“_September 9, 1828._ The Karens left us for their native forest. It was a source of regret to us all, that Ko-thah-byoo was not present to facilitate our intercourse by interpreting for us. Just before leaving, the old sorcerer put on his jogar’s dress, given him, he said, nearly twenty years ago, and assumed some self-important airs, so that one of our native Christians felt it his duty to administer a gentle reproof, and told him there was no good in wearing such a dress, and advised him to lay it aside altogether. ‘If,’ said the sorcerer, ‘God will not be pleased with this dress, I am ready to send it afloat on yonder stream.’ He then presented his reprover with his wand, saying he had no further use for it.”
Mr. Boardman was afterward informed that the teacher, on his way home, tore his jogar’s dress to pieces, and threw it into a brook.
While the Burmans lived in towns and cities, the Karens, like our Indians, occupied villages far back in the jungle by the side of mountain streams. Mr. Judson’s attention was first called to them in Rangoon. “They formed small parties of strange, wild-looking men, clad in unshapely garments, who from time to time straggled past his residence.”
He was told that they were as untamable as the wild cow of the mountains; that they seldom entered a town except on compulsion. They were nomadic in their habits. A British officer[46] gives a singular instance of their wildness:
“An officer was lying on his bed in a little room inside the stockaded police post, which had a narrow gate with an armed sentry on guard; the Hillman, with the minimum of clothing, was introduced by a smart sergeant, who coaxed him to approach. He cautiously and distrustfully, and with great persuasion, advanced stooping to the bed; when close to it, he gave one long, steady look at the white man; suddenly, with a yell, threw himself up straight, turned round, dashed out of the room, through the gate, upsetting the armed sentry, rushed across a little stream at the bottom of the stockade, and, clambering like a monkey sheer up the side of the opposite mountain, never stopped till he was lost to sight in the forest.”
In order to secure permanent churches among the Karens, the first step of the missionaries was to persuade them to settle down in one place and form large and well-ordered villages. It was in this way that the town of Wadesville, before mentioned, sprang into existence. Christianity has thus proved a powerful agent in civilizing the Karens, and a Christian village is easily distinguished from a heathen one, not only by its size, but by its clean, regular streets.
That Mr. Judson’s tours in the Karen jungles were attended with great fatigue and danger, may be inferred from Mr. Boardman’s “Historical Sketch of the Karens”:
“The paths which lead to their settlements are so obscurely marked, so little trodden, and so devious in their course, that a guide is needed to conduct one from village to village, even over the best part of the way. Not unfrequently the path leads over precipices, over cliffs and dangerous declivities, along deep ravines, frequently meandering with a small streamlet for miles, which we have to cross and recross, and often to take it for our path, wading through water ankle deep for an hour or more. There are no bridges, and we often have to ford or swim over considerable streams, particularly in the rainy season; when, however, the difficulties of travelling are so great as to render it next to impossible. Sometimes we have to sleep in the open air in the woods, where, besides insects and reptiles, the tiger, the rhinoceros, and the wild elephant render our situation not a little uncomfortable and dangerous. I have never met with either of these dangerous animals in the wilderness, but have very frequently seen their recent footsteps and their haunts, while others meet them. It is but seldom they do hurt, but it is in their power, and sometimes they have the disposition. And when, after having encountered so many difficulties, and endured not a little fatigue in travelling, and been exposed to so many dangers, we come to a village, we find, perhaps, but twenty or thirty houses, often only ten, and not unfrequently only one or two within a range of several miles.”