the T’ō language. He was very much impressed by the ease with which both Mr. Freeman and I had been able to communicate with them. He did not hesitate to express the judgment that our Tai Mission has a responsibility for them that no other missionary agency has. He offered to do anything in his power to help our Mission to get a start here. As he was the first missionary I had met in China, I was not only greatly refreshed by the substantial comforts of his hospitality and his delightful Christian fellowship, but also greatly encouraged by his friendly attitude toward the discharge by our Mission, either singly or in conjunction with the work of our China missions, of what I had been coming to feel was clearly our duty toward the Tai race in China. Evidently, so far as he and his influence count there will be no conflict if our Board establishes work in Nānning fū for the T’ō people, but the heartiest of Christian welcome and most helpful of Christian coöperation.

Promptly at four o’clock in the afternoon of Saturday, June 18, Ai Fū and I steamed out of Nānning fū, aboard a large motor boat similar to the one we might have ridden down from Pāk-sak. It was Ai Fū’s first ride on any kind of water navigation more elaborate than a Tai boat. He seemed to enjoy both the accommodations and the fare. There was a great contrast, too, between anything I had traveled in for some years past and this motor boat, small and unpretentious as it was. But as the fare was Chinese I took Dr. Clift’s tip and had Ai Fū continue to cook for me. This he managed to arrange to do somehow and somewhere and always faithfully and good-naturedly.

After traveling so long and so far before coming upon even one mission station, it was a pity to feel compelled to pass the next one by. But we did just this, passing Kwei and making our objective point Wū Chow (Chao according to our system of spelling). Situated in the extreme eastern or seaward side of the province, Wū Chow is a kind of port-of-entry for Kuāng-sī Province, both for commerce and for mission work. It is also a distributing center. Although our time would be up Monday, the 20th, for arrival in Canton, and I had reason to expect that Mrs. Dodd and daughter would be there promptly, I felt that we must stop over and find out what missionary work is doing at Wū Chow as its center, and what plans, if any, are afoot, for reaching the Tai people, locally called Chawng.

Accordingly, about 7 o’clock Monday morning, we landed in Wū Chow, instead of going on to Canton and reaching there that night. Armed with a letter of introduction, we sought the big, hospitable Home of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Here the Rev. and Mrs. I. L. Hess, as host and hostess together with the other good brethren and sisters in this Home and also in the compounds in the heart of the city, gave us good cheer and goodly fellowship for the next two days.

Two letters and a wire awaited me, all from Mrs. Dodd, and the wire announced her safe arrival in Canton. Three letters and a wire, all within a space of three days! What a contrast to the previous three months!

Brother Hughes, of the C. and M. A., as the Alliance is known for short, piloted me about, giving me much good fellowship to boot. First of all we called upon Mr. Von Bruen, of the customs service, to whom Mr. Klatt of Mengtzu had given me a letter of introduction. This good German gentleman and his wife and daughter made us feel well repaid for the discharge of this social obligation. We had a delightful tea and an equally delightful insight into this typical German home of the best sort.

But naturally the most of our time was given to calling upon the members of the three missions which have headquarters in Wū Chow, the C. and M. A., the Southern Baptists, and the English Wesleyans. Of these three, the Baptists and Wesleyans have the larger headquarters in Canton and Hongkong, from which they draw supplies of trained workers. But the training plant of the Alliance people for their work in this whole region centers in Wū Chow. Hence their educational work is exceptionally strong here.

All work of all three missions is carried on in the Chinese language. And within the past few years the ingathering has been great. The change of attitude toward Christianity within this province of late years the missionaries regard as little short of marvelous. It was once so very strongly anti-foreign that Dr. Fulton of our Mission in Canton had his workers stoned out of the province. But the missionaries now say that it is no “loss of face” for a man to attend Christian services, and hundreds do so. Both the Alliance and the Baptist people have their large churches in the heart of the city. I recall being told that the Alliance church will seat seven or eight hundred people comfortably in the main audience room. And the missionaries tell me that of late both these large audience rooms are well filled on Sundays, mostly by heathen men. A man no longer “loses face” by going the full length and becoming a Christian. As regards the Chinese the province is very ripe; some one has said that the missions need not so much sowers as reapers.

Hospital at Chieng Rung Station

A Group of Mountain Kaws

But there is as yet no Protestant work for the Chawng-jen, or Chawng people, as the Tai are locally called, carried on in their own language. A few of them have gathered into the Chinese churches and one of the most valued mission helpers is a Chawng man. I had the opportunity to confer on this point with the Alliance people, whose guest I was. I gathered that they had so felt the need and call for separate work for the “aborigines” that they had been contemplating organizing for that purpose. But they also seemed to feel that the visits of Mr. Freeman and myself to them had shown them, as they had Dr. Clift at Nā-ning fū, that our Tai Mission already has the organization and the plant for this purpose. They professed their readiness to coöperate in the most fraternal way with us if we should be led to extend our Tai work into this region, we working the Chawng (Tai) and they being especially led, I gathered, toward opening much needed work among the eighteen million Annamese.

It is a matter of serious regret that I did not have time for independent investigations among the Chawng people. I was already behind my schedule time, my wife and daughter were awaiting me in Canton, after a separation of nearly half a year. But the regret is tempered by the investigations among this tribe which Mr. Freeman has already so patiently and thoroughly made. At least the chief element in the present-day Chawng as well as T’ō immigrated from An-hui and Chieng-sī and Hunan after a two-thousand five-hundred-year struggle with the Chinese in that eastern ancestral home of the Ai-Lao race. And they again suffered defeat at the hands of the Chinese in their newer home south of the Yangtze, in A.D. 1053. The feud between them and the Chinese is milleniums long. Everywhere I have had the opportunity to investigate in China the modern Tai, by whatever local name he is known, and whether coming from the ruins and remains of the Tali Kingdom, and whether smarting from the Canton and West River defeat, he refuses Chinese culture just as long as he can stand out against it. The Chinese despise the “aborigines,” and the latter hate the invaders. There is a clear call for separate work for each race, until such time as the love of Christ shall melt and dissolve these racial feuds, and fuse Chinese and Tai alike into the body politic of the peaceful Kingdom of the Branch.

On the morning of Wednesday, June 22, we left the kind friends in Wū Chow, and took the steamer “Sainam” for Canton. Mrs. Hess kindly put up a lunch basket, as the charges for meals are high on the steamer; thus following up the departing guest with her kindness. I had Ai Fū cook for me until the last. What a dear, good fellow he had been all the way! It touched me very much when it came his turn to lead in the morning and evening devotions to hear him refer to us petitioners as “we two servants of God.” For a long time there were only two of us; soon the family would be reunited. He was nearly as much excited over the prospect as I was.

We arrived the next morning about seven o’clock, June 23, three days late by the schedule fixed in Mengtzu on May 16—apparently welcome, notwithstanding. Our family had been separated five months and a half, and could afford to overlook a little matter of tardiness with a good excuse backing it. It goes without saying that we were well entertained by the various missionaries during our stay in Canton. Our family were guests of Dr. Mary Niles in the School for Blind Girls. This gave us exceptional opportunity to come into contact with this Christlike work and that of the Refuge for the Insane so near it, this latter being under the direction of Mrs. Kerr. Ai Fū was accommodated at the Theological Seminary. Arrangements were made for our family to pursue its way to America on furlough, and for Ai Fū to return to his family in Chiengrai, via Hongkong and Bangkok. He finally reached them safely, a much traveled man.

As a kind of sequel to the tour of 1910 a description of our journey across Yünnan in 1918 will be interesting. Much of it was through territory that was purely Chinese, but to us “tender-foot” travelers in China everything Chinese was still new and interesting. On September 27, 1918, we had completed arrangements at Yünnan-fu for leaving for Chiengrung on Monday the 30th, just six months after we sailed from San Francisco.

The rains had not stopped, but they were not so heavy as they had been. The only missionary physician in Yünnan-fu advised against our starting. But we were very anxious to join our lonely colleagues in Chiengrung. As we had finished the work we were privileged to do in the region of the Wuting district for the Yangtze Tai, we were anxious to enter without further delay on the new work in the station to which we had been appointed.

The secretary and forwarding agent of the C.I.M. in Yünnan J. Graham, had succeeded in securing us mule transport, and could not assure us that any could be had later, so we decided to start at the time set in spite of rain and mud. It had rained on every one of the twelve days we spent at Yünnan-fu. We were told it was twenty-three stages to Chiengrung. The road was said to be much infested with robbers, but we had heard that so often since coming to Yünnan that we were getting somewhat used to the idea. In our journey to the Yangtze and return to the capital we had passed through one of the worst sections for bandits and were not molested. We were still under God’s protecting care and with government escorts we hoped to greet the friends in Chiengrung before the end of October, and we were not disappointed. With only a day or two of delay, we made the journey in health and safety and comparative ease and comfort. Being accustomed in Siam to long weary days in the saddle, over all sorts of roads and in all kinds of weather, the comfort and protection from rain and chill made our closed sedan chairs a real luxury. Compared with Tai coolies and an ordinary chair, such as we have sometimes ridden in Siam, trained Chinese chairbearers and a good sedan chair are about as different as a limousine is from a farm wagon.

Our trunks and boxes were loaded on pack ponies and sent off on Saturday in a perfect pour of rain. We asked the headman to wait a few days till the rains were over, but he shook his head and said there was a large convoy and they could not wait. We waited till Monday to take the little steamer across the lake, thus making two stages in one and saving something in expense and nerve strain and giving us another pleasant Sabbath with the kind friends in Yünnan-fu. Our Yangtze boys sang by invitation at the morning services in the C.I.M. and C.M.S. chapels and at the Union meeting at Mr. Collins’ in the afternoon. There was quite a demand for their singing the hymns we had translated for them in the illiterate Tai dialect. At the union meeting we heard a good sermon in English from Mr. Swift of the P.M.U. The friends were almost all there and we had quite a farewell reception after the meeting.

We rose early Monday morning and were ready to start at seven. The little steamer we were to take across the lake was to leave the wharf at 8 o’clock. The lunch Mrs. Collins so bountifully provided was ready, the four Tai boys were there with their loads made up, our chairs were carefully packed with beds and bedding, but no coolies appeared. I sped down to Mr. Graham, who was the lightener of all our troubles, and soon returned accompanied by Mr. Gowman and Mr. Graham and followed by a string of Chinese—our missing men. Soon we were started, Mr. Collins escorting us on horseback and Mr. Gowman on foot. Mr. Graham went ahead to wire the steamer that we were coming.

Outside the city the whole plain looked like a lake. We came by a long, well made road lined with trees. It looked like a bund but was really the highway out to the lake. Before long it, too, was under water. Then Mr. Gowman loaded all into small boats, chairs, coolies, Tai boys and cook, and said good bye to us. For about an hour we rowed over fields and gardens, till at last the steamer was in sight. And there was Mr. Collins with his pony, holding the steamer and waiting to see us off. We did not know when we lost him or how he got there. We found the steamer packed, both upper and lower decks, there did not seem to be standing room, for us, and where would they put the chairs? They hoisted them up to the upper deck and somehow made room for them. We clambered after them and the steamer started. Mr. Collins shouted to us from the wharf the kindly admonition, “If you don’t sit in your chairs some one else will,” and we were off, at 9:30 instead of 8:00 o’clock. How kind the friends all were to us! How little we thought as we watched Mr. Collins standing there, so strong and vigorous looking, until he disappeared from our view, that he was so soon to be called from the scenes of earth to higher service.

We were glad to follow his advice and sit in our chairs. A stiff raw breeze was blowing. We wrapped ourselves in our bedding and stayed there all the way across. There were white caps on the lake. Our boys and cook were soon seasick, and it was with difficulty that we could persuade anyone to summon energy and courage enough to bring us our lunch when we wanted it. It was about three o’clock when the steamer arrived, we could scarcely say landed. The waves made it difficult to get us and our chairs into small boats, and again we were rowed for an hour over fields and gardens to the town.

Here there was a hubbub over our landing. A young man in an official cap demanded something and no one could tell us what it was. Finally we got away to our chairs and were carried to the inn. Then we were informed that E Ha, the oldest of our four Yangtze boys, was detained by the officials at the boat landing. I hurried back with my cook as interpreter and found that the thing that they wanted was the everywhere necessary calling card!

On Tuesday we had a cold, cheerless ride, the road was comparatively level and not so muddy as we expected. We came into the scheduled town early in the afternoon. Here we met our packs, according to agreement. The head man said they did not want to go the next day. He finally promised to go. We made a short stage on Wednesday. Only two of our packs had come with us and they stayed behind on Wednesday waiting for their company. We traveled a lonely mountain road with some fine scenery but we had to keep our chairs closed to keep warm so we did not see much. We noticed some thorns and thistles but no beautiful flowers. We saw two or three stunted “Rose of Sharon” bushes, sickly reminders of Sapushan.

At noon we arrived at a village at the foot of the mountains. Here our men asked to stop to wait for our mule caravan, as they could not overtake us unless they did. As we were getting short of provisions we consented. The account of our stay in this village will be quoted from Mrs. Dodd’s diary:

We reached the Yuan Kiang on Tuesday, October 8. Here our route joins that of 1910, and from Yuan Kiang to Mohei we traveled over the same road as we did on that tour. On this trip, however, we only crossed Red River valley and did not follow it as in the former tour, so there was but little chance of meeting Tai people on the caravan route and we could not leave our convoy to go off the trail.

As we were coming down into the Red River valley we came out suddenly on a long narrow plain among the mountains and into a little market by the roadside. A group of people gathered about us in the market, and in a few minutes we discovered that they were Tai, the first we had met since leaving the Yangtze and its tributaries a month before. This valley is all inhabited by Tai people. Their speech was very easily understood by us so far as a short stay could determine, much easier than when we first met the Tai Ya in 1910, owing to our experience in the north. At first they said there were only five or six villages in the plain. But after one of them had received a quinine pill for his sick boy he seemed to feel obliged to tell the truth, and admitted that there may be twenty villages. There were twelve in sight around the edge of the plain, so it seems probable that there were not less than twenty. The plain is a part of Muang Chung which is the Tai name for Yuan Kiang.

We found the whole valley flooded for their second rice crop and people plowing. They used buffalo for their plowing instead of cattle as the Chinese do. They seemed to do community work. I saw eight buffalo plowing in one field. Our road through the valley was hedged by acacia and other bushes. The little yellow balls reminded us of home in Chiengrai.

As we came down a very steep and rocky road to the Chinese town of Yuan Chiang (or Kiang) we found quite a change. The whole plain was a brilliant green from the growing rice. It was quite hot in the afternoon but a cool breeze sprang up at sunset and kept up all night. We had a delightful sleep in a horse inn, new and clean, with large windows which we kept open, with the fresh breeze blowing right in on us and no shivers. The morning was delightful. As we came into the town, a short distance from the city wall, we passed a walled-in compound with a number of good looking buildings. Some of them were roofless and all seemed deserted. It might be a good place for a mission compound. There were no Tai in evidence in this Chinese town but we know that the whole valley is Tai.

Our caravan is now about half a mile long. In the evening when we arrive in the town where we stop for the night there is a scattering and settling in the various inns of the town. But in the morning, when our chairs are ready to go, it seems as if the whole town turned out on the road, and nearly every day we notice new parties that have joined us. When we stopped over Sunday they all stopped too. We have our nine chair bearers, four Tai boys, cook and one coolie, with eleven pack mules. There are twenty coolies with supplies for Mr. Furgesson of Mohei which have been sent down from Yünnan-fu with our convoy. There are a Chinese woman and two children in a whagan (a kind of chair made of ropes to hold bed and bedding, carried by two men), and two or three Chinese, four whagans altogether, with their attendant coolies, Chinese merchants with their baskets of wares, and three companies of pack mules besides ours.

At Yean Puk Shan we met H. Parisse, a Frenchman who has been in charge of the salt works at Mohei. He was on his way to the capital expecting to go to Manchuria. Mr. Furgesson has relieved him at Mohei. Two days before that in a crooked straggling mountain village, we had the pleasure of spending an evening with Mr. and Mrs. Fullerton, missionaries from Szemao, on their way to the capital. They left Szemao the day we left the capital and met just half way, and fortunately stopped at the same inn.

The night we spent at Ta Lang Shien was like a nightmare. It happened that that was the place where, according to contract, our nine chair coolies were to receive each one-half a dollar Mex. As soon as they had their rice they all sat down to gamble. They were in the court below right in front of our room. The whole establishment seemed to be in an uproar and they kept it up nearly all night. We had been awakened at four o’clock that morning by our little alarm as usual, but only extreme weariness enabled us to get any sleep. In vivid contrast to the bedlam below us were the quiet earnest faces of our Yangtze boys as I gathered them around me at bedtime and gave them a heart to heart talk on the sin of gambling. Again I quote from Mrs. Dodd’s diary:

That afternoon we crossed the Black River on the shaky suspension bridge, rode up the valley an hour or more and stopped at Pa Pien. We had been there some time before we found out that our host and his family were Tai. Their friends and neighbors gathered in and listened eagerly to what we told them. Even the women gathered around Mrs. Dodd and talked freely with her. It was much easier to talk with them than it was with the Yangtze Tai when we first met them. How we did want to stay and teach them and preach to them and gather them in! Here again the vision, the call, the “something lost.” We have found them, the lost sheep, some of them, and we cannot stay to rescue them.

The next day we arrived at Mohei where we were most hospitably entertained by Mr. Furgesson of the salt gabelle, and Mr. and Mrs. Bechdal, independent Danish missionaries. We visited a salt well and saw the boiling and refining process. It was interesting though very primitive. The well is over a thousand feet deep. Mr. and Mrs. Bechdal are conducting a work for the Chinese with about twenty converts.

It is one day from there to Puerh, a short stage. Here there is another mission house, where we were cared for with kind and thoughtful attention by the Chinese helper in charge. It is two days from there to Szemao. Here Mr. and Mrs. Kjaergaard entertained us over Sunday and were kindness itself. They had recently been transferred from Puerh to take the place of the Fullertons during their visit to the capital. We were sorry not to be able to see something of the great work among the Lisu and other tribes which Mr. and Mrs. Fullerton are carrying on from their home in Szemao.

The six days from Szemao to Chiengrung were uneventful. It was almost like getting home to arrive at Muang Ring, the first Lü village. I preached to a crowded house that night in the home of the head man where we stopped. It was good to be among the literate Tai once more.

It was getting home when we arrived four days later at Chiengrung, the center of the Lü country where our new station had already been opened. We found a house built for us and a warm welcome from the Mason family and the little band of Christians. There has been a promising beginning made here for the first year.

This year has seen organized work begun for the Tai race in China in both the extreme north and the extreme south of Yünnan. We had got such a start in the vocabulary of the illiterate Tai that when we came to those in the Red and Black River valleys we found that we could preach to them quite intelligibly. When I passed through these regions in 1910 while I could converse with the Tai there and farther east in Yünnan and Kwangsi, on matters of everyday life with more or less ease I could not talk religion to them. But now we have a non-Buddhist Tai vocabulary covering most of the religious ideas; a vocabulary which we found we could use to good advantage in the Black and Red River regions. Now as the work here gives me opportunity, I hope to get busy with the four Yangtze boys on further study and writing down of this non-Buddhist language for use among the illiterate Tai everywhere they are found.

In the early part of 1913, the Rev. H. S. Vincent and myself were appointed as a committee under the direction of our Board to make a tour of exploration among the Tai-speaking peoples of Indo-China, with a view of opening missionary work among these long neglected peoples.

We left Bangkok by French coast steamer on March 29; were in Saigon, waiting for a steamer for Haiphong, from March 31 to April 3; in Haiphong April 6 to 9; in Hanoi 9 to 12; Lang Son and Dong Deng, on the branch railway, near the China border 12 to 15; Yen Bay, on main line of the railway 16; Vietrie, waiting for steamer up the Black River 17 to 18; Hoa Binh, 19; Cho Bo, head of steamer navigation, 20 to 28; thence returned to Hanoi 29 and Haiphong May 1. This was our itinerary.

We arrived in Saigon about eleven o’clock Monday morning. We had our customs receipts from Bangkok which we showed with such good effect that a mere declaration from us that we had nothing but personal articles was enough to pass us without even having to unlock or unpack a thing. For help in business matters, etc., we were greatly indebted to Miller Joblin, our American Vice-Consul, and also to Mr. Carlyle, the British Consul, who had been at one time in Siam and had visited Chiengrai.

Saigon is a beautiful little city, about half the size of Bangkok, including its environs. It is well built, mostly of brick and plaster and stone. The public buildings, post and telegraph offices, residence of Governor-General, Catholic Cathedral, opera house, etc., were all quite up to expectation. The men nearly all dress in white, even at dinner. But the French women dress very like the Paris fashion plates.

The Annamese men and women wear their hair long and done up in a knot set well back on the head and rather low down. Some of the men however wear short hair, but short or long there is the usual turban. Men and women alike wear trousers, but those of the women are black and wide. The women wear a jumper of black also, reaching from the neck to the knees, with high side vents. The Annamese people are quite small, as a rule, with fairly regular features and pleasant faces.

We sailed from Saigon about noon of April 3. We had such a condition of the China Sea as I had never before been permitted to see, almost as smooth as glass with scarcely a wave to disturb the serenity of our voyage. The water had a peculiar metallic appearance and reflected every shade of the gorgeous tropical sunsets with wonderful effect.

We made only such a limited stop at Tourane that we could not go ashore. We were sorry not to have been able to call on the American Missionaries there, Christian and Missionary Alliance people, but there was not time. I occupied my time on board in reading French by the aid of a pocket dictionary which I had bought in Saigon. I was also assisted by a kind and benevolent French gentleman whose acquaintance we had made on board, who speaks English. I am ambitious to be able to read what the French have written about the Tai people in their territory. I also read the greater part of the “Laotienne” Gospel of John, translated and Romanized by an independent Swiss missionary at Sŏng Kōn on the Lower Mekong. I can read it sufficiently well now so that I could use it for reading in a devotional service. All this is evidence of what an unusually fine voyage we had on the China Sea, continuing to Haiphong.

We arrived at Haiphong about dark on Sunday, April 6, and were met by Rev. Ch. Bonnet, agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society. He took us to his home for dinner as it was too late to get dinner at the hotel by the time we and our baggage were landed. There we met his kind and hospitable wife and two little boys, and also Frank Soderberg of the C. and M.A. whom I met in Wuchow in 1910. We were also invited to take tiffin with them the next day and had a delightful lunch and after chat.

On Monday we called on Mr. Walker of the Standard Oil Co., who was very cordial. As there was no American consul there at that time Mr. Walker was appointed to look after traveling Americans in Haiphong. We learned that there is only one Swiss missionary now at Sŏng Kōn, a single man, Rev. F. Audetat, the only worker for the Tai people in all French Indo-China. I purchased a bound copy of the Annuaire General de L’Indo-Chine, 1912, a French Year Book. This helped to answer many of the questions continually coming up. M. Bonnet also took us to local Commissioner of Police who viséd our passports. We certainly were much indebted to the kindness of M. Bonnet. The next day we bought sectional maps of the provinces of Tongking where we knew Tai to be found, lunched with Mr. Glass of the Standard Oil Co., and took the train for Hanoi at 1:40, arriving at 5 p.m., April 9.

We stopped at the Hanoi hotel. In the morning we called on the French chaplain, Pasteur Valette, who took us to the Standard Oil Co.’s office. We found Mr. Yang, a Chinese, very well educated and very helpful. Mr. Vincent’s knowledge of French was of great assistance in this work. We had just finished making out our itinerary, when a telegram came from Dr. Lowrie, chairman of the China Council, asking for a date for a China-Tai Commission of exploration in Yünnan and Kwangsi. This caused us to change our itinerary somewhat.

The next day we took breakfast by invitation with Pasteur Valette and his wife. Madame Valette is quite literary. She taught English in a French school before her marriage and speaks elegant English. M. de L Pasteur expressed himself as in deep sympathy with the object of our tour as did also Pasteur Bonnet and Mr. Soderberg. At 3 p.m. we went to police headquarters where we had to fill out blanks which read like genealogical tables. We were than told that we would have no hindrance in traveling anywhere.

We left Hanoi by train on Saturday, April 12, and arrived at Lang-Sŏn in the early evening. Not much if any more than half way up, it seemed to us that the character of the houses changed from that of Annamese to that of Tai, and the people seemed to look like Tai, even in the towns but more especially those we saw in the fields. About three-fourths of the way up we stopped at a village whose name as Romanized by the French we could scarcely have guessed at, but which the people there gave as “Ban Yai,” and said they were “Kon Yai” (Big People), one of the tribes I found in southeastern Yünnan in 1910. We talked quite freely with them, buying some cakes from one Kon Yai woman. The cakes were made of glutinous rice with a mixture of beans; “and they went very well.” The people and the cakes were ours all right. Like their Kon Yai brethren in Yünnan, they were unusually small, seeming to bear out the conjecture of mine that they have adopted as their name a Tai translation of the name given them in irony by the Chinese.

Lang-Sŏn has finely paved streets, a large open valley with macadamized roads running into the hills in all directions from the town. The town itself is a large one and well built. It has an altitude of 2,000 feet; an army doctor and a hospital, a hotel, and a foreign community of seventy-five. There are very few literate in Chinese and none in Tai. There is only one hotel; and we were fortunate in securing accommodations at all. But the least said about those accommodations themselves the better. Still we did not suffer.

The next morning after a short service with our cook and boy we started out in quest of our Tai people, Mr. Vincent taking the Lakawn Tai boy, and I our Annamese cook from Chiengrai who could also speak Tai. We took rickshas and went in different directions, making two trips each, with tiffin sandwiched in between. I found that both my ricksha man and that of the cook could talk fairly good Tai, or Tō as the Tai dialect here is called.

I was able to converse in whole sentences with the Tō people in the three villages which the cook and I visited, as well as in the market. Usually there is some word in every sentence which differed slightly from our Tai in North Siam. But in many cases the difference is so slight that it does not prevent mutual understanding. The numerals are the same as ours and similarly pronounced, up into the tens at least. The sound of r is clearly given. On the whole I heard more that is like the Siamese than I heard in Yünnan or in Kwangsi. We were told that Nung, Lung, Kon Yai, Man, etc., live at some distance from this place; that all the villages of this fine large mountain-encompassed plain are inhabited by Tō; that most of the townspeople are Tō by extraction; that a large majority of the women and children are not proficient in the Annamese language; that the Roman Catholics have had a “Father” or two here for a long time; that the two here now have been here only a short time; that their converts are all in town, numbering only between 100 and 200; and that they do not speak nor teach in the Tō language. Whether all this will bear confirmation or not we cannot tell. On the whole I think the Tō language is closer to our Yuan dialect than I supposed.

The next morning we visited Lieutenant Waddell, to whom we had been recommended by Pasteur Valette, of Hanoi. He lived at Dong Deng, a little further up on the railway, in fact almost on the Chinese border. But he was temporarily in the hospital in Lang-Sŏn. He is a Scotch Presbyterian from Australia. He was very glad to see us and we to see him. He told us that there are plenty of Nung Tai at Dong Deng and advised us to run up, inviting us to occupy his quarters and use his servants.

So we went, leaving at 1 o’clock p.m., and arriving in less than an hour. We were well cared for while there. Mr. Vincent, the cook, and I visited a Nung village for a long time, and then the cook and I went to another one. It seemed to us that there was more divergence from the normal Tai speech among the Nung than among the Tō. In addition to this there are several other factors which seemed to us, in this hurried visit, to designate the Tō as the more strategic tribe of the two:

(1) The Tō are much finer looking; in fact they are the finest looking people we have seen among the natives of Indo-China.

(2) They cultivate their fields and gardens better, live in cleaner houses, and seem generally thriftier and more intelligent than the Nung.

(3) They are the largest Tai tribe numerically to be found in Tongking. According to French statistics they number almost 134,000, the Nung almost 83,000.

On Tuesday morning, April 15, Mr. Vincent and I were called at 5 o’clock a.m. to take the train back to Hanoi. As it was desirable that I should get all the time possible with the people, I stopped off with the cook and boy, at Lang Ngiai, under the impression that the people there were Kon Yai. But they were not. Most of them were Tō; and I was compelled in candor to revise some opinions. For one thing, these very rural Tōs are not nearly as large and fine looking as the well groomed Tō people near the town of Lang-Sŏn. They would hardly average up to the ordinary run of rustic Yuan Tai. I was in only one house. It was cleaner than the Nung houses we visited yesterday. Like them and unlike the Tō houses near town, the houses of these rural Tō are mostly built of piles; and the roads and village streets are a sight to behold.

Another revision was as to dialects. From what I was told, it seems very doubtful if the Tō are any nearer to the Yuan than are the Nung. For a long time two of the men in the station-house gave us both Tō and Nung words in exchange for Yuan ones. In this way we had a good opportunity to compare the two dialects. In several cases the Nung word was the closer to our own and I do not now recall a case in which the converse was true. But when we visited a Tō family in a near by village, we were surprised by the many little differences between the speech of the head of that house and the speech of the men we had been talking with in the station house, all of them professing to talk the Tō dialect. In fact this villager’s speech was unlike any Tai I ever heard anywhere else; so much so that I wonder if he were a real Tō, as he professes to be. He substituted t for s and s for h in counting. Evidently Tō “doctors differ” among themselves. But on the whole the hours we had at Lang Ngiai were reassuring as to the identity of the Tō as real Tai people.

We arrived in Hanoi a little after 7 o’clock p.m., and found Mr. Vincent standing in front of the hotel ready to pay the ricksha men who brought us over from the depot; for almost every one travels in Indo-Chinese towns in rickshas.

On Wednesday we went by rail to Yen Bai, a beautiful well cultivated country. After leaving the Delta proper, our route lay along the course of the Red River valley. High mountains were in the distance, but our course lay for the most part among little undulating hills, many of them well cultivated, and fertile valleys. I was very much surprised when we reached Yen Bai to find such a small jungle village. It contains a Catholic church, barracks, etc. There is a long shed-like market, where many native products and a few foreign articles are on sale. There is only one hotel and few foreign houses; there are only forty-three Europeans given in the Year Book, most of them are soldiers in barracks. It is the chief town of the province; from which judge the rest! The climate of the province is said by the Year Book to “resemble in its principal lines that of the Delta; the temperature is perceptibly the same; the humidity is even greater.”

The town of Yen Bai contains 43 Europeans, 800 Annamites, 3 Chinese. In the province as a whole the Tai Tō vastly predominate over all other races, viz., 32,640, as over against 5,200 Man (who are said by the French to be Tai speakers) and 3,658 of all others. So this is a strongly Tai region. The province of Tuyen Quang, to the east, is also traversed by the Clear River, and contains a good proportion of Tai people. It is said by the Year Book to be “one confused mass of mountains.” Like Bac-Kan to the east of it, it seems to contain no important towns. The “3rd military territory,” Boa-Lac and Ha-Giang, contains about 75,000 people, more than half Tai.

So we may say that Yen Bai town, as being the nearest point to Hanoi on the railroad, of all this north central portion of Tongking in which the Tai people are found, would seem to be a strategic point. It is for this reason that we come to visit it. Although small, it might prove very attractive. But it did not. It has no width of valley and few paved streets, to say nothing of good country roads. It is not an attractive place, nor large, nor healthy, and it is only one day distant by rail from Lang-Sŏn.

Our next point for investigation was Hoa Binh. We took the train to Vietrie and got a river steamer to Hoa Binh on Saturday, the 19th. While waiting at Vietrie I read a good deal in French concerning the Tai and the Mueungs. Captain Diguet says that until recently people did not distinguish between the Tai and the Mueung; but that so far as he can make out the language of the Mueungs has nothing whatever in common with the Tai language, while it is stuffed with Annamite words, either pure or slightly differentiated in pronunciation. He further says that it is said that the Mueung is the aboriginal race of Tongking, who subsequently gave birth to the Annamites.

Of course if he is right, the 88,956 Mueungs given in the Year Book as residing in Tongking are not our Tai people; and as 85,300 of this number are given as residents of Hoa Binh, and all others number only a little over 3000, then Hoa Binh is not a strategic point for us. This our investigations both single and united proved to be correct.

The 20th found us at Cho Bo, a short distance up the Black River from Hoa Binh. Our river steamer was not very prompt. Instead of 6 a.m. sharp, it was nearer 8 a.m. when we started. Just after tiffin, almost noon, our steamer stopped, and we were transferred, bag and baggage, to a big Annamese sail boat. This we rode for some four hours, when the nature of the river bed permitted the use of the steamer again, and another one was found awaiting us. But it was after dark when we reached Hoa Binh.

Meanwhile we had received information which led us to believe that Cho Bo would be the better point for us to take dugouts for up country: so we stayed aboard the steamer and on the next morning, arriving a little after 7 a.m. During the evening the captain and one of the fellow passengers went ashore with us, on the French side, i.e., on the side of the river on which the French settlement is located. It consists of about a hundred people: and we were told that the village on the opposite side contains some 90 houses of Tō and Mueung people. But Cho Bo is the commercial point, and is said to contain more people. It has only one French resident, the police commissioner, upon whom we called. But Cho Bo has the post and telegraph service, is the head of steam navigation of the Black River, is only two days by steamer and rail from Hanoi, and is said to be an important trading center.

A French trader on the steamer made himself very agreeable talking a little Tai. He secured for us the privilege of staying in the station-house of the steamer company, which is the nearest to a hotel of any thing either in Hoa Binh or Cho Bo.

On Monday morning we discovered some Tai Dam boatmen at the landing below town. Their boats have fish-tails like Yuan or Lao boats. We could converse freely and fluently with them; more so, Mr. Vincent thinks than with the Lü. They said they live at Ban Boa, half way between here and Muang Lai. As nearly as I can make out this is marked Van-Bu on our French maps. They said also that the place which is marked Van Yen on the maps is really Ban In. It is inhabited chiefly by Tai Dam; and it is well to the southern end of Song La Province. From there on upstream they called it “the Tai country.” Yet the French Year Book gives few Tai of any kind in Son-La Province! The Tai of M. Lai they say are Tai Khao but there is no difference in the speech of the Tai Dam or Black Tai and the Tai Khao or White Tai. The difference is simply in their dress, from which they are named. All are close to the speech of the unmixed Yuan dialect of Chiengmai.

That evening I took Ai Tan, the boy from Lakawn, and visited in the village again. One firm of Chinese merchants here speak pretty good Tai Tō. We also visited the Tai Dam boatman again. It was difficult to get Ai Tan away from him, for he said it had been such a long time since he had seen and talked with people whose dialect was so nearly identical with his own.

We spent a week at Cho Bo “too busy doing things to take time to write them down.” The time was mostly spent in work, linguistic and racial. The most interesting occasion was big market day, which comes every tenth day. There was a gathering of the clans for two days before. The river bank a little above town presented a very animated scene. Many Black Tai and White Tai boats came mostly loaded with swine for sale. The country seemed to have “gone into hogs.” Bamboo pens were hastily made and surrounded by Annamese, Chinese and other purchasers. The price was about the average in our Yuan country, according to Mr. Vincent. But the interesting sight is the people themselves, White Tai from Muang Lai, Black Tai from Son-La; Mueungs, Mois, Sas, Mangs and Tōs from the vicinage. We are satisfied by testimony of others, and from talking with these various peoples ourselves, that of these only the Tai and Tō are proper Tai. The Mois might be reached through our Tai speech, but the Mueungs, Mangs and Sas seem out of our linguistic range almost entirely.

After repeatedly visiting the market, I went to look at the boats which had come up from below, a dense line of huge cargo boats lining the shore for a long distance. Seeing two long slender boats with tails, a little lower down stream than the others, I went to them and asked if they were not Tai boats. They were. We talked together for an hour or more, with no more difficulty than among the Chiengmai people. Occasionally a word differed, but the general structure of the language is so identical that we could set each other right at once on dialect differences.

The two boats of that party are M. Lai boats and would take us to M. Lai in 16-18 days! I examined them with an eye to missionaries riding such boats up to M. Lai soon, let us hope. I gave my card to the Fia in French; and to my surprise one of his men read it, and understood it, too! The Fia said, when he learned that I was a missionary, that he would be glad if I were going up to his country. If not now he hoped I would come in the future.

Tuesday, April 29, we were back at Vietrie, on our way to Hanoi. We had so many providences favoring our acquiring information that it was difficult to record them all. While waiting at Cho Bo for dugouts to take us upstream, through the Black River valley, the time of our long wait was improved by gathering information from the hundreds of Tai gradually congregating there for the big bazaar. Finally we had received from them such complete linguistic and other information that we felt that Muang La and Muang Lai counties and capitals had come to us. This rendered the long and expensive trip in dugouts unnecessary. In reality we felt that we knew at least as much as to the claims of M. Lai and M. La as we do about those of Lang-Sŏn which we actually visited.

We left Cho Bo about 11 a.m. The Fia and quite a number of other friends were on the same steamer, and we journeyed together to Vietrie. Among them was one Frenchman who has been living among the Lao for years; another who has been “the resident” at M. Lai, i.e., Commissioner or Political Officer.

This last named gentlemen, M. Gilles, told us that Son-La (Annamese for M. La) is 800 metres, about 2600 feet, above sea level. The Fia and his interpreter friend assured us that the town of M. La has a larger population than the town of M. Lai: it is situated in a plain which is not only higher than that of M. Lai (300 metres is the altitude of M. Lai) but is also broader, and has bordering it on one side a plateau, which is about 7000 feet high! Think of such a plateau, which must have water within reach because it is inhabited by Miao people, within one day’s journey of a large populous plain one hundred feet higher than that of Kengtūng, a plain inhabited by Tai people speaking the Chiengmai dialect! The Tai population of M. La is given as about 72,000, that of M. Lai as about 60,000. The Tai of M. La are the Tai Dam. The Fia tell us they are found in large numbers in the Black River valley, not only south of M. Lai but above it also. I heard of them also in the Red River valley below Yuan Kiang in 1910. He says they far outnumber the Tai Khao of M. Lai. All these facts go to show that the Tai Dam are the largest and most important group, and M. La the most strategic place in that region.

As would be expected from the altitude and the width of the plain, the Fia says the climate of M. La is much better than that of the Delta. The heat and moisture are much less: and there is real bracing weather in the winter season. It is nearer to Hanoi than M. Lai is by seven or eight days boat travel. It is also nearer to M. Sai and Luang Prabang, and the road is better. A providential call comes from the heartiness with which the Fia himself and also the interpreter insisted upon our going to M. La. They both told us to hunt them up and they would give us letters to the Tai officials everywhere in the Tai Dam and Tai Khao country. The gentle Fia told us he was related to them all—and the interpreter is a Tao and is known every where. It is not often that such invitations come to missionaries from such a distance from their home and work. It was with deep regret that we parted from the Fia at Vietrie.

April 29, we were in Hanoi again in our old room 15 at the Hanoi hotel. We called at Pasteur Valette’s in the morning and took tea with them in the afternoon. Mr. Soderberg took us to the home of a French Protestant soldier where we not only had a fine view into delightful home life, but also left orders for some French maps at reduced rates.

We came down to Haiphong on May 1st. Later I went over with Mr. Vincent, Mr. Soderberg, and a bouquet, to congratulate M. and Madm. Bonnet on the birth of a daughter. They seemed like old friends. M. Bonnet agreed with M. Valette that it would not be best to call on high officials at that time, owing to the excitement over the bomb outrage in Hanoi on the previous Sunday, in which two Frenchmen were killed and many more wounded.

Our first itinerary of this tour included a return by way of Muang Sai in French Laos state, where we once had eighty converts among the Kamu. Now the Boards and our Executive Committee had authorized me to join with the China Council and the Canton Mission in a tour of investigation in Kwangsi Province. As to Mr. Vincent’s returning alone via M. Sai, M. Bonnet thought it would be necessary for him to go first to Vieng Chan and see the Resident Superieur du Laos. It seems that he lives now at Vieng Chan, not as formerly at Luang Prabang. The time involved in such an itinerary as Tourane, Song Kon, Sawanaket, Vieng Chan, Luang Prabang, M. Sai and thence home, and the exposure in so long a journey overland at that season, was a serious consideration and seemed prohibitive.

Our readers may be interested in a few words in regard to climate. Since landing in Tongking we had but few days without either dense fog or rain. We were told in Haiphong and Hanoi that usually from October or November to February the weather is clear and bracing: that this is followed by about two months of foggy, drizzly weather: this again by the regular rainy season. But while this is the general weather program, we were told that Tongking is subject to many sudden changes of temperature. This we had illustrated. We were told that just before our arrival all foreigners were dressed in white, but a sudden change came which caused us to wear woolen clothing till we reached Cho Bo. The day was sunny and the temperature rose rapidly. The next day it kept on rising until in the evening we felt it was useless to go to bed early. The day following was cool again; the next one “hot and getting hotter.” Those who are sensitive to sudden chills find it a trying climate.

In spite of climate, however, Haiphong, the port city of Tongking, and Hanoi its capital, are pleasant and interesting little cities. Some one has called Hanoi a “little Paris.” In the citadel back of the town all the officers live. The shops are noted for their filigree and embroidery but especially for the inlaid work in pearl. Had we been merely tourists or sightseers I have no doubt we might have found much to interest and entertain, but our errand was wholly in the interest of Christian work among the Tai people, among whose brethren and kinsmen in Siam we have lived and labored for so many years. Our work of investigation proved so engrossing that we had little time for any thing else. Yet we have formed some lasting friendships with our fellow workers there and would record the courtesy and kindness everywhere forthcoming at the hands of the French officials.

Before our coming it was well known, through Mr. Freeman’s report of his tour in this region in 1910, and from other sources, that the various Tai tribes are strong along the inland courses of the rivers Claire, Red, and Black. We therefore gave these regions special consideration and investigation. As to the Claire region: Its principal towns are among the remotest and most inaccessible in all Tongking. And the whole region was still under military rule. In the Red River valley, we went to Yen Bai which seemed to us the only important point in that region and found it undesirable for residence. Ascending the Black River, we got as far as Cho Bo, the head of steamer navigation, and determined that neither Hoa Binh nor Cho Bo were places of much importance and both were in easy reach of Lang-Sŏn and Hanoi. The advantages of Lang Son as a strategic center and the call to Song La from the Fia were the outstanding points in our investigations.

First there was the process of exclusion. Most French writers include among the Tai some hill tribes as the Yao (whom they call Man), the Moi, etc. We had to satisfy ourselves by actual tests that these are not Tai speakers before we could make up our statistical tables. Furthermore, we had to prune out a number of nick names, such as Pu-Tai; and settle on the exclusive use of one of several synonymous names for the same tribe, e.g., Nung rather than Sung or Nang or Nhang, etc.

Then there was the process of shifting. While exceedingly valuable in a general way, the French statistical writings contain some grand discrepancies.

On the 8th of May, Mr. Vincent took the steamer for home via Saigon. Much as I longed to return with him to my wife and work, there seemed nothing to do but wait for further word from Dr. Lowrie regarding the Kwangsi tour. Repeated wires brought no reply from him. I spent twelve days more in Hanoi, waiting. Finally, on May 20, I received a wire saying “Lowrie ill. Cannot come.” That same day I took a steamer for Hongkong, where I could be in touch with the South China Mission, and could either plan definitely for the tour or take the first steamer for home.

The twelve days spent alone in Hanoi were full of work, finishing up and mailing copies of the report and maps to go with them, and later, giving my time to the study of the Tō from French books I had purchased. I changed my lodging place to a private family, as more homelike and less expensive. The time was enlivened somewhat by a visit to the shops. I called twice at the college, the Ecole Francaise de Orient, and spent some time in frequent visits to Schneider’s, the leading book store.

I think I could not have employed my time to better advantage. Every day I received some new light on the illiterate Tai and their language. And the more I learned the simpler and less complex the task seemed. As one compares the dictionary of the River Claire region in North Tongking with that of the Southwestern section of Kweichow Province, for example, he realizes that there is in fact a surprising similarity among the dialects of the illiterate Tai of Tongking, eastern Yünnan, southern Kweichou and Kwangsi as a whole.

As far as my present information goes, they may be put into three groups:

1. Nearest to the Yuan, Lao, Lü Khün, and other literate Tai, are those closest to them, i.e., the Tai Dam, Tai Khao, Tai Deng, etc.

2. Probably next to these in similarity of speech to the literate Tai will come the T’o, of the northern section of Tongking and the lower courses of the West River, in Kwangsi, etc.

3. Not much farther from the standard literary Tai are the Yui—including Nung, Lung, etc., of all “the banks of the upper course of the West River and its affluents as far as the middle of Kweichow province,”—so the Yoi dictionary tells us. The principal at the College kindly loaned me a Tai Yoi dictionary which I could not get from Schneider.

It is reassuring indeed to learn that even in the remote Kweichou province the dialect most common is the same as the Nung as it is called here in Tongking, the Lung as I found it called at Kwangnan-fu in 1910. This confirms my previous opinion that Mr. Clarke’s translation of Matthew contains a far larger proportion of Chinese words, and a far smaller proportion of Tai words, than it would if it had been made by a man thoroughly familiar with Tai. The language of at least southwestern Kweichou is a good deal purer Tai than that translation would indicate. It is evidently close to the Nung and Lung with whom I have already come into contact and with which tribes I can already converse with considerable ease.

The task of becoming at home in the dialects of the illiterate Tai becomes simpler and easier, not more formidable, with every day I spend in the study of them. The similarity of dialects is really surprising when we consider that they have never become crystallized in written form; that the tribes are mutually much isolated; and that all this has been going on for forty centuries.

After a pleasant visit in Hainan, enroute, enjoying the hospitality of Dr. and Mrs. McCandliss, I came on to Hongkong by the first steamer, arriving on Sunday, May 25, in time to attend divine service at the Episcopal church. The sermon was good. It was a great treat to hear an English sermon once more. On Monday just before tiffin the boy came in with two letters from my wife in Chiengrai. They had followed me about. I had heard of them through Mr. Bonnet in Haiphong.

The few days spent in Hongkong as well as those which followed were a long discipline of patience. Much as I longed to take the first steamer for home, I realized fully the importance of this tour. Our Board and Mission Executive Committee had authorized it, and appointed Dr. Lowrie and myself on the committee with one member from the South China Mission. I could not lightly turn my back on it. I had wired Shanghai from Hoihow with no answer. By advice of the Y.M.C.A. man who was also connected with the telegraph, I sent what they call a “tickler,” “Was Hoihow telegraph received.” This brought the reply, “Lowrie ill, Peking.” Later I learned that he had been sent to Kuling for a month’s absolute rest and was not allowed to see letters and telegrams. It was a blow to find that Dr. Lowrie was “out of it” as far as the tour was concerned and nothing about a substitute. I learned in Hongkong that the Rev. A. J. Fisher of Sheklung had been appointed some time before as the member from the South China Mission and I received a kind invitation by wire to come up to Sheklung. I lost no time in taking the train for his hospitable home. Here the Fishers and the Marshalls made me very welcome. Here we two members wrote and wired Dr. Lowrie as to a substitute. As soon as he was able he wrote asking that we consult the members of the S.C.M. Executive Committee. This was done and the choice fell upon the Rev. H. O. F. Burkwall of the British and Foreign Bible Society at Canton. He is the nearest to being an authority on the Tai in Kwangsi province of any Protestant worker of whom I have heard. He has been up the West River all through Kwangsi to Pak-Ai (or Pongai) on the Kwangsi-Yunnan border. He invited me to breakfast with him and from eight a.m. to twelve we compared notes solidly. He is not only best informed as to Kwangsi province but he is chairman of the committee for South China on Occupation of the Field. It was still some weeks before these brethren could leave their work to start on this tour.

Meanwhile I had the privilege of attending the annual meeting of the S.C.M. which I greatly appreciated. I have been personally acquainted with twenty-eight of their fifty missionaries.

Just before the first meeting I received a telegram from my wife giving the sad, sad news of the death of Mrs. Beebe (Ruth Showbridge). She had been assigned to our care on the journey out in 1911 and we had learned to love her as a daughter. She married Mr. Beebe and came to live in our station about six months before.

I led several devotional meetings in Canton, visited outstations, and spoke through an interpreter in churches and schools. I took advantage of the long delay to read everything at hand in English and French bearing on the Tai, Shan or Laos people, especially in Yünnan and Kwangsi provinces. This included Across Chryse, a book in two volumes, recording a trip across southern China, by Archibald Colquhoun; reports by Consul F. S. A. Bourne of two long journeys in southern China, British Blue Books, China No. 1, 1888, and China, 1898; Accounts in Reports of the British and Foreign Bible Society for 1908 and 1909 of tours through the northwestern part of Kwangsi province by Rev. G. B. Carpenter and H. Dorig; and valuable ethnological, historical and linguistic matter from the introduction to the Grammaire Tho, by P. Silve, and also from the introduction to Esquirol and Williatte’s Dictionnaire Dioi-Francais. We also visited Mr. Carpenter himself, in Hongkong and interviewed him at length.

Kwangsi Province

Much interest was expressed by all the members of the Mission in our coming tour. Many said they would like to accompany us. It was popular. The committee left Canton on July 16, 1913, and came by rail and steamer up the West River to Wuchow, in the eastern end of Kwangsi province, arriving on the 17th. We stopped over to consult with the missionaries of the Christian and Missionary Alliance who have extensive work in this province. They were assembled in Annual Conference, and had consequently arranged with the brethren of the English Wesleyan Mission to entertain us. The Alliance Mission kindly gave us an audience. They listened to a statement of our spirit and purpose. The Rev. Mr. Hess, as their spokesman, gave us a hearty God-speed in exploration, looking to the establishing of work primarily for the eastern Tai people, in the western and unoccupied part of the province.

During the afternoon Mr. Fisher elicited from two Chinese scribes in Mr. Jaffray’s study the fact that there are Chawng people right in the vicinity of Wuchow itself, in the extreme eastern end of Kwangsi province, and from Kwai Ping at the juncture of the two principal branches of the West River, say about one quarter of the way from the east of the province to the west end, onward up the West River, everybody knows the Chawng are numerous.

The T’o and the Chawng seem to meet and mingle in Kwangsi just as they do in Tongking, though in the latter place the Chawng are called Nung. In Kwangsi, however, the Chawng predominate in the eastern end of the province and the T’o in the western. They are so closely related that it seems difficult to distinguish between them.

While I was staying with Mr. Fisher he and I went to Hong Kong, chiefly to see Rev. C. B. Carpenter, formerly of the Alliance Mission, regarding his tour among the Chawng people in 1908. He vouches for it that within a diamond covering all the central part of Kwangsi the Chawng people are found in large numbers. The points of this diamond are Ping-Loh, well in the eastern end; T’ien-Ho-H’sin, well in the northern central; Pak-Sak, almost on the west border; and Nānning fū, well in the southern central.

More important than his geographical distribution information was Mr. Carpenter’s unequivocal testimony that the Chawng people within this diamond cannot be reached through the medium of the Chinese language. In their villages, containing hundreds of people each, perhaps only the head man knew enough Chinese to talk with Chinese officials. Sometimes one or two other villages besides his knew Chinese. He is sure that to reach these people with the gospel will require a Chawng mission. Mr. Carpenter says “there ought not to be any objection to our opening work for the Chawng there; otherwise there is no prospect of the Tai people getting the gospel.”

The Chawng people are called Chung in Kweichow, Nong in the Yoi dictionary, Nung in Tongking, and Lung in Yünnan.

The people for almost the whole way from Pingchow to Liuchow are Chaung-ren, supposed by many authorities to be aborigines. They extend from Liuchow to Sichen-fu and down south along the Nanning. Says a writer:

Leaving by motor boat, we came to Nānning fū, a distance of three hundred miles. Here Dr. and Mrs. H. Lechmere Clift of the Emmanuel Medical mission not only gave us most hospitable entertainment, but like the Alliance missionaries, a hearty God-speed in our special mission at this time.

We spent three days in Nānning fū, days crowded full of interviews with representative people. Nānning fū is a busy, bustling city for which a population of about one hundred thousand is claimed. It has recently been made the capital of the province and is thus a strong political and military center. Uniformed soldiers are much in evidence. While Kweilin, the former capital, is still the educational center, that center is bound to come eventually to the new capital. The city being a treaty port, boasts a customs station in charge of foreigners, as well as two Chinese newspapers and twenty motor boats, averaging about forty tons each, running all the year. There is an European in charge of the postal department, as this is the distributing center for the western half of the province. Nanning is a telegraphic center, the head office employs seven bright Chinese men, able to take and transmit messages in the English language. Nānning fū is not capital merely in name; it is the commercial, political, educational, postal and telegraphical hub of this half of the province.

Among those interviewed in Nānning fū was Father Constinoble, a Catholic priest. He was courteous and kind. He reports four or five thousand converts in Kwangsi, of whom he estimates that eight out of every ten speak the language locally called T’o, a dialect of the eastern Tai, or Laos, called Shan by British writers usually. More of the converts are men than women. He regards ninety per cent of Kwangsi as T’o territory. The T’o also extended, he says, into Tongking and Yünnan. They are very superstitious, have no large temples, and are very much given to demon worship. The Roman Catholic schools all teach Mandarin, except that the primary schools teach the catechism in Cantonese and explain in T’o. There are no T’o-speaking graduates from the Catholic training school. There is a Catholic priest speaking T’o at Sai Lam, in the northwest corner of the province and another in the Mo-yun district, some three days north of Nānning fū. But hitherto the T’o have been reached through the medium of the Chinese language. The non-Christian schools teach in Mandarin and often explain in T’o. There are many distinguished T’o scholars. Most men understand Mandarin or Cantonese or both, he thinks. Local dialects of the T’o differ greatly. The language is poor and uses much Mandarin to fill up. The religious nomenclature is from the Chinese. He regards the T’o as rather weak Christians and hard to get.

Two of the Alliance Mission helpers were interviewed. Their statements corroborated the priest’s as to Mandarin being taught in the schools; as to there being many T’o men who have become scholars in Chinese classics; as to Cantonese and Mandarin being spoken by many T’o men; as to there being many dialects of T’o; as to religious terms being borrowed from the Chinese; and to the general statement that there is little or no distinction between T’o and Chinese. In addition they asserted that schools are scattered about among the villages as well as in market towns; that fifty per cent of the men can read the Chinese official proclamations; that the T’o intermarry freely with the Chinese; that the Governor General of this province is a T’o man; that ancestral worship is prevalent among the T’o; that they are devout idol worshippers; and that T’o converts to Protestant Christianity are found in the Chinese churches.

One of these helpers is from Lung Chau. He gave us his opinion that while it is not absolutely necessary for the foreign missionary to learn the T’o language, still a knowledge of it is an advantage. The native preachers must use T’o.

We secured as interpreter Mr. Kwan, a Christian of Nānning fū. He knows the various dialects of Chinese in use here and some T’o. We found him of great service in dealing with those who do not speak Cantonese, Mandarin, and T’o speech.

On the twenty-fourth of July our party divided, in order to pursue our investigation over a wider area, and especially to get out into the country markets and other villages. Mr. Burkwall ascended the north branch of the West River, two hundred miles to Pak Shik. Besides one day at Pak Shik he had a day at Tinchow, another at P’ingma, and three at Napoh, all important centres. His party also made special trips to outside market towns.

Besides the many local people in these places, he met many from long distances. At Napoh he interviewed a company of between twenty and thirty coolies from Kwai-shun and beyond. Kwai-shun is about one hundred and fifty miles south of Pak Shik. He also met soldiers from the district between Kwai-shun and Lung Chau, who know the country well. In a word, his interviews covered the country from Nānning fū as far south as Lung Chau and as far northwest as Pak Shik.

Among the Kwai-shun coolies, few understood Cantonese or Mandarin. Only one of them spoke good Cantonese. Those from villages near Kwai-shun city reported the villages small, with no temples or schools. The people worship demons or spirits. Not more than half the men and fewer of the women can speak Cantonese, and that very indifferently. Some boys attend school in Kwai-shun. Not more than fifty per cent of the men can read very simple Chinese.

One old man of this coolie party lived about fifteen miles from Kwai-shun. He knew of no schools in the villages of his neighborhood, and very few people understand either Cantonese or Mandarin. There are no students among them. They know and speak T’o only.

Near the river and in the cities it is evident that there has been much blending of peoples. The merchants are largely Chinese, and many villages have some Chinese residents. Colonies from Kwangtung province and from Watlam in the eastern part of this province and from elsewhere are found here and there. Yet the population from the whole district surrounding these river towns is distinctly T’o.

T’o is spoken in the homes of the people. It is also used in commercial transactions. The Chinese merchants must use it to carry on their business. Mr. La, of Pak Shik, who puts the T’o population of Pak Shik city itself at thirty per cent, says that the language used there is mostly T’o. The T’o coolies from the interior who travel in groups have one or more Cantonese speaking or Mandarin speaking member of each party, who are evidently used by the T’o people to do their business with non T’o speaking merchants. The dialect which results from this mixture of races is called “Peng-wa.” A large proportion of the people living at a distance from the river evidently do not speak Cantonese or Mandarin, or at any rate do not speak it freely. Even near Napoh are villages in which not a few do not understand any other speech than the T’o. While the Roman Catholic priest at Pak Shik preaches in Mandarin, T’o is used by his catechist to explain to converts regarding baptism and doctrine.

In the river districts, schools are distributed about as usual in other parts of the province. Sometimes two or more neighboring villages have a school in common. Often rich men start schools and permit their neighbor’s children to attend at a small cost. Several girls’ schools were reported. Mandarin is taught. The explanations are often T’o. For example, the Catholic school for girls at Pak Shik has a Hunanese female teacher, and no T’o is used. There are many T’o students in all the middle schools. Some of them come from long distances. An instance is the Pak Shik Middle School, whose head-master is a T’o man, and which has thirty or forty students from Chan-an, about one hundred miles to the south. In the remoter districts the schools are fewer, some communities having none. It is difficult to secure teachers, owing to isolation and meager pay.

As to social relations, the Chinese in the region visited admit no social distinction between them and the T’o. Intermarriages frequently occur. There are, however, fewer Chinese women who marry T’o men than T’o women who marry Chinese men; there are comparatively few Chinese women in these parts. T’o woman’s position is improved by marrying a Chinese merchant. Schools are open to T’o and Chinese alike. Both attain proficiency as scholars, and are employed impartially as masters and teachers. High official positions are open to all alike. P’ingma is said to have a T’o man, Luk by name, as its representative in the Provincial Assembly.

There seems to be little difference between the T’o and the Chinese in religious matters. There are few temples in the villages, and the markets of the regions have small temples. The T’o worship chiefly at unroofed shrines and spots considered sacred. They also observe carefully feasts of seasons and of idols, make offerings of fowl, roast pork, etc., much as the Chinese.

Kwai-shun seems to be the most important city in western Kwangsi. It is a distributing center, midway between Pak Shik and Lung Chau. It is also reached by Overland routes via Napor and P’ingma. Regularly plying bands of coolies carry salt to the interior, and local products to the river towns, bringing back not only salt, but also iron, oil, etc., to sell. The population is said to be fully more T’o there and at Chan-an than at the river.

While Mr. Burkwall was making investigations as above, Mr. Fisher and I were making a tour northward from Nānning fū and return. We visited only two walled cities, Mo-yun and So-ngan-fu. Our time was spent mostly in the distinctly rural districts. We visited seven market towns and passed through many villages. The most northern point reached was about seventy miles from Nānning fū.

Our first night was spent at a market town called Mai Fa P’eng. It has a school temple and military station, with ten or more tributary villages. The people are said to be T’o and at the market place spoke both Chinese and T’o freely to us. The T’o speech here was nearer to that of Kweichow Province, as given in the Dioi Dictionary and in Mr. Clark’s Chung Chia Matthew, than is the T’o speech at Lung Chau, as given us by the Alliance helper there.

We visited the village nearest town, but went without an escort, and the people evidently regarded us suspiciously. One man was found who was willing to talk. He told us that they all speak T’o, and that the women do not speak much Chinese. Few men in the village are literate. Two or three boys attended school in town; there are no schools in any of the villages.

Next forenoon we stopped for breakfast at another market town in a fine big paddy plain. The people are said to be all T’o teachers. Shown some Tai writing, they manifested a polite interest, but their comment was that there is already a written character used.

That evening we reached the city of Mo-yun. It is the home town of the T’o Governor General of the province, a fact which he is not allowing to be overlooked. The road over which we had come was being put into unusually good shape. He has an extensive residential establishment. Adjoining it he has created a park, with lake, spiral hill, theatrical buildings, etc. His mother’s tomb is a prominent object near the city, and nearer still are memorial tablets to both father and mother. In other ways the little city, shows some signs of life. The English speaking telegraph operator, who kindly furnished us lodging over Sabbath in his establishment, says that there are in the city some four or five thousand people, all T’o speaking except three or four hundred Chinese. But the city people apparently all speak Chinese, in addition to what T’o is spoken. A short vocabulary taken was similar to the Mai Fa P’eng.

Educational work is strong here. There are two primary schools for boys and one for women and girls; also a middle school, which we visited. The master told us that he had one hundred and sixty boys, all T’o. In the lower schools all study Mandarin with explanations in T’o. But in the middle school everything is Mandarin. The telegraph master is of the opinion that sixty per cent of the men and women in town can read Chinese. He also says that there are no social distinctions here. Both races freely intermarry. The temples and religion are Chinese.

Our next night’s lodging was with a T’o family in a market. Its T’o name is Hau Lawk, Chinese name, Lok Wat. All the people talk T’o, the dialect being the same as at Mo-yun and southward. There is a higher and lower elementary school here, with sixty boys in attendance, mostly from the surrounding villages. The T’o master teaches Mandarin but does not understand Cantonese. He says that about forty per cent of the men can read Chinese; no women can read it. A person going into the country and speaking Mandarin would be understood by twenty to thirty per cent of his hearers. People who come regularly to market can speak T’o and some Mandarin and Cantonese. We are told that north of Se-ngan-fu a different dialect is spoken, but that it is intelligible to the people of this Moyun-Sengen region.

The next day we went to a valley some ten miles to the northeast and returned. The valley is named from a mountain bordering it on the north, Ta-ming-shan (Great-name mountain). It contains many large villages, and although said to be very malarial, is a fine paddy plain. At a village with the Tai name of Ban Sop Pan lives a Roman Catholic priest who received us cordially. We learned that there is one private school in the valley, supported by the people locally, with a hundred and sixty boys in attendance. There is no government school. Nearly all the men can write their names in Chinese, and know a few characters; few do more. A few women and more men know a little spoken Mandarin or Cantonese. The good priest is making a careful study of the Tai language. We saw on his table Tai dictionaries based on the Tai as spoken in northern Tongking and southern Kweichow. He is making out his own local word and phrase book. He says there are many dialects of the language in the province, but all have so much in common that he thinks them mutually intelligible to men of good intelligence. Three-fourths of the population is T’o. In this particular region there are no Buddhists. The Chinese look down upon the T’o. There is much of unfriendliness expressed on both sides, behind each other’s back. The T’o here have an adaptation of the Chinese character which a few of them know and use for writing love ditties, etc. We secured a specimen. The priest was shown specimens of the written character of the Tai of north Siam, and asked whether it would be worth while to introduce it. He replied in the negative. He has been working here for three years. He has made extensive inquiries and met many people. Mr. Kwan our interpreter, has traveled some distance north of here. From what he has seen and what the priest has heard they are in agreement that the same conditions as are here found obtain for a long distance northwards.

The next day brought us to Se-ngan-fu, the prefectural city of this district. It is a deserted-looking old place, but has a big market. The mixed dialect called Peng-wa is said to be prevalent in the city and near villages. We heard both T’o and Chinese, the latter chiefly Mandarin. Conditions are much the same as at previous stops. En route we passed several Confucian Temples.

On Thursday, August 31, we took tiffin in a market town called in the T’o speech Ban Law (Loh). The people seemed to be all T’o, and very free, not only in speech but also in manners. There is no school here, but in one of the tributary villages is one which is a feeder for the middle school at Mo-yun. Evidently there is a well articulated educational system in this whole region, and it is in fairly comprehensive operation.

That night we had the honor of sleeping in an inn built by the Governor General for soldiers en route. It is near an old and almost deserted market town called Sha Hoie. Here again the people are said to be T’o speakers. An hour’s travel the next morning brought us to the modern market, Law Höie (Loh hui). It has between two and three hundred stalls, arranged in the same higgledy piggledy fashion as Tai markets are apt to be. There is an elementary school here, upper and lower grades, held in what was formerly a literary hall. T’o is spoken by everybody here, including the few Cantonese merchants. The site of the town is good, and there is a large salt trade. After leaving the town, we met a large number of coolies carrying salt up from Ting Tong, on the Mo-yun river. We reached that town that evening and secured a boat, by which after some delay and change of plan on account of floods we descended to Nānning fū.

Here we finally had to change plans again. We had expected to ascend by motor to Lung Chau, thence travel overland two days to Lang-Sŏn, thence take the railway via Hanoi into Yünnan. But the unusual floods stopped all navigation. When at last a boat was advertised for Lung Chau, passage secured and baggage put aboard we found that there was no cargo or other ballast, and the vessel was top heavy from overcrowding of passengers. Only one-third the space usually reserved for natives to spread their mats on for beds had been reserved for our party of six. So we were compelled to return to Honkong, planning to enter Yünnan via Haiphong instead of Lang-sŏn.

Our second day in Nānning fū, one of nine days, had the edge of its disappointment taken off by the unstinted kindness of the Emmanuel Medical missionaries. The time spent here with that of the river journey to Hongkong were utilized in working up the report and findings of the tour thus far.

Yünnan Province

The narrative of this part is a little like the two chapters in Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad, which he entitled “The Ascent of Mount Vesuvius.” After rambling on in his inimitable style through both chapters without any mention of Mount Vesuvius (other than the caption of the chapters), he casually mentions that the party decided not to ascend Mount Vesuvius. Our party did not reach Yünnan province. But, unlike the Innocents, we planned to do so and did our best to carry out our plan; and this is the record and the reason:

Before leaving Hongkong for Haiphong, we invited the Rev. Chas. E. Patton, of Kochau Station, South China Mission, to accompany us. We did this in order to secure for ourselves the benefit of his counsel. Also, as he is the South China Mission’s representative this year in the China Council, we planned that the Council thus secure for a part of the tour that inside view and first hand knowledge of conditions which would have been secured for the whole tour had Dr. Lowrie been able to be with us. It is a matter of gratitude that Mr. Patton was situated so that he could come with us. For during the comparatively short time we had together, he made himself quite familiar with the situation as we found it in Kwangsi, and also entered with us into the compilation of such conditions in Yünnan as may be gained by study.

Sailing by first ocean steamer from Hongkong, we arrived at Haiphong on August 23. Here a fresh disappointment awaited us. The unusual floods that had turned us back from Kwangsi were reported to extend into Yünnan province and to have put the French railway quite out of commission. After two days spent in painstaking enquiries as to possibilities of being able to travel soon, either wholly by rail or partly by caravan, we were compelled to admit that it was hopeless.

Should we report on Yünnan now, or should we come back again next dry season? Desirable as was the latter alternative, it did not seem absolutely necessary. We felt justified in making recommendations regarding Yünnan and disbanding, August twenty-sixth.

For the tours taken this year in Kwangsi and Tongking and the plans formed for these parts furnished us much collateral information on Yünnan and threw additional light on the missionary plans and policy needed for southern Yünnan.

Again, what we may call a general stock of information on the province of Yünnan shows it as sharply contradistinguished from Kwangsi, in several particulars. It was several hundred years later in submitting to Chinese rule. It is the remotest of the eighteen provinces from the seat of civil authority. Its mountainous character renders it the most difficult of all the provinces to cover, either officially or culturally. Unlike at least that portion of Kwangsi inhabited chiefly by Tai speakers, Yünnan contains a number of distinct, non-amalgamated tribes, thus perpetrating a very strong non-Chinese influence in the province.

In addition to this stock of common knowledge, the committee had collected a considerable special testimony as to the Tai people in Yünnan, from the writings of Colquhoun and Consul Bourne. I may add that these testimonies are confirmed by those of the late Dr. McGilvary, Rev. Robert Irwin, Dr. Briggs, and myself, as to a limited portion of the southwest part; and by Major Davies and myself as to the remaining portion of Tai territory in Yünnan. In Kwangsi I traveled by boat only, in 1910; but in Yünnan I had traveled overland and had made much more investigation than in Kwangsi. Mr. Freeman had also been in southeastern Yünnan.

The consensus of this testimony is to the effect that the Tai speakers of Yünnan differ materially from those of Kwangsi. The former call themselves Tai, the latter do not. Beginning in the southwest, the Yünnan or Eastern Tai call themselves Northern Tai, Water Tai, Striped Tai, Black Tai, and Yoi Tai; generically, Pu Tai. The Yünnan Tai women wear a distinctive costume. The Tai-speaking women of Kwangsi dress like Chinese. All the writers mentioned note many distinctive Tai costumes in Yünnan; we found none in Kwangsi. And as late as 1910 the Tai people themselves represented to me in several sections where I made special enquiries, that none of them were literate in the Chinese character; in other sections, that a very few only were literate; and that they had not “entered” the Chinese religions.

The testimony of Mr. Colquhoun in the book Across Chryse tells us that it is a record of a journey of exploration, from Canton to Mandalay, taken in 1882. The narrative is packed full in most parts with detailed accounts of the meeting with Tai people in various places and under various tribal names. In Yünnan province the Tai are known by many names. Indeed this is true of all the non-Chinese tribes. For as Mr. Colquhoun says, “the number of the tribes is so great and their costumes so diverse that many require a lengthened study. The principal whom we had met were the Miao, the Lō-lō, and the Pai.” Here he shows his discrimination; for the Miao belong to one ethnological family, the Mon-Khmer; the Lō-lō to another, the Tibeto-Burman; and the “Pai” (or Pa) to another, the Tai. Prom knowledge of the Tai tribe which I have gained through exploration and reading, I will here enumerate the Tai tribes mentioned by Colquhoun in Yünnan:

(1) People from Kweichow, in the southeast corner of Yünnan, are called Chong-Koos, i.e., Chung a la Kweichow province, or Chawng, a la Kwangsi province.

(2) The people of Kwangnan-fu he calls “Kaihua-jen.” But as he afterward explains, that although there were many tribes at “Kaihua-fu” the Long-jens were the most numerous, we may assume that he found out after he passed Kwangnan-fu that the people there are mostly of the dialect and tribe called Tai Lung or Tai Long. He mentions these Long-jens, “the women of which tribe we found were remarkable for their cleanly, sober, yet dapper costume and appearance. One might almost fancy one’s self in a Norwegian glen on a Sunday morning, as we passed a troop of these tidy modest looking, yet fearless women.”

(3) At Mongtze several tribes are found. “The Teou-lao, who bear a high character in south Yünnan for their industry, hospitality and amiable character, are found mainly in the Men-Tzu (Mongtze) plain.” On approaching the town of Mongtze “smiling crops and water covered fields were seen everywhere, with Teou-lao women busy at work, the women making an animated contrast to the scene, with their gay and picturesque costumes.” Speaking of the market place within the gateway, which was “thronged with peasantry,” he says that it “presented a very animated scene, brightened by the gay colors of the Teou-laos and Pai women.” But the Teou-lao people are not confined to the Mongtze plain; for he tells of seeing them between Mongtze and Lingan-fu. “The village of Chee-kai and those in its vicinity are inhabited chiefly by Teou-laos.”

(4) Pai women have already been mentioned as among those who throng the market gate of Mongtze. This is a name very generally applied to the Tai by the Chinese of Yünnan, especially those of the southwestern part of Yünnan. Our author mentions seeing them at Kaihua, at a village in the Kaihua plain; says of the Red River, “The Pai are the principal aboriginal inhabitants neighboring the river. We saw many of them at Yuan-Kiang”; mentions them at Talang, and also three days north of Pū-Erh-fū.

(5) He mentions seeing at Talang “Laos (or Shans)” and “Mang-Lao.” He uses the terms “Burma Laos” and “Kiangtung, the Shan of Laos state.” Evidently he uses the names Shan, Lao, and Laos synonymously. This will enable us to understand and appreciate the force of the following: “The aboriginal people in the neighborhood of Szemao and the town itself bear in a marked degree, a more Laotian cast of features than we have hitherto seen. Indeed, with the exception of the costumes, one might often fancy oneself in parts of the Shan country.

“The Shan people or Laos were, the Sub-Prefect assured me, of the same race as the aborigines of southern Yünnan, and the more one sees of the people of this region and hears of them, the more one becomes convinced of the truth of this.

“The language and appearance of the Pai of Southern Yünnan resemble strongly those of the Pai or Shans of Western Yünnan. Both these again, in writing and language, as well as in physique, are the same as the Thai, Laos, or Shans of the Shan country proper.”

I will add that this enumeration includes most of the modern French Indo-Chinese States, all of Siam, and a considerable of Burma.

The reasons why it is not more generally known that there is such a large Pai population in southern China are at least three, viz:

First, foreigners are too apt to follow the lead of the Chinese and lump all “the aborigines” under such name as Mantze, Miao-tze or Pen-ti-jen.

Second, there is a paucity of foreigners in China who know the Tai language.

Third, and possibly chiefly, the Tai live mostly in the rural districts and hence away from the principal travel routes; or as Mr. Colquhoun puts it, “It is only in the cities of Yünnan that one sees the Chinese. The people of the country districts are all aborigines.”

Consul F. S. A. Bourne reports that the non-Chinese races of southern China probably form much more than half the population of Yünnan and Kwong Sai and are very much numerous in Kweichow and western Hunan.

Roughly, the space lying west of the Pa Pien River, Yuan Chig Chiang Chou on the north, Mengtzu Hsien on the east, and Tongking on the south, having an area of six thousand five hundred square miles, is ruled by aboriginal chiefs (T’u-Ssu) nominally subject to Ling Nan-fu.

The Shans (Shan is the English designation for Tai) are not found northeast of Yünnan-fu, the first we came across was at Yuan Chian Chau. But they were found at the lower levels all along the South Yünnan border, and from Kuang nan-fu along our route to the border of Kweichow. They form almost the whole population. They must have been masters of Kwangsi before the Chinese, for the Chen L’ai’s Yamen at Nānning fū and the examination hall at Kwei Lin are said to have been built on the sites of Shan palaces.

The Shan language is softer than the Chinese or Lō-lō, with fewer gutterals and aspirates, and appears easy to learn. The numerals show a curious resemblance in sound to the Cantonese.

The Shans call themselves Tai, Pu Tai, Pu Nong (or Nung) Pu Man, Pu Jü, Pu Chei, Pu En, Pu Yiei, and Pu Shui.

At Pei Yin Shan we stayed in a large inn kept by a Min Chia family. The women were dressed in homespun cotton dyed a deep black; their ornaments, bangles, earrings, buttons, etc., were of plain silver. Their agility, sleekness, and easy manner, set off by spotless black and shining silver, made a pleasing impression on our party. The landlord showed me with pride, his store of corn, wine, and oil, the sides adorned by rows of bacon. He told me there were about three hundred Min Chai families in this neighborhood and that they had migrated from Ta Li Fu.

The Topography states:

To complete the story of the two tours of 1913 it only remains to state that we all took steamers from Haiphong for our various homes. I arrived in Siam in time to attend the annual meeting of the South Siam Mission as delegate from our Mission in the North and finally arrived at home in Chiengrai on October 4, almost seven months from the time I started to join Mr. Vincent in the Tongking tour.

Have you ever studied a missionary map of the world? If you have you must have seen this gap: From the South China Sea sweeping northward, including Annam and Cambodia, Yünnan, Western Szechuan, and Kansu, over into Tibet on the west and Kwangsi and Kweichou on the east, this is the gap, one of the largest of the unoccupied fields of the world. And of this vast deplorably destitute region, the habitat of the illiterate Tai form no small part. From Teng Yueh to Canton, from north of the Yangtze to the Lower Mekong, this is the home of the from five to seven million of the illiterate Tai.

In the preceding chapters I have endeavored to put before you in detail this needy field; to show you the people where they live, their bright faces and gay clothes, their merry hearts, their open and responsive minds, and their friendly hospitality. I have been assisted in this by those who have preceded and those who have accompanied me in the work of exploration; culling from their reports and quoting from their published volumes.

In 1910, in three and a half months of actual travel, as nearly as it is possible to estimate distances in our western fashion, I traveled, nominally on pony but mostly on foot, a good round one thousand miles, from Chiengrai, Siam, to Pai-se, China, and from Pai-se in western Kwangsi riding three kinds of boats, a distance of seven or eight hundred miles to Canton. At least fifteen hundred miles of the journey was through China.

Without any collusion of plans, Rev. J. H. Freeman, another Tai missionary, made an exploring tour a few months before from Hanoi, Tongking, to Mengtzu, Yünnan, and return by rail; and from Hanoi again mostly by rail, to Nānning fū, thence by motor boat and steamboats to Wuchow and Hongkong. He made several stops and side excursions into the country. He gained much exact information in situ, especially from the Tai people in Tongking, from French officials and French publications, and from Catholic and Protestant missionaries. My later and longer tour supplemented his, and my investigations in a somewhat different region confirmed the conclusions arrived at by him.

My route in 1910 crossed the Black River and Red River valleys in Yünnan, then through Lingan-fu and Mengtzu to the head of navigation on the West River, striking Mr. Freeman’s route at Nanning. In 1913 in Tongkong, Mr. Vincent and I went by rail to Lang Son, almost in China, northeast from Hanoi on a branch road almost at right angles to the main line of the Yünnan-fu railway. Returning again to Hanoi the Red River was ascended as far as Yenbai. Thence we came to Vietrie and voyaged up the Black River as far as Cho Bo, the head of steam navigation, returning to Hanoi from there.

In our joint tour in Kwangsi in that same year, our party made a start by the West River boats from Canton to Nanning fū. There the party divided forces, Mr. Burkwall going up the West River to Pai-se as far as he could go by motor boat. Mr. Fisher and I traveled seventy miles directly north by chair, returning to Nanning by boat. Our inquiries and investigations on this joint tour extended over an area between 200-300 miles long, from Lung Chau near the southern border to Mo Yuen on the north; and 200 miles wide, reaching from Nanning on the east to Pai-se on the west.

Again in 1918, my wife and I came by rail from Haiphong to Yünnan-fu, stopping for three days at Mengtzu, then we traveled by chair from Yünnan-fu and Wuting to the Yangtze and back again to the capital; then by chair down the Yuan Kiang, crossing again the Red and Black River valleys on our way to Chiengrung.

The tours and the investigations connected with them settled in general outline the boundaries of the Tai people in China and Tongking, although some investigation yet remains to be done in Kwangtung and Hainan by missionaries equipped with the Tai language.

Mr. Freeman agrees with us that three-fourths of Tongking is Tai territory. The Tai in Tongking fall into divisions on the basis of religion, language, and geography alike.

The last literate Tai we saw were at Muang Lai. This is two days southeast of Muang Baw, or Wei-Yuan-Ting in the Tai Nüa country. It is on one of the tributaries of the Mekong. It is sixteen days from Lingan-fu and eighteen from Mengtzu and the railroad. Of all the illiterate Tai in China, those in the region of Lingan-fu differ the least in dialect from the Buddhist Tai.

At Yuan-Kiang-Chow on the Black River the Tai who are all illiterate and devoid of all religious terms expressed the judgment that in a month’s time we and they could understand each other perfectly.

Mr. Freeman also says in his report:

Since these various tours have been taken workers have been stationed at several different points in southeastern and central Yünnan, under the P.M.U. and Independent missions. A wonderful work has sprung up among the Nesu and other mountain tribes under Mr. and Mrs. Fullerton, located in Szemao. The C.I.M. are reaching out from the capital, and have been wonderfully blest in their work for the Miao and other mountain tribes in northern Yünnan. The C.M.S. are at work for the higher classes in Yünnan-fu; but these are all working only for the Chinese or mountain tribes, except for the beginning of Tai work on the Yangtze. The Alliance Mission have recently begun work in Hanoi and Tourane for the Annamese. But the Tai are as yet practically untouched.

There are, variously estimated, from five to seven millions of the illiterate Tai; say two million in Kweichow, one million in Kwangsi, I believe not less than a million in Yünnan, and a half million in Tongking. Compared with the ten million estimate of the Roman Catholic Fathers this seems quite conservative. These untouched millions of Tai are racially and linguistically one, living under two governments, to be sure, but so situated that their home is a contiguous mission field.

The French tell us that although Annam is a comparatively narrow strip of coast land, there are fourteen million Annamese. And there was not, I believe, until recently, a Protestant missionary at work among them. There are possibly two million Cambodians and they are also without a Protestant missionary. At present there are no Protestant missions for possibly half of the Tai race. Over 20,000,000 souls in this southeast corner of Asia are comparatively untouched by Protestant Christianity!

In no portion of even the China Inland Mission are to be found such gaps between stations as Mr. Freeman and I found among the Tai of the French possessions and of southern China. I traveled a thousand miles within the habitat of the Tai people in south China, and did not see a missionary, either Catholic or Protestant, for either the Tai or the Chinese. It was a Christless land that we passed through. A Christian man can endure a few days of absolute heathenism if he has a few Christian companions. But to foot it for a thousand miles without any sight or sound outside of his own company giving evidence of anything Christian, to march as boldly as may be for so long and so far against such a blank wall of heathenism; this is to enter the land of darkness that may be felt. It was pathetic to hear Ai Fu, my faithful companion from Burma to Canton, begin his prayers at that time with, “We two servants of God.”

Even though enlivened by spiritual exercises daily, and much comforted by the Presence which seemed to come after the experience with the bolting boatmen, the pall of it all was upon us for long afterward. Weeks after arrival in the home land of sweet Sabbath bells, and blessed communion of saints, and cumulative power of Christian churches and Christian associations and Christian charities and Christian culture and Christian light, I was awakened in the silent watches of the night by having lived once more in dreamland. Tear down all the churches, shut up all the Christian schools and hospitals and asylums, unfrock all the ministers, and let all the Christians apostatize and have all their Christian light and knowledge and culture blotted out, in the city of New York, and all the way to the city of St. Louis—let heathen temples and demon shrines and “the worship of devils” come in lieu of all that was fair and Christlike; if you have imagination sufficient for this, you will feel in fancy what exists in fact along the line of that journey to Nānning fū; and, so far as missions to the Tai are concerned, exists all the way from Kengtūng state to Canton. If I had gone south for another thousand miles, I would not have seen a Protestant Christian—as far as from Chicago to New Orleans. A Tai territory as great as from New York to St. Louis one way, and Chicago to New Orleans the other way, is still practically unoccupied. We had the bread and we said tacitly if not orally that it was only for us and our children. We had the Water of Life, and we are letting these millions die of thirst. We add house to house, and lands to lands, and bonds to securities, and we dress in silks, and we ride in autos, and we fly in aeroplanes. “Inasmuch as ye did it not to the least of these millions ye did it not to Me.”

The unspoken appeal of these ten million Christless Tai is reinforced when we consider the strategic importance of their position, both geographically and ethnologically. Their territories touch those of three of the great world powers, England, France and China. Political changes have been occurring among them and on all sides of them with kaleidoscopic rapidity. They are upon the very stage where political dramas are enacting, and they themselves are the unwilling actors in the play. Ethnologically, they form a large component part of the four hundred million Chinese. Since the dawn of history they have been closely allied with the Mon-Hkmer race, represented in modern times not only by some of the illiterate Tai tribes in China and Indo-China, but by the Annamese and Cambodians, numbering sixteen millions. They are older brothers of the five to seven million Siamese. They sustain close blood relations with Peguans, Shans and other races and tribes in Burma and Assam, totalling over ten millions. Gradually forced down from their aboriginal home in central China, God has centrally located them in the very midst of nearly half a billion of their fellow kinsmen. Let but a great Christian prophet arise among them; let but a Tai Neeshima or a Ting Li Mei sound his clarion call in their midst; and not only the millions of Tai themselves, but also their Chinese and Annamese and Cambodian and Siamese and Peguan and Shan and Assamese brethren will give him such an ear as they cannot give us of alien blood and foreign forms of thought and feeling. By virtue of kinship and of providential placing these racially purest and perhaps numerically strongest of the great Ai-lao race command the missionary situation in southeastern Asia.

But will they hold it? Will the prophets arise? God is not accustomed to making mistakes. This is an age of missionary conquest. The times are ripe. From the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh to the New Era and Inter-church World movements of these post-war days the various organizations springing up have sounded the call for world-wide missionary occupation. It would not be like God to have put the Tai people in such a commanding place at such a crucial time if He could not use them to good advantage and did not intend to raise up His prophets from among them. This much a priori; but he will yet be inquired of by the house of Israel to do this thing for them.

We can only hope and pray that there are some large things in store for these long neglected people, in this unoccupied territory. Having done what we could in the way we were appointed to do, it is now our special privilege to bear this work before the Lord of these scattered sheep in believing prayer. We have also lighted a little torch of non-Buddhist Tai literature and are ready to advance into the heart of this region of darkness and lighten a little corner somewhere and also to light other torches from ours. We wait only the word “go.” “For how can they hear without a preacher and how can they preach except they be sent.”

Can you imagine a battlefield one thousand miles in extent from north to south, and from east to west, lying in darkness, with only seven picket fires burning in the outposts to lighten the gloom, waiting, ready for the battle when the reinforcements come? This is the field of the illiterate Tai, under the sole dominion of the “prince of the powers of darkness.”

And the picket fires—where are they?

1. Beginning with this station recently opened in Chiengrung, Yünnan; which is not primarily for the illiterate Tai, but is on the border and is planning to reach out to the Tai Ya around us and farther east.

2. Off to the north west at Teng Yueh, the station was started by J. O. Fraser of the C.I.M. originally for the Tai but Chinese and Lisu work developed and little or nothing has been done for the Tai. Mr. Fraser says in that region the Tai number possibly a quarter of a million. They use what is probably the Tai Nüa business character but not the religious character; so like the Tai Dam of Tongking they are illiterate in any religious literature.

3. Up the Yangtze the C.I.M. missionaries are trying to keep their hold on a handful of Christians, encouraged by our recent visit and the beginning of a literature in their own dialect, and hoping that their boys who are studying with us here in Chiengrung may some day be the prophets for their own people. Mr. Metcalf was appointed to oversee the Tai work there.

4. Over in Kweichou, we do not know how much remains of the work which Mr. Clarke once carried on among the Chung Chia.

5. Down at Wū Chow the Alliance Mission has recently definitely appointed Mr. Oldfield to take up the Tai work among the Chawng people of Kwangsi.

6. Mr. Freeman speaks in his report of a Scandinavian Mission working in a district south of Canton which has begun work among the Tai there.

7. Down at Song Kōn on the lower Mekong in the Swiss Mission for the Tai, a single man, Mr. Audetat lives and works alone.

These are the picket fires, feeble flames as yet, and from 250-800 miles apart. And there is no organized work for the Tai millions within this circle. Oh that these feeble fires might become searchlights, that would reach out and meet and mingle and illumine this land of darkness!

It might be, who knows, with the use of common literature in their common language. Is not this gap in the map due in part to the failures of efforts to evangelize these people through languages foreign to their speech? God knows; and as Mr. Freeman says, “Is it not possible that God has delayed effort for this race in China till a concerted and intelligent effort could be begun,” based on a knowledge of the written character in use among the Buddhist and Christian Tai elsewhere. Let us on the outposts join forces in one grand advance to take this land for Christ which has been so long under the dominion of Satan.

This would be in accordance with the recommendations of the Conference held in Canton January 30-February 4, 1913, representing churches and missions in Fukien, Kwangtung, and Kwangsi, under the presidency of Dr. J. R. Mott, Chairman of the Continuation Committee of the Edinburgh World Missionary Conference, which says:

These help to form the big gap in the missionary map. At the time of the present writing, six years later, we as yet know of no progressive advance in all this region, for the Tai; unless this new station at Chiengrung, down in the pocket of the Yünnan southern border, might be designated as such, and the appointments of Mr. Metcalf on the Yangtze and Mr. Oldfield in Wu Chow for Tai work.

This is not only a great task, but also an urgent one. Never before was the conscience of Christendom so tender as to the urgency of immediate occupation of the world-field. The southeast corner of Asia is one of the largest of the unoccupied fields. The millions of unreached Tai people there constitute a large and important part of this region of darkness; let the church’s conscience awake and respond to the urgency of immediate occupation of this field.

Two special considerations emphasize the urgency. One is the certainty that the present simplicity and receptivity of the people will be lost through delay; we shall miss our great opportunity. The other is that through delay the people themselves will be lost. For, unlike lands where many agencies are at work, if we dally and delay, the work will not be done at all.

The advance waits wholly upon the church. Some missionaries see the vision till they are weighed down with its tremendous import. Never was there a clearer call. It is not optional whether the church will support and push this work or not. It is a sacred obligation and the obligation is long overdue.

And there is abundance wherewith to meet this obligation. The price of a first-class limousine will open a new station. The price of a “very best” car will suffice for its annual upkeep. How many Christians are riding limousines who ought to match every one by founding a Tai Inland Mission station? How many readers are riding automobiles who ought to be riding ponies, and doctoring or teaching or preaching to Tai Highlanders? In the call of the people themselves the church and the many organizations working for world-wide evangelization, who can fail to hear the striking of God’s hour?

The literate Tai are found under four flags: the Chinese, the British, the Siamese, and the French. One cannot but regret, in this age when all things are becoming new, the passing of the strikingly characteristic picturesque flags of some of the countries of the Orient, notably the Peacock of Burma, the Chinese Dragon, and the Siamese White Elephant. But when we consider what these changes represent, that the new flags stand for liberty, fraternity, progress, development, world friendship, and coöperation, we cannot really regret the passing of the old regimes or their historic ensigns. For the Peacock is replaced by the flag of Great Britain, the old Dragon by the five barred emblem of the Chinese Republic, and the White Elephant by the red, white and blue five bars of the flag of New Siam.

These all wave gaily over the different branches of the Tai race; and the people, while clinging with marvelous tenacity to the language and customs of their own race, are more and more developing a patriotism and a loyalty to the country and the government in which they find themselves. Religion, however, always formed the strongest of ties; and the literate or Buddhist Tai seem much more closely related to each other than to the illiterate non-Buddhist brethren who are even closer to them geographically.

The country of the literate Tai may be approximately defined by taking the Mekong and Red River watershed as the boundary on the east; extending down to the lower Mekong and the Gulf of Siam on the south; and overlapping into Burma and Assam on the west; while the northern boundary may be drawn at about 25 degrees north latitude on the Salween, extending westward over into Burma and eastward to a point at about 24 degrees latitude on the Mekong and Red River watershed. It includes the Tai Nüa and the Lü in China, the Khün and Ngio in Burma, the Laos State of French Indo-China, and the Yuan and Siamese in Siam.

Of the two branches of the literate Tai living in China, the Tai Nüa and Tai Lü, the one farthest north is the Tai Nüa or Northern Tai, called by the British, “Chinese Shans.” Among the principal districts of the Tai Nüa country are Muang Khwan, Muang Kung Ma, and Muang Baw. M. Khwan, according to Major Davies, is one of the largest and quite the richest of all the plains occupied by the Chinese Shans. The town is so surrounded by bamboo and banyan trees that it cannot be seen till one is almost in its streets. This is a common thing with Tai towns and villages. The town of M. Khwan contains 500 or 600 houses well built of soft bricks in Chinese style. It has a large monastery. The whole place is prosperous looking. The chief’s new palace in the center of the town covers considerable space.

Major Davies reports Kung Ma as one of the largest and best governed Shan states in the province of Yünnan. It contains about 300 houses, is pleasantly situated on rising ground with an excellent climate. It is a prosperous place with a good many Chinese traders. The town is built on a grassy plateau measuring about fifteen miles from north to south and about half this distance across. Two streams cross the plateau and most of the villages are situated along these streams, where they can cultivate their paddy fields, which are but narrow strips along the banks of the streams. The plateau is too high for irrigation.

Muang Baw, or Waw locally, the Wei Yuan of the Chinese, is named and famed for its salt wells. M. Baw is east of Mekong, M. Kung Ma is between the Salween and the Mekong, and M. Khwan is west of the Salween. There are numerous smaller Tai Nüa districts between and around these, and some Chinese towns, besides various mountain tribes. The Lahu are the most numerous in the southern part of the territory lying between the Mekong and Salween and the Lō-lōs are most numerous to the north and northeast.

The Tai Nüa people extend south to about 22½ degrees north latitude and number about 600,000. These people are the same in customs, dress and speech except that those to the east are probably more influenced by the Chinese in their local dialect and those to the west are more influenced by the Burmese and Ngio.

But this is a striking instance of what Buddhism has done for the language of the literate Tai. The Tai Nüa people, like most communities isolated in a mountainous district, use many localisms of speech. But the introduction of Buddhism from Kengtūng over 260 years ago has brought in the Yuan tam vocabulary, that is the vocabulary of the Yuan sacred books, rich in Pali religious terms, as the recognized standard, now prevailing as far as the Salween. This, their book language, represents correct speech, the same standard prevailing for all the literate Tai down to Chiengmai, 35 or 40 caravan days’ journey to the south.

What Buddhism has accomplished for the Khün and Lü and Tai Nüa, cannot Christianity do for the illiterate Tai “beyond the ranges?” Let us give them this standard written language of their own speech, books that they can learn to read and to understand when they read them or hear them read; and with this also give them, not a weary round of births and deaths, an arduous and confessedly hopeless system of merit making, but eternal life, the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. For all the Tai Nüa in Yünnan, there is no missionary work and as far as I know, not a Christian; unless, indeed, as I like to believe, the seed sown in years past has brought forth fruit known only to God, and we will find it “after many days.”

Our acquaintance with the Tai Nüa began in 1897 on our first visit to Kengtūng. We were not long discovering that “the butcher and baker and candlestick maker” was each a Tai Nüa man. Does the Sawbwa or Chief wish to erect a new court house? The contract for all the work is let to Tai Nüa men. They fell and haul the timbers. They quarry and haul the foundation stones. If they do not burn all the tiles and brick they at least haul them. And they are the carpenters and masons who do all the building work. Tai Nüa build all the monasteries, and the houses of nobility. They cut and haul firewood for the town, and the squeaking and groaning of their buffalo carts, which the Chinese proverb says is “cheaper than grease,” rends the evening air regularly at a certain season and can be heard a mile away. They butcher and market all the beef sold in the bazaar. Their fifteen large villages are the most industrious element in the population of the Kengtūng plain.

The Lü are a stay-at-home folk, good farmers; while the Khün are roving traders. It is natural, therefore, that the Tai Nüa should cross the territory of the Lü and settle with the Khün who are traders like themselves.

The dress of the Tai Nüa women is in marked contrast to that of their Tai neighbors, the Lü and Khün. Dress and turban are of dark blue or black, the surplice waist with just a narrow edge of white is tucked under the waist and the somber effect is sometimes relieved by a belt or narrow girdle of bright red. The skirt has a thread of white running through it in a rather indistinct pattern, making a grey effect, with a stripe which runs vertically instead of horizontally as in the gay skirts of their Tai cousins. Their distinctive ornaments are a heavy bracelet of silver filigree three or four inches wide, and large silver rings in floral pattern sometimes extending from the second to third joint of the finger, with a narrow band overlapping inside which can be opened up when it is to be taken off. They also have large plain silver earrings.

One day I found that the carpenter who was making pine tables for us had been born about twenty days north of Kengtūng. He spoke the language very nearly as we learned it in Chiengmai. When I was visiting him in his home, he showed me a book which he said he had brought from his boyhood home. It was identical with the script of Chiengmai in almost every curve of every letter. I could hardly believe it was written so far up in China.

One morning as I was coming home from the bazaar, I saw quite a force of Tai Nüa at work on street repairing under supervision of a local court official whom I knew. I stopped to chat a moment. These men told me they lived more than a month’s journey northwest. They seemed to have a slight brogue from our standpoint. They said that the sacred character in use there is the same as in Kengtūng.

Later we employed daily a number of Tai Nüa from Muang Ka in M. Baw, twenty days north. They pleaded with me on three occasions to visit their home. It was a severe trial to me to say them nay. They were working for us in the erection of a bazaar chapel. They were recent arrivals. It would probably be but a few years till they would become well off and no longer day laborers.

We grew fond of these people even before any of them had shown any drawings toward our religion. They were the original and genuine Tai from their ancestral home in China, and they were such good natured folks, so industrious and interesting generally. We found our way into their hearts too. They simply adopted us. The old carpenter used to stand in my door when I was entertaining callers, with affection, almost admiration, in his eyes, and tell them I was “our teacher” with an air of proud ownership. His sister was our washwoman, the one who prayed for me when I was starting on my tour in 1910. She grew to be almost like one of the family. But through all the time we knew them they resisted steadily our efforts to bring them to Christ in a public profession. I think they believed but they put off taking a public stand. The old carpenter was one of those who begged us to go and teach his people in their old home in China.

At another time I had a second visit from some Tai Nüa friends living in the suburbs of the city. They were going the next month to visit their ancestral home twenty days north and twice begged me to go with them to preach Jesus Christ to the dear Tai people up there. They spoke with an accent considerably different from that in our old stations but one soon became accustomed to it. It seemed wonderful to me that these heathen friends should come so repeatedly to ask me to go with them to teach their people. If these latter had not been in such a hurry to go, I should certainly have tried to go with them. However, the Lord opened the way for me to go later.

When we were in Kengtūng in 1898, a Sen, or official, living there got a tract from one of our assistants. He was a very earnest man, the most earnest seeker among the Tai Nüa. He had been all over the Yuan country, visiting every prominent pagoda and shrine, and also over Mandalay and down to Rangoon and even to Ceylon, the Mecca of all good Buddhists. On the latter trip he was accompanied by his wife as I remember the story. This tract was the first religious instruction he had received from Christianity.

He might easily have become the leader of a movement among the Tai Nüa of Kengtūng, both on account of his official position and also because of his reputation for learning and merit-seeking. He was once offered an inducement to learn English and become a clerk. But when he told me of it he said “I am an old man. I already have an office. I do not want to be a clerk, but I want to know about God.”

He was a bright man and it was a pleasure to open up the Scriptures to him. He had been frightened by reports that he was to be deposed from office and killed. We prayed much for him that God would give him courage to confess Jesus Christ before men. Soon after this he came to our house and invited Mrs. Dodd to accompany me on a visit to his home. He said he was very anxious for her to make the acquaintance of his wife, in the hope of the latter’s ultimate conversion. In response to this invitation we went with several helpers. His wife was very cordial and listened well to the Gospel story from a picture scroll. Tears came into her eyes at one time as Mrs. Dodd was showing her a picture of the New Jerusalem and trying to tell her some of its glories. She gazed long and thoughtfully at the picture and then said, “Oh! If I were only sure it was like that, I would want to go.” But something held her back. It was all so new to her.

She and her husband took us to a little loft or attic room where they kept their idols, their family spirits. There were many curious things there, foreign clocks, mirrors and vases, and things that seemed mere toys to us but to them they were wonderful, such as little mandarins sitting nodding their heads wisely when they were wound up. These were things they had gathered in their travels. Late at night and early in the morning we heard them praying up there among the nodding mandarins.

During this visit a family came who had been accused of witchcraft. The villagers insisted that, though the wife was the principal suspect, the whole family must come in with us in order to free themselves from the ban. So they came. The next day we went out and after consultation with the elders of the village, we had simple services in the house of the new family and tore down their spiritual shrines. We were more than doubly thankful to God for this beginning of work among the Tai Nüa people and among “those that are oppressed of the devil.”

At another time I went with my wife at her urgent invitation to visit a Sen in another village, with whose wife she had become acquainted and who were interested in our message. We were seated in front of a large picture of Christ as the Good Shepherd, which Mrs. Dodd had given them from a Sunday school chart. They said they loved to look at it just before they slept and after they waked. The Sen said he believed but confessed to the use of opium and said he could not stop it. He was urged to let Jesus cure him. His wife was tremblingly anxious for him to do so and said she would come with him but he was not ready. When the parable of the picture was explained to him, he said with the utmost gentleness, “That is like you. You have left all to seek those who are lost.” When we went again later they had no time for us and they went away on a merit-making expedition soon after and we never saw them again.

During that year two of the court ladies of Muang Baw came down for a long visit, accompanied by a number of their retainers. They were sisters, and the husband of one of them, a brother of the Chief of Muang Baw, had been for some years living in Chiengmai. He came to Kengtūng and met them there. As we had several Tai Nüa employees at that time, and had shown our interest in their people, these three members of the nobility called on us. They came mounted on ponies, the ladies wearing the most wonderful and gorgeous divided skirts of striped silk in all the colors of the rainbow. They were all very friendly and interested in every thing we had. They said, “You talk like our books.” We found them easier to understand than the working class, who, I suppose, used more Chinese and were farther from the book language. We were delighted with them. After the husband’s return, the wife and her sister called again, returning a call of Mrs. Dodd upon them. They seemed greatly interested in the Gospel story. Mrs. Dodd visited them a number of times and they had many a chat over the teacups. They joined their friends in importuning us to itinerate and evangelize in their country. Afterwards they were the ones to welcome and entertain me when I did visit their country.

Our first adult baptism in Kengtūng was that of another Tai Nüa head carpenter, Hō Sām. Without making any outward sign of special interest, he had heard us preaching and holding religious conversation with so many visitors at our house while he was helping to make our bookcases, bedsteads and tables that he had become a secret believer. When we came home one day from a tour we found our associates, Mr. and Mrs. Callender, and the children staying in a Tai Nüa village with many interested inquirers. Hō Sām had been taken with his fatal illness and had sent for the missionaries and was baptized, the first fruits of the Gospel among the Tai Nüa of Yünnanese birth, and the pledge and promise of organized missionary work among them in future.

In addition to these evidences of the Spirit’s working, there were several of our carriers who expressed real belief in Christ. Most of them said they were not yet ready to confess Him and take a definite stand on the Lord’s side, but one of them did so, to the praise of God. This man was faithful in study and attendance on Sabbath services. He was the third Tai Nüa to confess faith in Christ though only one was baptized at that time. Many of the fellow villagers of the two candidates for baptism seemed almost ready to accept Christ. Their home was close to our residence. Some of them were working for us. They seemed very much impressed with the fact that the man who accepted Christ on our tour had no fever afterwards, while his spirit worshipping neighbors were most of them down with it; and also by the further fact that the other Tai Nüa candidate for baptism, a “spirit woman,” was now quite free from all suspicion of “spirits” either as damaging herself or harming others. Surely, but how slowly, the light was coming.

Among the Tai Nüa from Muang Baw who came to live in Bān Sao Pêt, in the environs of Kengtūng, was a young girl. Superstition is rife among the Tai Nüa as it is among all the Tai people of the north, and the power of the spirits of the earth and the sky is a very real factor in their daily lives. But especially are those spirits feared and agonizingly propitiated in the case of sickness. If illness cannot be diagnosed by the spirit doctor as resulting from a disturbance of the stable equilibrium of the four elements in the human body, viz.; earth, air, fire and water, then the inevitable diagnosis is interference of some “spirit.” This interference may come from within or from without. If it is from within it is occasioned by the loss of one or more “kwan.” Each human soul is divisible by thirty-two kwan. If any of these are absent, disease results. If more than thirty-two are present, disease is equally certain. Sometimes also the ghost of some deceased one is supposed to possess some living person. Illness from without, therefore, may come from either the kwan of a living person or the ghost of a deceased one. When it is discovered that any one’s kwan, one or more of them, have acquired bad habits of wandering and giving the neighbors trouble, the spirit doctor goes through an incantation supposed to bring home the wanderer. Then strings are tied around the wrists, and often the ankles too, to keep the vagrant kwan at home!

Now when this girl had been but a year in Kengtūng suspicion fell upon her. She was a stranger and not well and strong. Either of these conditions would subject her to suspicion and dislike. She was accused of possessing a peculiarly malignant spirit which had been handed down to her, or left in her care, by her family. The spirit which she had brought down from China with her, was now troubling her neighbors and causing illness. It must be driven out.

The villagers, officials and privates alike, drove; but in vain. The abbot and the monks in the village monastery took up the case and tried by incantations and charms to exorcise this spirit; equally in vain. Now this village was under the special care of the Sawbwa, in return for the pounding of his family’s rice and the carrying of water for them by the people of this village in turns. Hearing of the audacious spirit which had dared to trouble his village, he sent his soldiers to drive it out. They came to the poor hut where the girl lived with her mother and grandmother. They laid her on a rude bed, bound her, and beat her, cut her with knives, pierced her with spears, and tried all other modes of torture usual in such cases; still in vain. The demon refused to leave her. As he could not be driven away, she must be. With a rope around her neck, she was driven out. Wild-eyed and haggard, she ran like a hunted animal and took refuge in a neighboring village with some relatives.

Our friends and neighbors said, “she will be coming to you next.” For this we were hoping and praying, but it was some time before she came. She appeared at our door one day in company with her grandmother. The old woman begged piteously that we would save the girl. She was told that Jesus could save her if she would give herself unreservedly to Him. Obeying instructions meekly she bowed her head while the charms were taken from her hair, and held out her hands and feet while the discredited kwan strings were cut from her wrists and ankles. This was burning the last bridge behind her. Then with a look of humble trust she knelt while we prayed a prayer of dedication and consecration; and then she was free.

When it became known that the power of the Christian religion had been secured in her behalf she was allowed to return home and live with her mother again. The malignant spirit no longer troubled the village. Living thus unmolested at home, she was under instruction for several months as one of our catechumens. While we were all away from home on our summer vacation, she was taken with fever. Weak as she was from all she had gone through, she lived only a few days. She died a Christian, and had a Christian burial. Think of what heaven must be to her after her terrible experience.

It will doubtless be of more than passing interest to know that the manifest immunity from “spirits” thus afforded the girl, together with an equally patent result in the case of a whole family of accused Lü at Muang Yawng, secured from the Sawbwa a circular letter directing his officials to recognize the fact that people who had taken refuge with Jesus under the teaching of our missionaries would become immune from spirits, and were not, therefore, to be molested in future by the civil authorities, anywhere under his jurisdiction.

Other Tai Nüa men and women came to Jesus for refuge. Our head muleteer in 1910, Hō Kōat, was one of the youngest converts. Their combined influence was added to the prayer of the heathen washwoman.

Soon after we were withdrawn from Kengtūng station and our people were left without a shepherd. It was the Tai Nüa people who came and sat down before us and wept over our leaving. It was they who escorted us out of the city a mile or more to a certain big po tree where we had lunch together and a prayer with them and sent them back home weeping as they went.

The tie that bound us to them was so strong that we went back the following year and spent three weeks with them. As our houses had been sold we lived in the nearest Tai Nüa village, Bān Sao Pêt, in a rest house in the monastery grounds. We started a little school there with about twelve pupils with a young man from the village, who was a secret believer, to teach them. This young man was married to the daughter of the head man of the village, who was doing all he could to oppose our work, but he told his son-in-law that he might teach or do anything else for us if we would pay him for it.

In those three weeks those bright Tai Nüa children learned the alphabet, the Lord’s prayer, the Ten Commandments, and committed five hymns. They could sing them too and sing them well. They were also taught a beginning of the arithmetic tables. Then the little yellow robed novitiates in the temple who had been daily interested visitors in our school, went to their head priest and said, “Those children are learning to count. They are only human beings and some of them girls at that. We are novitiates in the priesthood and you have hidden the book of numbers and will not let us have it.” The next day we had a polite request from the old opium smoking sot who was head priest, that as soon as it was convenient we move on. We had in the meantime built a chapel across the village square from the monastery. There we established the school and left the work in charge of a Yuan elder and what we had come to do being accomplished, we continued on our tour to the western part of the state.

When I visited them again in 1910, I found the work prospering. But later the elder too was withdrawn and the sheep were scattered. Some of them died, some moved away, and others went back to heathenism. At last accounts, only one man, Ho In P’ya, was left, faithful, staunch and true. I am sure we will meet many of them before the Great White Throne; but who will answer for those who were still wandering away from the sound of the Master’s voice; the many whom we hoped and believed would have been gathered in if the work had been allowed to go on?

For fifteen years the Macedonian call has been coming to us, “Come over into China and help us,” and now we have come. Not very far over to be sure; just three days over the border to open the station at Chiengrung. Look on the map for the pocket in the southern border of China in the province of Yünnan. This is the Lü country, the Sipsawng Panna, and in the middle of the pocket you will find Chiengrung, the City of the Dawn.

And we are in a pocket, sure enough; shut off from everyone and every thing belonging to the world we have lived in heretofore. We have neither post nor telegraph, though we have the promise of both. The nearest are six days away at Szemao, the official center of the southwest quarter of Yünnan. They hold our mail there till they get a man’s load before they send it on by official runners! Letters come more frequently. Often our papers are four months old when we get them and Christmas cards arrive on the Fourth of July. It is 26 days from Chiengrung, via Szemao, by caravan stage to the French railway at Mengtze; it is 24 or 25 days down to the Siam railway at Lakawn; and it is about the same distance to the Burma railway, via Kengtūng. The name of the town, City of the Dawn, must be largely prophetic for the whole country is “dark as pockets,” a spiritual darkness, generations old, the darkness of ignorance, superstition, and sin, such as is found only where the Prince of Darkness reigns supreme.

There has been a sowing of the seed in this Lü country for more than twenty-five years, since the first tour was taken by Dr. McGilvary and Mr. Irwin in 1893. The Word of Life has been sown broadcast in many of the towns and villages, accompanied by preaching; but it was only in hurried visits, usually of a night or two in a place. Now we have come to stay; to water the seed and gather in the harvest. Already there are green blades springing up. There are ten families of professed believers living in and near our mission compound. “First the blade then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.” These are only blades as yet. They need much instruction.

In the latter part of January, 1919, we celebrated our first quarterly communion. Only two Lü were baptized. They were an aged couple who were among the first converts here. The man is a fine looking old gentleman and as fine as he looks, a former Buddhist priest. The old lady is as bright as a dollar. With a pair of steel bowed spectacles she has learned to read quite well, and has committed a number of hymns and prayers. She has a remarkable memory. They were accused of witchcraft and would have been killed if they had not been rescued by Mr. Beebe.

Our second communion was celebrated on Easter Sunday, the latter part of April. Eleven men and women were received at that time, as catechumens. There would have been more than that number, if some who could otherwise have been received had not been absent from home.

The station was opened by Dr. Mason and Mr. Beebe October 15, 1917. The Mission compound has a fine river view. The town of Chiengrung is some three or four miles farther down the river but it can be seen from our compound. After looking over the situation for five days, the two pioneer missionaries selected the site, asked the officials for it and it was granted. They then proceeded to erect a temporary residence for the Mason family. Not a nail or hinge was to be obtained locally, and the nearest foreign shops were fifteen to twenty days away. Even the axes and mattocks necessary for this most primitive mode of building had to be made by a poor local blacksmith. But the house was habitable though unfinished when Dr. Mason, who had gone to Chiengmai for his family, returned with them, arriving in February, 1918. The house was made of bamboo walls and floor, with roof of grass thatch, tied on with rattan.

A house was built later for us, two stories high, with the lower story of mud walls a la Tai Nüa, as an experiment. We arrived October 26, 1918. A heavy storm in the following April wrecked both the houses. The mud walls on two sides of the house fell outward and were turned into their original mud. The bamboo walls were torn off, the wind going clear around the Mason house, ripping the walls off on three sides, and in a few minutes the rain drenched nearly everything the house contained. Many of the people were left roofless, some of them hopeless. Perhaps the one advantage in houses like these is that they can be repaired with comparatively little cost in money.

A permanent hospital building is being put up, built of rubble from the bottom of the river Mekong. This will surely defy the winds; but the building of it is a slow, laborious, and trying process for the missionary.

Chiengrung is called locally Chienghung; officially, by the British Kenghung, by the French Xienghong, and by the Chinese, Kiu-lung-kiang. The latter—nine dragon river—is the Chinese name for the Mekong or Cambodia. The town is located on the Mekong three caravan stages from the Burma border. It is situated on a steep western slope overlooking the river. It is so hidden by trees that little can be seen of it from the river excepting the numerous temples and the long sloping roof of the palace of the Chow Fa, or Lü chief of the Sipsawng Panna. This is a big barnlike structure, solidly built of beautiful woods of different kinds, once the pride of the country, now weather beaten and blackened by exposure and the touch of many soiled fingers. It is evidently one of the “has beens.” Horses are stabled under the house, and there is apparently no attempt to beautify the grounds, or even to subdue the weeds in the rainy season. It is the harem of the chief, and literally swarmed with people the first time we called, especially with women and children, all filled with “satiable curiosity.” There are enough children right there to start a school. The Chow Fa is a slave of opium. His sons are fine looking bright young men. One of them has been to Bangkok, which is very far traveled for a Lü man.

The costume of the Lü women is sui generis. The skirt of many colors is striped horizontally, with a ten or twelve inch border of bright green, and a display of four or five inches of the white underskirt trimmed with folds of colored cloth. The waist of dark homespun, in two colors in a shot effect, or of foreign goods in delicate tints, is made surplice style with a short tight waist and very long tight sleeves. It is always trimmed with bright colored folds beautifully hand stitched, with a gay imported trimming of flowered silk. The turban is black with a band of black and gold across the front. This turban is essentially Lü. So are their ornaments, round armlets of silver covering half the arm either above or below the elbow, and large gold or silver hair ornaments are stuck into the heavy coil of black hair on top of the head. But the most striking thing about a Lü debutante’s costume is the girdle, large heavy medallions of beaten silver fastened together with silver chains with a chatelaine at one side of silver chains with picks and probes and other toilet implements. Altogether our Lü girls when dressed for conquest are worth looking at.

The Chinese officials are building a new town three or four miles up the river from the old one, which is locally called Chiengmai. It is really on the site of the old city, decimated so many years ago that there is scarcely a trace of it now except portions of the wall and moat. The Chinese yamen or court is built of burned brick and is quite imposing for this wilderness place. It was about eight years in building; is the regular Chinese establishment, somewhat in the nature of a fort, as there are holes in the walls for guns. The chief Mandarin is called the Director. He has appellate jurisdiction through all the Sipsawng Panna. He says he receives his authority direct from Pekin and not from the Governor of Yünnan. He is quite friendly; knows a little Tai, but talks mainly through an interpreter.

Our Mission station is opposite the yamen a little further up the river, a large tract directly on the river, the finest site in the bounds of the new town. The city is open to the Tai as well as the Chinese, and probably few Chinese will come to live here as it is too hot for them. At present there are only the officials, the soldiers, and a few merchants.

Chiengrung is a sleepy old town on a magnificent site. It is so far inland that it is very primitive in its speech and ways. It is the capital of the Lü country locally called the Sipsawng Panna. This formerly included what is now the Szemao plain. Indeed, at times, the Chow Fa or Chief of Chiengrung extended his sway as far north as what is now Puerh. Modern Sipsawng Panna stops a little short of Szemao on the north and reaches to the Burma border on the south, and from the French border on the east, to approximately the 100th parallel on the west. This is the home of the Tai Lü but not their exclusive home. They overlap into French and British territory, and as former captives of war are now found as freemen in great numbers in North Siam. The speech, written and spoken, of the Lü is practically identical with that used in Chiengmai. A few words differ, possibly one out of a hundred, and the “brogue” is enough different to distinguish it from the speech of their Tai neighbors. The written form is the same as in North Siam, Kengtūng State, French Laos State, and the Tai Nüa east of the Salween. Including the Lü themselves, they number about 5,000,000 people.

There are 28 districts in the Sipsawng Panna. Each one consists of a central plain inhabited by Tai, and a portion of the surrounding mountains inhabited by illiterate hill peoples, many of whom understand and speak the Tai language. Hence each one of these 28 named districts, with five over in Kengtūng State, including M. Yawng, and four in French territory, including M. Sing, represents a number of hill villages and about twice as many Tai villages on an average. Some of these are large. Take, for instance, the district named M. Pong in the southeast corner. An authority gives 69 Tai villages, 30 hill villages, 2,500 houses, 12,500 souls for that one district; and there are 37 districts. Of course M. Pong is one of the largest. M. Long contains 2,167 houses, about 10,835 souls, mostly Tai, and able to read our literature and understand it if it is read to them.

Gauged by the time it takes to travel on foot over these mountains, it is a field of magnificent distances. Few of the districts are less than a day’s journey apart; many of them are more. Our field averages about 9,500 square miles, a territory a little larger than Belgium. Add to the size of the territory the fact that it is a very Switzerland for mountains without Switzerland’s good roads, or public conveyances of any kind! This is the back yard of Asia!

I estimate that there are in this field over three thousand villages. There are no big cities and few large towns. The population as given last year by the official interpreter of the Chinese Director here includes 70,000 houses of Tai who pay taxes. At five per house this gives 350,000 Tai in the Sipsawng Panna. In the nine Lü districts over in Kengtūng State and in French territory there are estimated 50,000, making 400,000 Lü. Add one-half for the hill population, which is the estimate given me by a court official, and we have 600,000 in all belonging to the Lü field.

Six tours had been taken into the Lü country from the North Siam Mission before the occupation as a Mission station. The first was in 1893 by Dr. McGilvary and Mr. Irwin, as far as the town of Chiengrung. The second was by Dr. McGilvary alone extending through to Ban Baw Hê where the salt wells are and through M. Pong and M. La, returning to M. Sing. These are both reported in Dr. McGilvary’s Autobiography. The third was my tour in 1897, only as far as M. Chê; the fourth the beginning of my journey across Yünnan in 1910; the fifth was with Dr. Lyon in 1915; and the sixth the following year was by our Tai evangelists sent out and financed by the Tai church. The churches also did much toward financing the tour of 1915. In all these tours the Lü people seemed especially eager for our books, and equally eager to hear the preaching and teaching that accompanied them. Many thousands of tracts and portions of scripture were distributed and many more thousands of people heard the Word of Life.

The best introduction to individuals is to meet them in their social and home life. With this in view, I will give you some incidents in the tour of 1897 when the field was new and impressions fresh and vivid. Meeting them around their hearth fires, in chats by the wayside, in social and official calls as well as the longer and more serious talks with inquirers at our stopping places in their temples, everywhere we found them—and found them in crowds—the friendly and hospitable, open-hearted and highly inquisitive Lü.

My first visit into the Lü country began on November 23, 1897, when I crossed the border between British territory on the south and Chinese on the north, and entered M. Law. We camped under a spreading tree near the Lum River. There was a big market which afforded a good chance to study the people.

A near view of the Kaw women—a mountain tribe—in their holiday dress gives one the very strong suggestion of Indian squaws. They wear shaker-shaped head gear made of wood covered with black cloth and hung all over with rings of braided grasses and strings of beads of silver and red and white seeds; these strings hanging down on either side of the face to the shoulders, ending in tassels of colored chicken feathers. The costume of dark blue homespun consists in a coat open in front with a vest with some gay applique work, a kilt skirt reaching almost to the knees, cloth leggings also ornamented, and a narrow embroidered sash with a pocket in the end of it. It is the most picturesque of all the mountain costumes. But the Kaw men are as stupid looking as the women.

The Lü of Chieng Law were not so good looking nor seemingly so prosperous or intelligent as the Khün people we had just left. Their devotion to Buddhism is less than their worship and fear of spirits more. We learned that officially the court makes offerings to the spirits. There was much opium used and yet the people kept coming and begging for books till we had to stop giving them, and all listened well. The P’ya, or head man of the place was a fine looking man of Chinese aspect. He estimated that of the Lü of his district, one-third of the men could read, one-third could barely read, and one-third could not read at all. Only one woman, his wife, could read. He said the Lü there are not accustomed to work by the day; but some of the hill men would work for a win a day—4 cents.

The next day one young woman went into hysterics on seeing me ride into the village! They had never seen a foreigner before. For about four miles that day we traveled through what only last year was M. Pan, a prosperous place of ten villages, but which since then has been looted by the M. Chê people, and is now deserted except by a few people in two villages. The next day we met a Chinese caravan from Tali to Chiengmai. That was one of the main caravan routes but not the most traveled one, and it was quite late in the season for them to travel at all.

About 5 p.m. we came in sight of the plain which last year contained a cluster of thirty to forty villages known as M. Hūn. It is a fine plain, little if any inferior in size to that of Kengtūng, but it is now all deserted, raided, and looted. The carriers did not arrive, so I slept on the ground in my clothes, using the tent mat as bed clothing. I slept well and did not take cold. I felt sorry for the men for it was colder than anything they are accustomed to. I got a good early start in consequence and made it to Cheung Chüng, 18 miles. We followed the course of the Nam Hūn to its mouth where it joins the Nam Ha, about three miles south of Ch. Chüng.

Our journey through the day was a pleasant one. On the site of M. Hūn I saw an octagonal pagoda such as are found in Bangkok. There is very little gold in temples or pagodas in this region, excepting on the small pagodas erected over the graves of priests and potentates. We passed through several deserted villages, the houses of which were still standing. Indeed the whole way lay through a fairly broad valley capable of sustaining a large population.

I noted many wild apple trees, thistles, and many oak trees. In damp places the flora was tropical, but elsewhere it was more like the temperate zone. The cattle were more like home cattle than I have seen elsewhere in the Orient. As it was late when we arrived at Ch. Chüng we stopped there for the Sabbath. The P’ya Lōng conducted us to a temple just outside of the little town. There we were fairly besieged by the Lü people. We spent a very busy happy Sabbath there in purely evangelistic work. We had scarcely time so much as to eat. People crowded upon us all day, to hear, to see, and to get medicine. The Lü impressed me as less civilized than any Tai people I had ever met. They are less polite and deferential, more talkative, even rude in their manners. But they are less timid, more sturdy, more hospitable, and more receptive. After all their rudeness is only external. It is Bohemianism run wild. They are untrammelled, free, virile, and as yet trustful of foreigners. Never before in any place, have I met such receptivity, as well as such unbridled curiosity. The latter reminds me of Canton. They take books, they beg books, they clamor for books. During the day and late into the night I was busy, reading, preaching, listening to others read, and teaching them.

Everywhere we went to visit patients or temples we were given what in America would be called footstools to sit on. Indeed there is real hospitality here. One is taken into the interior of the house and seated by the fire. It is the custom with the Lü to entertain guests from another province or land at public expense. So our men were in clover and our expenses were light. But the best thing was the crowds to listen and hear about the religion of the long expected Messiah. May we find this “bread cast on the water” some day.

As it was market day at M. Chê I took two of my men on Monday morning to market. It is about three miles northwest. Like Ch. Chüng, M. Chê is a city set on a hill; but nevertheless it is pretty well hid. Very flimsy bamboo walls surround both places. And the only thing one sees at a distance to indicate a town is a rather suspicious number of temples. As in Chiengrung, the dwellings are hidden from distant view by trees. The plain in which these two towns are situated is a large one and well watered. Not half of it at present is under cultivation. The Nam Ha connects M. Chê and Ch. Chüng with the city of Chiengrung, but it is not navigable.

M. Chê was looted only sixteen years before by the Chiengrung people, and everybody was expecting another raid from them soon. A report was being circulated that a large force of soldiers from there were then at M. Hūn, although we saw none when we were there.

As to topography, one can usually set it down that the country consists of mountains except in the places where good sized towns were situated. The valleys of the streams are wide enough to allow of irrigation and cultivation of rice, hence the towns. The temples are the universal inns in this country. There are no rest houses worthy the name. There are remains of big highways and bridges, and in some cases both are in sufficient repair to admit of use.

As soon as we entered the market at M. Chê we were surrounded by a large crowd. They were less noisy than similar crowds in Canton, and they were simply curious, not at all hostile. For more than an hour it was impossible for me to ride my horse or to stand erect anywhere without at once collecting a large crowd. As soon as possible I found the Paw Muang, Father of the district, and kept closely in his wake.

I noted that, unlike Siam and the Khün country, no reverence was paid to his presence. There was no “silence” made, nor any space left for him any more than for any one else. The appearance of the crowd was not prepossessing, some of the women were well dressed. And some of the grotesque hill peoples added a little to the picturesqueness of the scene. But on the whole it was a dirty monotony of dark blue cloths and dark heavy unintelligent faces. The contrast between the hill people and the people of the plain was less than elsewhere. Perhaps it was owing to the frequent wars that there was so little evidence of thrift and prosperity.

I was little prepared, therefore, for the meeting I had with the rulers of the place after dinner. I dined with the Paw Muang, used chopsticks for the first time in my life, as they are of universal use here. The court was in session and I found a set of bright, clean, sharp looking men. I passed in my passports and gave my itinerary thus far, and asked if I might go to Chiengrung. The authorities at once said “no.” Last year two British subjects were killed there. My letters would be, one from the British authorities in Kengtūng and one from the court there. Both would be distasteful to Chiengrung. Then they asked me if my King sent me on this embassy. To this I was enabled to answer in such power of the Spirit as has seldom been granted to me. All listened and as soon as I had paused plied me with questions. They said, “Come and stop in our city soon and stay as long as you wish. We are not irreligious people like the hill folks and the Chinese. We are prepared for the coming of the Messiah.”

I returned to my stopping place later and entertained guests till after ten o’clock, some of them men of rank and influence in the place. One of them frankly confessed that there is no salvation in Buddhism because one cannot keep even the five commandments, to say nothing of the eight. I pressed upon them the salvation of Jesus Christ. I abode at Ch. Chüng for five days for the patients were many as were also the visitors. Then I obtained a passport to return to Ch. Law. They were afraid we might be hemmed in here at any time by the Chiengrung soldiers. One night an alarm was given which proved to be a false one. But we did not know when a real one might be given. It seemed to me only prudent to listen to them in this matter, as it might be serious to be involved in one of these plundering raids; and the people were distracted with the unsettled and dangerous state of things. So we decided to return to Burma at once though by another route.

Buddhism is nominally strong in this region, but in reality it has a far weaker hold than in Kengtūng. There are eighteen monasteries in that plain of Chieng Chüng. One of the priests told me that in harvest time each house is expected to bring one bucket of paddy and one pan (three pounds) of pounded rice as a “harvest home” offering. Some give more some less, according to their ability. Of course this in addition to the daily offering of cooked rice. We had every evidence, however, that fetish has a far stronger hold here than Buddhism. The people are very superstitious. As an instance, they feared to tell me their own names, or the names of their rulers, lest my writing them down should bring sickness or trouble of some kind. We were told that there was some polygamy and much thievery. We saw some gambling. As to lawlessness, it is sufficient to note that while all the cities and districts of the Sipsawng Panna were nominally under Chiengrung, practically each district was independent and at war every year with some other district.

Just here I wish to remind the reader that the above is a picture of the political condition of the Lü country in 1897. We can see quite a change in the country in 1919, due to the stern and implacable, but I think on the whole kindly, rule of the Chinese head Mandarin or chief official, called the director. As a Lü man said to me, “the British now rule the Khün country and the Chinese rule the Lü country, so we cannot war with each other any more.” The border wars and plundering raids which so decimated the country are a thing of the past. The Director spends some months every year in these out-districts, wherever there is any disturbance, bringing them under order and control.

An example of the promptness and efficiency of his methods is a story told us soon after we came here last year. A drunken soldier in the market picked up a market woman’s basket of rice and hurled it at her, striking her in the chest. He was at once arrested and as soon as the woman died he was taken out and shot. The Director maintains a police force of Tai with only a small company of Chinese soldiers as guard. While brigandage is rife and all caravan routes unsafe even up to Szemao, in the Sipsawng Panna it is safe to go anywhere without a guard though the officials insist on our taking one. The Director is trying in every way to improve the country as well as the people. He makes roads and bridges, and washouts are promptly repaired. He says he would have had post and telegraph here long ere this had it not been for the war. He was previously stationed at the French border at Lao Kai on the railway for some years, and has many foreign ideas and some French manners.

With this explanation let us now return to the tour of 1897. As we were leaving Ch. Chüng there were many expressions of apparently sincere regret that we could not stay longer, and invitations to come and live among them. They offered to give buildings and everything we would need if we would come and teach them. The question “When will you come back,” was often repeated and has haunted me through all these years for I have never yet been able to return to them.

It was big market day when we left but the market was very poor—nothing except native products at high prices. From the market place as far as Ban Lung the plain was very sparsely cultivated, most of it lying waste. But from Ban Lung onward to the west end of the plain, some eight or ten miles, the villages are thick, the plain highly cultivated, the people seemingly prosperous. There were ancient bunds all over the plain but they were not in good repair, until we reached Ban Lung. Prom there on the roads were excellent, bridges over both streams and canals, tile roofed, and the cornices and gables ornamented with glazed tiles. I saw some glazed pottery in the market. Everything there tended to confirm me in the opinion that the Lü are more industrious and hardier than the Khün or Yuan are. They are smaller in stature than the Khün but the Lü are a bolder and sturdier race, with bolder faults and virtues. I have grown to love the Tai Lü.

They have village wells, walled and curbed with brick or stone, and usually roofed with tile or thatch. I saw one arched over with stone masonry. The covered bridges with seats on either side, inviting to coolness and rest and neighborly chat, are, I think, peculiar to the Lü country. Also the succession of crops, rice is followed by tobacco, pepper, peas, onions, peanuts, etc. Most of these are in large quantities planted by the acre instead of in little garden patches as in Siam. At our first stopping place on the return trip, we found the people curious, attentive but more thoughtful and respectful than farther north. They kept us up till late, singing, reading, preaching, and teaching. There were about forty houses in this village of Ban Nawng Pum. They cultivate hill crops like regular mountain people although they are Lü.

Later we crossed the divide and the brooks were flowing to the Nam Lam instead of to the Nam Ha. Here we met many Kah and Wah mountain women, going to or returning from their fields. They carried heavy burdens in baskets on their backs, suspended by a band across the forehead. In addition they do a bit of spinning en route to keep from dying of ennui(?). A short spindle is carried in the hand, the thread to be spun is fastened to it, a quiet twist is given by the hand on the thigh, and the whole thing goes dangling in the air, till Mrs. Wah thinks it is twisted enough; then it is wound on the spindle, a fresh twist is given and the process keeps step with the march. The husband carries his load and the baby.

Missionaries Crossing the Namyawng River on a Raft to Chieng Rung

A Lü Woman

Both the Kahs and the Wahs have adopted Buddhism and the dress and speech of the Lü people. Buddhism has solved the missionary problem by a process of absorption. The process has been slow but it has succeeded in changing them from wild head-hunters to safe and sane friends and neighbors. They now have temples and priests and use the Tai character. With changes of names and principles, these are the objects we seek to accomplish for them. Shall it be by absorption from the Tai Christians, or shall we give them regular doses of American Christianity? That they are industrious was evident. That may be partly because of their environment. They have a real winter here. Snow falls at times. All the Kaws, Kahs, and Wahs whom I met, except one man and one woman, had features resembling the Malay, the Japanese, and the American Indian, suggesting a common origin. Most of the men had scanty beards and one man had reddish hair.

Our stopping place that evening was near the “Footprint.” This is the work of a gifted imagination. There is a hard red sandstone projecting above the ground about ten feet at the north and sloping to the south. It is ten feet wide and twelve long. On the sloping top is an irregular depression, which one of our men said might do very well for a rice mortar; but which the vivid imagination of some one has conjured as a footprint of Buddha. So a small temple has been erected over the stone and pious inscriptions in charcoal written on it.

At Ban Mai Toy we found a Lü village of over a hundred houses. While the men were purchasing supplies I read from a tract on “The Way to Happiness” and explained it to a large crowd on a street corner. I had good attention and interest, and distributed a few books at the close. I noted extensive tea gardens near Ban Mai Toy. I have been told that much of what is known in commerce as Puerh tea comes from this region. I also noted at a little distance south of the village a little piece of boundary fence and a gate, separating this village from its neighbor. It probably also separates the territory of M. Law from that of M. Chê as all the villages we have passed coming this way are said to belong to M. Chê while from here on they belong to M. Law. At any rate this bit of nonsense in the way of a boundary line was better kept up than we have seen elsewhere. I was told that its immediate purpose was to fence out outsiders when the villages were having devil feasts. Steep as the road was in this region we did not see a hill that was not cultivated. There we saw much stonework in walls and in sides of buildings, stones dressed in fairly good masonry.

We spent a Sabbath there at Ban Hee in an old temple on the hillside. We had a regular sermon in the morning, and numerous talks during the day. The old head priest could not deny that only the dead body of Buddhism is left here, its spirit having departed. In the evening I had a long talk with a Lü official, a Lung Sên. He seemed to be really convinced of sin by the power of the Spirit. He asked for a Bible to show him the way of salvation. I gave him a copy of our Chiengmai Bible. He talked till late at night. At the close he urged us to stay longer. The head priest attended evening service and seemed quite interested. I told him of our custom on a journey of teaching our men to read. He was pleased; said it was a good custom.

Our evening prayers were well attended by the villagers there, partly owing to a custom prevalent of young people of both sexes visiting the temple grounds on moonlit evenings. There was music and dancing and games in grotesque costumes—“masquerade balls.” How much religion there is in it, and whether there is real evil connected with these promiscuous gatherings or not, or whether they were only innocent amusements at the only place of public resort in the village, I do not know. But I do know that from a Buddhist point of view they were improper on temple grounds and that it was sinful for the priests to attend. So far from their not looking at a woman, they beat the drums and gongs and led in the dancing and games. Indeed Buddhism is only a corpse here. May the true religion soon supplant it. We left the next morning with friendly good wishes from the villagers as we filed past their dwellings. At noon we arrived at the Burma-China boundary and rested under the big tree, our old camping place.

In the evening there came a man to me begging me to take back the four rupees I had paid to a certain woman, when I was there before, for head dress, skirt, and jacket. He said that ever since then she had had fever and had dreamed about that head gear. The trouble was, he explained, that she had forgotten to tie up her Kwan—the thirty-two theoretical entities or components of man according to their superstition. Some of the Kwan had adhered to the clothing; and their absence had caused the disturbance of the equilibrium of the woman and fever had resulted. I tried to persuade the man to let me try quinine on the Kwan but he would not hear to it. Finally he asked to cut off a few threads from each one of the garments. To this I readily consented. These he was to return to the women in the hope that the stray Kwan would adhere to them and thus be restored to their proper owner.

At M. Pan I intended to take dinner and pass on but they urged me to stay and teach and heal and I concluded the hand of the Lord was in it. One old lady wept at the recital of Divine Love as shown from the picture chart, and asked the younger people how they could keep from weeping too.

At Ban Nawng two young head priests of their respective monasteries came to see us and did all they could for our comfort. They read “The Way to Happiness” and very gladly received copies of Luke and John. They said they would teach them to their parishioners. We crossed the Luie River at the ferry on two boats with a bamboo bridge connecting them. The Luie is a beautiful stream.

We camped at M. Yu, a picturesque little walled city on a hill. I left my men there and escorted by a Yu official I went over and spent the night with the Chief of M. Luie, who is perhaps the most intelligent official of that region. He asked me a great many questions about Christianity and also such questions as these: What is under the earth? How many stories are there of the heavens? What causes eclipses of the sun and moon? What causes the change of seasons? What is heat? What is cold? Why are there 29 and 30 days alternately in the months of this country? He believes Christ to be the Messiah whom the Tai people are expecting but cannot understand why He permits the killings of animals.

The next day brought me to M. Yawng. Here I met Dr. Briggs and Mr. Irwin, according to agreement. We were taking a joint tour and separated to go in different directions making this our final meeting place. M. Yawng is the southernmost of the Lü districts over in Kengtūng State. We have since had a promising work there. It has lapsed sadly now but there is still the nucleus of a church connected with the Chiengrung station.

In the tour Dr. Lyon and I made in 1915 we traveled from the extreme southern border of the Lü country at M. Len in Kengtūng State to Szemao, a day beyond the northern boundary; two weeks of actual travel from north to south in the Lü country. On our return we visited all the five markets in the Chiengrung plain and some large districts to the south, M. Hê and M. Ham.

We were a good portion of the time in a part never before visited by a missionary. Village after village and official town after official town begged us to stay and preach longer and sell more medicine. We had royal receptions everywhere. There was a clamor for our books. We had two mule loads of literature contributed by Christians in Siam, consisting of two booklets of twelve and fourteen pages each, some 13,000 booklets in all, to be distributed in pairs, one of each kind. As one of them consisted in large part of direct Scripture quotations and both were as Scriptural in teaching as we knew how to make them, it was like scattering thousands of leaves of Divine healing broadcast.

I wish my readers could have been with Dr. Lyon that Sunday morning at the Upper Lōng market and shared with him the first impressions. We first set up the gramophone which soon attracted a goodly portion of the marketers. Our good host the “Father of the District,” i.e., the official whose duty it is to look after strangers visiting the district, picked out a good place for me to hang up a roll of pictures of scenes in the life of our Master. These I used as texts for sermonettes. Meanwhile our faithful assistant, Elder Noi Kan, had begun the distribution of the booklets. Dr. Lyon’s eyes opened wide as he saw hands reached out towards the Elder from all sides of the crowd. Soon he was assisting the elder in sorting and handing out the books, keeping the gramo going at the same time. And soon the clamor was so great, “Give me two of the sacred books,” that I left off the preaching and joined in the distribution. Two days later the scene was repeated in the market in Lower Lōng. As we traveled we distributed many of the leaves of life. Altogether we left more than a thousand in the Lōng plain.

My greatest surprise, however, was sprung when we went to the big market in Chiengrung town the next morning after our arrival—another of God’s timings. In 1910 I had rather dubiously recorded that the market here was probably a good sized one, and a good center for book distribution. I took over to the market this time four bundles of books, 700. Before long these were exhausted and I went back and got another armful. Dr. Lyon managed to keep the gramo going but most of the time he was as busy as the elder and I were in sorting and handing out books. We worked so fast that our arms ached and still we could not keep up with the impatience of the crowd. I can see yet those hands stretched out from all directions and can still hear the insistent calls, “Give me two of the sacred books.” Once more and still once again I went to our stopping place with the Father of the District and ran back to market with an armful of books. When the market was over we counted and found that no less than two thousand books had been distributed that morning.

Some results of this book distribution come to our notice at times. During my visit to M. Chê in 1897 an official who was a P’ya received a tract. He believed its teaching and carried it with him till the day of his death, hoping to hear more. Some seven or eight years later he was killed in one of the raids on the town. His wife and son fled for their lives to M. Yawng. There they found the Baptist workers and were baptized. Later they sent the woman down to Chiengrai for eye treatment as she was nearly blind. She went down with me on one of my tours. Dr. Lyon succeeded in saving one of her eyes and this year she and her son returned to her old home in Chiengrung, where she has many relatives and friends. Her former rank and influence makes interested listeners everywhere she goes as she proclaims the power of the Gospel to save.

Here in Chiengrung in 1915 the Chow Lōng, 2nd Chief of Chiengrung, told me that he still had the tracts I gave him in 1910, and he believes them good and true teaching. He said he had quieted the fears arising from silly rumors that we are going to feed the Yak (dragon) with all who take our books.

In our first tour this year at M. Yang, a day north from here, a woman came to listen to the reading of a tract, who frequently exclaimed, “I know that is true.” Her face was drawn with sorrow and weeping. After the crowd had gone I sought her out and heard her story. Her son, a fine young man, had received a tract from me on my tour of 1915. He carried it with him day and night. He believed what it taught and tried to get his friends to believe it. Last year he was drafted as a soldier and sent down to Chiengrung. He hoped to see Dr. Mason and learn more about Jesus but before he had an opportunity to call on him, he was taken sick and died suddenly. People said the demons had got him and his father and mother had wept day and night for a month. We told her that if her son died believing in Jesus he had gone to be with him. At once she seemed to accept this as true of her son. Her sad face lighted up and her burden seemed to roll away. When we saw her again on our way home her face was shining and she said, “I have not wept since you told me that.”

Soon after the station was opened here, one Sunday at the morning service in Dr. Mason’s house, eight men who were strangers attended. When the collection was taken up they were passed by, but each one got up in turn, came forward and dropped in his coin, with the uplifted hands with which they accompany their Buddhist offerings. When told that this was a Christian offering and not to any idol or to make merit, the eldest of the party answered by opening a small parcel and producing several portions of Scripture. He said that he had received them from me some two years before when I visited in their village.

After we arrived we made our first tour to their village, three days away. They seemed almost ready to cut loose from their old moorings and launch out on the promises of God, but they wanted a general movement. They were anxious to be delivered from the thralldom of demons but not willing to forsake their sins. Some of the women asked if they learned to sing, would it keep the demons away from their homes. One woman said she put our books on a shelf and worshiped them. We lived in their temple, my wife and I, and taught day and night the people who came to us and we visited in their homes but still they were afraid. One man said, “You have visited us three times in our village. The first time we did not understand at all what you told us; the second time we understood a little; and this time we understand clearly. When you come again some of us may be ready to accept.” The head man said, “You need not stay longer. When we are ready to come in I will let you know.”

Some day we will hear of a rich harvest from this seed sowing, for God has promised that His Word will not return unto Him void.

Here in the station visitors throng our homes till our home life is like a protracted tour. Regular classes are conducted both for men and women for Bible study, reading, and singing. A Sunday school has been organized with an enrollment of forty. There are some fifty adherents in this second year of the work. Sixteen districts have been covered by tours this year besides the work in Chiengrung plain. In each of these villages we found interested people who seemed almost ready to accept Christ. Many people expressed the conviction that the Christian religion would soon triumph over all other religions. But we also found a large amount of fear and distrust. Much illumination by the Holy Spirit is necessary before the ordinary devil-worshiper and idolater can even take in spiritual truth. In most cases this is a slow process and we must be patient as well as prayerful.

But “the outlook is as bright as the promises of God.” The Lü people will yet accept the healing of the Great Physician. And we know that they will make good Christians. For there is no better element in our north Siam churches than that which has emigrated from this Lü country.

The Kün and Lü Tai are so closely allied, both racially and geographically, one in language and religion, that they are commonly mentioned together; the Kün and Lü. But there is a marked difference, both in their appearance and their characteristics. The Kün are taller and fairer than the Lü. They claim by an ancient tradition to be descended from the Japanese. Their features are finer and better. The nose is not so flat and sometimes there is enough bridge to make it almost aquiline.

The most striking contrast, however, between the Kün and Lü is seen in their manner and disposition. Unlike the brusque and boisterous Lü, his Kün neighbor is quiet and gentle always. As the Chow Fa or Sawbwa said one time to me in effect, “Why should I bluster and storm and work myself into a temper over a thing. If I say a man’s head must come off, it comes off just the same without my making a row about it.” As a matter of fact, I believe the power of life and death is no longer in the hands of the Kün chief, but this calm and serene view of life, this quiet and gentle manner of innate refinement is characteristic of the Kün, both men and women.

The Kün woman has a grace of carriage that is all her own. But for this there seems to be a reason. Apparently, they must walk straight to keep their hats on. They wear a very large broad brimmed stiff hat, resembling the Chinese hat. This is perched on top of the turban in a way that would be impossible if the women were running to catch a street car. The Kün woman carries her hat as the colored wash woman carries her basket of cloths, or as her sisters in the nearer Orient carry a jar of water; and combined with the very long and narrow skirt, this produces the same erect form and slow rhythmical and graceful swing.

The difference in costume of the Kün and Lü is largely one of color. The turbans and waists are always gaily tinted or sometimes cream color, in the court dress especially. There is more variety in the color of their skirts. One of different shades of light green and one of shades of rose are much worn. The harmony of colors in a Kün costume is remarkable. The skirt with the many colored stripes and the dark green border is used in the ordinary court dress. To this is added a second border of large flowers solidly embroidered in gold thread, each flower, four or five inches in diameter and costing a rupee a flower. In the body of the skirt also is there woven much gold thread, and the border of green velvet is bordered on either edge with sequins in silver tinsel put on in points. The same sequins trim the two or three inches of underskirt showing, which usually trails on the ground. With gold embroidered slippers, gold bracelets and many gold ornaments in the hair set with spangles, you want to get a Kün princess out in the sunshine to see her sparkle.

Chow Nang Wen Tip, the Chow Fa’s older sister, was married to the Chow Fa of Chiengrung. She made her home in the Lü country but retained her Kün dress. She was a great trader and made frequent, almost yearly, trips down through Siam with a retinue, sometimes going as far as Bangkok. She had relatives in Chiengrai, and when she rode through the market in her state robes with gold trappings on her pony her coming was the event of the year.

The Chow Fa of Kengtūng, the Kün chief, rides a very richly caparisoned elephant. His state robes are entirely of cloth of gold, and his pagoda-like coronet or tiara is also covered with gold. There is one big procession during the year, when the Chow Fa goes out to take his annual bath in the hot sulphur springs, about an hour’s ride across the plain to the southeast. He remains there five days. On his return he rides his small elephant with no more sign of rank than the large white satin umbrella carried over him. When he arrives at a rest house outside the city gate, just below our mission compound, he stops to change into his state robes. His large elephant gorgeously arrayed is waiting for him, also a large concourse of people. It is always on big bazaar day that this procession takes place, and the market is thronged. As soon as the procession appears everything stops and there is almost absolute silence as the Chow Fa passes slowly through the market until he disappears into the grounds of his palace. It is most impressive. In some cities such a silence would not be appreciated. It might show a sullen or sinister feeling, the lull before the storm. But with the Kün people the great hush expressed more of homage than the hurrahs of an European populace or the vigorous applause of an American assembly would have done.

The Chow Fa or Sawbwa, according as you take the Kün or Burmese pronunciation of it, whose name is Chow Kün Kian Tutaleng, although so quiet and unassuming, unprepossessing in his appearance and with a habit of stuttering when he is embarrassed, yet commands the respect and deep affection of his people and the confidence and esteem of the British government. He is a K.S.M., wears the Delhi Durbar medal, and has a salute of nine guns.

He was always most friendly to us personally and favored our work in many ways. When we first came to Kengtūng to live, in April, 1904, of course it was not the first time we had been there. We found we had friends of years standing among all classes. God used this fact from the first to facilitate our work. Grounds for our temporary residences were secured free within a short time of our arrival. Later the Chow Fa had his court deed to us a lot upon which to erect a street chapel. They also promised to secure for us a good site within the city for a day school. They selected one at the edge of the market. We bought it from an Indiaman, who took from the price of it one hundred rupees as a donation to our work.

The Chow Fa also issued a proclamation of religious tolerations, much like that of His Majesty the King of Siam. I received eleven copies with the official red seal. Never before had it been our privilege to live where all the local officials seemed so friendly as among the Kün. We have always had some good friends among the nobility in Chiengmai, and the other stations where we had hitherto lived and worked. But all officials here seemed as friendly as the few did in other places.

Not only so; but in addition the Buddhist monk and the abbots and even the Bishop of Buddhism were unusually friendly. Hardly a day passed after we were settled in our home, that we did not have calls from some of these, or that we did not call on some of them in their monastery.

Our new station was placed at the best possible point strategically to gain speedy access to the greatest number of people. Being the Capital, to it the tribes go up. Twice yearly all the eighty-six districts of the state are represented at the Capital by their officials. The first of these annual festivals came at the time of their New Year, about the middle of April. At that time we received from the Chow Fa an invitation to attend the ceremony of taking the oath of allegiance in his palace. We knew it was not very safe to attend anything in the Tai country at the time of the New Year. The custom seems to be universal among all the Tai, of throwing water at that time. But never have we seen it carried to such an extent as among the Kün. To appear on the street dressed in your best during the three days of the New Year festa was taken as a challenge, and friends darted out from unsuspected doorways with cups of cold water, and squirt guns lurked around the most innocent looking corners. But we accepted the invitation, and found the streets quiet, sane, and safe.

The Chow Fa was seated in his state robes on a high carved chair, which had a history dating back many generations. Around him sat in solemn state the members of his court and the delegates from far and near; with men, women and girls in their gayest dress as spectators. One after another the officials made obeisance, gave their offerings, and repeated their pledges of fealty. This went on for about an hour, and during that time our eyes kept wandering to the big jars of water set by each of the tall pillars, with silver bowls.

Suddenly the Chow Fa disappeared, returning soon dressed in his every day clothes. This was the signal. Then we noticed that the great wooden doors of the big Assembly Hall were closed, and a tall Sikh stationed at each one. Mrs. Dodd had been having fever and feared a chill. I asked the Chow Fa if there was any way she could escape a wetting. He laughed and said, “There wont be any dry place except my bed.” Needless to say, she did not avail herself of that refuge. There was nothing for it but to join in the sport and try to give as generously and as copiously as we received.

High carnival followed, shrieks and screams of laughter and running to and fro, pursued by the dignitaries of the palace, the court, and the eighty-six districts all anxious to pour water over us. They did not think they had treated us with proper respect if they had failed to assist in performing this rite in our behalf. When it was evident that there was not a dry spot anywhere in the place, the doors were opened and with much laughter and glad farewells we escaped. Warm cloaks were waiting with our ponies and we rode home with no ill effects. This was not only a unique and interesting experience but it was well worth while as a way into the hearts of the people. From that time they were won.

There were two other New Year festivals while we were in Kengtūng, but none like that one. The next year the big wooden palace was torn down and an imposing brick edifice was begun. It was built by Indiamen, of Indian architecture. It was several years in building. Meanwhile the Chow Fa lived in a bamboo cottage with no place for large assemblies.

The other festival occurs at the close of Buddhist Lent. At this time the Chief gave a dinner at which I told him that I should like to become acquainted with all the head men of the principal districts. He directed me to send him a written request specifying those I wished to have call on me, saying he would send them around. This he did a few days later. As a result, we entertained more than twenty officials from all over the state. We gave them tea and cake and preached to them and gave them books which they promised to read and have their people read. Many of them insisted on our itinerating within their districts that dry season. One of them insisted that we must get a teacher to come to his home town and start an evangelistic school, we missionaries making flying visits monthly. He promised us the free use of a large building for this purpose, and also his influence in getting pupils.

At this autumn festival a Burmese custom was followed. Huge floats were made of gigantic men and women, birds and beasts. The most impressive of these was a large dragon, carried by ten or twelve men. It was made of paper with lights inside, with red glass balls for eyes. It looked quite fierce. The men in charge of these floats danced before the houses in the evenings to the beating of gongs and drums, when a small offering was made.

But the big affair was held down on the green in front of the Chow Fa’s place. Here a maze was made of a low bamboo fence on either side of a narrow path, which wound about and in and out, coming back to the starting point. It was said to be a mile long. Lights were set on top of the fence on either side, making a brilliant scene. The Chow Fa and his family and guests sat in his pavilion, the court ladies dressed in their most sparkling gowns; and throngs of people came from all over the city and plain. We went with the Chow Fa’s family to “tread the maze,” preceded by a native band and followed by the people. Lighted candles were given us at the entrance. Half way through the maze we came to a grand stand where were several idols, and the candles were placed before them as offerings but the placid faced Buddhas showed no change of countenance as we passed them by on the other side.

After the people had gone through, the floats danced their way through the maze. The great dragon twisted and turned and doubled and wound its way through with truly realistic effect.

The Kün country is what is called by their British rulers, the Southern Shan States. But Shan is used by British writers as the equivalent of Tai as the generic name of the race, and could be properly applied to the Siamese and Yuan as well as the Ngio or Western Shan. The Kün are the people familiarly known to our friends at home as the Laos of North Siam, here called the Yuan. Let no one be disturbed, either, by the British Government’s arbitrary spelling of the name of this state and its capital, Kengtūng. It stands for what is pronounced by the Burmans and the majority of the Tai of the state as if spelled Chiengtung. So, although there are Western Shan in Kengtūng State, the most of them are west of the Salween River. The eastern part of the state, M. Yawng, is inhabited by Lü people and the various mountain tribes, the central plain is the home of the Kün, and they are found in the valleys throughout the western part of the State, even west of the Salween. So we were still among our own dear Laos people and the very name of the place had a homey sound. It was our third Chieng—first Chiengmai, then Chiengrai, and then Chiengtung; and now the fourth is Chiengrung, the capital of the Lü country. Chieng means a walled city.

Kengtūng State has Siam on its southern frontier, China on the north and French Indo-China on the east. It extends from the Mekong to the Salween and also has territory west of the Salween. It is tributary to Burma and is therefore under British rule. The Burmese suzerainty of the state came to an end in 1882 amid the general anarchy of King Thebaw’s reign. The state is a series of mountain ranges running north and south of an average height of 5,000 feet, with peaks rising to 8,000. Writing of the Shan states, Sir George Scott says: “Kengtūng, which is the largest, has with its dependencies an estimated area of 12,000 square miles—that is to say, it is about the same size as the four English counties of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Lincoln, and Hertfordshire.” For Americans it will come a little closer home to say that Kengtūng State is considerably larger than the combined area of the Sandwich Islands and Porto Rico; and only slightly smaller than the states of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Jersey combined, or than a merger of Massachusetts and Connecticut would be.

Kengtūng State is not the only Burmese territory, however, where the Yuan Tai speaking and reading people are found in the valleys. North of the western half of the state and between the Salween River and the Chinese boundary is another such region triangular in shape. More accurately speaking, it is the continuation of the same integral region, racially considered, with this difference, that the illiterate hill people outnumber the Tai. Including this triangle and a smaller one southwest of Kengtūng State, the total area of Burma east of the Salween is somewhere about 20,000 square miles. In this territory Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Jersey would just be a snug fit.

As to population, one is reminded of the old lady’s way of telling a good egg from a bad one. She is reported to have said, “Take an egg and put it into hot water—or maybe it’s cold water, now then if it floats or sinks, is it? Then the egg is good or bad, I declare I’ve forgotten which.” In Siam and portions of Burma and up in China they do not take a regular census. They count the houses and guess at the number of people per house. Major Davies’ method of calculation gives 9,600,000 inhabitants in Yünnan Province. The Statesman’s Year Book for 1906 gives 12,324,574. Major Davies’ estimate is lower than any other I have seen. Applying his very conservative method of computation to the portion of Burma east of the Salween River, we get between a quarter and a half million Tai.

A government history printed in 1907 says, “Up to the year 592 B.E. or A.D. 1229 the history of Kengtūng is legendary and traditional. These legends tell of how what is now Kengtūng city and valley was formerly a vast lake; how it was reclaimed by the people from the north or from China but that the subsequent efforts of the Chinamen or northernmen to colonize the state failed. How that there the ‘Wa’s’ sprung from the earth, held the state; but were driven to the hills and fastnesses by Möng Rai, son of supernatural parents. The legendary founder of Kengtūng State as well as of Muang Lem and Kenghung is Möng Rai. He and his sons are held to have founded the state and colonized it with sixty-nine families of the Kün. Muang Kün, the home of the Kün, cannot be identified; but it seems probable that the Kün form the eastern wave of the great Shan migration southwards; and that Kengtūng was founded from the south not far from the north.”

Yuan history also states that the Kengtūng plain was conquered from the then illiterate Wa by the joint efforts of a son of Paya Möng Rai and a Chiengmai monk; they introduced Buddhism, established monasteries, and introduced the Tai Yuan written language 655 years ago. I have in my possession Yuan palmleaf writing which differs in no essential from the present day Kün script, which gives the date of its writing as earlier than A.D. 1300.

The people of Muang Lem are by some writers classed as Tai Nüa or Chinese Shans, probably on account of similarity in dress, and from the fact that M. Lem is in Chinese territory, though in the very southwest corner of Yünnan. The majority of writers, however, give the Lem as a separate division of the Tai race. The Kün Lü, Lem, and Tai Nüa is the usual formula. They are racially one with the Kün and Lü, with a common founder and common ancestry, so, though not now included in the Kün country they seem properly to belong to this chapter.

Many tours were taken through the Kün country from the North Siam Mission, both by American and Tai missionaries, before, during, and after our four years’ residence there, extending over a period from 1897 to 1914 when our work for the Kün people finally ceased. No work has been done for them in the last five years. The first tour was taken in 1897 by Dr. W. A. Briggs, the Rev. Robert Irwin and myself. Dr. Briggs and I came up from Siam, separated at Kengtūng city, he going up to M. Lem and I to M. Chê, both crossing the Chinese border. Mr. Irwin came from Burma and joined us in M. Yawng. In this way we traversed the state from south to north and from west to east. We gained much information on this tour about the country and people and made many friends from all classes.

In the following year my wife and I came up the Mekong in a dugout, sending ponies on ahead to Kengtūng city with supplies and orders to meet us at the head of navigation for our overland trip. We had been asked by our Mission to do as much evangelistic occupation of Kengtūng as possible that year, to be absent from Chiengrai about four months. We found the water of the Mekong unusually low for the season, and it was impossible to ascend all the rapids. Our boat capsized nearly opposite Chieng Lap and went down the stream with the loss of most of our provisions. We knew of no way of sending back word to our station but bad news finds a way. The report was carried, how we never knew, that we were all drowned. A few days after we arrived in Kengtūng we learned that for at least a month past our friends in Siam had feared that we were dead. We received a letter of inquiry addressed to the Assistant Political Officer in case we were not living. We toured the four southeastern districts on foot after our boat went down, till we secured a pony for Mrs. Dodd two days before we met our own ponies in M. Yawng. Then we toured and traveled again. We did much teaching and preaching and distributing books among both mountain and plains people, and had some interesting experiences, such as a run through a forest fire on the side of a mountain, and a “Tiger” scare at midnight in a jungle camp. I would not recommend boating on the Mekong, however, for anything but a vacation trip.

We arrived in Kengtūng city at last, seven weeks from the time we started from Chiengrai. We were given quarters in a new civil hospital built by the Chow Pa. Here we spent six of the busiest, happiest weeks of our lives. As the heavy rains were coming on at the expiration of that time we had to leave.

While there we received an invitation of the British Cantonment seven miles from the city, to attend their annual sports and military dinner. After our weeks in the jungle this was almost like getting into another world, as if we had suddenly stepped off into the planet Mars. There was at that time a quarter regiment there, the Third Burma Infantry, composed of tall Sikhs with four English officers, and Colonel Iremonger’s wife was with him. Of our reception by Colonel and Mrs. Iremonger, Surgeon Capt. Strickland and the other officers we cannot speak in too warm terms. If we had been Britishers from Britain no more could have been done to make us feel at home among these friends. The sports were fine. The gorgeous costumes of the fine looking Punjabis, especially the officers, were new to us and very picturesque. The tug of war was interesting, with an old white haired Indiaman dressed in white with a flowing white beard and a black face, waving a black umbrella as he “rooted” for them.

Tent pegging was the most exciting sport. The riders dashed down four abreast on their eager ponies, shouting to “Allah” and, without a second’s pause, picked the tent pegs out of the ground with the points of their long spears and carried them triumphantly to the goal. There was a good military band, and a group of Afghans played bagpipes. Mrs. Dodd said she had never before heard the bagpipes played and an officer at once ordered them to be played outside the window during dinner as a special favor to us.

Many times in the years that followed we enjoyed the hospitality of our friends in that British Cantonment. Later the Cantonment was moved up to Loi Mwe, twelve miles south of the Capital at a height of over 6,000 feet. It is an excellent sanitarium. The Assistant Political Officer had his headquarters there. The executive engineer, Mr. Durie, and his sister entertained us many times and our visits to them were a boon to us. Miss Durie was afterwards Mrs. Stevens; and the way Mr. and Mrs. Stevens cared for our family in their own home during a serious illness and convalescence filled us with a gratitude beyond words.

When we came to Kengtūng to live in 1904 the house of the Assistant Political Officer down on the plain was thrown open to receive us. Mr. Andrew who was the officer at that time was away at the Delhi Durbar and we two families were allowed to occupy the house for six weeks until his return. In that time we were able to put up temporary residences for ourselves.

The market is one of the interesting features of Kengtūng life. “Big Bazaar” in Kengtūng is big. Following the Chinese custom, this big market usually occurs every fifth day, then the principal streets are simply turned into markets. There are some few shops and stalls, but the majority of vendors display their wares, and incidentally their fine clothes, right in the middle of the principal streets. There are no autos in that inland region, although there are plenty in Bangkok and Rangoon. No bicycles or carts disturb market women, albeit a few of us foreigners owned bicycles, and oxcarts are used on other occasions. Caravans of pack mules and pack bullocks are common, but they are left outside. It is rare that even a riding pony or elephant invades the bazaar. On the whole, the demure marketers feel measurably safe in settling themselves and their wares down plump upon mats or low stools quite amid street.

The people flock in from all directions; as far as one day, two, or even three days away, the mountain people and plains people come. “They” in this case includes Tai people of several different dialects and costumes; next in numbers a large and picturesque assortment of illiterate hill peoples, all in their different and more or less attractive costumes. Also a few Burmans, Chinamen, Indiamen, English officials and American missionaries, all are packed together in a mass of slowly moving, gaily attired humanity. I might include a few lepers also in all but the attire, for no picture of the Kengtūng bazaar would be complete without them.

Wares? Comparatively few that have been imported; nails and a few other kinds of hardware; silks, cashmeres, and cotton prints; gents’ cheap furnishings; ladies’ haberdashery; and as the auctioneers used to say, “hats, caps, boots, shoes, and ready made clothing.” But the market is long on indigenous products and native manufactures; beef market stalls by themselves; pork markets by themselves; and so of rice and all kinds of vegetables and fruits; cooked foods, intoxicating drinks distilled from rice, opium for immediate use, native silk and cotton skirts and jackets, native hats, shoes, swords, and knives, crude medicinal herbs and mineral dyes; square pine timbers, bamboo poles, thatch, rattan, and bark ropes. In short, everything produced in this land is on sale in this market or can be ordered there. For example, we have contracted in this “Areopagus” for brick, tile, and foundation stones for houses, although these articles were not actually brought to market for hawking; and we have contracted for the men to use these materials in building.

Kengtūng is the cross-roads of the nations. The long caravans come and go constantly during the dry season, down from Tali-fu and Yünnan-fu, and nearer points in China; and up from Rangoon, Maulmein, and Bangkok; they meet and pass each other at Kengtūng, leaving salt, Chinese crockery, brass pots, and iron brasiers, from the north; and other foreign goods from the south and west. The Indiaman sits in his permanent shop and displays his silks and velvets; while the Chinaman in transitu sits on his mat on the ground, with beads, buttons, needles and combs spread out before him.

Before we built our bazaar chapel, we hung up a picture roll or two under the shade of a wide spreading tree and preached from it to crowds every bazaar day. After a school house was purchased, it was thronged on bazaar day so that our school was turned into a preaching service, or the preaching went on in one room and the school in the other. When the chapel was built they were both crowded on market days by people from all over the plain.

So as a station we were equipped with at least temporary buildings. We planned, not cedar houses for ourselves, not even a cedar house for the Lord, but we planned and worked for living temples of the Holy Spirit, thousands of them among these Kün people entrusted to our care, as stated later. The details of God’s leading seem wonderful as we look back over it—which brought us, like Abraham safely to that Promised Land. Like Abraham, we had neither a foot of soil nor a stick of timber of our own; but he and we had the covenant mercies of God: and sites and buildings, helpers and friends are all in that covenant. As we needed them they came, out of Jehovah’s unwasting fulness.

Always we were charmed with the place and the people. I once heard an English official complain of the Lü that they had so little jollity in contradistinction from the Burmese. But I think the Kün are less liable to this charge. The Lü are haughty, almost rough, in their bearing towards strangers, but are warm-hearted when once their confidence is gained. The civil and social customs of Siam render the Yuan somewhat servile. The Kün are neither haughty nor servile. They have an air and manner of self respect and geniality. They look better groomed, they are finer grained, they are keener traders, more adroit diplomats in a small way, more sociable, more affable, more “like our folks.” One soon becomes acquainted with them and acquaintance soon ripens into friendship. The graceful young women from the market did smoke their huge Burmese cheroots in our house when they came to call but they smoked into their market baskets, lest the smoke should annoy the lady of the house—in such a perfectly naïve manner that the hostess could not but be both amused and touched by their consideration.

Our evangelistic opportunities were limited only by our time and strength. We and our associates, Mr. and Mrs. Callender, were kept busy. Mr. Callender had charge of the bazaar chapel work and also toured through the state. Never before did we have such opportunities to preach Christ both by word of mouth and by the printed page. The success of our work began even before we came to Kengtūng to live. On our visit in 1898, an Indian sweeper met and talked with us. When we returned in 1904, he came to us at once and told us in quaint English that he “wanted to make Christian.” His wife was a Kün and they both began studying for baptism. He said that about two years before he had a severe illness which every one thought was to prove fatal. During this illness he claims that he had a vision of Heaven, and heard God say, “Take this fellow down again: he has never done anything for the religion.” So he awoke to pain and suffering again. About a month or so later the same vision was repeated. He had since then been desirous of becoming a Christian and his wife agreed to come with him. He said he had heard of Jesus in his old home in the Punjab.

Another family are Kün, well-to-do, living in the city. The old lady of the family told our evangelists that her grandfather left word with his descendants that if ever a better religion than Buddhism came in their way, even though introduced by those outside this region, they were not to despise or reject it. She was a devout merit seeker, and a very keen inquirer. So was her husband. They both claimed to be convinced that the teaching of Christianity is superior to that of Buddhism, and were satisfied as to its teachings but they wanted to know more of our customs.

One day about this time our hostler came back from a visit to his old home village and reported five households interested and professing a desire for more light. At once I dropped everything else, leaving my wife to pay the wages of the men who had been working under Mission employ. I went out to this village of inquirers a three hours’ ride through unbroken rice fields with magnificent crop prospects. I took with me the hostler himself and our station evangelist, reached the village about dark in the midst of a shower. But it was like old times down in Siam to have another chance to tell of Jehovah, Jesus, Creator, Proprietor, Savior, sanctifier through His Spirit to those who never had heard any adequate presentation of Him before. How they drank it in! One family promised us before I left that they would surely “enter” the religion of Jesus. The other four families were not ready to decide. I spent a day and a night with them, then left the evangelist to work with them further. I came home through a rain storm most of the way, but very happy that God was so soon calling these people to Himself.

Not long after we were rejoicing over the surrender to Christ of Chow Noi Suriya and his wife. He was a Lampun man and a former son-in-law of the Governor of Chiengrai. Dr. McGilvary and Dr. Briggs had both pleaded with him in years past to accept Christ. His wife was connected with the governor of M. Lem and with several of the nobility north of there. She herself was born in M. Nun, more than a month’s journey north, in China. She as well as her husband listened as few have ever listened, to my knowledge, to the telling of the Good News. They asked us to let them have two or three days to consider the question. Two days later after about three hours’ conference, both husband and wife unreservedly accepted Christ.

They at once began to work to bring in their friends and dependents. They seemed to take up Christian work in good earnest. They soon had five houses of people almost persuaded. Four of these were country vassals of theirs and the fifth was closely related to the Chow Luang or second official in the city.

Our principal method of evangelism, good every day in the year, is the hand to hand contact with any who will listen, whether met in our own home, in theirs, or casually elsewhere. This kind of work resulted in the final commitment of a Kün man who had been studying for some time past, being a fluent reader of our literature. We were very thankful for the evidently sincere conversion of these leading men in the community.

Another method of work was the bazaar preaching. During Buddhist Lent there were an unusual number of bazaar days and we had preaching and distributing of tracts in both the school building and chapel, at opposite ends of the principal bazaar street.

A third method was touring. Two of our most interesting tours were taken among the Sam Tao people, a mountain tribe to the northeast of the city and plain. These Sam Tao are one branch of the aboriginal stock found all over Indo-China, including the Kamu of French Laos State, the Lawa of North Siam and the Wild Wa of Northern Burma and Southern China. These three branches are not Buddhists, but the Sam Tao have been Buddhists for 900 years, and are the best Buddhists we have met.

On the first tour among them last year, a head man said, “We mountain people are blind and deaf. You two teachers have eyes and ears. We want you to make us see and hear.” Later he said: “If I say black all these ten villages say black. If I say white they all say white. If I say become Christian they will all become Christian.” But he said he was under the Chow Fa of Kengtūng and he would wait and see what he had to say about it first.

On the next tour we took the Chow Fa’s proclamation with us. Most of the head men—there were about ten of them—seemed relieved that there was to be such religious liberty. They all agreed that instead of any movement toward Christianity being a tribal movement, according to this proclamation, every man is free to come in or stay out irrespective of what his headman does. One abbot told us that he thought there was a decided drawing towards Christianity among a large number of the Sam Tao people. He himself seemed very friendly to us personally and toward our message. At the last village visited, we had audiences of over one hundred on each of the three evenings we were there. We were staying in the house of the head of the district. He seemed to invite investigation and friendly debate.

The house was a large one with three hearth fires: meaning that there were three families living in it, about twenty people. When the hearth fires were lighted in the evening, the people came with torches from far and near, and gathered in until the room was full; and as the smoke of the fires ascended, the smoke from their pipes rose also, with no outlet but the thatch roof. But the preaching went on just the same and never have I had a more interested or interesting audience. It reminded me of the words “Now therefore we are all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God.” There was the same expectancy in their faces. They seemed to be there for business. It was so every night we were there, and when at a late hour I followed my wife and family to rest in our curtained off apartment, the headmen sat around the hearth fires and talked till nearly morning.

That was a gunsmith village, and the click of the hammers went on all day. Their guns are sold all over the country. There are large walnut trees in that village. The Sam Tao are a wonderful people. They live on the highest mountains, some villages perched on the peaks 6000 or 8000 feet high. They call the highest “Ban nok,” bird village, (crow’s nest). They are not nomadic as many of these mountain tribes are. They have large villages and some of the finest temples in the land, with tall straight pillars rising up to the roof, just as they stood in their native forest, only stripped of their bark, and pillars and beams and the frame work of the roof covered with beautiful floral designs in red lacquer and gold leaf. They make good roads, wide and smooth as a cart road, winding around the peaks. Traveling there was a joy.

To our great regret we were recalled before our tour was finished, by the news of a destructive fire in the city. The fire was really a great calamity. It swept every thing clean from the monastery at the head of the principal business street, down both sides of the street and out past the east gate, and burned out a whole village of Tai Nüa people. It included in its ravages three monasteries, the establishment of the late Chow Luang, most of the large tile roofed market houses, the street chapels and homes of our helpers. Our chapel had walls of sun-dried brick which were not burned. We had a thatch roof put over it and it was soon in use again. Providentially we had sold our school building shortly before for a post office. The Tai Nüa village just below our Mission compound was not burned. The people said it was because they killed a dog, when the flames were at their height, and threw it into the flames to appease the spirit of the fire. But we knew that the wind changed just then in answer to prayer, and this Tai Nüa village which threatened our Mission was spared, and our homes close to it were kept safe.

It was unusually dry weather on the plain and the Buddhists had been praying and going through all sorts of exercises to induce rain. So we asked our people to pray and they did so in earnest. That night it rained nearly all night and started in again the next day. Then we praised the prayer hearing God.

So the work went on in the city and plain, among the Tai Nüa already related in the story of the Tai Nüa, and among the Lü of M. Yawng as told in the Lü chapter. We had an organized church of one hundred adherents. Some of them were still catechumens, as we required six months instruction before baptism. There were in the church Kün, Lü, Lem, and Tai Nüa, Sam Tao and Sam Teun, two Indiamen and one Chinese.

Then toward the close of 1907 a blow came in the resignation of our dear co-workers, Mr. and Mrs. Callender, and their departure for America on account of failure in health. Dr. Gibbens, our good jolly Baptist friend and physician, had resigned and gone some months previous, so we had been some time without a physician.

Left alone we took a new grasp of the situation, a new grip on our selves and the work and started in afresh. We had seven men out over the hills and plains in evangelistic work, sending in good reports. Our people in the Station were planning a Christmas which should be the best ever. They said they were going to “show the people around us what a Christian Christmas is like.” We were drilling the children in Christmas songs, and they were singing them over everywhere about the place, and then—

One evening at dinner, a cablegram was delivered. It said that our Board had decided to withdraw from Kengtūng Station, largely for financial reasons. It was like a thunder clap. We felt as though the work of years was falling in ruins about us. Our workers were called in and they sat down before us speechless. Some of them wept. Then did we “walk in the dark with God.” What would be the future of these sheep in the wilderness? What would be our own future? The following verses quoted at that time in a letter to a friend comforted us.

We could only “commit our way unto the Lord,” and with heavy hearts take up the work of breaking up the station and preparing to move. Mr. Vincent came up from Chiengrai for consultation in the many problems involved. His help in preparing our furniture and goods for transport was a boon to us.

Still it seemed incredible that we could be asked to leave. The cablegram was vague, and the letter of instructions failed to arrive. So we sent a last appeal to the Board, and waited for two months for an answer. It was in March that the second cablegram came telling us to go. In half an hour from the time it was received our worldly possessions were walking down the hill on the backs of mules; and we soon followed after with the escort of our dear Tai Nüa friends and their weeping farewell as already related. Then we followed the long, long trail awinding down to the land of our first love, Siam.

The Western Shan is the name applied to the branch of the Tai race living west of the Salween River. Shan is a Burmese term. The origin of it no one seems to know though there are some conjectures, some writers think it has a common origin with Siam and other writers rather indignantly reject that opinion. To the Burman and to most English writers who get their knowledge of Tai history from Burma the term Shan is the appellation for those people who call themselves Tai.

These writers speak of the Siamese Shans, the Eastern Shans, the Northern Shans, and Western Shans, though each of these branches of Tai have many local names by which they are known; as the Tai Nüa on the north; the eastern branch consists of the Yuan, Kün, Lem, Lü, and Lao, and the Western Shans are the Ngio. The latter, however, do not acknowledge the name of Ngio as belonging to them, insisting that they should be known as Tai; but they are obliged to share this name with a few million other Tai, and those living up on the Yangtze and those living in North Siam are just as insistent as the Burma Tai are that they are the real Tai and acknowledge no other name. As far as I know, the term Ngio is the only name used which will differentiate the Western Shan or Tai from the other branches of the Tai race. This is the name by which they are universally known outside of Burma.

The Western Shans include not only the Ngio but the Ahoms of Assam and the Khamti of the settlements west of the Irrawaddy. According to Sir George Scott, “The Ahoms of Assam are indisputably Shan, though they are now completely Hinduized.” Holt Hallet says that at the close of the Burmese war in 1826 they could nowhere cross the eastern frontier in Indo-China and proceed eastward “without coming into contact with the Shans and we were their actual protectors in Assam.” They have become so absorbed by the other races of Assam, however, that no estimate can be made of their present population. They have a written character and their historical and mythological legendary writings are still extant. The language has been dead for about four centuries. It is now known only to a few priests who have remained faithful to the old tongue. But the chronicles remain as a valuable legacy.

The Khamti are divided into two districts, the Singkaling Khamti and Khamti Lōng. The population of the former consists mostly of Burmanized Shans. It is situated on the upper Chindwin, a tributary of the Irrawaddy. The country is for the greater part covered with jungle. Jade and amber are found there.

Khamti Lōng lies up near the border of Thibet, in the foot hills of the Himalayas. The people seem to have kept themselves distinct from the tribes around them and have maintained their identity. There is a description of them given by Prince Henri d’Orleans which is interesting as a detailed picture of one of the outlying branches of the Tai practically unknown to the world.

The Prince says:

From Khamti to Bishi, the first village in Assam, was said to be only nine days’ march. This Khamti Lōng lies along the upper course of the western branch of the Irrawaddy and is beyond the administrative line of Burma. The Sawbwa pays a small tribute yearly. This description of a Tai village away in the unknown north, leaving out the stockade and the boardwalk, would fit in many important particulars almost any large central Tai village north of Siam, except among the Chinese Tai. Even to the bellows the description is a very familiar one, though in the southeast the people ornament their temples rather than their houses and a “palace” would probably have a tile roof instead of thatch.

In the Northern division of the Shan States there are numbers of Chinese Shans, the Tai Khè or Tai Nüa. They have crossed the Salween from their home in Yünnan and live in Namhkam and all along the Northern Shan States frontier. They still retain the dress and speech of their original home. The dark blue dress and the huge dark blue turban are in marked contrast to the gayer dress of the Burmese and Ngio. They have adopted the Burmese cult of Buddhism and their monasteries are Burmese, while east of the Salween their friends and relatives still follow the Yuan cult and use the Chiengmai sacred books and written character. This would naturally make some difference in their speech, and their manners and customs conform somewhat to those of the Burmese and Western Tai. They remain however, a distinct group and are still linked in racial ties with their brethren over in China.

Sir George Scott says:

“The Shan States broadly form a triangle, with its base on the plains of Burma and the apex on the Mekong. In this subdivision the Ruby mines are included on the north and the Karenni States on the south. This has an area of 59,915 square miles, and a population including the Khamti of over a million.” This also includes the Kün of the Kengtūng division about which I have already written. Kengtūng State extends to the Salween and forms the apex of the triangle.

The Salween River flows through the middle of this area and forms the dividing line between the Eastern and the Western Tai. Of the districts in the Central division there are twelve besides the Kengtūng division and in the southern central and northern divisions there are in all twenty-five districts. These are situated mostly in what is called the Shan Plateau, the country lying between the Irrawaddy and the Salween. It is from 2000 to 3000 feet high. The Salween is one of the most picturesque rivers in the world. It is one of the six mighty rivers which rise near each other in the Himalayas in Thibet. They are the Bramaputra, the Irrawaddy, the Salween, the Mekong, the Yangtze, and the Hoang Ho. The markings of these rivers on the map are poetically compared by one writer to the scattering of the thunder bolts of Jove. These great rivers start “in parallel courses, at first within a very narrow span of longitude, and afterwards spreading out into a fan which covers the country from the Yellow Sea to the Bay of Bengal.”

The Salween is longer than the Irrawaddy and rises as far north as any of them, but is so crushed in between the Mekong and the Irrawaddy that it has no tributaries for the greater part of its length that are more than mere streams a mile or two in length. For a distance of hundreds of miles these two streams “rob it of all affluents, except the mountain torrents from the ridges which wall it in on either side. Between these giant barriers it flows along in an abyss, which in some places the sun only strikes for a few hours in the day.—There is no rift, no defile, no canyon on the earth’s surface of equal length,” according to Sir George Scott. “It is probably unequalled for wild and magnificent scenery by any river in the world. With its mountain banks it has always formed a serious barrier, so that the branches of the Tai race on either side differ in dialect, in name, and even in written character.” Four of the six great rivers touch or traverse the Tai country in some part of their course but the Mekong and the Salween have, or have had, Tai people along the greater part of their length. They with the Yangtze have seen the great drama of the Tai Race enacted along their banks for many generations.

Only once was the writer personally privileged to see the Salween. In 1906 a commission was appointed by the North Siam Mission to investigate language conditions in the north. The committee consisted of Dr. S. C. Peoples and Rev. Howard Campbell. At their request I accompanied them on their tour through Kengtūng State, visiting most of the monasteries on the plain and followed the government road to Takaw on the Salween. We made a detour visiting some of the districts on the eastern side and then crossing over toured down the west bank of the Salween, returning to Chiengmai by that route. Here we found to our surprise that Yuan monasteries prevailed on both sides of the river. Some villages were of pure Yuan extraction and some of mixed speech but we had no difficulty in making ourselves understood anywhere in all the villages we visited excepting four of those west of the river. In these four Western Shan villages where there was no admixture of Yuan we could understand each other only in a very superficial conversation.

Later a P’ya living in Chiengrai province, who was an old friend of mine, gave me a bit of ancient history which explains the prevalence of the Yuan speech and character in the districts on either side of the Salween. He said that Chiengmai now contains but few descendants of the original Chiengmai Tai. At the time of one of the Burmese wars, the people mostly fled. Some went into what is now French territory, where whole villages of them are yet found, speaking the local “Lao” brogue, but retaining many of the old Chiengmai customs. The majority of the Chiengmai refugees, however, he said went north into Kengtūng State. The Salween on both sides was peopled by them.

The P’ya of M. Piang, a district east of the Salween, told us that for three or four generations the whole Salween region was subject to Chiengmai. Then for twenty-nine years it was under the Burmese King at Ava. By treachery Kengtūng got it attached to itself in B.E. 1113, or 155 years ago. This brought on a war, in which the Burmese helped Kengtūng and were successful. In this and succeeding wars the people fled to the hills, and some returned to Chiengmai. The western Shan came twenty-nine years ago with the Sawbwas from the west. Most of them returned afterwards. He estimated that of the present mixed Tai population one-fourth are Western Shan and three-fourths Kün and Yuan, these Kün and Yuan in about equal proportions. He said all the people living on both sides of the Salween for some distance are of the same mixed origin. They are called Tai Kong or Salween Tai. We were told that Yuan monasteries were found as far west as Ava or Mandalay.

Rev. C.R. Callender, our associate in work in Kengtūng State, in coming to Kengtūng with his family by way of Rangoon, passed through the Western Shan country. He says:

There is a fairly large percentage of words common to the two dialects but these words have in many cases slight differences that are confusing, and there are possibly half the words that are totally different. The written characters are quite different, the Western Shan resembling the Burmese while the Yuan character is derived from the Cambodian. The Western Shan, like the M. Mau character in use among the Tai Nüa, is largely a business character, although there are sacred books written in the Western Shan character. They are found in both Yuan and Burmese monasteries and are read on sacred days to their western Shan constituents.

The missionary work of the Shan States has been carried on under the American Baptist Missionary Union since about 1877. The Rev. J. N. Cushing, D.D. was the founder, the Nestor of the Mission as Dr. McGilvary was of the North Siam Mission. These two great men were lifelong friends. I did not have the pleasure of knowing Dr. Cushing personally but I have some warm friends among his successors. They have a long established work in Bhamo, Hsipaw, Nam Kham, and Mongnai, and a remarkable work in Karenni. I have no recent statistics at hand of their work. Dr. Cushing translated the Bible into the Western Shan and it was printed in their character, thus forming not only a medium of instruction in their language but a means of preserving their speech and written character which might otherwise be lost to future generations. As far as I know, no missionary work is being done among the Khamti or the Ahoms.

The Ngio or Shan trader is a very familiar figure not only in Kengtūng State but in every town of importance in North Siam; with his turban and wide flopping hat of beautiful fine woven grass, and the large loose coat sometimes padded and quilted, sometimes lined with fur a la Chinese. The voluminous flowing trousers with the seat often so low as to almost touch the ground, are more like a skirt than a pair of trousers. The latter is found especially among the more well-to-do classes. The working classes probably find it more convenient to wear trousers with well defined legs. This costume is also worn to some extent by both the Kün and the Lü but not so generally or so characteristically as among the Ngio. In North Siam every one who wears a turban is called a Ngio, until the people learn to differentiate between the different branches of their race from the north.

The Ngio is positively distinguished in Siam by his red tattooing. They tattoo to midcalf and also higher up the body than the Southern. Tai or the Burmans. Some of the Sawbwa’s followers were in former days tattooed from the neck to the ankle, and occasionally some had even the face and the backs of the hands tattooed in blue. I once saw a Western Shan priest who had his head tattooed. This was said to be a mark of special sanctity. Ordinarily, the tattooing on chest, back, and arms is red, as it is with the Burmans, and is in isolated patterns. Shan tattooers are considered exceptionally expert, especially in the tattooing of charms.

Dr. Cushing says:

Dr. Cushing in his lifetime was considered the only real authority on the Shans. He says that the migrations of the Tai into Burma probably began about two thousand years ago. Probably the first swarms were small and were due rather to the restlessness of character, which has always characterized the Tai race. The early history of the Shans in Burma is very obscure. There is little doubt that a powerful Shan kingdom called Muang Mao Lōng grew up in the north in the neighborhood of the Shweli River, near Nam Kham. There are ruins of old cities in that region covering large areas, enclosed by walls and ramparts, and hills surrounded by entrenchments.

Tai chronicles indicate that the Mao Shan kingdom began in the seventh century of our area. Successive campaigns were undertaken and their dominion was caused to be acknowledged as far south as Maulmein and as far east as Kenghung. Assam passed under the rule of the Tai in A.D. 1229, who were henceforth styled Ahom in that country. It is claimed that even the Tai Kingdom of Tali acknowledged allegiance to the Mao King before its fall under the attack of Kubla Khan in 1253. A new capital called Man Maw was established in A.D. 1285, near the present, site of Bhamo, and it is claimed that the Mao territories were increased by the conquest of the Menam valley to Ayuthia.

From this time on the Tai chronicles became more local and parochial. The prosperity of the Mao Kingdom “began to wane soon after it had attained its greatest area of territory. The Tai became gradually separated into groups. The mountainous nature of their country made this easy as no doubt it also helps to explain their want of coherence; the influence of neighboring nations did the rest. Some of these were conquering, some were absorbent; all were greedy and combative.”

So this region of the present habitat of the Western Shan figured largely in the history of the rise and fall of the Tai race. Of its present state the Upper Burma Gazetteer from which this chapter is largely compiled says that they were completely subjugated by the Burmese and have become largely assimilated with them. Even their country has for years been considered as a part of Burma proper. They have long been debarred from any sympathy or connection with the main bulk of their race. Even their women have adopted the Burmese dress, language, and habits. It is only the extraordinary tenacity of Tai tradition which has prevented them from becoming indistinguishable from their conquerors many years ago. Their written character is becoming less and less used and known and is likely to disappear everywhere but in Khamti Lōng in the extreme north.

Previous to British occupation the administration of the Shan States was at no time justly or consistently carried on. “After the death of King Mindon it fell into complete disorder like that of every part of King Thebaw’s dominions.” Insurrections, executions and massacres, private quarrels, bickering and raiding, destruction of towns and looting and burning of districts were the rule. “The State of Hsenwi had been in a state of chaos for a whole generation. Every part of the cis-Salween states was in a state of war.”

In 1885 an insurrection sprang up under the Limbin Prince, a son of the Crown Prince. By this time the Burmese government had been overthrown and the Burmese troops had been withdrawn from the Shan country. This left an open field. This was the state of affairs through 1886.

In January, 1887, a column under Colonel Stedman (now Sir Edward Stedman) marched in, with A. H. Hildebrand, the Superintendent of the Shan States. Some desultory opposition was encountered at a fortified position not far from Taunggyi but it was overcome without difficulty. A site for the establishment of the headquarters of the Superintendent, with a fortified post, was chosen. This station has since been known as Fort Stedman. One after another the states were brought into submission with but little difficulty. By the middle of June, 1887, the whole of the Southern Shan states had been brought under the influence of the superintendent and were free from disturbance.

In the open season of 1887-88 Mr. Hildebrand proceeded with a considerable military force on an extended tour, which took him through all the Shan States, receiving the submission of all the Sawbwas and subordinate officials. “This tour ended at Mandalay without a single shot being fired. The general peace which ensued has not since been disturbed, except by some cause beyond the area then in the Shan States charge.”

So the different branches of the Tai race living in Burma and Assam, delivered from the chaos of internecine wars and taught each to rule his own little state, are now enjoying peace and prosperity under the beneficent rule of Great Britain in Burma and India.

The Lao of French Laos State (pronounced by the French Lah-oos) seems to be the only branch of the ancient Ai-Lao or Tai race that retains the traditional name. The name has been applied to the Tai of North Siam for a generation or two, but it seems to have been borrowed from their next door neighbors and applied to them while they themselves were until recently innocently ignorant of the fact. The Lao of Luang Prabang and the whole French State, however, call themselves Lao and have been called Lao from earliest history, as Holt Hallet speaks of the Laos or non-tattooing branch of the Shans as “pushing down to the eastward through the country to the southwest of Tongking as early or earlier than A.D. 574.” According to him, their kingdom as far south as Vieng Chan was already in existence at the time of the founding of the Yûn Shan towns of Lampun, Lakawn, Pitsanulok, Kampangpet, and Sawankalok in the Menam valley, in A.D. 574. It is said in the chronicles of Lampun, that the first king reigning at that city married the daughter of the King of Vieng Chan.

The English and French put an s to the word Lao whether singular or plural. Later, Mr. Hallet records, that the Laos Shan principalities were growing in power:

Again it passed into the hands of the French in a treaty with Siam in 1893, when the whole of the Lao country came under the dominion of France and is now the French Laos State.

The Laos State in its present boundaries is about 600 miles in its greatest length, extending from the southern boundary of China, in the Lü country, down to the northern border of Cambodia. Its northern half is a comparatively compact territory about 250 miles square with Luang Prabang in the center. The southern half is a long arm reaching down to Cambodia, which at its narrowest point is only about a hundred miles wide. At the widest point in the north it extends from old Chiengsen on the Siam frontier to the border of Song La or Muang La, the Tai Dam country in Tongking. Its largest cities are Luang Prabang, Vieng Chan, Sawannakhet, Saravane, and Bassac. The Mekong divides the upper half of the state and forms the western boundary of the lower half. So the noble river waters the valleys of this Tai state throughout its length.

At Song Khone on the lower Mekong near Sawannakhet there is a single station of an independent Swiss Mission. At present there is only one missionary there, Rev. F. Audetat with fifty or more adherents. He is working among the Tai Lao. He has translated the Gospel of John in the character of Luang Prabang, that is in their business character not in the character of their monasteries which is the same as in Chiengmai monasteries. As stated before, M. Audetat is the only worker for the Tai in all Indo-China. He is 500 miles from any mission station in Siam, and about 400 miles from Chiengrung, our new station in China, although we are not far from the border of the French Laos State. Here is a country almost totally destitute of the gospel; a state with an area of about 102,000 square miles, almost equal to that of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania combined. There is an approximate estimate of population of 1,250,000.

Dr. McGilvary writes of Luang Prabang in his Autobiography. He visited the city several times in his tours and this vast destitute region lay very heavy on his heart, and his burden for these people was made still heavier by the action of the French in closing the doors against us in 1903. On the first of his tours in that region in 1872, the country still belonged to Siam. He wrote of the capital city: “Luang Prabang was then the most compactly built of all Siamese cities outside of Bangkok, which in some respects it resembled. It differs from the other Lao 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 Nam Keng there joins the Mekong, dividing the city into two unequal portions. The view from the top of the hill is delightful.”

His companion on this trip was Dr. Vrooman, then a member of our mission. They descended the Mekong or Cambodia River in a trading boat from Chieng Kawng to Luang Prabang. He gives Dr. Vrooman’s impressions of the “wonderful river”:

Dr. McGilvary adds: “As for the Mekong, my comment is: If I wished an exciting river trip, and had a comfortable boat, I should not expect to find a more entrancing stretch of three hundred miles anywhere else on the face of the earth.” But the needy human souls were more attractive to him than the beauties of city or river or mountain. He was most interested in the villages perched up on the sides of the mountain tops, but it was not till twenty years later that he was privileged to visit some of them.

“The hill tribes of Indo-China consist partly of the aborigines who were driven into the hills by the Tai invasion nearly two thousand years ago, and partly of tribes who have come in more recently. Their languages are legion, but are said to be of the same general character. All, excepting those who are Buddhists are without a written character and are illiterate in any character. They number far less than a million, divided into many distinct tribes, of whom the Kamu, in French Laos said to number 100,000 are probably the most numerous. So far as I am aware no work has been done among these Kamu by the Catholics and by the Protestants only by the North Siam Mission. This has been so interfered with by the French that there has been little growth only a most promising beginning.” So writes Mr. Freeman. This beginning was made by Dr. McGilvary, the Pathfinder, our leader in pioneer evangelism.

In his tour of 1893, taken with Mr. Irwin, he passed through only the northern part of the state, mostly among the Lü. But in 1897, in company with Dr. Peoples, he found a wonderful opening among the Kamu in M. Sai. This he followed up in his tour of 1898 when he met with a “wonderfully ready response” to the gospel message everywhere among the Kamu and an interest among the Lao officials of M. Sai. A Sen or official came to him and said “it was the great desire of his heart to be saved from his sins.” “He listened almost with rapture” and accepted the teaching joyfully. The āchān of the monastery and the Pia or head man of the village said they would come with him. All those had together sought merit all their lives; now they agreed that together they would enter this “great refuge of the God who could pardon and save them.” There was opposition in their families, however, and they put off taking a definite stand till a later time.

In 1900 another tour was taken by the Rev. W. F. Shields, from our Mission, which extended farther south than any previous tour. For this reason I will cull somewhat fully from his report. He passed through ten districts and eighty-eight towns and villages. They found the Lao spoken everywhere they traveled. At that time the country was under Siam and the people were learning to read Siamese. The Siamese character was taught in their temples. Along the southern course of the tour the educated could read Siamese. Doubtless if the tour were taken now this could be said of the French language, that the educated could read French. I met a Tai Dam man in Tongking in 1913, from near the western border of Laos State, who could read French. The sacred books in the temples, however, according to this report, are everywhere in the Yûn character and the common language of the people is Lao which is only dialectically different from the Yûn speech. He found in the country the use of four different kinds of written character, viz:—The Kawm or Lao business character; the “Tai Noi,” probably the Tai Dam business character; the Yûn sacred character, and the Siamese.

He says, “we can give no definite idea of the extent of the Lao people except that they extend southeast and north many weeks journey beyond the farthest point east of our tour.” The Lao was spoken, he learned by inquiry, “still south and east to the Cambodia River. You do not travel far east (from North Siam) until you learn that you have been living among the Yûn and not among the Lao.” That is, the people of North Siam are everywhere spoken of as Yûn and the people of the French State are the Lao.

“In all the region to the east there are no great centers of population as in Chiengmai etc. M. Lom is a business center. Large boats from Bangkok can come up there and hence many Chinese and Siamese are there.” The East Asiatic Co. was working a gold mine in that province. M. Lom had at that time a population of about 50,000. Dan Sai, “a nice little province,” two days north of M. Lom, had a population of about 20,000. Large boats come up there for two months during the rains. At M. Ma Keng the high Siamese official had established his court and the French Consul had his residence there also. It was a newly started place but it was rapidly growing although a poor location. There were only about 300 houses in the place at that time. M. Sakon was a nice place near a small lake, a good country, 20,000 population. Nong Kai is on the Mekong and was the largest place east, a beautiful location, just where the river flows calm and deep, and up and down the river you can see for a long distance.

Vieng Chan is not so beautifully located as Nong Kai, but it is the place of the former glory and power of the Tai race. The place was not yet rebuilt but perhaps in the whole province there were 40,000 people. From Chieng Kan easy access is had to villages up and down the river and to those inland, population 30,000. Ken Tow is a small place. Large boats can come up during the rains, population 20,000. Of course these population estimates given nineteen years ago are not reliable now but are only given to show the relative size of the different places visited.

The report continues: “M. Louie and Chieng Kan are delightful places to live in: There is no Protestant work being done in all this region. The Roman Catholics have a priest located at Ma Kuk, a village a little below Vieng Chan where they have about thirty followers, and also a priest at M. Sakon, with a somewhat larger following. The people are friendly and sociable, strong, healthy, but opium is doing a deadly work among them. The women in many places cut their hair after the custom of the Siamese, but wear the skirt as has always been the custom among the Lao.

“Money was not plentiful and the people were rather poor. There were no large frame houses as in Siam. The houses were built of bamboo and lacked the airy and open room of the Yûn houses. Among the Lao you are invited into their houses, quite contrary to the custom among the Yûn where you are always received in the open verandah. Spirit worship is very prevalent and strongly believed in. The people adhere to Buddhism more as a charm against evil than from a conviction of its truth. In exceptional places as at Dan Sai the people apparently enjoyed their religion, but in many villages the temples were vacant and in none were they in good repair. Gospel preaching was well received, exciting discussion in some places but everywhere friendly.” He was respectfully received by all officials, French and Siamese alike. The French were especially kind at Ma Keng and Vieng Chan. He called on the R. C. Priest at Ma Kuk and spent a pleasant hour with him. The Catholics traveled through the country a good deal and a Bishop had been appointed for the Lao people.

“Vieng Chan was once the seat of the power and glory of the Tai race. Formerly it contained 120 magnificent temples. It was then eighty years since Bangkok took the city and carried off the King and Princes and dispersed the people; but the masonry of these temples was so good that while the timbers have rotted and fallen away the masonry stands almost as good as ever. Idols exposed to the rain and sun for years although built of brick are yet symmetrical and perfect. Some of the temples contain large idols of bronze. You wonder if they made them there and if not where did they get them and how did they get them there? In the days of Vieng Chan’s glory, certainly nothing outside of Bangkok in the Kingdom of Siam surpassed or equalled it. The people on both sides of the Cambodia river had been told by their fathers and grandfathers of the city’s splendor and their hearts turned ever to the seat of their former magnificence.” The French were rebuilding the city. The palace of the King was then being rebuilt as it was formerly. They were making streets and planning for a great city. A telegraph line connected Vieng Chan with Saigon and hence with the world.

The next tour taken into the Laos State was taken by myself in 1902, when the Mission sent me to follow up Dr. McGilvary’s work among the Kamu. At the French Post at Chieng Kawng we were most hospitably entertained by M. Eva, and the Post and Telegraph Master M. Chepantier. When we left we had a guard of five Kamu from the French Station and M. Eva accompanied me some little distance. In two hours from there we struck a village of Chinese Lanten. These people are from Yünnan and those who read anything read the Chinese character. In appearance they so much resemble the Yao that our men mistook them for Yao. Among these Yünnanese hill women is apparently the home of the original and genuine short divided skirt. These Lanten are ingenious. Instead of hulling rice like the Siamese with two mill stones, the upper one turned by a handle, or like the Yûn and Lao by treading the end of a lever and having a short vertical piece attached to the upper end, which works like a pestle in the hollow end of a log for a mortar, the Lanten make a stream of water do the work. They have a mortar like the Lao and the pestle is at one end of a lever. But at the other end is a trough, into which pours a stream from a little height above. When the trough has become full enough to outweigh the ballast tied to the pestle end the trough dips down, the pestle raises; the trough then empties, and the ballast pulls the pestle down with some force into the rice in the mortar. Thus the canny Lanten harnesses the brook and makes it pound his paddy. I have since seen the same thing a few times among the Tai, probably learned from the people from China.

In a village of Keh L’Met, brothers of the Kamu, we found that like most northern people they built all their rice bins or granaries in a group outside the village; but the peculiarity of these L’Met is that just below the floor they have attached to the posts of the bins disks of wood say two feet in diameter, placed horizontally so as to prevent rats and mice from climbing the posts and entering the bins. These disks of wood look like cart wheels, very odd in appearance, but not a bad idea.

In this tour we met representatives of three races: the Tai, the hill people from Yünnan, China and various tribes of Kah, or Indo-Chinese hill tribes. Of the Tai we met three subdivisions, or families: the Lao or Luang Prabang Tai, the Lü or Sip Sawng Panna Tai, and the Tai Kao (White Tai) from near Tongking. Of Yünnanese hill tribes we met the Miao and Yao with whom we were already familiar in Chiengrai, and in addition, the Lanten. Of the Kah we met several and heard of others, seventeen in all. Some of these tribal names proved upon examination to be founded upon insufficient differentia. The people to whom they are applied are said by those who ought to know to be really Kamu. Such, for example, are the Ka Kwen and Ka Chawl of Ma Pu Ka. Disregarding these unwarranted distinctions, we met five principal Kah tribes during this tour: Kamu, Ka L’Met, Ka Hawk, Ka Kat, and Ka Pu Noi. The latter are from the Lü country, and use opium. But it is said that the use of opium is unknown among the four Ka tribes living in French territory. Certainly we saw none in use among them. Of these four tribes the Ka Kat speak a distinct dialect. But the Ka L’Met and the Ka Hawk speak dialects of the Kamu language. Of the Kamu, many people in nearly every village understand and speak Lao; in some villages all do; and a few of the men read it.

Numerically the Kamu are stronger than all the rest of the Ka of the region combined, and stronger than the Tai also. They are found in the hills all the way from the Mekong up to and beyond the Black River, a zone twenty-five days travel in width. Each one of these facts is a finger pointing to the strategic importance of missionary work among the Kamu. The case is still further strengthened by a canvass of Kamu characteristics. They seem to be honest and have a sense of honor. They are certainly sturdy, industrious, warm hearted, hospitable. And though without a written language, their powers of memory are said to be superior to those of their Tai neighbors. Tilling the hills, the Kamu is obliged to be industrious or starve. But his range of industries is limited—agriculture, mining, iron, salt, blacksmithing, and stockraising. The “stock” includes buffaloes, cattle, goats, pigs, ducks, fowl, dogs, cats, frogs, lizards, ants, fleas, beetles, bugs. But only cattle and goats are reared for sale. The buffaloes, pigs, dogs, ducks, and chickens are kept in stock for spirit offerings, as needed. And the rest seem to be kept to give to unwary guests.

While the Ka Hawk does not dress at all unless a loin cloth a few inches wide can be called dress, the Kamu dress like the Lao or Lü of their locality. And hereby hangs a tradition, to the effect that when the world was yet young the gods came down to earth and asked the peoples what gifts each craved. The Kamu, being the elder brother race, was asked first, and desired gaudy clothing. The Lao and Lü begged for the necessary skill to make clothing. And hence, until very recently, although the Kamu loves gay clothes on a holy-day, the Kamu women had not learned to weave; and the Kamu was obliged to buy his clothing from his younger brothers the Lao and the Lü.

And there are other defects of Kamu character and hindrances to the acceptance of the gospel of purity. While the Kamu does not smoke opium, he is very fond of arrack, which enters into his every public and social function and into the poor Kamu himself. The marriage relations are very loose. Bigamy is found to a limited extent. The customs, sometimes followed, of buying wives fosters this. In the care of the person, too, the Kamu has much to learn. He knows neither cleanliness nor godliness.

We found that the report had gone throughout all the Kamu country and up into the Sip Sawng Panna that some of the Kamu in the region of M. Sai had cast off spirits and accepted Christ, and yet the spirits had not bitten them. Instead of engendering opposition, in the majority of places we visited we found that this report had begotten hope and a desire for the same freedom from the yoke of the spirits. Many heathen Kamu told us that in their opinion the spirits do not benefit their votaries; they only burden them. Between Ma Pu Ka and M. Sai three whole villages told us that if we will come next year early enough in the season to teach them any length of time, they will enter Christianity en masse.

In the afternoon of that first day out from the French Post at Chieng Kawng we met a company of mountain people whom our guides called Ka Kat. I could see no difference between them and the other hill tribes in appearance but the men wear a very small loin cloth and the women wear skirts like the Lao but do their hair like the Kamu. They speak a language unintelligible to the Kamu guides. We had stiff mountain climbing every day. Traveling by the mountain route, one is passing over, rather than passing through, a region rich in minerals, especially salt, iron, and rubies, well wooded but containing no teak, a fine grazing land, and a land of magnificent views and magnificent distances. The road, a French road, well cleared, sunny, hot, cuts across all the mountain systems in the region. These all run north and south, are practically contiguous, with no intervening level valleys, and are steep and high.

The next day we met a company of Ka Hawk. The women wear a skirt originally of white, and wear the hair coiled low on the neck instead of on the top of the head. They speak the Kamu language. A branch of the Kamu called Kwen have temples and priests teaching the Yûn script, and they also have village and household spirits. The other non-Buddhist Kahs have the village and household spirits and then some. The Ka Kuie and Ka Kaw have temples but no priests nor idols. In the afternoon after a four hours’ climb we stopped in a village of mixed speech where there was one Buddhist temple. While the men were buying rice I explained the picture roll of the life of Christ. I asked if my Yûn dialect was intelligible to the people and they assured me that they understood me perfectly. Only five in the village of nineteen houses could read. They gave good attention and took some books.

The next afternoon we came to the French Station at Vieng Puka. There was once a city there but it is now only a village. I passed by the station and stopped at the village. Here the head man, P’ai Luang Patavi, told me that he was the head of nine villages. He and his people are Kwen, who are indigenous to this region. There are five villages that have temples. They are the Buddhists of this region. He says that some time ago there were about seventy houses in this village called M. Puka. But disease and death have reduced the number to about fifty. Within the past two years the whole village has removed from its former site near the French Station to its present location, say a mile northeast of the station. I had so many calls for medicine that I had scarcely time to eat. The mountains were dotted over with villages, mostly L’Met. But I learned that there were ten villages under one head man all Kamu and three villages under another man Ka Sam Pu, and one village of Chawl. The dialect of the latter is almost unintelligible to the rest but like most in this region they can speak Lao.

The next morning after breakfast I walked over to the post and telegraph office. The operator told me he had a boy, a Christian Kamu. I had him called at once. His name was Ai Awn. He told me how to reach the Kamu Christian villages of Ban Lek where the P’ia lives, which is a wholly Christian village of fifteen or twenty houses, and Ban Katang K’la and Ban Katang S’ram.

Upon my return I called upon the P’ia. He and family received me very cordially. We were soon engaged in religious conversation in which the P’ia took the lead. We had a long argument on the subject of eating meat when the other fellow had killed the animal. I asked him and family to come to prayers at the monastery where we were staying. He came with quite a goodly company. I began to read and explain Gen. i:1. But the P’ia interrupted to tell the Buddhist origin of the twelve signs of the Zodiac, but finally I had rapt attention from all. In the evening I had a still larger and more attentive audience. Many stayed after service to talk. They say they understand and would like to listen to such preaching every day. May the time soon come when they can have it. We left feeling that we have many kind friends among the Ka Kwen and no enemies. Several men took books and promised to read them. We stopped at noon both on the first and second days from there in Kamu villages where they said that if they had some one to teach them they would like to learn Christianity.

At noon the third day we stopped at Sope Yim where there was a French resident station but no one residing in it. At the Kamu village where we stopped that night we were hospitably entertained. Many of the men speak Lao very well. We had a very good attendance at evening prayers. Several of the men showed a good deal of interest. One old man asked how to take the Lord Jesus for refuge. It really seems as though if we had a good healthy start among the Kamu people they would be like the Karens. They seem tired of the spirits of the house, village and country, which, according to their beliefs, oppress them with disease and compel them to feed them with chickens, pigs, and buffaloes. A large number of buffaloes are kept in each village expressly for this purpose. When any house has fed a buffalo to the spirits, a long slender bamboo pole with a streamer attached is set up through the roof of that house. If two buffaloes have been sacrificed there are two such poles.

At the foot of the first hill the next day we met a guard sent by M. Claudon from M. Sai, all Lü men, and our former guard returned to Chieng Kawng. At evening prayers one of the Lü guides asked me for books and got them. I was especially encouraged by this as I had been so tired I had gone to bed as soon as we arrived and only got up at dark for supper and prayers. The next evening we stopped in another Lü village where the elder distributed books to some ten priests and novitiates. One of them asked me for “knowledge” instead of asking for a book. One of the men said that the people there were Lü straight enough but that their speech was neither Lü nor Lao; it was the M. Sai dialect. This I observed is true. They have some of the characteristics of the Lao speech, but nevertheless their speech, including vocabulary, idiom and tones, is mostly Lü. Their costumes and customs are decidedly so. On Sabbath afternoon I visited the monastery. The abbot gave me a palm leaf book. It might pass for a book from the heart of the Sip Sawng Panna. At evening prayers we had a good attendance from the monastery and from our guards. One of the brightest monks asked me for a copy of the Scriptures. I gave him one for use in the monastery and village. Blessed privileges these of sowing the seed in almost virgin soil. May the Lord give an abundant harvest.

The next day we arrived at M. Sai, the French resident station. M. Claudon was at home and gave me a cordial welcome. I took dinner with him and the interpreter in the evening just after a violent storm of wind and rain. M. Claudon assured me that no passports were necessary for my men who are returning directly. We stayed two nights in the station. I was invited to dine with M. Claudon again but was prevented by a storm. We returned to Ban Kaw Noi and left there soon after daylight for the Christian Kamu villages. We found the road much overgrown but in four hours reached Katang S’ram the largest of the Christian villages. From the time of arrival till nearly 11 p.m. the time was fully occupied in gaining information and giving instruction. They were all such infant believers. Most of the men and women and even the children can speak Lao. If at any point the preacher or elder is not understood by some there are plenty of Kamu auditors who can interpret.

The people were all glad to see us. Those from the neighboring village of Katang Kala came with drum and gongs to welcome us. Chickens, eggs, and rice are given in abundance. They assured me if there was a resident missionary many whole villages of Kamu and the Lao as well would become converts. Even without such they were expecting some to “enter” during this visit. But they were all or nearly all drinkers. They used drums and gongs in going to and from divine service. The old P’ia was a bigamist, and one of the unbaptized nominal believers was married to two of the P’ia’s nieces, before he left spirit worship; and he was then trying to arrange to add a third woman to his harem. “May the Lord direct us what to say or do. For his dear sake we have come. Evidently He has a part of His Body, the Church, among this warm hearted Kamu people. He will guide if we do not lean to our own understanding.” So I admonished myself. I spent a long time in prayer in the woods.

We called them together that first evening and I pleaded with them from John 14:15, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” One of them as a spokesman for the rest enquired, “What words? What are Christ’s commands? Is it right to steal? Is it allowable to have more than one wife? Is liquor drinking right or wrong? How is the Sabbath to be kept? Can a man wittingly violate the commands of God with the purpose of reformation and asking God’s pardon later?” Of course I tried to answer all these questions by the word of God, but never before did I so deeply realize the need of the complete Word of God in the Yûn Tai.

Well, it was evident through the fore part of the next day that the people were in consultation as to whether they should take my exposition of the Word as a guide or whether they should continue to drink, and some of them violate the Sabbath, some few steal, and the one man should persist in adding the third woman to his harem. As the day wore on I became discouraged. It seemed to me the people shunned me. I spoke about it to the elder; and his simple faith rebuked my discouragement. He said, “All depends upon their hearts; and their hearts are under God’s control.” In the late afternoon some of the Christians came to me and assured me that they would take a firm stand against the liquor habit. Oh, how great was my joy! mingled with shame for the discouragement of the morning. All the men of the village of Katang Kala, pledged themselves never more to make or drink any native whiskey. Then they left for home. The man at whose house I was staying gave the same pledge.

In the evening at prayers I read and expounded the story of the Prodigal Son. Never before did it seem so apt, so full of the yearning love of God. The man who had been trying to get the third wife had confessed his sins and decided to give up the chase. As he was a bigamist before becoming a Christian, as his two wives were sisters, and as the General Assembly cannot come to a decision as to such cases, I decided to leave the man and the two sisters in statu quo. None of these three had been baptized and I did not baptize them. But the look of joy on that man’s face as the exposition of the parable proceeded, I shall never forget. It had been with the greatest difficulty that I had persuaded him to face the ordeal of assembling with the company at all. But his shame seemed swallowed up in joy at the reception God gave him as a repentant sinner. After my sermon was ended, the host and the leading men began talking together very earnestly. The result was soon announced in Lao to us. All had decided to obey the word of God and follow the customs of His church. All present pledged themselves to total abstinence from whiskey from henceforth. The little whiskey on hand should be sold and they would never manufacture any more.

The hard fight on that question was likely to be at the P’ia’s village. There were now all the Christians of those two villages pledged abstainers. But the P’ia was a hard drinker and his influence was great. At his village all used whiskey freely, but as his brother said, “If all cease to manufacture it, where will the P’ia get it?” We prayed the Lord to give as complete a victory in the P’ia’s village as he had wrought in the other two.

An hour and twenty minutes travel brought us to the village of the P’ia. A little more than half the way over we were met by a delegation of the Christians. They had a pair of cymbals and two gongs with which to greet us, and to the sound of this Salvation Army band we marched triumphantly into the village. There a large number of people were assembled in the sala or place of public resort. Soon the P’ia himself and his two wives came. All greeted us more cordially even than the other village, Katang S’ram. I soon told the P’ia of the determination of the other villages to quit the liquor business. He begged me to first doctor his ears. I told him I would do the best I could for his ears; but that it was not proper for us to continue in sin and ask God to bless us; the thing to do is to leave off the sin first and then ask God to bless. In evening prayers I used the teaching in Matthew about hypocritical professors. At the close I asked the large company assembled what they were going to do about this liquor drinking. They all finally agreed to quit. When I asked what about the liquor now on hand they said they would like to sell it, but did not know who would take it. I said I would. They laughed and asked me if I would throw it out! Then it was my turn to laugh. But they finally agreed to sell all they had on Monday. May the Lord make this a permanent victory among the Kamu people. It was simply wonderful how the Lord opened the hearts of the people of those three villages to obey His Word. To Him be all the glory! How happy I was that night!

The people from the other two villages came in good numbers to service on Sabbath morning. The sala would not contain all the people. I used the first half of the picture roll, with various interpreters. Great was the interest. In the afternoon had a long talk with the old P’ia. He told us of four Kamu villages besides the three Christian ones this side of M. La, and four beyond it, all of whom are in a receptive mood. He begs that we will come next year in the third month, with force enough to send two Yûn men and a Kamu Christian interpreter to each of these several villages simultaneously. Also there were two villages on the other side of M. Sai which must be visited.

According to agreement I bought and paid for Rs. 1,40 of native whiskey on Monday morning. I had the satisfaction of destroying that much of the devil’s wet powder. The old P’ia said with a most doleful face, “Liquor drinking has been our immemorial custom. It is one of the few pleasures we have. It enters into our making of contracts; into our sowing and our harvest time. But if you say to stop the old women have some for sale.” I assured him that it was not my ipse dixit. Dr. McGilvary had entreated the Kamu Christians not to drink. All three evangelists who came up the year before preached against it. All the Christians then with me agreed with me. But the reason is that it is contrary to the Word of God and the practice of the Church. The old man said, “Yes, I suppose so.” And I made the purchase. Then I left the elder there and returned to Katang S’ram.

The most of the afternoon was spent in visiting and getting acquainted. I found the people had been sensitively thinking that I would not care to enter such poor huts as they lived in, so I did all I could to make myself one with them. I heard that while we were away on Sabbath men came from another village with rice and chickens and said they wished to learn. The next morning I went over to the P’ia’s village to a feast of buffalo meat and to arrange for the marriage of three couples there. We had four weddings that evening. The grooms responded, not with a simple “Yes” but with a lengthy promise in Kamu. As the houses are small and low I allowed the high contracting parties to keep their seats. But in each case they joined their right hands. Some of them had a bit of difficulty in determining which was the right hand. But grooms are usually embarrassed and brides blushing, of course.

The next day I visited Katang Kala, and spent the day and late into the night in learning all they wished to tell me about themselves, and in instructing them. They all sadly need instruction. They told me many interesting historical legends about their people. The next day I went to Ban Nawng Nung and returned, for the report that they wished to learn was unfounded. They were not yet prepared to leave off spirit worship. We were glad enough to get back into the Christian atmosphere of Katang Kala. Though the believers there were very far from the standard of the gospel they are also far from the surrounding heathenism. We pray that the seed sown may bring a harvest in God’s time, but to me personally the day’s tramp was worth while if only to get a better appreciation of the Kamu Christians by contrast. After the evening service I had the catechumens recite the ten commandments, then I expounded each commandment in turn. The eagerness with which Paw La entered into the interpreting of the commandments showed afresh that there is no teaching like God’s teaching: there is no method of instruction like God’s own method.

Sabbath, March 23, was a most memorable day. After an early breakfast we walked over to the P’ia’s village. There the elder and I with the assistance of an interpreter examined fourteen adults for baptism. In the service following these adults and nine children were baptized. Then the Lord’s Supper was eaten. The old P’ia asked me if it was proper for a man who had been such a drinker as he to commune. I told him if he had truly reformed it was becoming. He said he had truly reformed; that if any one took him by the hands as is the Kamu custom and tried to force him to drink, he still had teeth and would bite! With mingled feelings I bade them farewell.

Returning to Katang S’ram we examined and received to the Lord’s table eight persons and baptized nine children. In this service the Christians of two villages participated. The next morning we rose before the dawn. Parting presents were collected and brought. When all the men’s loads were made up we all, Yûn and Kamu, stood in a circle in the light of the dawn and sang of the Happy Land, far, far away. All sang treble but it was mostly tremble. Then I gave a benediction, we shook hands and most of the men accompanied us a little way and wished us God speed. Never shall I forget that parting with the S’ram Christians! And though I had sung of the Happy Land hundreds of times before it will always henceforth remind me of that ante-sunrise prayer meeting.

I came on to the city and slept at Ban Tin a Lü village just south of the Post. I was kept up till 11 p.m. conversing with inquirers. I spent the forenoon in business with M. Claudon and lunched with him for two hours. As usual with these hospitable Frenchmen, he sent me, as I was leaving Ban Tin, quite a supply of fresh vegetables. That evening we camped at a large Lü village, Ban Baw, of some eighty houses. People listened well and took books. Some inquirers came after service. In less than two hours from there we reached the Christian Kamu village, Ban Fen. Five or six Christian households awaited instruction and baptism there. That evening though very tired we were very joyful too. For twenty-five adults and eighteen children, all the population of the village except two, received baptism. Of those two, one had already been baptized and the other was a bigamist. But what an experience to baptize practically a whole village in one evening! Like the others, they had been addicted to drink: but all promised to give it up entirely.

They told us that the people of Ban Huie Ngun were anxious to have us come to their place. They had once been interested in Christ but for lack of instruction had lost their interest. Now the Raja sent me word that if I came he’d have a feast (of pig) and have all the demon shrines of the village torn down. This was in answer to our prayers. The next day we walked over there, a six hours walk, as the road was too bad for my horse. When we arrived the Raja and his subalterns took us by the hand with evident joy. All hands set to work immediately to put up a booth for us; soon we were very comfortable. At evening prayers I used a part of the picture roll. I had given half of it to the P’ia. All repeated the Lord’s Prayer after me. Afterwards I taught the Ten Commandments, explaining each and repeating the first and second till all knew them. Then the Raja told me that he and his people wished to learn and receive the commandments later. After some questioning I found that he wished me to consent for him and his people to have a big drunk the next month. The reason for this mild request was that some time ago there were some marriages. The other party had given the customary feast of hog and whiskey and next month it would be the Raja’s turn to give a similar feast. I did not wish to seem arbitrary so I told him I would think about it and consult with the elder and let him know the next morning.

I made the Raja’s request the subject of special prayer, that I might be given the grace of speech so to put the matter before him as to lead him into the right—not drive him away from it. For he was no ordinary Kamu. He had been to Maulmein, Mawkmai, Chiengmai, and down as far as Pitsanulok in lower Siam. He had lived in Lakawn for eight years and spoke Tai fluently. The elder, the Raja and some of his leading men were called to my booth. A long talk followed. The elder joined me in assuring them that when one agrees to “learn” he must “enter,” that is he must learn with the intention to obey. When this was made clear to the Raja he said “I will enter today and receive the commandments. We will have the feast and tear down the spirit shrines now.” This meant the whole village, of fifty-four adults. In the late afternoon we assembled in one house, in the inner room where the spirit shrines had just been torn down. The family said they wished me to sit just where Satan’s seat had been, and I did. The feast was spread before us. The elder led in a prayer of dedication of the house and its inmates to the dear Lord Jesus. I followed in a prayer of consecration of the feast. Then before eating we went to two other houses and cleared them of Satan and his belongings.

In the evening we divided into three companies for instruction. After lessons my company asked to hear a hymn in English. I gave them a few hymns in my best style. The Raja said it made him want to dance. He said he wished I would sing English songs in the houses tomorrow; the spirits would surely flee then! He explained that his idea was that the spirits of the land do not understand English and would be frightened by English songs. People stayed and studied till I was thoroughly tired out that night.

The next morning, Sabbath, they came early with their books to study the Lord’s Prayer. After breakfast we had three gongs and a pair of cymbals to summon us to service in each of the five houses, whose spirit shrines we tore down. After luncheon a little nap! Then all the pictures of the chart, a few rounds of teaching the Lord’s Prayer and services in three more houses, making eight expositions of scripture that day. Then the Christians, just before dark, to the music of the gongs and cymbals, formed a ring and two of them danced! I called the elder and asked him what he thought of it. He said, didn’t David dance before the Ark of the Lord? As we are exhorted to praise the Lord with cymbals, harps and all kinds of instruments and to come before him with dancing, I did not feel at liberty to forbid these demonstrations of joy on the part of the Kamu Christians. They are probably to be the Salvation Army of Indo-China. They seem to have the requisite zeal and fervor.

Before we left, the Christians of Huie Ngun gave me a letter for their Yûn brethren. It was a bamboo stick and it read as follows: One big notch means, send us a big man, a minister to baptize us next year and to teach us and the other Kamu. Two small notches on that side mean: Come the second Lao month, so as to give time for sufficient teaching. The six notches on the other side are six villages who have told us they will enter Christianity if teacher or elder come in time to give them a good start next dry season. The one notch by itself is a witch village which will surely enter.

Surrounding our goods with a circle of Kamu, Yûn, and American Christians, we sang again of the Happy Land, commended Ban Huie Ngun to the Grace of God, then said goodbye expecting to part then and there. But no, the Raja and quite a company with gongs and cymbals accompanied us for the forty minutes walk out to the main road. Truly few are blessed with such experiences.

After the rare and much wished for privilege of visiting all the other stations in the Mission, the tour of four and a half months, which began in Chiengrai ended in Chiengmai, where my wife and daughter were awaiting me for our furlough which was due and already sanctioned.

The bamboo letter was never answered. The following year the Mission sent Dr. Campbell and Mr. Mackay to M. Sai but they found a closed door. The local commissioner had received orders from the French officials at headquarters “to forbid our missionaries to visit the Christian community, or to hold any religious service with them.” So they shut the door—the door of hope for thousands of the Kamu people. We have some reason to think that the door may open again, however, in these post-war days if men and means are sent to carry on the work.

Word comes from time to time that our Kamu Christians are faithful. One of them is studying in the theological school in Chiengmai, to be prepared to go back and work among his people. With his help, Mrs. Crooks of our Mission has translated First Peter in Kamu, which was printed in the Yûn character in Chiengmai. It is now in the second edition.

Of all the different branches of the Tai race that we have met and known those nearest and dearest to our hearts are the people of North Siam. It is not strange that we should love so loveable a people after living with them and working for them for the greater part of thirty years. Furloughs and tours of evangelization and exploration have kept me away for long months at a time; but always, I returned to them joyfully, feeling that there I belonged. With them was my home; for “home is where the heart is.” There were many pulls at the heart strings when we finally broke the ties which bound us so closely to them and started anew in the land of the Lü.

To our friends and co-workers in the home land, with the exception of the Siamese, the people of North Siam are the most familiar and most dear. I wonder if you who have worked so long and so faithfully for them, will recognize your dear Laos people in the title of this chapter. If not let me introduce them to you under a new name. The old name and the old life of the Laos people have passed away. The name “Laos” as applied to the people of North Siam was a mistake, both in pronunciation and application. Even though it has been used for generations past alike by Siamese, Europeans, and Americans, it was never used by the people themselves. A few years ago, the Siamese government expressed a desire, which was equal to a mandate, that all the people of the realm should be called Siamese. So in deference to government plans and innovations the name of our Laos Mission was changed to North Siam Mission, and the North Laos people passed out of existence. Their country is now to be known only as Payap.

The name Yûn is not a new name. It is the name by which they have been known by the peoples around them from earliest history. When the first great Tai migration drifted down from China as early as the sixth century B.C., the Ai-Lao found the country east of the Salween inhabited by the Yûn or Karens. This Lin-y, Tchen-Tching, the Karen kingdom, seems to have been a large domain extending from the Salween to the Mekong and probably as far south as Cambodia. Its riches were said to be immense. As the Ai-Lao offered their allegiance to the Yûn or Karen King he accepted it and allowed them to dwell in his land. In the early part of that century if not earlier they had built several large towns in what was then Yûn (Karen) country. Among these were Muang Lem and Chiengrung, Chiengtung and Chiengsen the oldest town in what is now Siam.

According to the local history which I have read, in the year 543 B.C. the Ai-Lao by strategy threw off the Karen yoke in all these towns and surrounding districts. But they got thereby the Karen name according to Mr. Hallet. He says that “the Burmese still call the country east of the Salween Yûn and the Shans who inhabit it Yûn Shans (or Tai).” The lapse of two milleniums and two centuries finds all these Yûn towns still extant as Tai towns. And the name Yûn is in use in these regions though now only applied to the Tai of North Siam and to the Buddhist literature and religious cult which has come from there. As we have seen, this is true in the Shan States of Burma, among the Lao of French territory, and the Lü and Tai Nüa of Yünnan, in fact wherever the Chiengmai character is in use it is the Yûn script, and the Chiengmai people are called Yûn.

The name Chiengmai seems also of Karen origin, as it is spoken of in history as “Tsching-mai, a Karen principality,” in very early times. History records that the capital of the “empire of Chiengmai” has been at various times at Chiengrai, Chiengsen, Lampun, Lakawn, Chiengmai, and other places. Mr. Hallett says, “On the death of the King of Chiengsen, the King of Kengtūng seems to have been acknowledged as the ruler of the Yûn Shans, for in A.D. 707 the son of the King of that kingdom conquered the northern half of Cambodia, settled there with a horde of Shans (or Tai) and drove the inhabitants to the south amongst the Siamese. The first wave of the Yûn Shans thus descended to the neighborhood of the Gulf of Siam.”

From that time this whole region was an immense battle field, kingdoms and empires changing hands in a gigantic tug of war. Siam, Chiengmai, Cambodia, Vieng Chan; China, Burma, and Pegu were “mixed up in constant warfare until the armies had swept the country and gathered up as in a great net all who were not killed in battle.” Great areas were left desolate without man, woman or child, and elephants, rhinoceroses, tigers, deer, and wild cattle took possession. In all these reverses and conquests the “empire of Zimme” (Chiengmai) had its part, until, in 1774, it was made tributary to Siam. Again quoting Holt Hallett: In 1858, “Peace seems to have thrown its cloak over the part of Indo-China to the west of Annam. It was at length at rest after its two thousand years of almost constant warfare.”

If the ruins of old Chiengsen could speak they would have an interesting story to tell. It must have been a fine city at one time. Built in the time of the Karen kingdom, it had a stormy existence. The annals say that when the Chinese conquered southwestern Yünnan the Tsen State extended southward from the Yünnan lake, and eastward to Nanning. It probably included Tsen-i-fa or Chiengrung, Tsen-i, Thenini, now in Burma, and Chieng Tsen which became feudatory to Burma between A.D. 1522-1615. During that period the Burmese held the Yûn Tai as slaves and, like the Egyptians with Jacob’s children, made them their builders, at least of temples and pagodas. Another point of likeness was that they oppressed them until there came a revolution, in which the Burmans were driven out. The city was destroyed in 1804 by the Mêping Tai and has never been rebuilt. All the pagodas, temples, and idols were left unmolested and bear testimony that, like the Athenians, the people were “in all things very religious.”

There were said to be fifty-three temples within the city wall, and there were over sixty pagodas yet standing in a fair state of preservation, and almost innumerable idols, some of them of as fine bronze as I ever saw. I visited the ruins of one temple where I saw not only such bronze work as the Yûn of today could not make, but also some fine masonry columns which they would be equally incapable of reproducing. I marvelled at the durable quality of the masonry and of the plaster still adhering to it. The city must have contained a numerous and wealthy people and highly skilled craftsmen.

The city has a magnificent site. It is situated on the Cambodia, here a noble river a mile wide, about like the Mississippi at Burlington. The walls of the city which are in fair condition in some places and nearly in ruins in others enclose a vast area, most of which at present would be forest unmarked by sign of humanity were it not for the vast number of pagodas, whose spires still point skyward amidst the tropical foliage.

Broad and wonderfully fertile plains extend on both sides of the river. The view from the city sweeps over the plain to the hills beyond. The banks of the river here are twenty feet high. On the eastern side, the fortification and part of the city have been carried away by the river. The outer wall has a base of seventy feet, is twelve feet wide at the top, and fourteen feet high. The inner wall has a base of seventy-five feet, and is eighteen feet high. In its center is a wall two and one-half feet wide, from which the earth slopes away thirty feet in the city and for forty-three feet outside. The walls are ninety-seven feet apart. A large gap in the south wall was said to have been made in 1797 when the Lao of Vieng Chan besieged the city. Fully half the city is covered with ruins of temples and pagodas, with bronze idols from two to seven feet long lying about everywhere among the debris. One is most impressed by the great number of idols and the beautiful decorations. Near the city is a leaning pagoda which is very picturesque.

After seventy-seven years the King of Siam ordered the city and plain to be repopulated from the other Yûn cities to which the people had fled, but before this was fully accomplished it became the center of a buffer state between England, France, and Siam, and the lawlessness which ensued destroyed every vestige of life which was left. The seat of government was moved south to the Mê Chan, half way to Chiengrai, and old Chiengsen stands with her broken walls, her ruined temples and vanished homes, “left unto her desolate.”

But the loss of Chiengsen has been the gain of the other Yûn cities. Chiengmai and Lakawn contain large numbers of Kün and Lü descended from the captives of Chiengsen: Lampun was said to contain 30,000. Chiengrai is now the only city on the northern frontier and is the meeting place of the caravan trade routes from China, Burma, Karenni, the Shan States, Siam, Tongking, and Annam. A cart road is now completed connecting Chiengrai with the railroad at Lakawn, which it is intended will be a motor road, possibly a railroad in future connecting Burma with Siam. So Chiengrai has grown from a forsaken and uninteresting border town to a place of strategic importance, a thriving center of trade.

In thirty years we have seen a transformation in our dear old Laos-land, the Yûn country. The weekly mail service was only established in 1886, the year we arrived, and was very irregular. The telegraph line was completed to Chiengmai the following year. Now there is a daily mail in all railroad towns, and telegraph and government telephone throughout the kingdom.

A procession of five or six or even twenty elephants was no uncommon sight in the streets at that time. Owing to the state of the roads, through the jungle, over high mountain ranges, through almost impassable bogs and deep streams, the elephant was almost the only mode of travel for journeys of any distance. Pack bullocks were the usual means of transport, and the music of the cattle bells filled the air with enchantment, with their deep mellow tones like the melody of a mountain brook, as they carried home the harvested rice in the evenings across the plains, or echoed among the hills as the long cattle trains wound about the mountain trails on their way from province to province. Now the whistle of the incoming railroad train is heard through forest and over plain.

Formerly the journey from Bangkok and the coast steamers was made by slow river boats poled by hand in the dry season, as the current is too swift to admit of poling in the high water though it is fine going down. Seven weeks used to be the usual time for the journey up river from Bangkok to Chiengmai. The record trip made by our Mission boats in a year of unusually “dry water,” as these people say, was three months and a half, 108 days for 500 miles! Now when conditions will admit of traveling at night, a fast train can make it in twenty-four hours. Cast up highways with bridges are reaching out in every direction to the boundaries of the kingdom.

Other changes and developments on the part of the government have followed in the wake of that of transport; better houses and markets, merchants and wares from other lands. And as the Siamese have awakened to the value and importance of their northern possessions, schools, courthouses, barracks, police stations, jails, all manned and controlled under an organized system of law and order. The well kept grounds of the court and police stations and other government buildings, with their trees, grass, and flowers, are models in every important town and village.

The change in our mission work in thirty-three years is even greater. In 1886 there were only two stations, Chiengmai and Lakawn, manned at that time by two families and two lady teachers. Lakawn had been opened the previous year by Dr. and Mrs. Peoples. There were only four churches and one school, the Chiengmai Girls’ Boarding School, now the Prarachaya Girls’ School, name for the Chiengmai wife of the late King.

Thirty-three years ago there was not a school for boys in all Siam north of Bangkok. The only institutions approaching schools were the Buddhist monasteries which taught the merest rudiments to a few monks. We saw the first real school for boys in north Siam started by the Rev. D. G. Collins in 1886.

Now there are government schools all over the kingdom. In our Mission there are both Boys’ and Girls’ Boarding Schools in each of the five stations and forty-two parochial day schools in our country parishes. Our Kennedy Boys’ School in Chiengrai takes an educational journal published in Siamese at the capital. There are regular faculty meetings and modern methods are discussed between our teachers and the teachers of the government school. Prince Royal’s College, Rev. Wm. Harris, principal, has six foreign teachers and eight Siamese teachers, with a total enrollment of 242. His Majesty, the King of Siam, when Crown Prince laid the corner stone of this school building and named the school for himself. “The School aims to produce young men, sound in mind and body, and so thoroughly imbued with the Christian principles of self-sacrifice and service, that they will in their respective spheres of influence, loyally, intelligently, and efficiently coöperate in the carrying out of His Majesty’s program for the development and advancement of His Kingdom, Siam.”

The Training School for Christian Workers which I began with fifteen students in 1889 has developed into the Theological Seminary, with Rev. Dr. Roderick Gillies in charge, with its fine Severance Hall and with an enrollment at one time as high as 120.

The one temporary dispensary of 1886 is succeeded by five hospitals, one in each of the five stations of Chiengmai, Lakawn, Pre, Nan, and Chiengrai, and a medical work extending its influence all over the kingdom and up into Burma and China: with the Chiengmai Leper Asylum under Dr. J.W. McKean where 415 lepers have found relief and a home during the last decade. And 183 of them have found eternal life; “Christ,—the hope of glory.”

One of the tasks of my first year was printing on the cyclostyle thirty copies of a leaflet of forms for church service, and the following year I printed eighty copies of a tract in Yûn Tai by Mrs. McGilvary. Now the Chiengmai American Mission Press under the efficient management of Mrs. D. G. Collins has turned out in the Yûn character in this year alone 2,082,173 pages of Scripture, hymnbooks, tracts, newspapers, Sunday School lessons, etc. The Press was established and carried on by the Rev. D. G. Collins until he was called to his reward on June 9, 1917, at Chicago, U. S. A. Since her return to the field Mrs. Collins has taken up the work of her husband. The Lakawn tannery, an industrial plant for making leather and all kinds of leather goods, started by Rev. H. S. Vincent in connection with the Boys’ School, has been carried on successfully for some years with the patronage of the government.

The four churches of 1886 are now forty-three with about 10,000 adherents. There are sixty missionaries in connection with the Mission, either on the field or on furlough. A volume might be written about these different branches of our work for the Yûn people, but we can only mention them briefly in this one chapter which we have to devote to this large and important division of the Tai race.

To show how much the manners and customs of the people have changed, here is a description of a wedding written March 6, 1887, a few weeks after our arrival in Chiengmai. As a single man I then lived with Dr. and Mrs. McGilvary. They took me into their family and were at all times the perfection of kindness. Mrs. McGilvary’s motherly counsel and the example of Dr. McGilvary’s childlike strength and simplicity of faith, his remarkable prayers and his zealous and effective evangelism, did much to mold my missionary life and work.

We assembled for this my first native wedding in their parlor after supper. Dr. McGilvary had asked me to bring my violin. He and Mrs. McGilvary sat at one side of the table by the east wall and I and the violin at the other, while guests squatted all over the room. This continued in solemn silence until the Doctor and his wife started out in search of the high contracting parties. Said search was somewhat prolonged, seeming to justify the whispered opinion of one young man present that “it would be better to save trouble by marrying them all at once.” Finally all were found. Dr. McGilvary had us sing Happy Day, in Laos, read a portion of Scripture and led in prayer. Then Mrs. McGilvary led the bride out into the center of the room and Dr. McGilvary caught the groom and pulled him up to the same place as nearly as possible. He looked south and she north. The Doctor and his wife held their hands together while he asked the important questions. As he got no response he had to answer them himself. As soon as they were released they flew apart, much as the two ends of a bent spring when the hold is loosened, both looking as if caught stealing sheep. Hereupon the company dispersed and the Doctor and his wife remarked on what an improvement had been made in the conduct of the bride and groom of late years.

Dr. and Mrs. Dodd and Daughter

The modern up-to-date wedding in Montone Payap is usually held in church with flowers and other decorations, bridesmaids and groomsman, wedding march and a ring.

I am trying to put before you briefly the historical and political and missionary setting, with change and progress in the life of the Yûn people. But to know the people themselves, as before, we ask you to follow us into their hearts and homes in the ins and outs of our life and work among them.

The outstanding figure in the history of the Yûn church is still after all the years between, and perhaps always will be, the Rev. Nan Tah, our first ordained minister. Here is a description written to Dr. Mitchell, our Board Secretary at that time, 1889: “At our meeting of Presbytery in December Nan Tah was ordained as an evangelist. He is a grand man. He looks a little like the pictures of Martin Luther, and has a carriage and general air which make him a marked man wherever he goes. This is not so important though as the man that is back of the carriage. A man of rank by birth, one of the very best Buddhist scholars in the country, by far the best Biblical scholar among the Laos, the arbiter of disputes, respected by highest government officials, he is yet the humblest man I have met in the kingdom, and the hungriest to learn.

“When you make your all-the-world tour of Missions you will meet him, and you will be sure to meet him at his right hand. His technical knowledge of systematic theology and of pastoral theology as well, is quite limited; yet we all felt that his knowledge of Biblical theology is so thorough and his judgment in all practical church matters so good that we ran no risk in ordaining him. And on the whole, his examination including his written sermon, might have shamed many a seminary graduate. It is in him: it has not been put on.”

His ordination occurred in my second year and the day was the happiest Sabbath I had known in Laos-land. He and I spent the last hour before his ordination together in my study, and the prayer he made just as we parted was touching. “A good man and full of the Holy Ghost.” I asked him to pray that in propounding to him the constitutional questions as moderator and in making the ordaining prayer, I might be assisted to speak so that I might be understood; and I was told that I had not made another such a prayer in the Tai language as I was assisted to make on that occasion. I felt myself almost as if I had the gift of tongues and could say anything I wished in Tai as well as in English. Verily God heard Nan Tah’s parting prayer.

A few weeks after my arrival when I could only talk a little I began giving him marginal references for the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. A little later I taught him and several others something in geography. Four years later he was helping me teach in the Training School for Christian Workers and I let him take a class in geography. He had no book to teach from, only some wall maps. But he remembered the names in English of every continent, country, ocean, sea, gulf, and bay on the globe, and all the principal mountains and rivers. He forgot only two names of all those he had learned four years before and he had not been using them meanwhile and they were all in a strange language to him. This seemed to me remarkable in a man nearly fifty years old. I have known him frequently to quote marginal references which I gave him more than four years before. If you had seen him, his great earnestness of manner would have impressed you even though you did not know his language.

When he was a Buddhist monk he made a pilgrimage to Lampun, seventeen miles away, at the instigation of the abbot who was his teacher. He traveled with only a staff in his hand and a priest’s begging bowl. He took five steps in advance and two backward, three net steps, saying with every step, “satsuk, satsuk, satsuk,” three times with each step, “peace to the animals.” This was asking pardon if he had inadvertently trod on any form of animal life. At the end of each prescribed day’s journey, he drew a circle with his staff and lay down in it, wherever it happened to be. Those who heard of his journey hastened to make merit by bringing food to so pious a pilgrim. In this slow and painful way it took him a month to reach Lampun. On his arrival he was met by his teacher who had preceded him. Weary and much worn with his voluntary hardships he said, “Surely I will be saved now!” But his teacher said, “No, Nan Tah, not yet. There is no salvation in Buddhism. You will have to leave the priesthood and wait for the coming of the true religion.” He then repeated a prophecy which we are told is found in poetic form in one of their Buddhist books, to the effect that the true religion will come from the south. It will be brought by a man with light eyes and a long beard. He would not walk on the earth like a man or fly in the air like a bird. He would bring in his hand the true Ten Commandments. These would be like smoke in the nostrils of priests and people alike but “whoever believes will be saved.”

So Nan Tah left the priesthood and married a young wife. Soon after, he met Dr. McGilvary who had come from Bangkok in a boat. He answered the prophetic description, and when Nan Tah heard him read the Ten Commandments he was convinced that this was what he was waiting for and he became a regular visitor at the Mission house. About that time the persecution arose when the martyrs were killed. Nan Tah was warned that his life was in danger and he fled into Burma. He took with him a copy of Matthew in Siamese and as he wandered about he read it and learned to pray. After nine years of wandering he returned to his wife and daughter and was taken into the employ of the Mission as a teacher. No wonder then, that when he found salvation in Christ, as Martin Luther did, he was wonderfully earnest in telling every one about it. I do not think he ever let a day pass without telling somebody how to be saved. He was not made a pastor of any church. He preferred to be an evangelist to the whole people. He and I joined hands in a pledge of eternal brotherhood and were close friends till the time of his death.

When we arrived in North Siam evangelistic work had been inaugurated for twenty years. The first veteran, Dr. McGilvary, was still on the field. Most of the time there had been few workers. Much seed had been sown over a limited area and it was then beginning to bring a plenteous harvest. For two years there had been over ninety accessions annually and from that time on there was steady gain of one hundred, one hundred and twenty, etc., every year. There was a strong central organization in Chiengmai and many auxiliary organizations outside. All the usual church ordinances were observed; preaching, Sunday school, weekly prayer meetings, and monthly communion service. There were between five and ten accessions in Chiengmai at each communion service. It was an interesting sight to see four hundred recent pagans sitting clothed in white coats around the Lord’s table, bowing reverently in prayer and singing heartily some of the same songs that we have loved from childhood. This same scene is now duplicated many times over, every Sabbath, throughout the land. There is some difference in costume but none in custom except that in some of the larger churches they have pews and no longer sit on the floor, and individual cups are used for communion in some churches.

The main difference is that now there are second and third generation Christians in all churches and the leaders are from their own people. In the Chiengrai church I baptized the children of our head school master, a deacon in the church whose great, great grandmother I had baptized in Lampun in my first year. But then and now one’s heart sinks when he remembers who are not present at the Lord’s table, the millions who are perfectly accessible, but whom the church has hitherto neglected to reach.

The perfect willingness of the people to accept the gospel is a marvel. My first tour taken with Dr. McGilvary four months after my arrival was a constant surprise to me. I believe I am safe in saying that within two weeks a hundred people professed to accept the gospel on first hearing it. They are not bigoted like the Chinese; many of them are already dissatisfied with Buddhism. They are not disputatious like the people of India. Of course there are some here whose hearts are as hardened as any sinner in Christian countries; and many more hold back from fear of offending the spirits and from fear of their rulers. But there is a large proportion who are willing to receive the light. On this tour there were seven adults baptized and nineteen children, the last family being that of Noi Nya, my boat captain who had rescued me from drowning in the Mêping on our journey up the river. At Dr. McGilvary’s suggestion I learned the formula of baptism and administered the rite in this instance. It was a gratification to me and to him, that the first persons I baptized were the children of my friend and rescuer.

One more description of “the days of Auld Lang Syne” in Laos-land may be interesting in contrast to the bustling, business-like arrival of the present-day Siamese dignitaries by motor or railway train. “The aged so-called King of Chiengmai, Chow Intanon, has been absent, having gone to Bangkok to give his daughter to the King of Siam in polygamous marriage, and has now returned. The King has to come up the river as any one else does, viz., in a rocking, reeling Laos boat propelled by polemen and going only about as fast as a man could easily walk on shore, but he does his best to come in state. His boat is somewhat gaudily decked in royal trappings and carries the royal colors astern. There were more than thirty boats in the royal fleet which arrived yesterday, and they made something of an appearance as they passed slowly by. Most of them were bedecked in a manner to please the half-savage heart. And yet after all it is difficult to get anything very imposing in appearance out of this kind of a craft. But you may imagine that the royal fleet did not come in silence, and perhaps you think the martial music was imposing. There was plenty of noise but I could not detect anything martial in it nor do I think it would be quite right to call it music. Dr. Cheek, who has been here thirteen years, says he has detected tunes in this uproar. Perhaps I shall in thirteen years.

“We have one bridge over the river here. The fleet had to pass under it. One of the laws of society is that nothing upon which men have ever walked shall pass over the sacred head of the King. So, of course, the planks were removed from a section of the bridge. But the stringers on which they rested could not be removed so easily, so they were left, although hundreds of people have walked on them. The King landed not far below Mr. Collins’s house and went into a summer house there for the present. Probably you could never guess why. He must not enter the city until the astrologers have determined on the lucky day! He may have to wait some time. It is said that he is very agreeable and is especially kind to the missionaries. He is a pleasant looking old man of a low order of intellect. He is a mere figure head, the real power being the late queen’s nurse. It is a significant fact that this woman is in reality a slave and yet she rules a petty kingdom. Her tenure of power, however, is very uncertain. She may lose it all at any time and her head with it. No one expects that there will ever be another King here but when the present King dies a Siamese deputy will be appointed.”

This expectation of thirty years ago has been long ago fulfilled. There is now a Siamese Viceroy over Payap who rules the country with equity; with bright well educated Siamese governors of the districts under him. His Serene Highness the Viceroy was educated in Europe, and is in speech and manners an English gentleman.

In my second year on the field I was privileged to take a tour with Dr. McGilvary and Dr. and Mrs. Peoples to Chiengrai and Chiengsen, which enlarged my vocabulary and increased my knowledge of the people and their ways. At one place an assistant led a meeting, taking for his subject a chapter in the Confession of Faith. He thought it was scripture. The next day a pious old man was advising another “to quit reading that story book and devote himself wholly to scripture.” The story book was found to be the book of Job! A church was organized in the city of old Chiengsen at that time which some years later was removed to British territory in Kengtūng State. One evening while there four little girls about six or eight years old came and sat all in a row before us as we sat at supper and sang so sweetly a number of Christian hymns.

The training school was organized on our return. The students seemed very much in earnest. I encouraged them to ask questions, and here are some specimens. They wanted to know whether the creation of angels was included by implication in the Mosaic account. There is a widespread belief that Eve was taken from Adam’s left side and hence the woman is the weaker physically of the two sexes. They wanted to know if there was scripture warrant for this.

We were married in Bangkok in 1889 at the home of Mrs. Dodd’s brother, Rev. J. A. Eakin. He performed the ceremony assisted by my Seminary classmates, Rev. W. G. McClure and Rev. C. A. Berger, so it was thoroughly well done. The presence of a U. S. Consul as a sine qua non of an American wedding abroad, makes it necessary for all happy couples on the frontier who wish to be made one to take a journey to the coast. In our case there was a prisoner for Christ’s sake lying in a dungeon in Chiengmai whose release we were commissioned to secure. This story is told in Dr. McGilvary’s book and I need not repeat it only to say it involved a two months’ stay in lower Siam before our mission was finally accomplished.

On our return what was then the North Laos Presbytery met in our house. Twelve hundred were reported as gathered out of the millions of heathen. The Rev. Hugh Taylor was moderator. The thing that made this a rare event personally was that our fathers were members of the same session in Red Oak, Iowa, for years and Hugh and I were school boys together. The recent arrival of Dr. and Mrs. McKean and Miss Cornelia McGilvary also made this meeting a time of rejoicing.

A new addition to the training school the next term was Pa Wan, the Bible woman at the hospital. She read Siamese very well and had an excellent memory, for a grandmother, but “there were passages she did not understand,” so I took her into the school. I was pleased to see the deference which was paid to her by the men, gallantry you might almost say. It was one of the latest Christian developments I had seen.

The most interesting developments of our work at that time were in Lampun. A good site had been secured for a Mission station, a native house put up and an evening school started under the care of a converted Buddhist priest. There were Christian homes in seventeen villages. In our vacation of 1890 Misses Griffin and Westervelt, Mrs. Dodd, and I visited twelve of these villages. The ladies traveled on elephants. There were many who had never seen a white woman before. Our message, ourselves, our entire outfit opened a new world to them. How they did love to watch us eat! Prom that time the call and the need sounded so loudly from Lampun that in September of 1891, by appointment of the Mission, my wife and I moved to Lampun and as soon as the manse was erected, the training school was transferred there also. There we learned the trials and deprivations, the joys and privileges of a single family in opening a new station. We did not need to go out to search for the people in order to tell them “The Story.” They came to us, of all ranks and social conditions, from the son of the late Governor to the most ignorant coolie. We tried always to say something to every one about the true way of life. In the first two weeks there was only one day when we were not visited by princesses and there was not one day which did not see many yellow robed priests in our house. In the first two Sabbaths we had audiences of about two hundred.

A church was organized December 25, 1891, with one hundred and twenty-one adults and ninety-four children on the roll, the fruits of the labors of Dr. McGilvary and his assistants. Our church members were scattered, living in eighteen different villages, the extremes being about 45 miles apart. Like the Promised Land, we were given for our field every place on which we had the faith and strength to put the soles of our feet. It was an ideal field of work for our students. Every Saturday they were sent out two by two coming back on Monday with most interesting reports. And there were added to the church monthly of such as shall be saved. And in a tour which I took in the vacation of 1893 they were “added daily.” This tour extended to M. Lee, in the extreme southern end of our parish, forty or fifty miles farther than any missionary had ever been before by land. There were thirty adults and twenty-two children baptized and ten other households professed conversion during our trip. Mr. Irwin came to assist in the Training School the next term and there were thirty-six students enrolled.

About this time a man came for medicine one day and stayed for the recitation of the advance class. He was a gray haired man, a grandfather. He told me his name was Noi Chy and that his mother wanted to see me. I said in surprise, “Why, is your mother living?” “Yes” he said, and she wanted to see me very much. I took him home with me and had a long talk with him. He told me that he and his mother had been seeking for light for many years. Two of our students had visited them and he had received a copy of a tract on the way of life.

Meanwhile he had gone to some head priests with two questions. One was about the story of two men who set out to visit Buddha. On the way they were likely to starve. One proposed that they “forage.” The other refused because it was forbidden in the teachings of Buddha, bowed his head in pious meditation and died of starvation. The first one turned robber and reached Buddha. There he told his story. Buddha said, “You are a true disciple of mine. That other fellow was not.” And yet it is taught in many places that one real devout meditation is of more avail than 600,000 Rs. of gold and 600,000 Rs. of silver offerings. No head priest could solve this discrepancy, and the poor man was left in deeper doubt than ever as to the real method of merit making. But his second poser was still more serious. “Suppose I do succeed in accumulating some merit somehow; the books teach that I first go to reap the reward of it. Then I go to reap the punishment of my demerit; then what? Do I begin over again? If so, how? My merit and demerit are both exhausted.” As no one could answer these questions he and his mother pondered the tract.

When he came the next Sabbath he still had one question about it. He did not yet see why Christ died if sinless. When it was again explained to him he could not keep back the tears of joy. I have never seen anywhere else in this country so much exhibition of real feeling. The next day quite a number of us went out to his home, about a mile away. I found his mother a remarkably intelligent old lady. She was 85 or 86 years old. She told us that the evening before a young priest had come to call on her and had read a good portion of the tract aloud to himself. She said as she listened her heart seemed to go up like a sky rocket. She had been an earnest merit maker as long as she was able to go to the temples, but had become very much disgusted with the degeneracy of the priesthood and the prevailing immorality; had long ago come to listen with great allowances to all Buddhist books. She said that when the priest began to read the tract she feared that it too might prove disappointment, but as she listened she found it all good and nothing to be “thrown away,” as she expressed it. She was so glad that she hardly slept any that night. She felt as if a load of cocoanuts had been taken off her breast. And she said, “Now you have come to tell me some more, have you?”

Later Mrs. Dodd went with me and a goodly company of our people out to the house of Noi Chy, and his mother received the sacraments. The old lady was not so well and her mind was not so clear as before, but her confession of faith and love was very clear and strong. One of the elders told me that when he was teaching her the questions and answers for baptism the week before, she broke down and wept when told of the death of Christ at the hand of His enemies. When told Mrs. Dodd’s age and mine she said, “Why, you are but mere children!” After that she called me her son.

The infirmities of age began to prostrate her. It was as if God had preserved her in an unusual degree of vigor of body and mind only until she should find Him. She was failing fast. On my next visit she said, “My son, are you very busy every day?” “Yes, Mother.” After a long pause, “It sometimes seems to Mother as if a primal mistake had been made.” “Why?” “Because there are so few of us.” “You mean, Mother, that if you were still a Buddhist, priests and head priests would be here every day; but I cannot come?” “Yes, that is it.” Who can blame her? Who would not have felt the same in the circumstances? It was not only the spirit of Buddhism that spoke in her. It was “the cry of the human;” but it was not yet the spirit of Christ. “But, Mother, the priests are in every village of the land; but there is only one minister of the gospel in this province. Besides, the Holy Spirit is more to you than ten or twenty or a hundred priests.” “Yes, yes.” She was silenced, but did her heart give hearty consent?

The next Sabbath we went again to hold service in her home in the afternoon. We spoke of the blessedness of those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. The old lady could not rise from her bed. After service this conversation occurred: “Mother, your son wishes to go away off to the south, and hunt out other hungry souls who have not been filled as you have. I shall expect to be gone more than a month. If I go, I may never see Mother again in this world; what do you say?” In her reply it was as if the spirit of Christ Himself spoke. Knowing that it might be our last meeting on earth she replied quickly, “Go, go. Mother has not a word of objection. I am glad to have you go.” Then she added a form of blessing as she held my hand at parting. The heart of Christianity is love. And the highest expression of love, according to Christ, is self-sacrifice and service. The heart of Buddhism and the heart of Christianity are as far apart as the poles. Yet with generations of Buddhism ancestry behind her, and after nearly ninety years of unusually hearty following of Buddhism teaching herself, she had within less than six months reached the very core of the Gospel—the heart of Christianity.

In September, 1893, we left for our first furlough. The total enrollment of the church in Lampun was then 402. During our absence two new churches were organized from this number. Seven of our students were ordained to the ministry and three licentiates received. Owing to the change of policy in introducing self support the school was temporarily disbanded, but on our return it was reorganized, moved to Chiengmai and established in a deserted sawmill. There we had an interesting and successful year, and much good work was done.

Even then the call to the far north was echoing in our hearts and as a move in that direction the school was taken in charge by Mr. Campbell, and in February of 1897 we went with Dr. and Mrs. Denman and family to open a new station at Chiengrai. In the mean time Pre Station had been opened by Dr. and Mrs. Briggs and Nan Station by Dr. and Mrs. Peoples, and an interesting work was going on in these two places. Contrary to our expectations, Chiengrai was our home and center of work for twenty years, excepting the four years residence in Burma. But always, while giving our best endeavor to translating and teaching, to church and city and country work at Chiengrai Station, appeals and efforts for the millions beyond were our meat and drink, and the long tours of exploration and evangelization, told in the proceeding chapters, began and ended in Chiengrai.

In the thirty years and more since I first saw it, a small far inland city, primitive to the last degree, Chiengmai has developed into the thriving government center of North Siam, a town of 70,000 inhabitants, with handsome brick government buildings, court house, barracks, police station, etc., in different quarters of the city with spacious well kept grounds, and official residences, of the Siamese and the British and French government representatives; also residences of the various lumber companies, and other foreigners; the club house, gymkhana grounds, etc.; well made streets, carriages, and motors with daily motor buses running to the railway. With the coming of the railroad, Chiengmai may yet in time come into its place on the world’s stage.

The Mission has led rather than followed in the development of the city. The old white church of thirty years ago is still prominent, with its spire and its home bell, and all that they stand for to the foreigners and all they have come to mean to the people themselves. The college campus has long stood as a model with its beautiful grounds and numerous buildings, including the Severance Hall for the theological students and the site for the new Medical School and Hospital, and also the site for the new Girls’ School building of the future, and the four missionary residences. Also there are the three south compounds on the east side of the river and the old hospital and the press compound on the west side. Our missionary property thus forms an important part of the city’s improvements.

Lakawn is rapidly growing into a busy business center. It has stood at railhead for some years and at the terminus of the cart road to Chiengrai and the caravan trade from the north. The Mission has its two boarding schools, church and hospital, and four residences with grounds, along the river front about a mile from the railroad. The distance between the railway station and the city is being built up, and the city will doubtless double its size in the near future.

Lakawn Station has been blessed throughout its history as the home and resting place of Dr. Jonathan Wilson, one of our two pioneer missionary fathers. As Miss Eakin, Mrs. Dodd traveled all the way from the homeland to Chiengmai under the fatherly care of Dr. Wilson. And while it was never our privilege to live in the same station with him yet we saw much of him within the twenty-four years in which we labored together in the Mission, and we have scores of his loving letters, full of the spirit of the Master. As co-laborers in giving the Laos people the word of God and the sweet song of Zion, he and we had been in close touch for many years. It was on this score that the last time I saw him, at Annual in Lakawn in 1908, he insisted on giving me the cream of his large library, to assist in future literary labors—a most precious legacy.

While his life labors were many and varied, his best and most enduring monument will be the Laos Hymnal. None who had the privilege of hearing him sing will ever forget the composing and singing of those hymns. And yet his other literary labors were not inconsiderable, either in quantity or quality. The longer we wrought at literary toil in the Tai language, the more we appreciated the quality of Dr. Wilson’s translations.

It may not be generally known that he had a life long handicap in the form of ill-health. Dr. Cheek once told me that he supposed that the dear old man never passed a day without suffering severe pain. This lack of physical robustness coupled with this native reticence, and his poetical temperament, prevented his being a great executive. And I have no doubt the same causes operated to prevent his far-sighted statesmanship from exerting upon the Mission the commanding influence to which it was entitled. For he was one of the very broadest minded men and sanest counselors the Mission has ever had. He thought profoundly upon all polity questions. As I look back over the history of the Mission, I cannot recall any large measure of Mission polity which the Mission has ultimately adopted which he had not championed. He was a pioneer in the advocacy of a separate Laos Christian literature, and hence of Laos type, press, and translating work. He was the first, I believe, to attempt getting up a font of Laos type, and he brought the first printing press to Chiengmai. Ever since I had known him, he stood for a broad educational policy, one including girls as well as boys, and men as well as boys and girls. The Mission later came around to his policy of a boarding school for boys and one for girls in each station. Had we been wise enough to listen to him from the first, our Laos Mission would be farther along today in the education of native physicians, pastors, and pastors’ wives.

While thus giving prayer and profound study to all nearby questions of polity, Dr. Wilson’s vision and his sympathies were ever with the regions beyond. He followed with sympathetic interest on all those apostolic tours of Dr. McGilvary which for so many years in succession annually broadened the Mission’s conception of its field and mission. He ever had his eye and his heart fixed upon the Tai outside the confines of Siam. In the later years of his life the burden of his many letters to us was the giving the gospel to the Kün, Lü, and Tai Nüa people in their own written and spoken language. He cheered and encouraged us, and enabled us to bear with greater equanimity the apparently inevitable misunderstandings incident to purely pioneering work in remote and isolated stations. He was among the friends whom we could ever count on not to misunderstand. No man could have been kinder; there has not been a broader man. Prom his present vantage ground, it is certain that he watches more keenly than ever for the realization and consummation of that broad and far reaching polity for which he ever spoke, wrote, and prayed.

We saw Chiengrai change from a remote town to which one long tour was made every year with much cost of time and money, to almost front rank in our Mission stations. The two small newly organized churches are now eight churches with years of faithful service behind them. When we first arrived there was one room enclosed in mat walls in the house being built for the Denmans, and their family of four lived in it. We lived for five months in a part of the large teak house of one of our elders, Lung Tü. Here is a description of “our new home:” “We have a parlor, a dining room, a bed room, a living room, and a study. They are all in the same room. There are several pieces of furniture in it too; a bedstead, a dining table, a round table, two small round tables, a writing desk, a dictionary holder with “Webster” and a lot of other literature on it and in it, two large book cases, three hanging book cases, the Station money chest, a sewing machine, pictures, lamps, vases, a violin, a guitar, a lounge of rattan, three rugs, antlers, peacock feathers, and two very happy missionaries. That is all the furniture except my secretary above my study table and the letter press on the floor, and usually some siftings from the outside world.” And that room was only about eighteen feet square, the partition which separated us from the other eighteen occupants of the house did not go all the way up and their five or six children had whooping cough! Of course we had some chairs in the room, too.

Now there are three large brick missionary residences in Chiengrai besides the original teak medical residence; the big Overbrook hospital; the Kennedy Hall and chapel of the Boys’ School; the fine large church; and the dormitory and chapel of the Girls’ School. Then the barracks, police station, big brick court house and other government buildings leave hardly a vestige of resemblance to the dull little place where we went to live and labor. The other Stations have changed and developed correspondingly. But Chiengrai is second only to Chiengmai in the size of her field and the extent of her out-village work.

Dr. W. A. Briggs was the builder and maker of Chiengrai, not only of the Mission buildings, but potentially through his trained men, of all government buildings. He also assisted the Siamese officials in directing the good work of tearing down the old city wall and paving the streets with the brick. At one time, in the early days he saved the lives of the Siamese officials and their wives and children by warning them of a plot to massacre them, so they were enabled to escape. The British government acknowledged their indebtedness to him for looking after their subjects and their interests by bestowing on him the beautiful gold badge of Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. He did educational and literary work of a high order. His was the longest continuous missionary service in Chiengrai, though as brothers beloved we worked together for the uplift of the whole Tai race. As preacher, teacher, physician, and builder, he poured out his life unstintedly for them. He has recently been called to higher service from his home in Vancouver, B.C.

And in Chiengrai the graves of Daisy Campbell Bachtell and Ruth Showbridge Beebe are a perpetual benediction. Like the “corn of wheat,” their lives bring forth much fruit in the cleaner homes and cleaner hearts of pupils and parishioners and their children and their children’s children after them.

One of the results of the work of our Girls’ Schools is illustrated in the following story: One of our evangelists in Lampun reported being lamed on a tour and unable to carry his baggage. He said, entering a house they told us they had no one to send with us as carrier but when they found we were Christians an old gentleman insisted that we should tell them the story of Christianity. When we had finished, he said, “The same exactly.” He then explained that some time before there were two young girls, in a company of travellers who had stopped over night at his house. Their father was an assistant of the missionaries and they were going to see him. The old man said, “They were Christians and they told the same story that you do. I was wonderfully taken with it. Our country does not expect women to know letters—much less do we expect it of young girls. But I told my family afterward that these two bits of young things talked with more than human wisdom. None of our best educated priests can talk as they did. It was so pleasant that I kept them talking nearly all night. And I told them to be sure to stop on their way back and tell us more. But when they came back I was not at home, and the house was full of people come to buy rice so the girls went elsewhere. When I came back and my wife told me I said, Oh why didn’t you make a shed for them to sleep in and keep them here.”

The work among the Musu mountain people, so dear to Dr. McGilvary’s heart, has been carried on through all the years as a part of the Chiengrai Station work. One of our most interesting experiences was a double wedding on a Musu mountain. They had made all preparation for our coming, cleared the road and made rustic seats to rest on during the ascent, and made a booth of palm leaves for us to stay in. They supplied all our needs and seemed never to tire of showing us little kindnesses. When Mo Kah their leader stood interpreting for us, he looked like a prophet of old, so serious, so earnest, so impassioned at times. Six adults and six children were baptized and communion was held.

The wedding took place after night. It was held in the open on the mountain top, in front of our booth, with the spacious firmament for a canopy, and bamboo torches flaring their lights under the stars. When the time came for the ceremony all rose as requested. But the frightened brides hid their faces in the backs of the other women and clung to them so tightly that I asked two men of the family to sort them out. They did not succeed in separating them; but managed to extricate a hand of each, which they insisted belonged to the right women. They joined these to the hands of the proper bridegrooms, and obligingly held them there till the ceremony was over. The murmurs of assent coming out of the backs of the “had to be” bridesmaids added to the weird effect. Certainly that wedding was unique.

Leprosy became prevalent among the Musu and worked havoc in their unsanitary homes. One of these two couples some years later found refuge on the leper island, in Chiengmai. Their older boy, a lad in his teens, supposed to be untainted, was given to us by his mother to be educated and kept away from his people. He was a bright, lovable boy, did well in school, worked about our house outside school hours, going to the dispensary every month for examination. One day he disappeared, made his way alone for eight days to Chiengmai, was examined, found to be leprous, and admitted to the island: so Cha Hê was with his mother once more; but a leper.

Though the deliberate elephant is replaced by the tough little bronco pony, who does his little best to carry one safely over the hills and through the bogs and streams, yet at the best the life of the itinerant missionary is an arduous one. Unlike the people up in Kengtūng State and Yünnan, the Siamese do not seem to know how to take two boats and fasten them together as a bamboo pontoon bridge where horses can be ferried over. On a recent journey of six days my riding pony had to swim a swollen stream each day, because it would not ride in the small ferry boat. One of these streams had a narrow bridge which the pack ponies and the rest of us crossed in safety. But the riding pony got in too big a hurry and plunged down into the stream, some ten feet below. The other five streams I crossed in boats, leading the swimming ponies. One of my new experiences on that tour was sitting in a chair all night holding an umbrella over my head. I was caught out without shelter or bed and it rained nearly the whole time. The mosquitoes, sand flies, gnats, etc., had the opportunity of their lives. In Chiengrai especially, the field is so large and the people so scattered, it takes months of travel to give them each a visit. But there is no more joyous life in the world, the joy of “telling the story” to those who have never heard and to those who “want to know more.” These primitive, simple hearted village people, simple in their habits, for heathen, free from vices, they are unusually receptive of the Gospel.

The Old Confucian Temple

Theological Students Leaving for Missionary Work

One morning on a tour, after a very early start and a strenuous ride, we were resting by the road side, when the people from a nearby village came to look and listen and people passing along the road stopped and joined with them. One man listened for a few minutes and went away thoughtful. Though he could not read he took a tract and had it read to him. Ere long he appeared in Chiengrai asking to be taught more. He is now the leader, the father of one of our most promising outstations of fourteen families. So our country churches begin and grow.

The end of our work in Chiengrai was marked by a meeting of Presbytery; for the first time in that remote place. The meeting was held in our new Chiengrai church from March 21st to 25th, 1917. The most striking feature of this session to one who remembers the first meeting of Presbytery some thirty years ago was the very patent fact that this year’s session was decidedly a Tai session. Thirty years ago the deliberations were mostly carried on in English. Occasionally some member would catch himself and talk in Tai till he forgot again. The Tai delegates sat dazed and bored and with Oriental dignity looked wise and said little. This year there was no English spoken on the floor. The docket had to be translated into Tai, which had been prepared by the Stated Clerk in English. All the deliberations and proceedings were in the Tai speech. Except the Stated Clerk, all the officers were Tai men, and most of the delegates were Tai also. Including corresponding members, there were some seventy Tai men attending, as over against eight American men.

Nearly one hundred ticals were raised by the deacons of the Chiengrai church, some of it from missionaries living in the bounds of the church, for the entertainment of the Tai delegates. But the largest single contribution came from one of our Tai lady members. Some of the nearby churches sent in food. The whole entertainment was financed by voluntary contributions, planned by the session and carried out by the deacons, with the coöperation of a committee of women and the support of many households. The Boys’ School buildings were an improvised hotel. Work in strongly Buddhist Siam may be confessedly difficult in comparison with some other fields; but such an entertainment of such a Presbytery, here in the youngest station in the Mission, in the far northern end of the Kingdom—it certainly spells healthy growth and really great progress.

Much constructive action was taken. Measures were adopted for the spread of the gospel among non-Christian Tai. The most important and far-reaching were the appointment of permanent committees on Home and Foreign Missions. These are to finance and oversee, in the most practical manner they can devise, the evangelistic work of Tai Christians both within and beyond the borders of the Kingdom of Siam.

Again Presbytery met in our house, not in regular session but on Saturday evening. We entertained the Tai minister at our own table at an evening dinner and the delegates came in later for a graphophone entertainment. Our house was overflowing. That a machine can record what you say or sing and then reproduce it “while you wait” was a marvelous experience for them, especially when the records were in their own Tai speech and made by their own friends and relatives. A few funny failures brought roars of laughter. The moderator and ex-moderator had to retire in favor of some of their pupils in the seminary. One of these, Kru Dee, sang two original songs, one of which he had composed for the occasion, and they recorded quite successfully; also a Karen hymn and several others.

We had a delightful communion service on Sabbath morning. In the afternoon we had the last meeting. Each one was asked to give his impressions of the meetings, to tell why he was glad he had come. Often two or three were standing at once, anxious to speak. The meeting lasted for two hours. At sunset I reluctantly dismissed them.

And then, for they knew we were appointed to Chiengrung, they gave us a farewell reception. They gathered around us, ministers and deacons and elders from all over the Yûn country; men whom we had helped to teach and train; men whom I had baptized and married, had presented their children and their grandchildren to the Lord, and buried their friends. As they grasped our hands with words of gratitude and affection, it was one of the mountain tops of our lives.

The early history of the Siamese of prehistoric time has been vague and shadowy; but life has been evolved from the mythical mists of fable and legend by Colonel Gerini, Siam’s noted chronologist. Beginning with the aborigines who are somewhat indefinitely called Indonesian, whose identity was established by neolithic implements found in the water sheds and along the coast in different parts of Indo-China, a succession of races poured their overflow into this southern center of the peninsula; Malay, Deguan, Cambodian, Indian, and the hordes of Tai invaders sweeping down from the north, meeting, mingling, driving out their predecessors only in turn to be driven out until there evolved a race powerful enough to gain and maintain the ascendancy over the kingdoms surrounding them. Thus was formed the culmination of the different branches of the Tai race; the only coastwise people; the only Independent Kingdom of all the millions of Tai which we have introduced to you; the only Tai known in the history and civilization of the present day world; the Tai of lower Siam—the Siamese.

The Mon-Khmer race (Pegu-Cambodian) dwelt almost undisturbed in this region for several centuries, extending their domain down to the southern extremity of the Malay peninsula. Then traders from India sailing along the southern coast built trading stations and settled there; and at about the same time they came across by land from Northern India. They brought with them Buddhism and all the culture and civilization known in those early days to the people of India. The name of Siam probably came through them as Pali or Sanskrit names were given to different parts of the country and Cyama was the name given to the lower part of the Menam valley, from which Siam might easily have been derived.

The recorded history of Siam begins with the Sukuthai kingdom, which began early in the sixth century A.D. Soon after the Tai kingdom of Lampun was founded and later, driven out by an invasion of Peguans, large numbers settled about Kampangpet and drifted south, mingling and blending with the different elements of population and becoming ever more numerous and powerful. In the beginning of the twelfth century another migration of Tai swept down from the north. These myriads mingled with the mixed Tai-Cambodian peoples and soon rebelled, threw off the yoke of Cambodia and established the first Tai kingdom in the south, at Sukuthai^[A]. By A.D. 1300 this southern Tai kingdom extended its sway from the Mekong to the Salween and from the borders of Chiengmai to the Gulf. At this time there sprang up the system of Siamese writing which exists to the present day, and a literature began and grew.

The first Tai empire was a brilliant one but history repeats itself. Again, about the middle of the fourteenth century, the Peguans stirred up the Tai farther north and they swept down to the delta, and a “warlike Tai princelet” founded the city of Ayuthia^[B] A.D. 1350, the capital of a new Tai kingdom. This dynasty lasted 250 years. In time the Malay possessions, parts of the powerful state of Chiengmai and parts of Cambodia, even its capital Angkor, came under the rule of the warlike King of Ayuthia. According to Chinese historians, Siam reached the zenith of her power at this time, and “Cambodia and Pegu came well nigh being both wiped off the map of Indo-China. It is curious to note that in 1592 Siam offered China assistance against the Japanese who had designs on Korea.” On the other hand, according to Sir Ernest M. Satow, in 1579, “500 Japanese assisted the Siamese to repel a Burmese attack, and it is known that there was a considerable settlement of Japanese in Ayuthia.”

“Three dynasties of Siamese Kings reigned in Ayuthia but in 1767 the Capital was invested by a powerful Burmese army and fell on the 7th day of April in that year.” P’ya Tak, the son of a Chinese, rallied the scattered forces, repelled the invasion, assumed power, and set up his capital at Bangkok, A.D. 1768. In 1782 he became insane and was deposed. He was succeeded by Chao P’ya Chakkri, the generalissimo of his army, of Siamese descent, who founded the present Chakkri dynasty, of which the present King is the sixth monarch.

Siamese history is interesting reading. One is reminded of the great things in the history of ancient Greece and Rome, in the splendor of the invading armies and the courage and valor of the besieged. Bishop Pallegoix says: “Immense armies figure on these pages, one of a million and another of half a million of men. Much childish narrative is mingled in the annals. It has been remarked that guns are referred to long before the discovery of gunpowder in Europe, while gunpowder is first spoken of in the Siamese annals in the year A.D. 1584. In the same year there is mention of the capture of Portuguese vessels which had taken part with the Cambodians against the Siamese. The phraseology found in some of the records is amusingly characteristic. One of the Siamese kings, in answer to the menaces of the Peguans says, ‘As well may a white ant endeavor to overthrow Mount Meru.’ A Peguan asks, ‘Are the Peguans only posts, to which the Siamese elephants are to be tied?’ ” Bishop Pallegoix writes of going on a pilgrimage to the “foot of Buddha,” which shows the customs and the display of that time 70 or 80 years ago:

These Phra-bats or foot prints are found all over Siam and up into Burma and China, in more humble surroundings. They simply furnish evidence of the credulity of the people. They are always gigantic. Sometimes they are simply gilt marks on a black board set up in a corner of a temple. I have never heard of any authentic evidence that Buddha ever came to this part of the world.

Bangkok, the capital city of Siam, is really the only large and important city in all the wide extent of Tai territory, from Assam to Canton and from the Gulf of Siam to the lofty peaks beyond the Yangtze. The Tai people are primitive, rural everywhere, an agricultural people knowing nothing of the ways of the world. There is plenty of glitter and tinsel, gilded spires and cloth of gold, but it is only in Bangkok we see the pomp and display of a Royal Court, and the richness and grandeur of a King’s Palace.

Bangkok in the early days was called an Oriental Venice on account of its waterways, which formed almost the only thoroughfares. It was also a forest city, being so buried in tropical foliage that to the new arrival the city itself was hardly visible. You got no bird’s-eye view of Bangkok. Only a line of low thatched native houses peered out from under the massive green foliage and the pagodas and temple spires protruded above it. This is still the general view of the capital city as it flanks the winding Menam for eight or ten miles on either side. Only the floating houses, with the entire front of their shops open to the passersby displaying their gay wares, rising and falling with the ripples and tides of the broad bosom of the Menam; and the numerous craft that everywhere furnish constant motion, give life to the scene. Occasional breaks in the forest reveal larger and more substantial buildings, both dwellings and business houses, and large docks where the ships of the world are beginning to find anchorage. Farther up the river the temples and royal buildings are gorgeous as they glitter in the sunshine.

It is a city of paradoxes and antitheses. Within the shadow of some gilded pagoda, with its hundreds of tinkling bells and its flashing turrets, you see half hidden by tropical foliage the bamboo hut of the fisherman. Here the old, there the new. The old is Siamese, the new is cosmopolitan; but so fast is the new supplanting the old that you must come soon if you would see them both. The new may be European as the furnishing of the royal palaces; it may be American, as the steamers and launches that ply the Menam; it more likely is Chinese, as the glass factories, rice mills, shops, and more pretentious business houses. The various countries are well represented and the different legations, some of them, can be seen along the river front.

Wat Chang, the highest of the temples, looms above its surroundings. It can be seen from afar and affords a fine view to all who have the temerity to climb the steep and narrow open stairways on the sides, to “where the porcelain elephants toss their lofty trunks in the upper air.” Some of the palace buildings, especially the Royal Wat Pra Keo, the Temple of the emerald idol, seem wonderful beyond description as they shine in the glare of a tropical sun or in the electric light of an illumination; covered with their glistening mosaic of bits of broken porcelain, colored mica and gold leaf.

Formerly the river was the principal thoroughfare and branching out from it a thousand canals traversed the city in every part. One went everywhere in boats. Carriages were only found in the neighborhood of the palace. On these canals junks sailed, house boats were moored, all overlooked by houses painted in bright colors and standing on piles or of more modern, sometimes foreign, architecture, with tropical flowers and foliage everywhere. “Traveling on these canals, which are continually traversed in all directions by boats of every description, resounding with the cries of hawkers, and the voices of passersby, is still for the sightseer, full of local colour and picturesque variety.”

There is only a small portion of the city on the west side. The Royal palaces, the government buildings, and the chief portion of the business houses, as well as the residence quarter are on the east side. There was formerly practically only one street, for the few pedestrians. Now that street is lined with business houses, offices, drugstores, shops of Indians, Chinese, Japanese, and Europeans. It has a streetcar line running the several miles of its length, and motors dashing through, with carriages and rickshas melting away in every direction before them. There is no speed limit. The only rule we are told for chauffeurs is that they must not hit any one and accidents seldom occur. Smaller business streets lined with shops now open out of this main street, and wide avenues form the residence portion of the city.

About fifteen years or more ago a large public park was constructed about six miles back from the river. The Royal Palace of the present King was built there, the war office and other public buildings, erected and furnished in modern style, and from every quarter of the city wide avenues run out and meet at Dusit Park; beautiful motor roads with trees, sometimes two rows on either side; fifty miles of these beautiful streets fast being built up with foreign residences surrounded by spacious and well kept grounds and gardens. The way the motor cars roll out from the heart of the city in the cool of the evening shows how the people appreciate and enjoy this delightful mode of escape from the heat of the tropics. These broad paved avenues meet just where a bronze equestrian statue of the late King, of heroic size, stands fronting and guarding the new palace of the present King, Vajiravudh.

The late King Chulalangkorn was said to be the most progressive monarch of the East. An article written by the late Dr. Briggs, my friend and colleague, says:

A Red Cross organization has been in active duty during and since the war. The Chulalangkorn Hospital, built by the Queen Mother as a memorial to the late King, is complete with modern equipment, perfect in sanitation, and is a great boon to the sick one who enters its doors. The Nursing Home is another blessing which for many years has given the suffering foreigner the skilled care of his far away home and friends. The various country clubs afford diversion and ball grounds, golf links, etc., encourage athletic sports.

When we remember the democratic, individualistic training and heredity of this isolated race of valley dwellers in a mountainous land, and then the degree to which the present strongly centralized Siamese government has been able to establish and assert itself over the remotest part of the kingdom we cannot but feel that the progress is marvelous. Race consciousness is awakening, patriotism is being taught and fostered. The reforms of the late King were so many and so far reaching if the present King had but carried on those inaugurated by his royal father his reign would still have been one of progress. But he has shown himself independent and original in his every line of action. This has been perhaps most strikingly shown in his stand against polygamy. He firmly set aside the marriage customs of his ancestors for generations past, disbanded the vast harem of his royal father, called the “City of Women,” sending hundreds of women back to their friends and relatives in every part of the kingdom, and set up his new palaces as a Bachelor’s Hall, with his gifted Queen Mother as hostess in social functions and wise and beneficent counselor and supporter in everything pertaining to the education and uplift of the women of the land. This has made King Vajiravudh a most striking and romantic figure in present-day history.

The keynote of his reign is patriotism, and it was something practically unknown throughout the kingdom before. He has surrounded himself with a bevy of young men, instilling into them enthusiasm, loyalty, and love for their country. These in turn have instructed and enthused others until in a remarkably short time it has spread throughout the kingdom in the “Wild Tiger Scout” movement, and worked a great change both morally and physically in the boys and young men.

Dr. Eakin also writes of him:

The hope of Siam is in her young men. Hundreds of them have been sent for education to Europe and America in the last twenty years. Now they are filling positions of trust all over the land. They constitute what is called “New Siam.” The old quaint Siam is passing. New Siam is eager, optimistic, sophomoric, and will yet be heard from. Again quoting Dr. Eakin:

Dr. Hugh Taylor says in regard to the results of the war:

The various and numerous annual holidays and festivals form an interesting and important part of Siamese life. The Thip Ching Cha, or swinging festival, is really a harvest home or thanksgiving celebration. There is a large swing fastened to two great pillars. The Fete is opened by the Minister of Agriculture or his deputy with an imposing procession and great pomp and ceremony. There are various gifts carried in the procession, like the offering of first fruits. The Minister is seated in a pavilion attended by four Brahmin priests. There are three games of swinging which last usually two hours. The swingers are dressed in white with tall conical hats. There is a pole set in the direction of the Palace to which a bag of ticals is tied. The game is to secure this with their teeth as they swing. The first set of swingers who succeed get twelve ticals among them, the second eight, and the third four. When the games are over, consecrated water is sprinkled on the people by the swingers. This is a Brahminic mode of blessing the people.

At the Chinese New Year holidays gambling is allowed for three days, though much restricted. Groups of friends assemble for feasting and sports of all kinds.

The pilgrimage to the Phra-bat or “Holy Footprint” is also one of their annual festivals. The Phra-bat which has already been described is about 100 miles from Bangkok.

The Siamese New Year is also a time of licensed gambling, though the number of games allowed is limited. The third day is given up to this and men, women, and children join in it. The first two days are devoted especially by the women and children to merit making, either at the temple or at their own home, attired in their gayest clothes, with feasting and a display of offerings for the priest, with preaching and praying by the priests in return. “The court keeps these holidays with much ceremony, and with extraordinary religious services, and companies of priests are stationed on the top of the city walls, in regular order surrounding the whole city, to perform exorcisms in concert. On the night of the second day, the 15th of the Siamese moon, guns large and small are fired from the top of the walls from all points of the compass, at intervals of about twenty minutes throughout the night. Each gun, it is said, is fired thirty-six times. This is done for the purpose of expelling the evil spirits from the precincts, and thus preparing the way for health and happiness to all within the city walls.”

The Tü Nam ceremony is that of drinking the water of allegiance and taking the oath. It is a semi-annual ceremony, established from time immemorial. Princes, nobles, and people assemble at the Royal Palace or at the residences of the governors of the different provinces. They drink and sprinkle their foreheads with water in which swords, daggers, spears, and guns have been dipped, and other weapons with which the King executes vengeance upon those who rebel against him, and are found unfaithful to His Majesty. They thus invoke the Royal vengeance, by these instruments, on themselves and their families if they are not true to the oath. Priests are exempt from the oath but perform appropriate religious services at the Royal temple.

The Songkran holiday is the old Siamese New Year. Songkran is the name of an angel who is said to rise with the sun on the morning when it enters Aries. The Brahmin astrologists fix the day and then inform the King, when it is publicly announced. It is the time for sprinkling all the images of Buddha with pure water and showing reverence to the aged. There is the usual gambling, feasting, and religious services. The women draw water and bathe the idols, the priests, the elders of the people and their grandparents and other aged relatives, to call down blessings on both the receiver and the giver. In practice this ceremonial now consists in giving bottles of perfumery and handkerchiefs and other gifts.

The Festival of Offerings commemorates the birth, inspiration, and death of Buddha. This lasts for three days. The second day especially is a time of great merit making. In the evening of that day there is much display of lighted candles.

The Rek-nah holiday is the “Ploughing Festival.” This date is also determined by the Brahmin astrologers. Formerly all shops and markets were closed on this day, and taxes were collected. The ceremony consists in the Minister of Agriculture “breaking the ground” for rice planting, and no plowing can be done till this takes place. The Minister is conducted by a public procession to the field where the ceremony is to take place, at present near Dusit Park, where the King sometimes attends. The Brahmin priests perform symbolic rites over a pair of oxen, which are then attached to the plow, and both oxen and plow are decorated with flowers. The Minister then holds the plow while the oxen draw it over the field for about an hour. Then four elderly ladies of the King’s household take consecrated paddy, and sow it over the plot plowed, where it is left uncovered. If the waist cloth of the Minister hangs down to his ankles it is a sign water will be scarce that season. If he is obliged to hitch it up high it is a sign of high water and good crops. The different kinds of rice in use are given the oxen to eat. If they eat much of any one kind that variety will be scarce that year.

The Khao Wasah and Ok Wasah holidays mark Buddhist lent, which lasts for four months during the rainy season. This is the time of special fasting, penance, and self mortification for the priests and of merit making processions by the people. At its close the whole nation unites in feasting the priests, and for every morsel of food given at this time, they expect to receive and enjoy a hundred fold in the next birth.

The Loy Krathong is one of the most beautiful of their festivals. It consists in setting afloat fireworks and offerings to the water spirits. “In Bangkok, in the vicinity of the Palace especially, night is turned into day by the multitudinous lights flashing everywhere and reflected from the water. The river seems alive with floating palaces, miniature ships, floats and rafts, all brilliantly lighted, and riding the waves, bearing their offerings of betel and tobacco, rice, sugar, and sweetmeats to the Water Goddess for her gracious care of them through the past year, and as thank offering and propitiatory sacrifice, because they have bathed in her flood, drunk of her sweet water and rowed their boats over her bosom. Several royal craft, resembling illuminated dragons, are floated down the river on one side and then slowly towed up the other. Lotus lilies with burning tapers are a favorite offering, or little rafts made of banana stalks and gaily decked with flowers, flags and tapers. People are on the river by thousands, and in all the provinces and down by the sea even, they are setting off their fire gifts upon the waves.”

The Thot Kathin holidays last for a whole month. The Kathin is the yellow robe of the priests made in seven patches, in imitation of the robes of Buddha and his followers when sworn to poverty. They wore only old clothes patched and of a dingy yellow color. This was the robber’s garb and hence more loathsome and meritorious. The Thot Kathin is the time for making donations of these yellow robes. There are great processions by land and water, those by water are especially magnificent, and the ceremonials are followed by boat racing, which the King and court sometimes attend. When His Majesty goes in person it is with great splendor. His royal barge is about 180 feet long and 6 or 8 feet wide, richly carved with gilded scales inlaid with pearl. The stern rises in a huge tail 12 or 15 feet high. There is a canopy of cloth of gold where the King sits on a golden throne wearing a gold embroidered coat and golden shoes. The King’s barge is followed by forty or more guard boats in crimson and yellow and white. The paddlers are trained to lift their poles to an equal height above their heads and strike the water in unison. There are two men on each boat who beat time with long poles decorated with white tassels. Multitudes of boats of all kinds follow, with brass bands, and companies of men-of-war’s men end the moving panorama. The King is expected to visit annually every temple in the city which has been dedicated to him and make presents of yellow robes. According to the Directory of Siam, from which this list of holidays has been compiled, the total cost of these offerings is probably not less than $10,000.

The special aim of the races seems to be to run down and upset other boats, thus throwing the gaily dressed crew into the water, while the boats and paddles float away amid the shouts of the spectators. The Siamese are such good swimmers that seldom is any one drowned in the rivers.

The most beautiful of all their celebrations is at the time of the King’s birthday. On our honeymoon in 1889, we were there for the occasion and were in a mood to enjoy the enchanting scene to the fullest extent. The entire city was illuminated for three successive nights. All the ships in the harbor were lit up with rows of lights placed so as to outline the ship against the darkness. Then on the shore lining the river were all manner of illuminations—designs in fire—of dragons, shields, weapons, lighthouses a hundred feet high, arched gateways, and mottoes and good wishes in both Siamese and English, as well as Spanish and Italian. Prominent were such as these: “God save the King,” “God bless the King,” “Many more,” “Many Happy Returns.” We took a walk the first evening through the palace grounds. It was like fairyland. The greater part of this beautiful effect is produced by myriads of little saucers of cocoanut oil or lard fastened to a frame, according to the design. The million little twinkling lights gave an air of enchantment which is unequaled by anything else in the world.

The principal river illuminations were on the second evening, so we went out on the river in our boat. The King went out on that evening, from his palace near the upper end of the city, down the river some seven or eight miles, and returned. He went in a steam launch. His coming was heralded by bugles and attended and attested by the sudden lighting of various colored lights in many of the white light illuminations. We followed close in his wake for more than half the distance so saw not only the general illuminations but the special. He passed our little slowly rowed house boat on our return, so we saw about all that was to be seen. Those who saw the illuminations at the Queen’s jubilee in London say it did not compare with this annual Bangkok fête.

In 1915 we were again privileged to visit Bangkok at the time of the birthday celebration. Then we flew around the city in a motor car. The display was entirely produced by electric lights, in some places many colored. It was very beautiful. I have no doubt the people of the land think the flashing out and disappearing of the different designs, the beginning at the bottom and flashing up effect is pure magic, most wonderful and incomprehensible; but that can be seen in almost any large city in the world. The fairy like enchantment wrought by the dish of oil and the wee wick is missing in the steady electric glare, and it seems like a lost art.

With all their festivals and festivities, their merry makings which are merit makings, the Siamese are not a joyous people. Their laughter is not merry and their faces are not glad. Is it the shadow of the future life which they are always so constantly striving to banish? How we long to make them know the joy of the Lord! What a wonderful life they could live! Quoting Dr. Hugh Taylor again:

The missionaries meet with most cordial and fraternal friendship from the Siamese; from the young King himself down to the lowest coolie. His Majesty the King is a graduate of Oxford, England, has traveled widely in Europe and through America. He is eager to advance the interests of his people, and praises especially the educational and medical work of the missionaries. In an address at a banquet in New York given in honor of the King, then the heir-apparent, at which I was a guest several years ago, he said that if he succeeded his royal father he would maintain the open door to both religion and commerce. He has certainly fulfilled his promise. He and other members of the royal family contribute largely to our Mission schools, hospitals, and to the leper asylum.

His Highness, Prince Songkla, brother of his Majesty the King, has been studying in the United States the science of hygiene and sanitation. He spent ten years in study in Europe and then in America, to be fitted to help his country in these ways. While in America he gave the following testimony to the value of Mission work in Siam:

Late in November of 1916 we were toiling over a mountain in northeastern Siam, on our way to annual mission meeting at Nan, when we met a large procession. A prince of the realm, a brother of the late King, was making a tour of the northern provinces. A thousand men had been drafted for transport, and these with the princely retinue seemed to fill the mountain. We dismounted and stood beside the road at a little distance waiting for the Prince’s cavalcade to pass. The Viceroy of Payap, Prince Bovoradej, saw us and at once dismounted and came over for a greeting and a little chat. With him came a young man whom we had not met before, who was then an official in Pre. This young man some years before had been in the retinue of a prince in a similar tour and was taken with fever in Chiengrai and left behind. Dr. and Mrs. Briggs took him into their home and cared for him until he was well. He spoke of this day with feeling and said, “That is why we Siamese adore you missionaries, because you are so kind to us.”

Many people in Siam and elsewhere are building fine superstructures without giving proper attention to foundations. In nominal Christian lands many fine superstructures are being swept away in the present great world floods, because they were not founded upon the inner spiritual teachings of Jesus. Many people in Siam would like hospitals and schools, art and culture, without change of character. “Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” Evangelism alone, the proclamation and reception of the Good News of complete salvation of sin through Jesus the Christ of God, lays foundations upon which can be built hospitals and schools virile with the virility of transformed characters. The evangel of Christ is the foundation of all departments of missionary work, as well as of all true world progress. Our missionaries have been striving for many decades to lead the people of Siam on the way to true happiness and soul prosperity and many of them have found it.

There are some twenty-seven centers of Christian influence in Bangkok, a city of 800,000 inhabitants, and twenty missionaries are giving themselves without stint to the evangelization and education of this great Tai city.

The Harriet House School, started in 1873, so long and so well known to missionary workers, self supporting for about twenty years, has recently duplicated itself by purchasing a new site of about fifteen acres of land in the new quarter of the city, and this is being made a new center by planting garden and orchard and putting up buildings and getting ready for the swarm from the old hive at Wang Lang. So there are now two centers from the Wang Lang School. The orchard consists of some 200 cocoanut, 300 banana, 200 tamarind, 25 guava, and about 100 mango and other fruit trees. All this work has been done by money raised on the field. A generous donation of ticals 1600 from Her Majesty the Queen Mother, greatly honoured the school and largely assisted in the erection of the new buildings.

The graduating exercises at Wang Lang are attractive and unique, held on the front lawn, the sight of the 200 or more girls with their gay clothes and bright faces is worth while, with a musical program, and the school play, where some beautiful story is beautifully acted. Their annual sale, too, of laces and fancy work made by the girls, and potted plants, etc., with the lawn well lighted and decorated and gay booths here and there, are in the nature of a school fête and are a feature of the life of the city. Under Miss Cole the school has taken a high place. Many women of rank as well as those from all classes of the people have been pupils at Wang Lang. Their interest in the school continues through life and its influence is very far reaching, permeating the home, the social, and the religious life of the city. A Siamese lady whose father had been Ambassador to France many years and who speaks French very perfectly offered her services to the school at a time when her help was especially appreciated. So for the first time French is being taught in the H.H.S. The spirit of comradeship among the graduates of the school is fostered by the organization of the King’s Daughters. Practically all the Christian women of Bangkok are organized together in this way for mutual helpfulness and Christian work. There are five Senior Circles and two Junior Circles.

The Bangkok Christian College was organized in 1889 by the Rev. J. A. Eakin, D.D., Mrs. Dodd’s brother. He continued in charge for eighteen years, planned and erected the most of the present college buildings and brought the school up to a high standard. When he took up the work of the Petchaburi field, he was succeeded by the Rev. W. G. McClure, D.D., my old chum and classmate. After ten years of faithful and efficient service he in turn was called to the work of city evangelism and the Rev. R. O. Franklin is now in charge. Every year large classes are graduated of young men of ability and promise, the majority of them Christians. The school has developed and prospered along all lines. With between three and four hundred boys in attendance it ranks with the highest government schools in the city. The graduates go out to take up educational or evangelistic work in the Mission or to fill positions of trust and responsibility under the government. All over the land there are men of rank and influence who have got at least part of their education at the B.C.C.

The graduates love to come back; to a foreign dinner on the college campus, to the light of many dancing, twinkling colored lanterns; or to renew their youth in athletic sports or in the fun and frolic of an evening’s entertainment; or to assist in a Christian conference, Y.M.C.A., or other religious meetings. Recently an article appeared in one of the local papers criticising the college for teaching so much religion. This seemed to put the Christian boys on their mettle. At the request of the boys themselves, two extra Bible classes were arranged and this in play time rather than work time.

The Boon Itt Memorial Institute is really a Y.M.C.A. but is under our Mission workers. It has been a center of increasing usefulness, with a membership of 300 or more. A good Bible class is a strong feature, taught by Kru Kim Heng, where some of the finest young men in Bangkok meet weekly for Bible study. There are English classes and tournaments of various kinds with prizes given by business managers and others. There are four important companies who pay one-half the annual membership fees of their employees. The Institute meets all the expenses from receipts on the field. Sunday evening evangelistic services conducted by foreigners and Siamese in rotation are well attended. A series of stereopticon pictures in the life of Christ by Tissot drew average audiences of over 200, with twenty or more yellow robed Buddhist priests among them. There are many social evenings. An orchestra made up of the members furnishes a delightful program. The men of the law school attend the law club and make good use of the law library connected with the club at examination time. The banquet for the law club graduates presided over by His Royal Highness, Prince Savasti, was an evening worthy of note.

The Mission Press is another strong center of Christian influences, printing 16,109,400 pages of Scripture and other Christian literature, school text-books, etc., in one year. This includes The Daybreak, a Mission monthly in Siamese.

The Chinese Y.M.C.A. is a new organization, also under our Mission. The Association is principally under Chinese leadership, all of its officers being Christians. Every agency is welcomed which offers competing attractions from the innumerable opium and gambling rooms which are so demoralizing to the Chinese of Bangkok.

The Jane Hays Memorial School is a generous gift to the Mission of Dr. G. B. and Mrs. McFarland, as a memorial to Dr. McFarland’s mother. The gift consists of a piece of land, a building, and a Girls’ School of 120 members, in an important point in the city. Some years ago some young Christian Siamese aspired to make this place a real Christian community. Their plans had been interrupted; but now at last their most praiseworthy purpose seems in the way of certain fulfillment.

Besides all these important centers there are five primary schools, four churches, and four Mission chapels, two of the churches and one chapel are Chinese and one chapel Hainanese. A group of young Hainanese men with their own funds have paid for a small chapel and for a colporteur who also serves as preacher. There are also two Sunday Schools besides those in connection with the churches.

Outside of Bangkok there are four Presbyterian Mission Stations, at Pitsanulok, Petchaburi, Nakon Sritamarat, and Tap Tieng or Trang. There is also a station at Pra Pratome, where a little band of English missionaries are at work. They are a consecrated band and their faith and zeal move us to admiration. They work in entire harmony with the larger Mission, always ready to assist in conference and Evangelistic Campaigns. Nakon Pratome is a little city with a very big pagoda. In this pagoda are some unusual images of Buddha. One of these represents him as an infant taking his first step amid a circle of admiring relatives; for it is said that he walked on the day of his birth. In another room is a large image of what is said to be Buddha asleep but the large lustrous eyes of pearl shell are wide open. This is curiously symbolical; for it is true that Buddha awake is just as powerless as if he were asleep.

Petchaburi is an interesting place to the few tourists who stray into the country, on account of the cave mountain and the palace mountain. The latter contains an old palace of the late King, with a temple and numerous buildings. It affords a fine view of the plain with the sea on the horizon and is a good place for picnics. A new palace which the King was having built at the time of his death is a little farther up the river. It has never been completed. The cave mountain has a series of caves extending into the heart of the mountain, with stalactites and stalagmites in some curious formations, with grottoes where images have been placed.

The work in the Petchaburi field has been divided into the northern and southern. The northern field in charge of Mr. Post includes the Upper and Lower Maeklong River districts, containing Ratburi, Kanburi, Potaram and Maeklong and a number of less important towns. These can be reached either by railway or motor passenger boats. There are eight groups of Christians in the two districts with chapels and regular services. This northern field was formerly the work of the Ratburi station, before the coming of the railroad, and contains nearly four-fifths of the Petchaburi station total population of 750,000. There is still a large district in this field, the province of Nakon Chaisee, which has not been visited, with a population of 300,000.

In the southern field, Dr. Eakin and his son, the Rev. Paul Eakin, and their wives share in the work of the country districts, the local Petchaburi church, the Wm. Rankin Memorial School, and a Training School for Evangelists with a department for women also, a parish as large as Connecticut. In his country work formerly Dr. Eakin plodded along on foot after a slow bullock cart carrying his impedimenta, making the rounds of the villages in tours of a month at a time and spending many months of the year in this work. Now he sits in a railway car and sees from the window as he passes them, the villages where the Christian people live and thinks of the homes and individuals he will visit on his return trip and plans his work for them, making week end visits. Of course there are still many villages off the railway. A leaf from a personal report will show that there are still difficulties in this country work. It also shows that umbrellas are useful in the South as well as in North Siam. “This kind of life has some adventures. I was out in the country recently and was shown to a vacant house to sleep. A newly thatched shed looked more inviting than the house. I asked why the house was vacant. The man who carried the torch said the family were afraid of the tigers. A tiger that had killed and partly eaten a boy and badly clawed a man was still at large and the terror of the neighborhood. It has since been killed. My only helper slept beside me that night, a converted robber who had been shot in a conflict with a posse of constables in which two others of the gang were killed. We had no weapons; but we felt no uneasiness and were not molested.

“Soon after midnight one starlight night, with one helper I started from the new rest house at Sarahet to walk twenty miles across the woods to the railroad. A guide volunteered to show the way. We soon found that the path was grown up with brush and impassable. We then started down the river, a mountain torrent there, in a little paddle boat. The night had grown cloudy and very dark. The stream was very swift and crooked. Branches of thorny bamboo hung low over the water. After some narrow escapes, we ran full tilt into a thorn bush and my face and hands were scratched and my clothes badly torn. Then we climbed the bank and took the cart track without a guide. Presently it began to rain. So we found a leaning tree to protect our packs and built a fire to keep off night prowlers. The rain would soon have drowned the fire, and I had to stand for three hours and hold an umbrella over the fire; meanwhile keeping up the courage of my companion by telling stories of worse scrapes I had been in and come out of all right. When daylight came we found out where we were and reached a village in time for breakfast. My companion was a student in the B.C.C. out on a vacation. The night before I told him if we had no trouble he would have no story to tell afterwards. He gave the impression when he went back to college that he had a good time that trip.”

There now are 53 Christian centers in this field including in all over a thousand persons.

Petchaburi, a station since 1861, is teeming with happy memories for the members of both the Siam Missions. The old reputation for hospitality and cordial good fellowship still stands in abundant measure. The large gatherings for their annual Christian Conferences are the rich fulfillment of the dreams—the bounteous answers to the prayers of those who have gone before. The “Sangkaha Rat” or “Help the People” hospital is continuing the good work of living up to its name, and the “Howard Memorial” Girls’ School is true to its traditions, still doing its good work in the same building which Miss Cort used to make a pleasant home for all comers by her calm and serene spirit and her merry wit.

“A wee glimpse of a short man of compact build moving forward with resolute Scotch stride, geared for a thirty mile stretch, showed that Rev. Chas. E. Eckles of Nakon was making one of his customary coast walking tours to a small group of Christians. In glad anticipation of his visit, their church, a rice-house granary, was repaired and dusted. The Vacuum Cleaning Co. was not at hand in this far away Siamese corner, so many willing hands did the task.” Nakon Sritamarat on the Siam Gulf and Tap Teang or Trang opposite it on the Bay of Bengal are the two Mission stations from which the Christian church is seeking to evangelize the lower peninsula of Siam. The missionaries tour the adjacent islands as well as the towns and villages of the mainland. In Sritamarat many Chinese and Indiamen are coming into the Christian church. They are the business men of the community. The leading layman in the church is a Chinese merchant and capitalist, who gives generously both of his wealth and personal services.

Many Chinese are to be found in a little mining town northwest from Nakon. The Chinese have a school for boys, another for girls and a hospital there. The evangelist was able to make himself understood a little to the Hakkas. He found a few Hainanese. The doctors in that hospital were not graduates of any school in China but were medicine men using herbs and their own concoctions.

The Mission Station Hospital, as well as the church and Sabbath School and Boys’ and Girls’ Boarding Schools are all evangelistic centers and their work and influence is becoming more and more a power in the land.

At Trang Station there is also a Church and Hospital. Our little niece Ruth Eakin holds in her hands the entire educational work of the station and helps to brighten the lonely home of Mrs. Dunlap. This station is the outgrowth of twenty-five years of itinerating work by Dr. and Mrs. Eugene P. Dunlap, who traveled up and down these provinces when there were only jungle paths through the forests, and crazy little sail boats along the coast. It was here where Dr. Dunlap found a man who had received a Gospel of John somewhere and was living up to its teachings and instructing his family and friends in the truths of the Gospel. So the Kingdom of God “cometh not with observation” in Siam. Now Dr. Dunlap has gone to his reward and his grave in that land of his love tells the people to follow him to the Heavenly Home.

The Rev. F. L. Snyder the evangelist of the station tours the Trang field all down the West Coast of the Peninsula, called Siamese Malaysia, searching out remote Christian families and giving them the comfort of a Christian service in the homes of which they have been deprived; a 400 mile stretch containing more than half a million souls. He travels on foot, by sail boat or steamer. He says: “The roads inland are passable, but due to a lack of bridges over the streams we cannot use horses or carts so we just foot it. In places we have mud to the knees and often we travel all day in the rain, but one can get used to anything.” There are 15 Siamese speaking centers in the Trang field and there are a few Christians in every center. Scriptures are sold in Chinese and Malay as well as Siamese. The greatest demand was for Siamese New Testaments and the whole Bible in Chinese. Every center is personally visited many times a year, either by Mr. Snyder or his helpers.

“A mother bringing her baby for baptism had no garment for her little one so brought it to church wrapped in brown paper. When the pastor called for the presentation of children for baptism the woman with the parcel came forward with the bundle in her hands. Mr. Snyder suggested to her to lay aside her bundle and bring her baby to be baptized. The mother stared at him blankly for a moment, then undid the bundle and there was Baby all cuddled up in a little ball.”

At Renong, Tahkua Pah, Tongkah and Puket, there are fair sized foreign communities. Most of these are Australians who are engaged in tin mining. At Pong, a day’s trip by boat above Takua Pah, there was found a company of several Americans, who were opening a new American tin dredge, worked by electricity. The power house is four miles above camp and the current is generated by water power. The water is siphoned over three mountains and has a net fall of over six hundred pounds to the square inch at the power house. This is the only electric worked dredge in Siam and is proving such a success that a number of the tin syndicates are considering installing electric dredges. Through railroad traffic has been established on the Southern line of the Siamese State Railways. The journey from Bangkok to Singapore can be made in four days and one night, thus linking all these Mission stations with each other and the outside world.

Pitsanulok is on the Northern Railway a day’s journey from Bangkok and on the Nan River. Here, too, is a hospital, where Dr. Shellman risked his life and lost it to find it again in the Better World. Here is a new church building and two Boarding Schools on a beautiful compound high up on the river bank, where all missionaries who travel the Northern railway find a haven of rest by the way.

There is a wide field under Pitsanulok of over half a million people. Much of the touring is done by motor boat by the Rev. R. C. Jones and his family, where they tour on the three rivers, the Nan, Yome, and Ping; and extensive overland tours are taken to the east where they find ready hearers of the Gospel message and eager buyers of books and medicines. An interesting and rather dangerous boat trip was taken to the old capital at Sukuthai, as the River Yome was very narrow and crooked. In some places in making sharp turns the fish were so taken by surprise that sometimes two or three jumped into the boat at the same time, and by the time Sukuthai was reached fourteen fish varying in length from eighteen inches to two feet and a half had jumped into the boat. Many of them struck the boat with considerable force, making them think they had struck a broken log or tree. They did not need to buy any fish that trip. It was like the quails and manna.

We have seen how the evangelists sweep the western part of Siam from north to south, and this the northern part of the field of the South Siam Mission. But all of southeastern Siam is as yet unreached by the Gospel, with some two and one-half million people in spiritual darkness. Loud calls are coming from Korat, Roi-et and Ubon for the beginning of Christian work in this long neglected region. When these millions to the east are reached Siam will have been penetrated to her remotest bounds. The missionaries stop at no trials; they count not their lives dear unto them if only by some means this beautiful fascinating little Kingdom be won to Christ, like the finest gem in His crown when He shall claim the nation “for His inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession.”

It has been said that the King of Siam wants all the fruits of Christianity but rejects the tree. But the tree is planted in their midst and thousands of his subjects are finding comfort and rest, joy and peace in its shadow and life—eternal life from its branches, “for the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” Like the rich young ruler Siam seems to lack but the one thing needful. And over against her as a nation the Lord of the Whole Earth stands watching—waiting, as He once looked out over Jerusalem, with infinite, yearning love, saying, “How often would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not.”

Customs and characteristics of the different branches of the Tai have been given in every chapter, but there are some that are so peculiarly characteristic of the race and so differentiate and set them apart from the nations and peoples around and among them that they ought to have special mention.

The Siamese Buddhist festivals already described are observed among all the Buddhist Tai, and where there is contact with other nationalities they are modified somewhat by the customs of their neighbors, as noticed in the Kun, Ok Wasah festival at the close of Buddhist Lent. They followed a Burman custom in the maze and a Chinese custom in the dragon float.

Strange to say, the custom of tattooing which one would think is more connected with Spiritism than Buddhism, as a charm rendering them invulnerable, is not practiced at all among the non-Buddhist Tai, where the fear of spirits is most rife. We once had a Christian cook who was supposed to be invulnerable when a Buddhist. He told me he never appeared without his jacket on, as he did not want anyone to see the cabalistic signs he had tattooed on his back.

Cremation does not seem to be practiced at all among the non-Buddhist Tai although the cremation of dignitaries is common through Siam and Burma and even up into China. In a cremation of an old Burman priest in Kengtūng they had a four days festival, with booths and market stalls, etc., out on the plain. A rope was attached to either end of the funeral car and they had a tug of war. If the upper side was stronger the car went merrily up the hill. If the lower side prevailed it came rolling gaily down again amid the shouts and applause of the crowd. The poor old priest surely furnished more amusement in his death than he ever did in his life. After the yellow robed priests had knelt in a circle and chanted the prayers for the dead the coffin was opened and relics were handed out while we retreated with handkerchiefs to our noses. The funeral pyre was lighted by little manikins which, when a fuse was lighted, ran up the ropes and plunged into the pile.

A description written by Mrs. Peoples of Nan, shows the custom in a funeral ceremony of one of the fast disappearing titled rulers of North Siam. The Laos or Yûn chiefs are being superseded by the Siamese officials in all except a few cases like this where the chief was a man of such strong character and so much respected by the people that he was allowed to retain a nominal position of rank and authority until his death.

The use of musical instruments in their processions and festivities is universal among the Tai from Siam to the Yangtze; differing in beauty and in musical tone, from the little banjo made of ivory with gold mountings used by the girl band in the Chief’s Palace in Chiengmai, or the half cocoanut shell properly polished, mounted and stringed, to the rude little primitive instrument whittled out by a Yangtze lad with his jack knife and strung with horse hair.

The Yangtze boy does not go serenading about with it as his Yûn cousin does. The Chinese custom is followed to some extent in courtship and marriage. Engaged couples are allowed to see each other but not to converse. The husband lives in the wife’s home or she in his according to convenience. It is usually the latter, but the little wife goes back and forth from the old home to the new at pleasure.

The xylophone of Siam is known but not in general use among the Tai of China. The raucous horn, in use everywhere and what used so to try our nerves, is now being replaced by the brass band in the cities of Siam, with foreign instruments and foreign training. It was interesting to notice that the reed organ in use among the Lao of the French State is also found among the far away Tai of Kweichow province in China.

Dancing, which is common in Buddhist merit making processions everywhere, is also seen among the Tai on the Yangtze in connection with spirit feasts and offerings, but not on other occasions. Wedding feasts are common among all branches of the Tai Race. There seems to be more liquor drinking in the north at such times than in the south. A house raising as a community affair is common to all, followed by a feast. Among the Lü there is a specially boisterous house warming, with a gathering of all the family friends and neighbors.

There is a beautiful custom among the Tai Nüa at the time of the New Year which is also prevalent up on the Yangtze. The children and young people kneel down before the grandmother of the family and she puts her hand on the head of each one and murmurs a blessing. To a child especially dear she gives a coin or a trinket or a cake.

Literate and illiterate, under whatever flag and in whatever clime, there are Tai characteristics which seem independent of the accidents of isolation, partition among European powers, the impact of Buddhism, or other extraneous causes. Among these are the universal love of flowers, the almost universal love of music, the laughter loving, merry heart, openhanded hospitality, respect for women, and a native religiousness.

In every festive gathering flowers deck the heavy coil of raven hair of the Tai maiden in Siam, Burma, or China, or replace the cigarette stuck in the hole of the lobe of the ear of the young man when he goes courting. If a girl gives a young man a flower it is a sign she favors his suit.

As for music, I long ago revised my first impression of Tai music. I discovered that they have tunes and very musical ones, too. Siamese songs set to their own sweet tunes are now sung in all the schools, both government and mission schools; dainty little child songs like their “Ode to the Moon.” Our people are beginning to use their native tunes with our Christian hymns. Their Buddhist chants are very musical. Their national anthem is surely as melodious as any I have heard from all the great nations, as it rolls out on the evening air from every barracks, police station, and school all over Siam, in clear boyish treble and deeper bass voices, or the sweet voices of our girls in the boarding schools. Church choirs and school choruses; singing at home and in the field; father, mother, and children lift their voices everywhere in our Christian hymns and songs. I am sure it must be a sweet incense of praise before the Throne on high.

In 1911, while at Battle Creek Sanitarium, I had the pleasure of listening to a lecture by Dr. W. E. Geil, the famous author and explorer. His subject was “The Pygmies of Africa,” and he said in the course of his lecture, “They are the most laughter loving people in the world, except the Tai of Southern Yünnan.” He certainly was right about this characteristic of the Tai, in the north especially. They roar with laughter over the most sacred scenes in picture chart or sciopticon when something strikes their sense of humour, and a laughing piece on the gramophone leaves them convulsed with merriment. A class in school once rolled on the floor; teacher and pupils in delighted uncontrollable mirth when they began to learn the song of “Three Blind Mice.” Afterwards they could sing it through without a change of countenance.

In Northern Yünnan they are just the same. They are very fond of the game of make believe, and it was their great delight to try to fool the missionary. One day at Nong Luang I stood with a group on the village green, adding to my non-Buddhist vocabulary. An old man who was very fond of his joke was coaching me. With a sober face he said, “The donkey barks.” Understanding him perfectly I answered him with an equally straight face “The donkey barks.” This brought roars of laughter from the crowd. The old man’s daughter was one of the innocent souls, one of our pupils whom we always spoke of as the good girl. She could not bear to have them make sport of her beloved teacher. She came up and said, “Teacher, my father is fooling you. The donkey does not bark, he brays.” Then perforce the missionary joined in the laugh which followed.

In his book, “An Oriental Land of the Free,” Mr. Freeman has admirably pointed out the high position which the Tai everywhere accord their women; there is no seclusion of women with which to contend in the missionary conquest of the Tai. It makes all the difference imaginable in the status of women as a race, and in the future position of the bride that she does not go to be practically a drudge and a slave in the household of her husband, like her Chinese sister; on the contrary, her husband comes to live in her household. Her very birth was welcomed because she would bring this son-in-law into the family. If a Tai woman has no daughter she is left alone in her old age. The little daughter in a Tai home is the pet of her father and the darling of her mother’s heart. She has as much outing, has the privilege of wearing as few clothes and has as much freedom in every way as her brother.

When she grows older she has the care of a younger brother or sister whom she carries about on her hip or pick-a-back according to the locality where she was born, haunting the door yard, the street, or the market. She learns to spin, to dye, to weave and to sew. She is taught also to embroider with cotton, silk, beads, mica, and tinsel. Polygamy is rare excepting among the rulers and there is no child marriage, but she is expected to marry early and is given a good opportunity to do so. I have noticed that the best looking young women go oftenest to market. They rise before daylight; put their wares into two baskets hung on the ends of a flexible bamboo pole. She swings the pole on her shoulders and starts off before daylight in company with others from her village. She meets many people before she gets home again, sometimes before noon.

Young men are allowed to call on her in her home. They serenade her to the accompaniment of a crude mandolin and in songs not always chaste and ennobling. And yet a comparatively high standard of morality is held up before her. She is taught—aye, what is she taught? Not to read or write as her brothers are. It was considered very unlucky for a woman to learn to read. Outside of the Christian church in former times the few women who braved public opinion and learned to read were looked upon with suspicion and distrust. Now public opinion is changing and girls’ schools are being started in Siam.

But our Tai girl is taught to fear the evil spirits. If a Buddhist, she feeds the mendicant monks as they come begging from door to door, or if she has anything especially good she is taught to take it to the monastery and crouch before her yellow robed brothers and lift her hands in worship and present her offering. On festival occasions she may take also offerings of cloth or gold or silver. And she is taught to listen to the chanting of the so-called sacred book by the monks. Some portions of these are in the vernacular and she understands them. Other portions are in the sacred Pali language and to her are unintelligible. If she is intelligent she will understand enough to get a confused and self-contradictory mass of precepts, which no one tries to keep, and have a confused idea that if she feeds the priests well and is faithful in the outward ceremonies of the Buddhist cult, she may obtain enough merit to be born a man at her next birth in the series of transmigration.

And yet when she marries she does not leave home for the sake of her husband. He has to sacrifice his home and come and cleave to her—and to her family, to serve for her very much as Jacob did for Rachel. After a few years the young couple and their young family may set up an independent establishment for themselves, if there are other daughters who have married and the home is too overflowing. And in time the mother in this home comes to have more domestic and financial power than the father. She holds the purse in the home; and the husband consults her about every important financial venture. He is the one who gets the “allowance,” and he accounts to her for the spending of it!

Especially is this true when she becomes a grandmother. Now she has drained the cup of life. She has learned all that Buddhism and the religion of evil spirits has for her. You ask her, “Grandmother, what next?” and she almost invariably smiles at your simplicity in asking such an absurd question. “Don’t know.” How can she know, unless we give her the only Book that tells? This the church is trying to do. Not trying half as hard as it might, not half as hard as the need of the Tai women calls for, not half as hard as our Christ wants us to. But the next generation of Tai women will not be altogether as the present one. There is a little nucleus of Christian women there, and, many of them are like Nang Kiang.

One day Nang Kiang led the Women’s Meeting. Six years before, she was baptized. She came from a family none of whom can read or write, Buddhists, and none of whom have followed her to Christ. She married a Christian man and took her husband’s God to be her God and his people, her people. She had a family of three little ones. She had never been in school a day. She read the Scripture lesson herself, and read it well. She selected hymns to suit the lesson and led the tunes herself. She led in prayer, a prayer just out of her own heart’s desires. She gave an intelligent and soulful exposition of the lesson.

Women who have found Christ after they were grandmothers have learned to read and sing and pray and have become workers in the church. Of course those who go very far on the path of intellectual development are the second and third generation Christians. There were girls of fourteen in the Chiengrai School who took down from dictation the text of the Scripture references in the Shorter Catechism, writing rapidly in the Yûn character, and the same girls wrote for an hour in the Siamese character in a written examination on the life of Christ and the papers in both classes were neat and legible. One characteristic of the Tai is a remarkable verbal memory. Pupils in our boarding schools not only, but in the smallest parochial schools can recite hymns, passages of Scriptures and forms of service, tables, rules, etc., with surprising accuracy; and we found this same bright and retentive memory in some of the Yangtze Tai also.

The hospitality of the Tai is remarkable, and the more noticeable as one leaves the Tai-land for that of some of the surrounding peoples. Their innate hospitality is sometimes held in check by their fear of offending the family spirit by entertaining strangers, especially foreigners, but only once in all our experience were we refused shelter in a home on that account and then with many apologies they did their best to make us comfortable in their buffalo shed.

The religious nature of the Tai is comparatively free from the speculative dialectics of the East Indian and the materialistic, but very practical trend of the Chinese. The heroism of Hō Kōat, the very young Christian, shown in the rescue of the grandmother from the burning building at Mong Wa, reveals possibilities of heroic Christian sacrifice. And what possibilities of fortitude, faithfulness, and religious fervor are there in the race which has produced a man like that other young Christian, Ai Fū, who accompanied me all the way to Canton in 1910. Well supported Buddhist monks and monasteries, vast expenditures in merit-making, long pilgrimages to the Buddhist Holy Land—these are matters which go deeper than externals in religion. As a race, the Tai are possessed of a native religiousness which is not wholly divorced from morality, and which gives many evidences of a downright moral earnestness. As has already been shown in many instances, it needs but the breath of the Spirit of God to kindle it into spiritual power. God has His prophets and His psalmists in Tai-land.

It is impossible to draw a hard and fast line between characteristics which are innate and those which are at least partially resultant. For in the last analysis the innate traits of any one generation are the resultants of previous generations. Among the characteristics of the Tai people which seem at least partially to come from environment is simplicity of nature. This manifestly results in large part from their inland position and consequent isolation. With the exception of the Siamese, they have always lived wholly inland, and their country is mostly without large navigable streams. They have but little and difficult access to the sea. This is being changed by the advent of railroads: but we are dealing with the milleniums of the past which have moulded the characters and characteristics of the race. Like the Chinese, they are chiefly an agricultural race. Some other industries there are, of course, among a people as civilized as the Chinese or the Tai. But the population is chiefly rural. There are now no great cities. Large and important walled towns abound, but the people live mostly in villages, and everybody takes at least an occasional hand at farming. And there is the simplicity of character and life which one would naturally expect in such an inland, highland, rural population.

Lack of contact with the West has also preserved this race comparatively free from the vices of the more complex civilizations. To quote from the report of Commission One, Edinburgh Conference, they are among the “few primitive races of people left in the world, and the opportunity afforded the Christian church to reach them under favorable conditions can last but a brief season. The present opportunity will pass away. Every year will bring new and powerful counter attractions within easy reach of the natives. The wise and experienced missionary workers show convincingly that it is much easier to bring the gospel to bear on the heathen in his natural state than it is upon the man who has become familiar with the worst side of so-called civilization.”

It requires no prophet’s eye to see the hand of God in this preservation of the racial simplicity of the Tai, no prophetic ear to hear therein His call for their speedy evangelization. What a crowning piece of strategy in the Holy War it would be to deploy thither such a cohort of the missionary army of occupation as should take the country for Christ before the coming of railroads and the advent of a large number of foreigners. This would forestall the corruption of native simplicity by replacing it everywhere with “the simplicity that is in Christ.”

“The King’s business requires haste.” Some of the changes which a quarter of a century have brought in Siam, have already been told: the destruction of the feudal system; the abolition of slavery and gambling; the reorganization of the government along all lines, legislative, judicial, and executive; codification of laws, largely upon the basis of the common law of England; reformation of taxation; the opening of canals, roads, and railways, and the erection of lighthouses; the establishment of posts and telegraphs all over the kingdom; and the encouragement of schools and colleges for girls as well as for boys. A proclamation of religious toleration was issued by the late King Chulalangkorn, which has been operative throughout the realms for many years. They long ago adopted the way of reckoning time of Christian lands and some years ago a royal decree made the Christian Sabbath a Government Holiday and all courts and government offices are closed on that day.

That portion of the Tai Race which is under the beneficent sway of the King of England and Emperor of India not only enjoys absolute religious freedom, but is beginning to taste the fruits of English civilization.

France cannot forever bolt the door against twentieth century progress among her two million Tai citizens, nor against the century’s enlightened and tolerant religious spirit. The doors must open in the French Laos State, too.

The Tai of that part of China in which I have traveled are being awakened to the call of Occidental civilization by the post and telegraph, the school and the college. There is a call for the English language. Postmasters and telegraph operators read it. The purely native college in Nānning fū is teaching it. Missionaries who a few years ago donned the native garb in order to “gain face” had doffed it and donned the foreign garb again, lest they “lose face:” for the natives themselves were donning the foreign. The Chinese revolution began and was carried on in exactly the part of China which has from the dawn of history been the home of the Ai-Lao race. The far-reaching consequences of that revolution no one can foresee. Only this we know, that God is resetting the bounds and habitations of the nations of the earth with special regard for His own. Every overturning of kingdoms is for the more firm setting up of that kingdom which shall never end. It has been said that he gives twice who gives quickly. Of the work for the Tai, whether in Siam, or Burma, or in the French colony, or seething China, it is especially true that they work with manifold effectiveness who work now. With rare penetration the Edinburgh Conference declared that “Siam and the Laos are in a condition of metamorphosis.”

This urgency is accentuated by the fact that the race is now exceptionally receptive. This receptivity of all things foreign is the resultant of several conditioning causes. Negatively, it is accounted for in part by the lack of those very hindrances which in so many lands and among so many peoples render the proclamation and acceptance of the gospel so difficult and slow. With few exceptions there is no overcrowding of population, with its accompanying distress and distraction from all things spiritual. The geniality of climate and the fertility of soil render the conditions of living comparatively easy; so there are few who are abjectly poor; while the torridity of the great part of the present-day home of the Tai discourages that restless energy which amasses colossal fortunes. There is therefore no great and impassable gulf fixed between “the masses and the classes.” Individualism and the freedom of individual action are marked.

There is a delightful absence of anti-foreign sentiment among the whole Tai race. As a people they are open to the reception of whatever appeals to them, whether it come from within or without. There is no assumed superiority over foreigners. In fact everything foreign is eagerly sought, and has been long before the Chinese ceased to call us “foreign devils” and to adopt some of our ways. No other countries show such favor of rulers to missionaries and to foreigners in general as those where the Tai people form the predominant element in the population.

Those of the Tai who are adherents of “a great ethnic religion” are neither Brahmins nor Mohammedans. There is therefore no caste, and there are no fakirs. There is no seclusion of women in Zenanas. The women wear no veils, and do not bind their feet. They are accessible to the messenger of the gospel, whether that messenger be man or woman. There is neither suttee nor juggernaut, spiritual intolerance nor wars of religious conquest.

Per contra, the receptivity which the Tai Race shows for all things foreign including medicine as well as merchandise, religion as well as rupees, is partly the resultant of those positive qualities already noted, love of music and flowers, the open hearth, the simple merry heart, the innate religiousness. Added to these have been the unintentional preparations of Buddhism and animism, or worship of “spirits.”

About eleven million of the Tai are nominal Buddhists. And although Buddhism presents a well organized front; and although we have yet to hear of any great mass movement of Buddhists into Christianity; yet it is true that Buddhism furnishes many preparations for Christianity. It inculcates a spirit of religious toleration. Its temples and monastery grounds are hospitable inns. In our tours of evangelistic itineration we habitually sleep in these temples, preach under the nose of the big Buddha, and sing our Christian songs in his ears. Often the abbot and the monks courteously join us in these services.

Once a service was held which was both Buddhist and Christian, which was called, “A Unique Debate in Southern Siam,” when Buddhism was presented by a Buddhist and Christianity by one of the native Christians. Dr. E. P. Dunlap wrote of it as follows:

The whole town was deeply impressed by Kroo Sook’s account of Christianity, and ever since there has been an increased inquiry after the real spirit of Christ.

Buddhism has also codified the moral sense common to all mankind. This codification brings in itself a three fold preparation for Christianity. It serves to throw the devotee into despair of reaching the ideal therein set forth. It furnishes a basis of Christian appeal for a moral and ethical standard. And because of this despair and this basis of appeal, it prepares the way for the hope which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The beautifully phonetic, alphabetic system of writing the Tai language came to the Buddhist Tai with the recrudescence of Buddhism, when as yet the Christian era was young. With this alphabet has gradually come also a literature which includes poetry and prose, history, legend, mythology, folk-lore, fiction, medicine, law, and ethical teachings, often of great beauty and aptness. Some of our missionaries have libraries of this literature running up into the hundreds of volumes. Many of the most charming legends and tales are read by the clergy to the laity on the Buddhist Sabbaths. Many of the maxims and proverbs are so epigrammatic that they have become quite current. The minds of the Buddhist Tai people are saturated with Buddhism’s legends and tales, its maxims and saws, its poetry and song. Both the substance and much of the exact language are familiar to people of average intelligence. Even the young men and maidens often astonish us by a pat maxim or a witty proverb. Apart from its erroneous teachings, the cultural value of such education and literature as a foundation for the truer and higher teachings of Christianity is manifestly great.

There is nothing small about this subject. It covers about all on the earth according to Buddhist conceptions, all in the heavens, and all under the earth. To treat it all would exceed the limits of a chapter, and possibly of a book. The best that can be done is to take first a bird’s eye view of the subject, getting something of its dimensions and scope, then determine upon some salient features and treat them in detail.

The Bird’s Eye View. As is generally known, the religious beliefs and practices of the Tai people, like those of the most of their neighbors, are far from being homogeneous or self-consistent. To begin with, there are quite two systems held and practiced, viz., the worship of disembodied spirits, and Buddhism. Spirit worship the Tai brought with them from the old home of the race in China. Buddhism was introduced from Ceylon after their migration hither. Both these statements are capable of verification from Tai, Chinese and Indian histories, and from the writings of such authors as MacLeod, Colquhoun, Prof. De La Couperie and others.

Although Buddhist books denounce spirit worship in severe terms, Buddhism has not succeeded in supplanting or destroying it. Even in Bangkok, they still fire off guns, or float their beautiful lights to frighten or appease the spirits of the city and river. On the other hand, in the north at least, the ancient cult has modified Buddhism, and grown fat upon it. The resultant beliefs and practices of the people are a strange sad medley. They worship the image of Gotama Buddha; they profess to accept his exposition of the sacred law; they support Buddhist mendicant monks by the thousands; and from the lips of these latter they receive the five or the eight sila precepts on the sacred days, avowedly for observance. But as a matter of fact few of them know the difference between Buddha’s exposition of the law and the later spirit-cult glosses; they cannot respect the mendicant monks; and they do not even try to observe the sila precepts. The light that is in them is darkness. And they do not live up even to that dark light. Professing and in public even expressing, a desire that at death they be reborn either in some of the celestial worlds or in Nibbana—the real heaven of the Buddhist books—, I have never yet found one who when questioned dared express a hope of a better world after this. Even when unmodified by spirit worship, Buddhism recognizes no God; the spirit cult has none. So, theoretically they are without God and without hope in the world.

Yet a religion without a god, or some substitute for The God, is so cold and unsatisfying, so at variance with man’s heaven-born instincts, that the votaries of Buddhism everywhere have invested Gotama, the Buddha, the Enlightened One, with many of the attributes of divinity. And it is further taught that Gotama was only one of many such gods. During the present aeon, or world age, Gotama is the fourth of five brothers, the fifth and most meritorious one yet being a Bodhisat or candidate for the Buddhaship. The Tai so hold and so worship. Without the power to save himself from death by poisoning, Gotama is yet made the recipient of that instinctive, albeit in this case untutored, reverence which the human everywhere pays to the superhuman, real or supposed. A prayer which our good friend the Bishop of Chiengrai loaned me in 1898 begins with an invocation of these five present world-age deities, and well illustrates the extent to which they have been deified, thus: “Oh, Rraksandha, Konagamana, Kassapa, Gotama, and Ariya Mettēya; the power [literally the knowledge] of the celestial eyes of the Lord Buddhas extends everywhere, throughout world systems innumerable. If we do wrong or right, the Lord Buddhas see all. We beg to take the Lord Buddhas as our refuge. If we have done wrong in any respect we ask the Lord Buddhas to remit punishment for us. The Lord Buddhas who have celestial eyesight, the divine beings who are in Nibbana, see throughout the whole world system. If sentient beings in the water or upon the land commune together concerning anything whatever, the Lord Buddhas hear every being in every place. And if we, the servants of the Lord Buddhas, have erred in speaking anything outside of the word of the Lord Buddhas, or have erred in intention or erred in the repetition of the rosary, or in any part of it, we beg pardon of the Lord Buddhas: refrain we beseech thee from punishing us, etc.”

But the Buddhas are not the sole recipients of such homage. They share it with the ghosts, the various orders of beings in the celestial worlds, and even with the powers of the worlds infernal.

This is the bird’s eye view—the comparatively pure ethical precepts of Gotama neglected, Gotama deified, many gods invented, and all worshiped indiscriminately with spirits of ancestors, and beings of the upper and nether worlds. No moral certitude, no clearly defined religious beliefs, as contradistinguished from mere superstitions, no knowledge of the true and only living God, no light, no moral earnestness, no soul cleanness, no well defined hope. If Christ’s teaching be true, if His command be indeed mandatory, we must bring to the whole Tai people Christ the Light, the hope of glory, who alone can produce purity, beget moral certitude, inspire moral earnestness, who is himself The Truth, God over all, blessed forevermore.

When we turn from this bird’s eye view to look for the salient points of Buddhism and spirit worship to be examined in detail, we are bewildered by the profusion and confusion of material offered.

Buddhism. For the Buddhism of Gotama himself was not a self consistent system, but an attempted modification and compromise and syncretism of divergent systems of Indian philosophy. Lacking moral sanction and lacking cohesive power, this syncretism has resolved itself into two great modern schools, Northern and Southern Buddhism. Furthermore each school has developed many local characteristics and subdivided into many sects. Like Romanism, Buddhism is one thing in Ceylon, another in Burma, another among Western Shans, another among the Yûn, and still another among the Siamese. The Buddhism of Lower Siam is said to be nearer to the original than that of any other region. However that may be, it is certain that the Siamese unhesitatingly say that the Yûn are not Buddhists at all!

And again, to the surprise of some doubtless, a long residence here and a faithful study of Yûn Buddhism, with its brave show of uniformity of costume and cult, reveals after all many sects, with wide differences of belief and practice. We may not be able to name these sects. And they do not have separate organizations like the denominations of Protestant Christianity or the orders of Romanism. They are more like the different parties in the State Church of England, and still more like the widely differentiated bodies calling themselves Congregational or Independent Churches. For, while nominally the ecclesiastical polity of Buddhism is hierarchical, practically among the Yûn it is independent: so much so that one might almost say that each monastery is a law unto itself.

And yet there are unorganized tendencies which may be called sects. For example, in Chiengrai, our friend the big fat jolly Bishop is the leader of the very liberal party. He takes three square meals daily and sleeps soundly. He buys and sells and gets gain. He is the prince of diviners and the seller of charms to the laity—all this in smiling disregard of the Buddhist Pastoral Epistles called Wineya. His is the rich monastery, the largest and best gilded of the seven within the walls of the city of Chiengrai. On the other hand, our friend Gruba Kan, a Nan man said to be of princely birth but who got his education in the Western Shan country, and who is now at the head of the one Western Shan monastery in Chiengrai, is thin, is reported to eat nothing after midday, does not buy and sell (so far as I know) and seems to try to follow Wineya—in spots. His monastery is the shabbiest one in town. He represents the school of strict discipline.

And this our friend Gruba Kan is not beloved by our friend the Bishop. And it is on this wise:—Kun Raknara was once Siamese Commissioner there. Though a most immoral man himself, he had a zeal for pure Buddhism. Seeing the worldly mindedness of the good Bishop and observing the austerity of life practiced by Gruba Kan, Kun Raknara took it in hand to have Gruba Kan institute a grand reform. To this end he convoked a council of the mendicant brotherhood, called the Sangha, and of the leading official laity. He laid before them the prevailing laxity. He asked them if they would be willing to follow the lead of Gruba Kan in a return to stricter life and teaching. Some of the laity assented. Then up spake he of the three meal party and said, “If the laity will bring us food to our temples, wihara, and will sweep and fence and weed and care for our monastery grounds, arama, we will give ourselves to learning, to fasting and to rosaries. We will read and expound the sacred law, and will not buy and sell. We liberals will return to primitive austerity if you of the laity will remove the occasion of our worldliness.” Then answered Kan Praya Amat, the wealthiest of the laity and said, “The thing which the Bishop hath said is impossible. We are but following in the customs of our fathers and the footprints of our mothers. We would best let well enough alone.” And to him they all agreed. And the council broke up, the reform failed, the Bishop still eats as aforetime, Gruba Kan’s arama is still weedy, his wihara, seedy.

Again, there was a distinct sect in the Chieng Dao region, led by a lay imposter named Noi Inta Kaw. He claimed that he was the John the Baptist, in Yûn called Praya Dhamma, who heralds the near approach of the next Buddha, Pra Ariya Mettēya. This imposter lived in a cave in the hill which gives its name to the region, Doi Dao the star hill, so called because it is so high as to pierce the stars! I was told that this Noi Inta Kaw had so large a following and had become so powerful that the Siamese government remitted taxes in the case of himself and all his eave disciples.

In the wihara called Wat Haw Dhamma in Chiengmai, I was informed that there was a Yûn Pikkhu or abbot, who was variously denominated Tu Ping and Dhamma Yut. He studied two years in Bangkok; and soon after his return, the Siamese officials through him attempted to institute a reform in Chiengmai. An enrollment of monks in Chiengmai Province was made. I have not the figures, but was told that there were over 10,000 names. Next the endeavor was made to enforce stricter discipline to conform more nearly to the Wineya rules for the Sangha. But like the similar attempt in Chiengmai it failed at the point of application, and on account of the opposition of the Yûn Bishop. He threatened that if a return was made to the discipline laid down in the Wineya, the wihara would all be deserted. It must be said, too, that this was not an empty threat: the monks under him would have effected it literally. But, though the reform failed, a new party or sect was started. This monk, Dhamma Yut, had a large following, his wihara was made the official monastery of the Siamese in Chiengmai and of the leading Yûn princes. I was told that he himself gained a great reputation on account of his austere life.

Most Yûn are nominally Buddhists. While discipline is enforced to a very limited degree among the monks there is no such thing as a lay standard of morality: all is purely voluntary. Hence there is no such thing as discipline of a lay Buddhist for immorality. There is no Buddhist church out of which to put him. Anybody can be a nominal Buddhist. And yet there are a few non-Buddhist Tai. They are the people who do not believe in Gotama, do not worship his image, do not make offerings to his monks, do not show respect for his sacred books, do not even reverence their own parents, and have no fear of punishment for sin or error. Their only belief is in divination and charms; yet they are not spirit worshipers either. By the Yûn they are called disciples of Dewadatta, brother-in-law of Gotama and one of his bitterest opponents. These followers of Dewadatta are really the absolutely irreligious, rather than a sect of Buddhism: yet no review of Tai Buddhism would be complete which ignored them. For they are the negative product of that system.

In addition to the confusion occasioned by the various sects of Buddhism is the greater confusion caused by the variations in the texts of the sacred books. The Yûn have an extensive literature, including folk-lore, mythology, poetry, fiction of no mean order, history and religion. Indeed Buddhism so pervades all their literature that to the common people it is nearly all “dhamma”—the sacred law. Only a beginning has been made by us in the exploiting of this literature. Yet this much has been shown to be characteristic, viz., that in books of poetry and religion especially, which are intended for recitation, singing or chanting, more attention is generally paid to rhythm and especially to euphony than to sense and subject-matter. That author and that chanter is most popular whose productions are, not most accurate, but most euphonious. Even the most standard translations from Pali and Sanskrit show great differences in style and diction. The text is exceedingly corrupt.

And yet, in spite of all the sects and all the variations of texts, one who has read Yûn books gathered from a wide area is impressed with the fact that, from Rahêng up into Yünnan, China, they contain the essentials of Buddhism, and most of its details, as given by such writers as Rhys Davids, Rev. Spence Hardy and others. With Spence Hardy’s Manual as key, and with the assistance of an exceptionally well-read Yûn teacher, the following outline of Yûn Buddhism has been compiled wholly from Yûn books. In selecting some points and leaving out others, the attempt has been to present only what will help us all to a better understanding of the whole system and familiarize us with its nomenclature: that we may the better combat the error and avoid the use of its terms in an incorrect sense in our Christian literature.

I. The World-systems. Among others, the Yûn books Pathama Kap, Milinda and Abyi Jeya Mangala are authority for the following:—There are innumerable world-systems of like composition, each called a chakrawala. A chakrawala is the space covered by the light of a single sun, and contains, in addition to its sun, a moon, earth, stars, and celestial and infernal regions. Pathama Kap gives the dimensions as 900,000 yojana in depth and the same in diameter. As a yojana is 8000 wa, or metres, it may be reckoned at 9 miles: which gives the dimensions of a chakrawala as 8,100,000 miles each way. It is bounded by a circular wall of rock of immense size, called Khawp Chakrawala. These chakrawala are scattered throughout the universe in groups of threes, their perimeters touching each other. And in the space between each three is a hell called Lokantaraka.

II. Divisions of Each Chakrawala. Guru Dhamma, Buddha Nusatti, Pathama Kap and other books teach that, beginning at the bottom, there are three grand divisions of each chakrawala, rising successively higher.

First, there is the okasa loka, or world of empty space.

Second, there is the sanghara loka, or material world, (discrimination, arrangement).

Third, overlapping this second division somewhat is the satta loka, or world of sentient beings, sat.

In the first grand division, okasa loka, each world system contains only the vacuum, called ajatakasa.

The second division contains three subdivisions. First is the world of wind which Pathama Kap gives as 160,000 yojanas deep, or 1,440,000 miles. Of course its circumference is that of the chakrawala itself. Next to this is the world of water, 4,320,000 miles deep. Next above this is the maha polowa or great earth, composed of two strata, one of rock, the other of soft earth, and each 1,080,000 miles deep.

In the interior of the great earth are located the places of torment, the naraka, or narok, according to some authorities 136 in number, but Pathama Kap and others give more than 180. But the principal ones are eight, of which the one worst dreaded is called Awichi, a, without, wichi refuge, that is, hopeless.

Above these narok, piercing the centre of the earth and reaching up to the second story of the celestial world, is the huge mountain called Maha Meru, or more popularly, Khau Sinelo. Yawt Trai Pittaka says that from the surface of the earth upward, not counting what is below the earth’s surface, this hill is 774,000 miles high. At its summit it is 90,000 miles in diameter, (or more than 11 times what we know the diameter of the earth to be)! It is so far that Buddha taught that if a deva, (an inhabitant of one of the 6 lower stories of the celestial world), should throw a stone from the summit of Sinelo, it would be six months and five days in reaching the surface of the earth.

Surrounding Mt. Sinelo, and separated by intervening oceans, are seven concentric circles of rocks, each circle decreasing in height. The only one of special interest is the one next to Sinelo, Yugandhara. Upon this rests the first of the celestial worlds, just as the second one is placed upon the top of Sinelo.

Outside Mt. Sinelo and its attendant circles are the abodes of men, manusa loka. There are four great continents, each with 500 smaller satellites (islands?). The inhabitants of the four great continents have faces of the same shape as their continents. On the north is square Udawn, with square-faced inhabitants; on the east, Pubbawideha, inhabited by people with faces like the full moon; on the west, Amagorayana, half moon faced folk; on the south, Jambu Continent (which is this one), peopled by men and women with faces like the side or profile view, of an ox’s head, i.e. irregularly triangular. These continents are mutually inaccessible, being separated by intervening oceans: and fortunately so, for it is said in Guru Dhamma that if the inhabitants of one continent could see those of another, they would all die of laughter!

Arunna Watti says that the sun and moon are drawn by celestial horses in a circle through the space surrounding Yugandhara, that is in a circle below the top of Sinelo. They ride chariots over three roads. During the hot season they travel the lowest of these, viz., the one nearest to us, hence the great heat. During the cool season they travel the highest road; the rest of the year the middle one. Yawt Trai Pittaka says the sun’s disc is 450 miles in diameter, the moon’s 441.

This completes the second grand division of the chakrawala, the Sanghara loka, or material world. To sum it up, it contains the world of wind, the world of water, and the world of rock and soil. Connected with this last are the narok, Mt. Sinelo with its seven sisters, and outside these the four great continents and 2,000 little ones: while above are the sun, moon and stars, the sun and moon riding in chariots over three great highways.

As is self evident, this second division, the material world, overlaps the third, the Satta loka, or world of sentient beings. The classifications are not mutually exclusive. The inhabitants of the narok and the manusa loka, or world of men, belong to both grand divisions. Continuing the third division, Satta loka, the world of sentient beings: next above the world of men is the celestial world, called either Muang Dibba or Muang Fa with three subdivisions:

The lowest is named Sawarga dewa loka. It is the abode of the dewa. There are six divisions called stories but Pathama Kap says we should not think of them as being separated by material divisions: they are simply the successive abodes of six orders of dewa. The names of these six stories are constantly recurring in Buddhist literature. But those of peculiar interest are four, the first, second, fourth and sixth. The first is named Chatumaha rajika and is interesting because it is the abode of four prayas and their peculiar attendants, as will be noted farther on. The second story is Tawatinsa and is the abode of Praya Inda, usually shortened to Praya In, the regent of the first two stories of the Dewa loka, and among them all the best friend of men. The fourth story is named Tusita. From it Gotama is said to have come down to be born—the last time, and in it now tarries his brother, Ariya Mettēya, the coming Buddha. The sixth story is named Parinimmita Wasawatti. It is the abode of Praya Mara and his attendants, who alone of all the dewa are the enemies of religion.

By all the authorities consulted the name Sawarga is restricted in its application to these six stories of the dewa loka. The author is informed that in the books called Ramahian and Nagara Sam Muang, Sawarga is defined as meaning sensuous enjoyment unmixed with pain or sorrow. To this agrees the usage of Guru Dhamma, Pathama Kap, Yawt Trai Pittaka, and all the other books and native authorities consulted. The inhabitants of all the six dewa loka are represented as possessed of natures capable of sensuous enjoyment. Yawt Trai Pittaka says that those in the lower story marry, but the enjoyment becomes less sensuous in each ascending story. Hence manusa loka, the world of men and sawarga dewa loka are grouped together in the classification Kama loka, the world of enjoyment through the senses. Only in the Sawarga dewa loka is the enjoyment unmixed with pain.

The second grand division of the celestial worlds is called rupa brahma loka, but the word brahma is more frequently written brohma by the Yûn. There are sixteen stories in rupa brahma loka. It is called thus because the Brohm inhabiting it are possessed of bodies having perceptible form, though they are all devoid of sensuous enjoyments. Still their enjoyments, being more intellectual than those of the dewa loka folks, are much greater.

The third and highest grand division of the celestial worlds is Arupa Brohma loka, the world of shapeless brohm, and containing but four stories. In Abhi Jeya Mangala Jataka the arupa brohm people are called asanya sat, sentient beings lacking power of perception. They are described as having mere rudimentary bodies, likened to watermelons, muskmelons, or the vibrations of sunshine—a round mass of shadowy something.

III. Cosmogony. Where did all these chakrawala, these vast world-systems originate? Pathama Mulla Mulli says that Gotama explained to Kondannya, one of the first five converts, that: In the beginning, before any worlds were, or any sentient beings, or any of the physical elements, there were only two seasons, hot and cold. These coming into contact produced air. After a long time this air was sufficiently solidified to become water. Again a long time, and this water solidified; the contact of the two seasons upon it burned it so that it became earth. The action of the two seasons further produced the precious metals and rocks. Then was fire produced in the rocks, completing the four elements, air, water, earth and fire. The interaction of these four elements spontaneously produced the brute creation. Some of the brutes came from the air, some from water, some from earth, some from fire. The brutes, had only psychical natures, chitta winyana, no minds, mano winyana. At first, brutes were exceedingly small, without blood or bones, or fear of death. After countless ages, these died, and were reborn with fear of death. After other countless ages, they were born again with blood and bones, but yet very minute. After countless ages again, a woman was born, of the earth, afterwards named Ya Sang Sai. This woman did not die. And after countless ages, a man was born, of fire, and afterwards named Pu Sang Si. From these two the earth was peopled. To mark the seasons, this couple created an elephant of stone; upon his back put Mt. Sinelo; around it the concentric circles and the continents; and above, the sun, moon and stars, the twelve signs of the zodiac, the six dewa loka, and the sixteen brahma loka. All these were also peopled by their descendants: who died and were reborn; but the original pair did not die. When they thought the world-age long enough, they caused the stone elephant to cease breathing: the sun collided with the moon and stars, and set them afire; the oceans were dried up; and the worlds burned up as far as the sixth brahma loka. Clouds from the 100,000 other worlds rushed in and extinguished the fire. All the beings below the sixth brahma loka had been burned up and were reborn in the upper brahma loka. Ages afterward a new world system was evolved, and thus it has been ever since down to the present time.

We pause to remark that this explanation of Buddha is conspicuous for what it does not explain. Whence came the two seasons, hot and cold? How did their contact produce air? What contusion of heat and cold could evolve water from air? How were permanent solids generated from liquids? Whence came the organisms? The principle of physical life—whence came it—the souls of animals and the minds and spirits of men? What does the stone elephant stand on? If this is an account of “the beginning, before any worlds were,” as it professes at the commencement of the book, where did the “clouds from the 100,000 other worlds” come from?

It is evident that this system of pagan evolution, which plods along through the myriads of years without any directing intelligence, demands of its adherents as great credulity as does American or English or German agnostic or atheistic evolution, possibly a little more as to processes. But the principle is the same: both accept effects without causes—rather without the Great Cause. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without Him was not anything made that hath been made. In Him was life: and the life was the light of men.”

IV. Ontology. The ontology of Yûn Buddhism is as different from that of Christ as its cosmogony. Christian ontology teaches that the different worlds are inhabited by different orders of beings, totally independent of each other, both as to identity and also as to essential moral qualities. Yûn Buddhism teaches that the same identical beings inhabit the different worlds in succession; and that there are no beings who belong to any one world, or to any state except Nibbana, in such a way as to be permanently located in that world or state, or to be contradistinguished from the other beings who are going the rounds of the worlds. There is no one morally good in and of himself—no eternal God. To quote authorities for this general statement would be to exhaust the list of leading Buddhist books. But, to be more specific:

Ceylonese and Indian Buddhism, is represented as teaching the non-existence of the individual ego, and as denying categorically and specifically the existence of soul and spirit: only the clinging to life and the resultant of actions, called “Karma,” survives death. And these two inanimate, impersonal things produce another being who inherits the merit and demerit of the one who has died, and receives his reward or punishment, in the form of a promotion or degradation as to place and condition of life. Now, Yûn Buddhism accepts the doctrines of karma, here called kamma. But certainly the consensus of teaching—and no exceptions to the contrary have been found by the author and his assistant—is to the effect that there is a principle of man corresponding to the Greek Ψυχή or “vital force which animates the body, an essence which differs from the body, and is not dissolved by death.” (Thayer.) Abhidhamma Kara Ke, Buddha Bhisek, Pathama Mulla Mulli, Buddha Nibbana and other books distinctly say that this psychical part of man, called chittan, chit chai, chitta winyana, is reborn, and that this chit inherits in each state of existence, the kamma, be it good kamma, or bad kamma, and its fruits, of the preceeding state. This ceaseless round of reincarnation is called sanga sara, the sequence of existence. If one’s kamma wibaka, the result of his actions, be good, he is reborn in a better condition in manusa loka or in dewa loka or in brahma loka. If his kamma wibaka be bad, he goes into one of the apaya tang si, the four inferior states, (literally, apaya means “going away”).

We cannot more than glance at the rounds of sanga sara. Here the Buddhist imagination has run riot. But it is most important that we give most of them at least a glance.

Abhidhamma Kara Ke says that the four apaya are respectively the condition of a brute, sattarisan, of an asura, or asura kaya, of a preta, or of an inhabitant of narok.

1. Of course it is a degradation for a man to be born a brute. But the books teach that the best of men have to go the rounds. Pitaka Mala says that Gotama himself was born a hare, a big black dog, a peacock, twice a fowl, once a parrot. And many of the jataka of the Yûn get their names in this way. E.g., Dhamma Suwana Hoi Sang is the story of the birth, jati, in which Gotama was a golden clam. In Dhamma Suwanna Hen Gham, he was a golden weasel. Sadanda tells about his life as an elephant of that name. Dhamma Nok Mla He tells us of his doings as a woodpecker. Usubharaja tells us how he was a royal ox. Sukara Mani has him as a pig, but albeit one of precious stones. And there are others.

2. The asurakaya reside under Mt. Sinelo, according to the books Loka Chakku and others. They have an old grudge against the dewa living in the first story, the one in which the sun and moon travel. Two of them, Rahu and Ketu occasionally steal a march on these first story dewa, and seize either the sun or the moon, causing eclipses. At such times it is proper for the inhabitants of manusa loka to assist their fellows in the upper world, as against the inferior asurakaya. This they do by beating drums and gongs, firing guns, and generally raising either Cain or Ned, to frighten the asurakaya away. Now the asurakaya are immense fellows, though of very disproportionate bodies: but they have always finally let the sun and the moon go. On the whole the asurakaya seem not to have a bad time of it, though their house is very dark. If they should succeed in taking the sun or even the moon down with them, possibly it would be lighter.

3. Milinda Panha tells about the home of the preta. They have a still darker house, as they live in the lokantaraka, the hells beneath the three chakrawala in each group. The khawp chakrawala effectually shut out all the light. They are ghostly beings, some of them have long hair over all their bodies, some resembling rocks; some have eyes like fire, some have mouths on the top of their heads, but their throats are small as needles. They are always hungry. If they hunger for rice, rice appears; but when they attempt to eat it, it turns to fire. Other foods tantalize them in various ways. Under their abode is water so cold that if, in their attempts to eat each other, any of them fall into the water, they are immediately dissolved and die. But they are immediately reborn as before. They have the power of visiting the earth in search of food. But they cannot eat any food except that of their own relatives.

4. The satta narok, inhabitants of the places of torment, are pictured as enduring awful agonies, under the regent named Praya Yom Bhi Pan and his followers. Yawt Trai Pittaka says that if a man should take 100 spears and spear himself with each every morning, and 100 in the evening, and should live for 100 years, the resulting misery would be 100,000 times less than that of narok. The tortures are of a nature corresponding to the sins committed in the preceeding life or lives. Abhi Cheya Mangala says that in the hells they hunger and thirst, are naked and in pain: the followers of Yom Bhi Pan chase them with weapons—swords, bows and arrows and spears, and give them no rest. They climb trees with iron or brass thorns. These thorns prick them. They fall down. Crows and vultures with iron and brass beaks come and pick out their eyes, and cause them to stumble and fall. Then dogs as large as elephants chase and bite them and seize them in their teeth. After an incalculable time these inhabitants of hell become preta, then beasts, large or small, then demented men.

Lacking a personal law giver, the sanctions of Buddhism are mostly in the line of aggravated exaggerations. In Yawt Trai Pittaka, Buddha told of a Praya who was born in hell for 10,000,000 asong kheya and 100,000 maha kap.

This same authority says that if any one asks, “What is an asong kheya kap?” it is proper to reply: “There is a pit 9 miles in diameter and 9 miles deep. Every one hundred celestial years a dewa throws a mustard seed into the pit. When it is full, then each hundred years he comes and takes away a seed. When the pit is again empty, it is an asong kheya kap. And what is a kap simply?” There is a stone 9 miles high and 9 miles broad. Once in 100 years a dewa takes a celestial cloth as fine as smoke, and touches this rock as lightly as possible. When this rock is worn down even with earth, it is one kap. Now attempt to imagine 10,000,000 asong kheya in hell! Well may the Buddhist pray to be delivered from the apaya: and well may he add, “The principal one is narok!”

5. The dewa are the first grade above men. Our principal authorities consulted are Dhamma Chakkapawattana Sutta, Guru Dhamma, Yawt Trai Pittaka, Pathama Kap, Abhidhamma Kana Ke. Like preta, the dewa do not always live at home. Some dewa are wood sprites, or guard rocks or hills on earth. But most of them live in the dewa loka. It must constantly be borne in mind that the inhabitants of all worlds are at some time men like ourselves, and that they are to be so again. So we cannot fairly call these dewa divine, though some writers on Buddhism do so. They are simply of the same stuff as we, only that they have received powers and privileges greater than when they were men. Their age and happiness increase with the ascending stories, though the character of the enjoyment becomes more intellectual with the ascent. But all this happiness is temporary. They are still in sanga sara, and must be reborn, possibly in hell next time.

And it is a surprise to learn that among the dewa are classes whom we should have expected to see in places of torment. Guru Dhamma and others teach that they will yet have to go there, and would have gone directly but for the fact that they made so much merit in almsgiving that they squeezed into the celestial world first. Among this class are the attendants of the four prayas who live in the first story and guard it against the asurakaya and all others on the four sides.

(1). On the east are the Gandhaba, musicians and lovers of scents, (gandha, scents). From the point of Buddhist ethics these poor aesthetes had been mild sensualists as men, and this is their mild punishment.

(2). On the south are the kumbhanda who had been gross sensualists, and whose disgusting forms, even in the dewa loka, are the result of their sensuality.

(3). On the west are the naga, snake-like beings with hoods like the cobra very familiar by name to us all in this land, and the supposed form of them is familiar also, being found on the front steps of most monasteries. The books Dhamma Punna Naga, Haw Ramana, Bhuridat, Suwanna Gom Gham, and Dippa Monda say that the real home of the naga is under ground. But they dress and eat like other dewa, and they are subject to call at any time to guard the western division of the first dewa story. They also have supernatural powers, then, their associates in this guarding of dewa loka with supernatural powers are all classed as dewa: all these facts point to their classification among the dewa.

(4). On the west are the yaka, still more familiar to us by name. They are represented as frightful beings with enormous appetites. They have the freedom of the earth and are very fond of human flesh. They are not demons, but dewa, though their morals are very bad. Milinda Panha teaches that there are terrestrial as well as celestial yaka. When these terrestrial ones die, their dead bodies are never seen. For they assume the appearance of dead tigers, bears, ants, worms, chameleons, grasshoppers, scorpions, centipedes, serpents, etc. Gotama pitied men, hence gave the two books, Dibba Monda and Salakila Wijana Suttan to men, in order to protect them from the power of these attendants of the four Prayas in the first dewa loka. The four Prayas themselves are good dewa. We will not wade through their names. A part of their business is to record the doings of men and to report regularly to Praya In, the regent of the second story. This Praya In is an exceedingly important person, as he is the go-between of the Buddhas and men. He is the witness of both parties in all transactions between the terrestrial and celestial worlds.

(5). Another class whom we should not expect to find classed in the dewa loka is Praya Mara and his followers, in the sixth, or very upper story. Dhamma Nagara Sam Muang says they have sinful hearts. They do all they can to prevent men from acquiring merit. They oppose the Buddhas, and tempt them in all possible ways, while the latter are still Bodhisat, or candidates for the Buddhaship.

(6). But Praya In and all the rest of the dewa, barring the exceptions already mentioned, are friendly to men and to the Buddhist religion. The Yûn are very fond of Praya In, and imagine that he helps them in innumerable ways.

6. Next above the dewa loka are the inhabitants of the brohma loka, of the two classes already mentioned and sufficiently described. It is only fair to say that the brohm people do not seem to have much attraction for the people of this land, as their world is above all sensual enjoyments, though far enough from the idea of the Christian Heaven; the brohma ideal, low as it is, is still too high for the poor Yûn Tai.

V. The Elements of Existence. As to the constituent elements of man, Yûn Buddhism has most that Gotama taught, and some more. Gotama was not a discriminating scientist. Some of his “elements” belong to physiology, some to somatology. And his classifications are by no means mutually exclusive, the same properties reappearing in more than one element. The principal profit of a rehearsal of all these properties would be linguistic merely. Only a few of the ideas and terms bear on the ethical or moral teachings. At these few we must glance, and pass over the rest. Our principal guides here are Satti Pathana, Wisudhi Magga, Abhidhamma Kara Ke, Abhidhamma Kambi and Kamma Thana.

Gotama declared that the “Elements of Being” are five, called Pancha Khanda literally the five heaps.

1. Rupa Khanda, the organized body, apart from the mental processes. This rupa heap contains 28 parts, and includes the constituent elements of the body, its organs, powers, and properties. The principal point of interest to us from the religious viewpoint is that the constituent elements of the body, as of all else material, are earth, water, fire, and air. The parts formed of earth, 20 in number and the 12 parts formed of water, 32 in all, are called the 32 impurities. Great stress is laid upon the impurity and impermanence, anicha, of the body.

2. The second element of being is called Wedana Khanda, sensation; as, a sensation of pain, dukkha wedana.

3. The third element is called San Ya Khanda, perception, the act of receiving information through the senses.

4. The fourth element is named Sankhara Khanda, discrimination, the differentiating of sensations and perceptions and their classification. This is a large heap, containing 52 members. These include touch, phassa; sensation; perception; thought, chetana; attention, witaka; investigation, wichara; perseverance, wiriya; determination, chanta; wisdom, praya, etc.: that is to say, nearly all the other powers are used to effect discrimination—which is not bad philosophy, after all.

5. The fifth and most important element is Winyana Khanda, translated by most writers “consciousness.” But like most translations of Buddhist terms, it is evident that the English word consciousness is here used in a somewhat unusual sense. All the native definitions and illustrations of winyana seem to point to the power of perception, that which perceives; just as san ya refers to the act of perception.

And yet we must not jump to the conclusion that winyana khanda is the equivalent of “spirit” in the New Testament usage of the Greek πνεὑμα, viz., a spiritual essence, contradistinguished from the lower or psychical nature, and immortal. For this winyana, that which perceives, is multiple, not a single essence. There are in some authorities said to be 121 winyana. This is more than Mr. Hardy gives in his Manual of Singhalese Buddhism. But the principal ones are few, after all.

Yûn Buddhism teaches that there are six organs of sense, the sixth being the heart, which is the seat of thought. Now, there is a winyana of the eye, the sense of sight. We are told that it is neither the eye alone nor the psychical nature alone which sees: it is the eye-winyana. So there is an ear-winyana, the sense of hearing; a nose winyana, the sense of smell; a tongue winyana, the sense of taste; a body-winyana, the sense of touch or feeling; and a mind (heart) winyana, the sense of thought—to coin a new phrase in English.

Further, as already intimated, Yûn Buddhism teaches the Buddhist heresy that there is something in man which survives death and enters into the next reincarnation. It is called chittan or chit for short. In the book Buddha Nibbana, Gotama is represented as saying, “I am as if I had a chit winyana which had already entered Nibbana.” This and like passages seem to justify us in the statement that Yûn Buddhism differs from Buddhism as reported to us from elsewhere in teaching that there is, in addition to all the organs of “consciousness” usually enumerated by Buddhist books elsewhere—and indeed in utter variance with the whole scheme of Buddhist philosophy—a soul-consciousness, or a conscious soul which is immortal. It is called sometimes simply chit, sometimes chit chai, “soul-heart,” and often chit winyana, “soul-consciousness,” using “soul” in its sense of psychical nature, not spiritual.

It does not seem right, however, to include this conscious soul among the fifth element of sentiment being in the Buddhist system. For we are continually reminded in the books of this country that all the Pancha Khanda, the five elements, and all their subdivisions are dissolved at death. Only the chit, or chit winyana remains and is reborn. It is a something outside of the classification, and something for which we, as Christian teachers and as Christian philosophers, should be devoutly thankful: after all, God has not left Himself without a witness among this ignorant, superstitious people.

VI. Ethical Teachings.

1. The objective point. Abyi Jeya Mangala states the aim of the teachings of the Buddhas in this way: All sentient beings are subject to the round of reincarnation, sanga sara. The Buddhas see all sentient beings floating in sanga sara as in a mighty ocean. The Buddhas seek for what will deliver all sentient beings from the consequence of wrong actions and from sorrow and disaster. The Buddhas are without passions themselves, hence have taught precepts to all, in order that they may sooner reach Nibbana, the crystal city where there is no aging and no death.

2. The means proposed by Gotama to obtain this end are fully set forth in his first sermon, called Dhamma Chakkapawattana Sutta. In this discourse he claimed that by avoiding the two extremes of austerity and laxity he had just attained the supreme Buddhaship and its knowledge of all religious truths. He therefore expounds what he calls The Middle Way. This is founded on Pour Sublime Religious Truths:

First, the sublime truth concerning sorrow. All sentient beings are full of sorrow. There is sorrow in birth, old age, disease, death, in being hated, in separation from loved ones, in unsatisfied desire. The Five Elements themselves occasion sorrow.

Second, the sublime truth concerning the aggregations (lit. the ocean) of sorrow. These aggregations, or causes of sorrow are (1), thirst for sensual gratification, (2), thirst for or clinging to existence, on the supposition that this earth is not transient, (3), the clinging to this present life on the supposition that there is no future life.

Third, the sublime truth concerning the destruction of the causes of sorrow; and this is Nibbana alone.

Fourth, the sublime truth concerning the way leading to the destruction of the causes of sorrow.

This “way” he called the Noble or Sublime Eight-fold Road: and it is as follows:

Thorough or right religious beliefs; thoughts; speech; works; means of livelihood; energies or endeavor; judgment; tranquillity.

He asserted that he gave this enumeration of eight noble or sublime paths in order to the extinguishing of all fleshly lusts in order that they might attain a clear knowledge of Nibbana. He asserted with much reiteration that he had himself attained spiritual insight into the divine law. His next proposition is that any one if he has wisdom, by investigation can understand the truth concerning sorrow, can leave the cause of sorrow, can make plain to himself Nibbana, the destruction of sorrow, and can follow continually the eight paths leading to Nibbana.

For Gotama declared that he had done all these things, and had reached the stage when fleshly lusts could never destroy his vision nor cause him again to enter sanga sara, the round of reincarnations. In Dhamma Sura Sonda and other of his legendary lives we are told that he had been a thief, a drunkard, etc., that he had been a yaka, and had even been Praya Mara, the dewa who is the enemy of religion. But he had attained deliverance from sanga sara by building up the thirty virtues.

This chapter will not allow of the taking up of these thirty virtues by which men can build themselves up into a condition of fitness for the blessedness of the crystal city.

Nor is there need. Buddhism must be written down a failure. Judged by its avowed object, the destruction of fleshly lusts, and measured by its own selfish standard, not to say a higher, it is found wanting. Attempting to exact implicit faith in a mere man, a confessedly sinful man, an evidently ignorant man: a law without sanctions, a religion without God—what but failure? Oh, wretched people that they are! who shall deliver them from the body of this death? I thank God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Yet there are in the Yûn Buddhist writings many prophecies which point with much directness to the advent of such a religion as that of Jesus. Some of these predictions are marvelously specific. They cluster around The Coming One, Ariya Mettēya—the Aryan or High-born All-Merciful One. In some respects the predictions concerning him remind us of the promises of sacred Writ concerning the Messiah, and the millennial reign. His coming is to be preceded by a falling away from the practice of religion, morality and righteousness. His forerunner shall level every mountain, exalt every valley, make crooked places straight, and rough places smooth. This forerunner shall appear on the banks of the Mêping, the stream which runs through Chiengmai, where the heralds of Christianity first appeared and taught the Yûn people. And when the real Coming One appears, only the pure in heart and life shall be able to see him. But those who see are to be delivered thereby from the thralldom of rebirth. He is to be recognized by his pierced hand. And his religion shall be introduced from the south (Christianity came up from Bangkok), by a man with a white face and a long beard: a description which might apply to either of the founders of the North Siam Mission, Dr. McGilvary or Dr. Wilson. These really wonderful specific predictions are used with powerful effect in evangelistic work, both by missionaries and helpers.

Important and helpful as these features of Buddhism prove to be, in assisting in the understanding and favorable reception of the printed and spoken Gospel message, after all the chief assistance which Buddhism affords us is negative, and purely involuntary and unintentional. To borrow one of its own phrases, it is a “basket” of negations and contradictions.

It denies the existence of a God, in any proper conception of Him; yet it exalts Gotama Buddha and his predecessors and the Coming One to a place far above mere humanity. Orthodox Buddhism denies the existence of atma, the ego; and yet Yûn Buddhism is heretical enough to hold to it and teach it in its books. It knows nothing of origins, genesis; and its cosmogony is so antiquated and erroneous that no one who has come into any considerable contact with modern learning can longer believe in it. Its gods are deified men who are guilty of acts of gross immorality. The point of nearly all the bright and witty things in its literature turns upon some form of deceit. There is therefore no moral law giver. And the only moral sanction is personal expediency; there is no place in the cult for altruism. All the “commandments” are prohibitions, or more properly warnings. Some of them are so extreme that the practical effect is to discourage obedience and sear the conscience. The whole thing is so self-contradictory that it is impossible to pick out a self-consistent system from it. The whole cult leaves its people without light as to the universe, themselves or their destiny: without moral sanctions or ideals or a perfect example; without God and without hope. From such darkness thousands are turning eagerly to the certitude, the rectitude, the light, the life, and the hope which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Equally conspicuous is the failure of Buddhism to overcome the cult of animism; and equally does the failure drive Tai people to Christ. Although about eleven million of the Tai are nominal Buddhists, and Buddhist teaching is severe against all connection with “spirits,” the ancient animistic cult has never lost its hold upon the people. They are all their life long in bondage to the demon-spirit of the earth and sky, of fire and water, and rock and forest; spirits of the family, of the teacher, of the home, of the village, and of the whole land. Especially are they in bondage to “the hungry spirits.” These hungry spirits, so long as they are well fed are supposed to be beneficent. But neglected and hungry, they become malevolent. Their patrons are no longer able to control them, and they take possession of other people, in revenge upon their stingy patrons. These patrons are then accused of being witches and wizards. Unless some beneficent power interferes, these poor unfortunates are driven from house and home. They may take with them their portable possessions. Everything else is devoted and burned. In the Lü country they sometimes beat and stone them to death. The Christian religion has proved itself the beneficent interfering agents which has saved hundreds of Tai people from this fate. The devil has overreached himself and unwittingly driven hundreds, possibly thousands, to Christ.

The power of Christ to cast out demons, and free the people from this bondage is known and recognized among all the Tai, and the non-Christian people are saying among themselves “Jesus surely is a God worthy to be adored.”

Of all Buddhist peoples, the Tai Buddhists have proved the best soil for Gospel sowing. The seed is everywhere the same. The sowers in all lands are equally diligent. But the almost pristine simplicity of the Tai; their singular freedom from hindrances to the reception of the Gospel message; the specific prophecies of the Tai cult of Buddhism, pointing so definitely to Christ and Christianity; and the unusually strong expellent force of Tai animism; these providential preparations of the soil have ensured the exceptional harvest.

In this summary the following translation from the French in the introduction to Silve’s T’o Grammar will give a review of Tai history which cannot be excelled for brevity and conciseness. A footnote says that this is “a historical resumé founded upon translations of the Royal History of Siam; the historical collections of the Cambodians; the Chronicles of the Northern Tai, Chiengrai; and upon those of the Laos principalities of the Menam basin.”

It is over eight hundred years since the Tai lost their independence in China, but they have not been absorbed, and in particular their language persists, and holds its own against Chinese. Of the great Tai race, the Tai of the North are racially and linguistically the purest representatives. Their western brothers, called Shans by the Burmese, have absorbed much of both blood and vocabulary from the Burmese. In like manner, their Siamese kinsmen have got much from the Peguans, Cambodians, Malays, and Chinese immigrants. But the Tai of southern China, eastern Burma, northern Siam and the French Laos States, have come into contact with no other great power or race except very locally. Their contact has been with illiterate hill peoples, mostly scattered trails of the great Mon-Hkmer (Peguan-Cambodian) race, in its long migrations southward. With these illiterate hill peoples the Tai do not intermarry to any great extent. God has had some purpose in preserving this great body of the Tai race down through more than four milleniums, so that from eighteen to twenty millions of them speak the same language, with only such dialectic differences as to be, after all, mutually intelligible.

And so, by looking up the Tai in history, we learn that the modern Tai people including the western Shan and southern Siamese, fellow descendants from the ancient Lao stock, are not indigenous inhabitants of the tropics. On the other hand, they lived and swayed scepters of dominion in “the belt of power,” the north temperate zone, from about 2200 B.C. to A.D. 1234, some 3,400 odd years, a much longer period than they have lived in the tropics. They have had organized governments for more than 4,000 years. While our ancestors were still wearing skins and using flint knives, the Lao were a civilized race. When our American Republic, with a big R, has existed for one millenium, at the least, and shows at the end of that time something like the virility and vitality of the Lao race at the end of the fourth millenium, it will then be time for us to put on spectacles and begin to search for signs of decadence in the Lao race.

All exploration work among the Tai and all research into their history have a most enhancing bearing upon missionary work among them. We now know that the present-day Tai people are great in numbers. They extend over a territory of more than 400,000 square miles. The long history of the race shows that it is a virile people from “the belt of power,” and the present birth-rate is satisfactorily Rooseveltian. Their history also shows that the Tai people are closely associated and bound up with the destinies of the 400,000,000 Chinese on the north, the 20,000,000 Cambodians and Annamese on the east, and many of the 10,000,000 people of Burma. Surely any one must rise from a study of their history and of the history of the surrounding peoples with the intense conviction that here is a people most strategically placed; what affects this people will react upon nearly a half-billion Asiatic neighbors.

Missions to the Tai Race have been named in such a way as to hide their real identity from the man in the street—and from most of the women also. The names “Shan Mission,” “Siam Mission,” and “Laos Mission,” are localisms. They are sufficiently appropriate as local geographical names. But not one of them is sufficiently broad to even hint at its relation to the whole race.

The reasons of these names are not far to seek. First of all, they were given in the early days, before exploration had revealed to even the missions themselves the extent and unity of the race. Coupled with this has been the tendency to deal with missions by countries. Until the Great War, people everywhere and in all lines thought and wrought by countries. And as the Tai Race overlaps into four countries, it was more natural to think of it as four races than as one. But the Great War has taught us to pay less attention to arbitrary civil boundaries, and more attention to racial lines. It ought to be easier, therefore, to comprehend the Tai task than it was in ante-bellum days.

This is a unique task. Mission policy in the past has been influenced by the prevailing tendency to deal with peoples according to civil boundaries. The partitioning of mission fields according to comity agreement among the various Boards has usually followed national or provincial lines. But in the case of our Tai task, we anticipate the broadening effects of the War by following up a people, regardless of civil boundaries.

The Tai people at present are the most numerous and widely distributed race of people in the southeastern corner of continental Asia. Their history shows that they are of Mongolian stock, closely akin to the Chinese. Gathered from the Chinese and Burmese Annals, as well as from their own, this history shows older than the Hebrews or the Chinese themselves, to say nothing of such moderns as the Slavs, the Teutons or the Gauls. Without accepting or rejecting legendary details of the Chinese Annals, it is certain from the Annals themselves, and from the habit which the Chinese have of calling the Tai Race “aborigines,” that the Chinese found this race when the Chinese first came to China. They found them in what is now the northwestern part of Szechuan Province, more than four thousand years ago. The race appears in the Annals under the name of “The Great Mung.” They must have been an important people, even at that early time, to wrest from the cynical Chinese Annals the name “Great.” Gradually they overspread some of what we know as modern China north of the Yangtze, and all China to the south of it. Successive waves of migration can also be traced from China southward, as we have seen, until they overran Burma, Assam, Siam and parts of Annam and Cambodia.

Although the Tai have so long a history and have become so widely distributed, there is no conclusive evidence that they ever reached a higher degree of civilization or development than they now have. All the presumptions and the evidence are to the effect that they are an undeveloped race, with promise of development yet before them. As Sir George Scott observes, their history shows that comparatively speaking “they have always frittered their strength away” by subdivisions into petty principalities rather than by combining under a strong central government. True, there have been considerable Tai dynasties before the present one in Siam. There was the Tai kingdom with headquarters at Tali-fu in western Yünnan, overthrown by the Mongols in A.D. 1234, which had lasted for more than six hundred years. But it did not embrace anything like all the Tai. Another fact predicting undevelopment rather than decadence, notwithstanding some lost proficiency in pottery and brick-making, is that it is only within the past few centuries that the race has come into any considerable coastwise contact with Western civilization, or indeed with the outside world at all. They had always been an inland, shut-in people. The marvelous development of the past half-century in Siam, and especially of the past quarter century, shows what the race is capable of becoming, under the stimulus of Christian civilization.

Of the various names for the race which appear in the Chinese Annals there are at least three which persist to the present time, Pah, Lung, and Lao. It might conceivably be justifiable to call the race by any one of these names. The Chinese call them by many nicknames, To, Chung, Chwang, etc. For some unknown reason the Burmans call them Shans, and many British writers follow suit. As a large portion of them live in Siam, which has an independent national existence, there is a tendency on the part of Americans to call all the race Siamese. But most if not all the race, when contradistinguishing themselves from other races, call themselves Tai. Sometimes they add a local or tribal qualifier; Tai Lai, Tai Yoi, etc. In their own language this word Tai means “free.” In Chinese it can mean “great.” As this name apparently emerges only after the race had conquered the former inhabitants of the Indo-Chinese Peninsula, it was probably first used to contradistinguish themselves from subject races. It is the present-day generic term for the race.

It has been my good fortune to meet with Tai people over a somewhat extended area. I count it good fortune because everywhere I have found them hospitable, affable and kind. From as far south as Petchaburi I have traveled overland through Siam northward, through Kengtūng State, and northward in Yünnan as far as Muang Baw, marked on most maps as Wei-Yüan, slightly west of the 101st degree of longitude east from Greenwich, at 23½ degrees north latitude. (It is needless perhaps to say that the name Wei-Yüan is Chinese, although all the population of that extensive plain is Tai except a few Chinese officials and merchants in the town itself.) From among the Ngio Tai west of the Salween I have traveled eastward, through Tai territory nearly all the way, to the Pacific Ocean. I have found Tai people in all the plains across most of Southern Yünnan (they are in the other plains which I did not traverse, also), and all the way through Kwangsi from west to east. As I traveled by steamer from the western border of Kwangtung to the ocean I cannot speak for Kwangtung Province from first-hand knowledge, but Sir George Scott says they extend to “within hail of Canton.”

From explorations made in person and from French authorities I am able to say that the plains-people of Tongking outside the delta of the Red River are almost all Tai of various tribes. All of the state which the French call Laos State, and in fact all the territory quite up to the Black River, is inhabited predominantly by the Tai Race, the hills being given up to Kamu and other representatives of the Mon-Hkmer family whom the Tai displaced from the plains when they came down centuries ago from their ancestral home in China. All the inland portions of the island of Hainan are inhabited, I am told, by the Lao people. I have met a few of these people, and found sufficient words common to their speech and ours here in Siam and China to establish their claim as Tai speakers; and a missionary who labors among them once sent me a list of words and sentences from their speech which I found intelligible.

I have traveled among Tai people in the valleys tributary to the Yangtze River in the extreme north of Yünnan, hearing of many villages of Tai both north and south of the great river, which I was unable to visit. So there are genuine Tai in north Yünnan as well as in the south. From Yünnan-fu I have traveled to Szemao and on down to Chiengrung and across the Burma border again. I have not traveled in Kweichow Province. But S. R. Clark, about forty years a missionary in China, speaking of the Tai called locally Tu or To in Kweichow, say “there are now probably about two millions of them, found chiefly in the center, south and southwest of the Province. . . They are sometimes called Chung Chia around Kweiyang.” All the northwestern half of Kwangsi Province is inhabited almost exclusively by Tai speakers, as will be noted soon. Ngio and allied Tai tribes inhabit the Shan States of Burma not only; but our latest authority, The Shans, vol. I, says: “Very considerable settlement may be found in Thaton, near Rangoon, at Toungoo and Pyinmana, and other places . . . besides these there are numerous Shan settlements near Bhamo, and in the valley of the Taping River. In the old state of Mogaung and along the Chindwin the Shans have by no means disappeared. . . The same is true of Khamti. . . As the Ahom Shans of Assam are now largely returned in census reports as Hindus” (!) “their real number is a matter of conjecture.” From Assam to Annam, and from the Malay States to the Yangtze!

As to numbers: the Annuaire General de Indochine gives the total number of Tai speakers in French states at approximately 2,000,000. Mr. Clark, as we have seen, estimates 2,000,000 in Kweichow. A joint commission of exploration, of which I had the honor to represent the Siam Missions found that there are at least 2,000,000 Tai speakers in Kwangsi. In The Shans, Mr. Cochrane gives 1,000,000 in round numbers as covering the reported Tai in the Shan States of Burma, and a quarter of a million elsewhere in Burma and Assam, and calls it “a moderate figure.” I have no official authority for the numbers of the illiterate Tai in Yünnan. Judging by their wide distribution in the province, and knowing the relative density of population in the province; judging by the only estimate I had given me, viz., that in Kwangnan Prefecture (in the eastern part) three-fifths of the total population is Tai; and judging by the fact that the southwestern part is solidly inhabited by literate Tai in all the plains; and remembering that the total population of Yünnan is reported at some 12,000,000; judging by all these criteria I believe the illiterate Tai population not less than 1,000,000. According to Major Davies the Tai Nüa in Yünnan number 600,000 and according to the local Chinese officials the Lü number 400,000, making 1,000,000 Tai in Yünnan. Mr. Freeman is authority for the statement that the Catholic Fathers, who know China as few others know it, say that one-half the population in areas that total twenty millions are Tai, under various local names. We have accounted above for only six millions in China. If by adding only a half million for Kwangtung Province we raise the total to six and a half millions in China, we are certainly well within bounds. According to statistics published by the South Siam Mission, there are approximately 10,000,000 Tai in Siam and if we might add a quarter million for the Tai of Hainan we will have a grand total of 20,000,000 of the Tai race.

Literate Tai

Illiterate Tai

From my present knowledge I should classify the Tai as to their use of written characters as follows:

1. The users of the Cambodian script and the Siamese business character.

2. The users of the “sacred character” of North Siam, etc., called the Yûn.

These are (1) the people of North Siam; (2) many of the eastern Lao; (3) the Kun, of the large part of Kengtūng State; (4) the Lü, of the eastern part of Kengtūng State, the Sip Sawng Panna of Yünnan, and the contiguous portions of Laos State (French); and (5) the Tai Nüa, of the Muang Baw region and westward to the Salween River, as far north as 25 degrees at the Salween, according to Major Davies. This term Tai Nüa, Northern Tai includes the Tai Lem and several other subdivisions, all using the Yûn character east of the Salween.

3. The users of the Eastern Lao business character. Many of the French Lao, at least, use the Yûn script in temples and temple worship, but have a business hand for other purposes. This business hand is used by the Swiss missionaries at Sawng Kon in their missionary work.

4. The users of the Northern Tai business character. Many of the Tai Nüa who use the Yûn character in religious matters use a diamond character of their own in secular matters. I have specimens of it. How widely prevalent its use may be west of the Salween I cannot say; or whether there are any sections using it exclusively.

5. The users of the Ngio character. This is like the Eastern Lao and the Tai Nüa business hands in that it is used principally for secular matters, not in temple services. In these latter the Burmese is used by the Ngio, but it is also true that the Ngio character is used to write religious matter not intended for use in temple services. Like the characters under No. 4, this alphabet is far from complete. No provision is made to distinguish tones, length of vowels, etc.

6. The user of the Khamti script. I have an interesting specimen of this, sent me by Mr. Cochrane, author of “The Shans.” But I cannot read it well enough to know much about it. I take it that its use is not much in vogue beyond the Khamti region, at the intersection of parallels 26 and 96.

7. The users of the Ahom character, the Ahom Tai in Assam. No specimens.

8. The users of the Tai Dam character, viz., the Tai Dam and Tai Kao, (Black Tai and White Tai), in Tongking and lapping over into Yünnan along the Black River drainage. Both this alphabet and that of No. 3 contain a character not met with in Siam, as far as I know. It is the sound of a in “far” together with the sound of u in the colored gentleman’s “suh,” and these two blended into a diphthong.

Of the Tai illiterate in their own language I know of the following:

1. The Tai Nam. Found in the upper courses of the Black and Red Rivers in Yünnan. Their name is a Tai rendering of the nickname given them by the Chinese because they are found along the water courses, I am told: “Water Tai.”

2. The Tai Lai, “Striped Tai,” so nicknamed by the Chinese on account of the horizontally striped skirts worn by the women. These are somewhat similar to those worn by the Yûn, Kun and Lü, but shorter. They are found in the same region as the Tai Nam.

3. The Tai Lung. Sometimes these and other Tai are called Pu Tai, which is said by a competent Frenchman to be a generic, not specific or tribal term. I first met the Tai Lung in eastern Yünnan, Kwangnan Prefecture. I was delighted by the ease with which I could carry on conversation with them so far separated as they are from the Tai I had ever known before.

4. In this same prefecture I first met also the Tai called Kon Yai. Note in the vocabularies herewith that the k in kon is unaspirated. It is noticeable that the farther north one goes the fewer aspirations there are in the Tai speech. I was told that the name is the Tai rendering of the Chinese name for them, “Big People.” I fancy that it was given them in derision of their small stature. For they are the smallest Tai I have met!

5. In that same prefecture again I met also some of the Tai Yoi. They are so numerous along the headwaters of the northern branch of the West River, in Kweichow, that two Roman Catholic priests there have published a Yoi Dictionary, (Romanized by their peculiar system as “Essai de Dioi-Francais, etc.)”. I have a copy which I purchased from the Catholics in Hongkong. It shows many divergences from the Tai which we know, but still one could gain a speaking knowledge of it. Like the Kon Yai, their distinct pronunciation of the r sound is noticeable and very pleasant to the ear.

6. The T’o, already mentioned as being found in Kweichow, I found also both in Tongking and Western Kwangsi. The speech of the T’o differs considerably from ours in Siam. Still everywhere I went among the so-called T’o, I could do all my business and gain all the desired information through the medium of the Tai language.

7. The Nung I met in the same general localities as the T’o. And what is true of the T’o linguistically seemed to be equally true of the Nung. These names T’o and Nung are Chinese, at least T’o is and the Chinese have attached a Chinese meaning to Nung. I gather from what I have read and am told that “T’o” and “Tu” are variants of the same Chinese word, which means “earth or land.” Its application by the Chinese to the Tai people in Kweichow, Kwangsi and northern Tongking is a recognition of the acknowledged fact that the Tai are the original inhabitants of the land, the Chinese being immigrants. I was told by a missionary to the Chinese that the word Nung is the Chinese word for husbandman. But I believe that it is also a corruption or variant of the original race name for the Tai.

8. The people in eastern Kwangsi, locally called Chawng, I have met in limited numbers, and have no vocabularies of their speech. They seem to me to differ little from the T’o and Nung. I fancy that the tribal names are more geographical than linguistic in application.

9. The Chung of Kweichow I have met only one or two; unless my surmise is correct that their name is simply a variant of the same original as gives us Chawng and Nung and Lung, etc. I have in my possession a Romanized version of Matthew in the Chawng dialect which I could read at sight after some study.

10. The Chin Tai are the Tai on the Yangtze in northern Yünnan. I spent two months among them and in that time was able to preach to them, teach them, and translate in their dialect.

As defined to date the Tai task carries responsibility for making Christ known and planting His church among approximately 20,000,000 people, besides several million Chinese and other non-Tai peoples living within Tai territory. Without counting the latter this block Tai task is tremendous. It is undertaking to give the Gospel and all that is therein implied to Tai people numbering more than four times as many as the total population of the United States was when we declared our independence as a nation, and if we add to the size of the population the extent of territory covered, the inadequacy of transport and travel facilities, and the tropical, or at best subtropical, climate; we will have a comprehensive and statesmanlike view of this task as a block job.

For this tremendous Tai task there are at present only ten stations in Siam and five in Burma and one just begun in China; this for a population of twenty millions. The India council at its second annual meeting sent a message to our Board, in which it said that it spoke in behalf of the sixteen millions of India “for whom we are wholly responsible.” The Year Book of Prayer for Missions for 1918 gives the names of 214 missionaries of our Board in India, with three Missions and thirty Stations; and there are four million less people in our India responsibility than in the Tai responsibility. Take another example: according to a pamphlet issued by our Board entitled “The Task of the Presbyterian Church in the Philippines,” “the population of the sections of the Philippine Islands entrusted to our Mission for evangelization is about 2,500,000.” The Year Book gives the names of fifty-six missionaries, in eleven stations. Is it necessary to adduce any further evidence to prove, (1) that our Tai missions have not over stationed the territory already covered by them in Siam and Burma and (2) that we need more than double the number of missionaries and stations that we now have, if the church is to discharge its responsibility?

Stated in broad outlines, the territory of about 8,000,000 of our Tai has been “occupied.” The use of this technical term might lead the unsuspecting to think that 8,000,000 of our Tai have been adequately cared for. What it really means is that there are three missions to the Tai, the North Siam and the South Siam Missions and the Western Shan Mission; that each mission has five established stations of varying age and degree of development, and another one just in the making, in the North Siam Mission organically, but over the border in China geographically; and that these sixteen stations are so placed as to serve as training centers from which, by strenuous itineration and oversight, we can put the Gospel message, at very long range for the most part, within reach of some 7,000,000 Tai in Siam and a section of Southwestern China, and a million or more in Burma. I have no statistics for the Shan Mission, but it means in Siam that in the midst of an overwhelming pagan population, between 15,000 and 20,000 converts have been gained, including communicants and adherents. The converts have been gathered into more than fifty churches, forming two presbyteries. For their nurture primarily the Bible has been translated in full into the dialect and printed in the character of South Siam, and most of it translated and printed in the dialect and character in use in North Siam, French territory and the regions northward. Around this sacred Word a Christian literature has been slowly accumulating, printed at the two Tai presses, one in the south, the other in the north. And for the care and training of converts in the first instance, medical and educational plants have been established with centers at each station. The educational work is now so articulated that from the out-village parish schools pupils come to the station boarding schools, these in turn feeding our two colleges, and the colleges feeding the two theological schools and the one medical school.

While the preparation of literature, the founding and development of medical work and the whole educational scheme are primarily for the care and training of converts, their training itself is in turn for the ultimate purpose of the dissemination of the Gospel through them. Hence district Bible Study classes are held and the theological schools maintained. Hence also the organization into self supporting churches and into presbyteries. The latest and most promising manifestation of the spirit of self-propagation is the formation in the northern presbytery of two permanent committees on Missions. The Home Missions Committee is to foster evangelism and care for weak churches within the bounds of the Presbytery. The Foreign Missions Committee is to select and through the churches of the Presbytery, to support its own presbyterial missionaries to the Tai beyond the bounds of Siam.

In summing up what has been accomplished of our Tai task, we should be guilty of capital omission if we stopped with the foregoing outline of the spiritual work which the missions and converts have organized and wrought and with the direct and tangible effects upon the converts themselves. For the by-products of this spiritual work have been immense, Siamese officials themselves being judges. On many occasions the highest and most intelligent officials have publicly acknowledged the debt of Siam to American missionaries, not only for the introduction of Western medicines and education, but even for the opening up of the country to Western civilization. Once opened up Siam’s progress has recently become phenomenal. Within the past three decades the study of Western medicine—originally introduced by our missionary physicians—has been seriously taken up and prosecuted in Government Medical Colleges, vaccination, introduced by the missionary physicians, has now become compulsory under Government physicians. Hook worm treatment, also begun by missionary physicians, has also been taken up by the Government. Regarding educational progress: a high Siamese official said recently to one of our missionaries, “We appreciate very highly the work you American missionaries have done for Siam as pioneers in medicine and education. We have now caught up with you in medicine and in the education of our boys. We have made a start in the education of our girls, and we intend to overtake you in this department also.” It was a just acknowledgment but seemed to the missionary a slightly exaggerated claim; only slightly exaggerated, however. For the compulsory educational system installed within the past two decades, founded upon that of England and including the study of the English language, is making rapid strides even to the remotest corners of the kingdom.

This medical and educational progress would have been impossible had there not been meanwhile fundamental changes in government and society. Within these same three decades human slavery has disappeared. A feudal system not unlike that of Europe in the Dark Ages has been utterly abolished. In the place of hereditary feudal chiefs, living by what they could squeeze, the country is now administered by salaried officials, duly qualified, working at regular hours on well defined duties. Equally radical has been the revolution in the judiciary department. A code, founded for the most part on the Common Law of England is administered by judges most of whom have read law in English. They administer it so well that England and France have abolished extra-territoriality for their subjects and citizens respectively. We hope it is only a question of a short time until the other Great Powers will do the same. Siam has earned the right to expect this from them. Under the impulse originally given her by our missionaries—themselves without official position or prestige—Siam’s working out her destiny.

What Siam has done other Tai could do, with the same initial impulse: and more also. For the farther north one goes among the Tai, the more vigorous he finds them. What Siam has received from Christ through his ambassadors the other Tai have still to receive.

If we are to evangelize and church 20,000,000 Tai people, and have “occupied” the territory of but 8,000,000, manifestly there remains the territory of 12,000,000 yet to be occupied: and the work for the whole 20,000,000 must be carried on to that degree of completion which is implied in the original assumption of responsibility and which has been begun in the “occupation.”

It is a Task worthy our great Church. Will she be daunted by its magnitude? Will she not rather be put upon her mettle? Undismayed and heroic, will she not rise in the strength of her Lord to discharge her whole duty to the Tai Race, to Protestant Christianity and to her Master?

And are the people responsive, receptive, inviting? Think of the unanswered bamboo letter, sent to the church by the Kamu of the French Laos State; one big notch—a big man, a missionary; two notches—to come in the second month; six notches—six villages, who want to “enter.” Then there was the exceptional providential call from the Fia in Tongking, from the Tai Dam country, who urged and insisted on our going to his country, Song La, and promised to use his influence for us with the Tai officials, for he was related to them and known everywhere.

In Kwangsi, our good big Swedish friend, Rev. F. A. Christopherson of Nanning, has an article in the South China Alliance Tidings entitled, “At a Wedding.” The gist is as follows: One of the Alliance Christians, Wong Chak Pui, lives in the country two days distant from Nanning. He is the only Christian in the village in which he lives. Evidently he can speak Chinese, for he came to ask Mr. Christopherson to go out and marry his son to a bride of the same race. But for a half day’s journey before reaching that village, “We walked for hours through fields of sugar cane. In speaking to people whom we met along the road we noticed that they were aborigines. . . . As the bride had not yet arrived, we had plenty of time to speak to the people who had come to the wedding. The Cantonese dialect was not understood, but fortunately one of our little company could speak the To Wa (To or Tai speech) and he was a great help. . . . We tried to speak to them, but none could understand us. They were another class of people altogether, with different customs and habits. Most of the men had beards, the women wore skirts and very large earrings. A large field of service would be given to any one who would spend his life among this benighted people. . . . After the service we sat down to partake of a good Chinese feast, having the bridegroom at my side (16 years old, as appears in a previous paragraph). . . . Not a word, however, could be exchanged between us: we spoke different languages. . . . After two days we reached Nanning, pleased with the trip, although we were not permitted to see the bride or able to speak to the bridegroom.”

In the next number of the “Tidings” Rev. W. H. Oldfield of Liuchow-fu, has an article entitled “A Night in a Chawng Village.” The text of the article shows that the people were the same that are called To farther west, and Chawng in eastern Kwangsi and Kwangtung. In the first part of the article he gives pa tu as their word for door, exactly our word here. I will quote the last two paragraphs of his article entire: “After supper we got out our Gospels and tracts and giving some to them, began to explain the Gospel to them. It was a strange new story and but few could understand our language; for, out of a company of sixty men, women and children, only six of the men could converse intelligently in Mandarin. The women and children could speak absolutely nothing but their native tribal tongue.

“How we wished we could speak their dialect and tell them plainly the Gospel message. Here is a people occupying fully one-half of this province, the vast majority of whom speak no other language than their own native tongue. To this people, as yet, the Gospel has not been given. No missionary in Kwangsi speaks their dialect: no Chinese worker is laboring among them: no Christian chapel has been opened in their territories. They live, they die, unreached, unhelped and unheeded. For decades they have been groping in darkness, for decades more they will have to grope, unless some one comes to give them the message.”

In Kweichow the Chung Tai believe in a Good Being who lives in heaven, that he sends the rain and sunshine, and all good things come from Him. But they neither worship Him nor make offerings to him. They fear and worship the Evil Being and make offerings to him only.

Among the Yangtze Tai, (Chin Tai they call themselves), in Northern Yünnan, Mr. Metcalf who has charge of the Tai work there, writes of a visit to some Tai villages as follows: “An intelligent old man of 72 was deputed by the villagers to tell us that they intended to act unitedly as a village and to consider the matter carefully before any of them destroyed their idolatry or placed themselves under Christian instruction.” This old man, as we talked with him became the most serious and interested inquirer of the lot. He told me what will doubtless be of interest to you, that when he was quite a young fellow, as nearly as he could recall, about fifty years ago, a party of several Tai from the South passed through their village. They only stayed a day or two and preached to them and sang hymns. It is so long ago he does not now remember the doctrine they preached, though he distinctly recalls the name of Iesu (Jesus) which they repeatedly used. He had never heard anything of them or the Christian teaching since, but said he believed all we said was true. A day or two after we left this village of Lao-ba they sent word to us, that if I could secure a Tai evangelist to come and teach them regularly they would as a village turn to the Lord and put themselves under Christian instruction. The new convert, our host at Sosok’a, brought me this news, and informed me that the people at Sosok’a and in other villages along that river are very interested and are looking to the Lao-ba people (Lao-ba being the most influential and wealthy village), to take a lead in the matter and they will follow suit.

For the Tai Nüa, you will remember the two princesses who visited us in Kengtūng, who said, “You talk like our books! Come to our country. We live twenty days away, up in China. Come and teach my people your books. You will find us in the Chief’s house when you come.” And the welcome I received from them and their people when I went to M. Baw in 1910 has already been told.

Remember the Lü woman who wept at the picture of Christ on the cross; and the hands outstretched in the Lü markets from every direction and the voices crying “Give me two of the sacred books.”

The Kun people whom we meet are always begging us to come back and live with them again. The Yûn country has every strategic point already “occupied.” But in South Siam there remaineth much land to be possessed. Major Thorwaldsea, “the jolly Major,” our Danish friend who for many years was at the head of the Gendarmerie in Chiengrai, since we left Chiengrai has gone to Ubon near the southern French border. He is writing about those millions destitute of the Gospel in that region, and urging that mission work be started among them.

So we have swept the horizon of the Tai field again, and given you glimpses of the needs and opportunities of the different branches of the Tai Race. I have tried in this book to make you see the people of the Tai Race as I have seen them. How I wish they could actually pass before you in one grand pageant, that you who have money and youth, health and strength, might unite in giving to these waiting millions the Name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.

Some illustrations were moved to facilitate page layout.

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed. As a result, abbreviations, date formats, and names of places in the text and tables have been standardized as indicated at the beginning of this book preceding the Forward.

The author’s spelling ‘Sukuthai’ has been maintained in this ebook. However, ‘Sukhothai’ was declared the adopted Thai spelling in the Royal Thai General System of Transcription by the Royal Institute in 1917 and was the spelling in use when this book was published.

The author’s spelling ‘Ayuthia’ has been maintained in this ebook. However, ‘Ayutthaya’ was declared the adopted Thai spelling in the Royal Thai General System of Transcription by the Royal Institute in 1917 and was the spelling in use when this book was published.

[The end of The Tai Race—Elder Brother of the Chinese by William Clifton Dodd]