Notes of a Journey on the Upper Mekong, Siam

NOTES OF

A JOURNEY ON THE UPPER MEKONG, SIAM.

BY H. WARINGTON SMYTH, OF THE ROYAL DEPARTMENT OF MINES AND GEOLOGY, BANGKOK.

WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

                             PUBLISHED FOR
                    THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY
                                  BY
              JOHN MURRAY, 50, ALBEMARLE STREET, LONDON.
                                 1895.

[Illustration: THE RAPIDS AT THE GATES OF CHIENG KONG, MEKONG RIVER.]

PREFACE.

I have put together the following account of a recent journey made for the Siamese Government to the Mekong valley, chiefly for the reason that at the present moment, when the French have "rectified" their boundaries on the north and east of Siam to the extent of some 85,000 square miles, more interest than usual will probably be felt in the character of the country and the people, of whom there are not too many reliable accounts to be found. At the same time, I feel very strongly that there are others whose descriptions will be far more valuable than my own, owing to their longer residence in the country, and the greater extent of their explorations. I refer especially to Messrs. McCarthy, Archer, and Beckett, who have done difficult and extensive work in all parts of Siam and the Laos states; and there is certainly no European, and probably no Siamese, that knows so much of the configuration of the north-east as does Mr. McCarthy, who, carried on by an apparently deep love of jungle-life, has aroused the admiration of the Siamese and Laos at Luang Prabang by his hardihood and energy, and the results of whose work were a constant source of admiration to me, as I went on and saw the wildness and difficulty of the country.

The object of my journey was primarily the examination, for the Siamese Government, of a supposed very rich deposit of gems (rubies and sapphires), lately discovered on the left bank of the Mekong, opposite Chieng Kong. My orders were to return by Luang Prabang, Nongkhai, and Khorat, and to visit and report on all mineral deposits of which I could get information, gathering all geological data which were possible. The time allowed was six months, and I was not to leave the general line of march prescribed by more than 60 miles. I need hardly say—and every one who knows what jungle-travelling is will understand—that my programme, to be thoroughly carried through over the large extent of country marked out, might well occupy six years instead of months; and that such a hurried exploration in a country covered densely with forest—which, next perhaps to snow, is the greatest enemy to the science of geology—could not but be unsatisfactory to one's self.

H. Warington Smyth.

GLOSSARY.

    Pak = mouth of a river; e.g. Pak Oo, mouth of river Oo.
    Nam = river; e.g. Nam Oo, river Oo (a always long, as in
barn).
    Hoay = mountain torrent.
    Keng = rapid; e.g. Keng Fapa, Fapa rapid.
    Luang = great or chief; e.g. Keng Luang, the great rapid.
    Doi or puh = Siam word Kao = hill.
    Ban or Bang = house or village (used indiscriminately).
    Sala = rest-house.
    Muang = town or township, often district or province.
    Chow Muang = literally, chief of the township = governor.
    Klong = stream or canal.

CONTENTS.

PART I. Bangkok to Muang Nan

PART II. Muang Nan to Muang Chieng Kong

PART III. Muang Chieng Kong to Muang Luang Prabang

PART IV. Luang Prabang (March, 1893)

PART V. Nongkhai to Khorat and Bangkok (April and May, 1893)

Appendix

MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

  The Rapids at the Gates of Chieng Kong, Mekong River
  The Meinam below Chainat
  Loaded Rice-Boats lying in Bangkok
  Rua Pet
  Rua Nua
  Rua Nua from Fore End
  Boat hollowed out of Trunk ready to be soaked in River
  Boat opened out over Fire, Ribs and Knees in
  Rice-Boats and Floating House, Paknam Pho
  A Rice-Boat, flying light
  Rice-Raft, Nam Oo
  Wat Chinareth (Central Tower from West)
  A Sala in the Nan Forests
  Khorat Plateau. Entrance to Forest Dong Phya Yen
  Gorge Nam Pgoi
  The Paddy-Fields, Hin Valley
  Wat Ben Yeun, M. Sa
  East Gate of Nan
  Laos Bag, of Striped Cloth
  Kao Neo Wicker Baskets
  Axe for hollowing Boats
  Dipper for Water
  A Hill Monastery, M. Le
  View from M. Le, looking north-west across the Nam Nan and Watershed
of Meinam Khong
  Map—Route from Muang Ngob on the Nam Nan to Muang Chieng Kong on
the Mekong River
  A Gem-Digger's Clearing, Chieng Kong
  Camp at the Fa Pa Rapids
  One of our Elephants, with Howdah on
  The Leading Mule
  A Head Man—Stern View
  A Head Man—Side View
  A Haw—Packs dismounted
  Laos Boat
  Illustration of Oar and Steering-Gear
  Double Boat
  Village above Paku, Mekong
  Forty-Five Feet Boat, Nam Oo
  Map—Part of the Mekong
  Khache Hill Clearings; Rapids above Pak Beng, Mekong
  Dhâp and Sheath
  Jungle Knives
  Mouth of Nam Suung, above Luang Prabang
  Approach to Luang Prabang from North
  Wat Chieng Tong
  Pa Chom Si, Luang Prabang
  Plan of Luang Prabang and River
  Stone Implements
  Government Offices, Luang Prabang
  Keng Kang, Nam Oo. The Plunge off the Left Bank
  Keng Luang
  Ascending Keng Luang, Nam Oo
  Fishing Stakes and Shelters, Nam Oo
  Rudder
  Boats Fishing
  Last of the Hills above Wieng Chan
  The Ruins of Wat Prakaon, Wieng Chan
  Niche and Statue
  South-West Angle, Wat Susaket, Wieng Chan
  Bell
  Bell-Clapper and Joint
  Bamboo Bell
  Four-Sok Kan (1 Inch to Feet)
  Two-Sok Kan
  Air-Chamber
  Kien
  The North Gate and Nam Nun, Khoraat
  Map—The Central Part of the Kingdom of Siam

NOTES OF A JOURNEY ON THE UPPER MEKONG, SIAM.

PART I.

BANGKOK TO MUANG NAN.

Early in December, 1892, we left Bangkok—myself, three Siamese assistants, and a sergeant's guard as escort, and coolies. At Muang Chainat, owing to the rapid fall of the river, I had to send back the Navy launch, which was drawing 3 feet 6 inches; a month earlier she might have got nearly up to M.[1] Pechai. At Paknam Pho, where the Nam Pho and Meiping meet, after a good deal of bargaining I secured a rua nua, or north-land boat, to take me on. Boat-travelling in Siam is much the same everywhere; and in their boat-life, it may be said, the Siamese have attained a high degree of civilization. Very often the boat is the home of the family, and after the rains they moor alongside the bank and cultivate tobacco, cotton, or melons on the slope on which the rich loam of the floods has settled down; after the rice harvest they will set out laden with paddy for Bangkok, returning later on with salt or other luxuries from the south. The Chinese, who are the most energetic people in the country, carry on extensive trading in this way. They use a very large double-ended kind of boat, known as "rice-boat," which has a long cylindrical roof of closely plaited work impervious to rain, extending from just before the helmsman to within 10 feet of the bows, where the two or three oarsmen toil at the long oars. As in all the Siamese boats, the oar is slung in a grommet, which is turned round the top of a small pole firmly let into the gunwale at the lower end. This gives the end of the oar sufficient height inboard, and the oarsman stands to his work facing forward, the outer hand on a small handle turned at right angles to the oar, as in the Chinese sampans one sees in the straits. With a big heavy boat, the action, with a sharp jerk at the end of the stroke, is not pretty; but in the small rua chang (or sampan) of the city the motion is exactly that of the gondolier, and with the swaying motion of the inside leg, which is often quite free, is extremely pretty. It must be confessed the grommet principle, which at least keeps the oar in its place, makes the work much easier than the slippery crutch in which the gondolier at Venice works his long oar, and which proves a great source of difficulty to the beginner in the art. This method is known by the Siamese as "chaw"- (or "chow"-)ing.

[Illustration: THE MEINAM BELOW CHAINAT.]

[Illustration: LOADED RICE-BOATS LYING IN BANGKOK.]

Next in size and usefulness to the "rice-boats" (which are generally about 40 feet long, 10 feet 4 inches beam, with 6 feet 4 inches extreme draught when loaded, and carry twenty koyans of rice) comes the rua pet, which is a great favourite with the Siamese. It is cleaner lined than the rice-boat, the cabin arrangement being the same; that is, the long roof, the deck at the level of the gunwale going fore and aft, and the storage-room all below, reached by taking out the neatly fitting pieces of deck, which are made to fit into the main cross-beams. The helmsman has a slightly raised attap roof over his head, and he (or she, for the wife and the children down to six years old can steer as well as the father) looks out from under this and over the long low roof in front. The steering is done with a rudder shipped in the usual way on the stern-post, while in the big rice-boat it is generally on the quarter (if under sail, on the lee quarter), kept in position by a rope grommet at the head, and another lanyard put through an eye bored lower down. In both kinds of craft a finely peaked calico lugsail is used with a fair wind—the matting, of which the junks and local coast-luggers make their sails, being never seen inland. The size of the rua pet is generally 40 feet over all, 8 feet 4 inches beam, and 3 feet 4 inches draught loaded; a new one will cost 300 to 320 ticals, say £26. Teak is largely used in the construction, and when finished the whole is covered with a coating of chunam, a mixture of oil from the Mai Yang (a magnificently proportioned tree common in the forest), with dammar oil, which gives a beautiful red varnish to the hull.

[Illustration: RUA PET.]

A third distinct type of boat is the rua nua ("nua" meaning north, and "rua" boat), which seems to be rather a Laos than a Siamese form. It is hardly accurate to call them distinctively "Laos boats," as is often done, as the real "Laos boat," used both on the Mekong and in the Laos states proper on the Meinam, is simply a long dug-out canoe, 60 feet long, with an extreme beam of 4 feet. The rua nua is a much more highly developed type, and is in construction as elaborate as those above mentioned. It is generally longer than the rua pet. My boat was 56 feet 10 inches over all, with a beam of 10 feet, and carried the owner and his crew of four men, with myself and twenty Siamese. At night a few of us slept on shore, in the Salas or rest-houses of the monasteries, or on the banks of sand. The stem and stern posts are made of huge chocks of teak, the bottom flat of three or four huge planks running the whole length of the boat if possible. Right aft is a high-roofed and very comfortable house in which the steersman lives; sitting on his high stool, and looking over the usual plaited roof along the centre of the boat, he turns his long steering-oar, which reaches far out astern over the port quarter. The fore-deck of the boat is outrigged on each side to a considerable distance, while a gangway runs round the centre roof outside for the man to pole along. Up the Meiping these boats are generally ornamented with a long high snout of timber out forward, and a high forked tail astern.

[Illustration: RUA NUA.]

Of small craft the variety is endless—from the small canoes which hawk kanoms, or cakes of rice, sugar, and coconut, to the small roughly roofed boats which will just hold the owner and his wife and child if they balance carefully, or the long snake-like boats which are favourites with the monks at the monasteries. The people usually build their own boats, and are very good hands at it; and one may see them in all states of construction,—hollowed out with laborious chipping ready for opening out over the fire, or already heated and opened up, with knees and ribs being put in and pegged with wood (for, like the Norwegians, they never use nails, and the result is great durability); or ready with a six-inch "wash-streak" all round, and the light deck at the gunwale level, which is the feature of the smallest, if we except the sampans and canoes of the capital.

The fittings of the large species of craft above described are often elaborate and almost yacht-like. A brass trimming to the gunwale, and bright red prayer-papers, are generally to be seen on board of John Chinaman. There will be pretty balustrades round the quarters where the helmsman is, partly for show, partly to keep the small fry from falling overboard. Curtains of plaited bamboo are hinged to the attap roof above the helmsman, and when shut down will keep out rain or sun. At the fore end the deck will shine with the polish given it by the constant sitting or reclining of the crew, and inside the long low roof, if there were only sufficient head-room, the floor would be declared perfect for a dance. All round are lockers, in which cotton stuffs are stored to take up-country, or betel-box, teapot, and crockery are stowed; the comfort and luxury of some of these boats could not be surpassed.

[Illustration: RUA NUA FROM FORE END.]

[Illustration: BOAT HOLLOWED OUT OF TRUNK READY TO BE SOAKED IN
RIVER.]

[Illustration: BOAT OPENED OUT OVER FIRE, RIBS AND KNEES IN.]

And how they do all enjoy life! There is no hurry; if going down stream, they take it easy enough; and if going up, why overwork? A week earlier or a week later makes no difference; and so, why not stop and have some tea and chat as they pass some friendly village, or a boat with whom last year perhaps they travelled in company for a month? If the sun gets hot, they will tie up to the bank, and all hands bathe, the children diving overboard like the best of them. If it rains, tie up again, light up the fire and cook the rice and mix the curry for supper; then out cigarettes all hands, and from the cloud, to which even the stout five-year-old boy, who is the pet of the ship, contributes his share, gaze complacently out into the damp evening, where all the myriad life of jungle is piping shrilly in the swaying bamboo clumps. No wonder these people are happy and hospitable, ever ready with a joke.

[Illustration: RICE-BOATS AND FLOATING HOUSE, PAKNAM PHO.]

The journey to Muang Pechai took our rua nua 19 days, and owing to the falling state of the river, our old skipper had to lighten his ship by selling off a lot of his salt; and even then she drew 3 feet, and all hands had frequently to go overboard and haul over shallows.

[Illustration: A RICE-BOAT, FLYING LIGHT.]

Above the junction of the Meinam Yome and the Pechai River, the villages which had thronged the bank gave way to a wild uninhabited country—the villages few and poor, the paddy-fields far apart and small. The river winds tortuously between clay banks 30 feet high and crowned with the prickly bamboo or long grasses, or in places with deep forests of fine timber. Here and there on the inside of the bend would be extensive sandbanks, and on these, as being safer from wild animals or fever, often three or four boats' crews would be camping at night. On the concave side of the bend would be evidences of huge falls of stuff, the result of the recent floods, with large trees or bamboo clumps sticking out of the water. Of animal life there was plenty—the apparently sluggish crocodile, which at the crack of a rifle would leap his own length into the water; the familiar and friendly long-tailed monkeys; or the white-headed fish-eagle, and another big dark-coloured eagle with peculiarly hoarse cry.

The order Herodiones is well represented, and I shot specimens of the common heron (Ardea cinerea), and the great white heron or great egret (Ardea alba); and in the low state of one's larder, which is the normal condition in Siam, they were excellent eating. Of kingfishers I saw two distinct forms—the smaller one (?), the pied kingfisher of India; the larger with a stronger bill, black and white, without the high colouring of the other. All these birds are very common, and there are many smaller thin-legged birds running along the sands.

[Illustration: RICE RAFT, NAM OO.]

As in all the rivers of Siam during and just after the rains, the water is alive with fish, the most remarkable that I saw being the "pla reum," a creature often over 3 feet long and the same in depth—very broad-bodied, with a covering of large scales, the fins, tail, and gills of a pinky red; head large and broad, with wide mouth lined with fine rows of diminutive teeth, of which there are two lines in the upper jaw. The tail is enormously powerful in the water, and, until he is tired out, the drift-net used for catching him has a very hard time of it.

After reaching Muang Pichit, the villages occur more frequently again, and are often palisaded; this is necessary for the protection of the cattle, which are the favourite prey of the dacoits who wander about in the valley of the Meinam all too freely, often with fine boats, which in the daytime are peaceful trading craft to the eye, but at night suddenly bristle with men. At the present time this kind of business is an actual danger to the traders as well as to the peaceful villagers; and at the time I went up, though the Minister of the North (Prince Damrong) had just been on a tour to Pechai, they were extremely bold all over the country. Once north of lat. 17° 40', and in the Laos country, property is safer than in Eaton Square.

One word as to the "wats," or monasteries, and the monks who inhabit them. They are often misnamed "temples" and "priests;" but, as all who know the customs of the Buddhist countries around will be aware, there is no "priesthood" proper. These men are really retired from the world for the purpose of such meditation as shall bring them as near to the purity of their master and pattern Buddha as possible. Wherever there are villages there are wats, supported by the contributions of the inhabitants, who are bent on gaining merit by their good deeds to these holy men. Like the monks of "merrie England" in years gone by, there are good, bad, and indifferent; in many cases the prior is a keen Pâli student and good musician, and a man of some ideas. The yellow robe and the shaving of head and eyebrows is not exactly fascinating at a close view, but among the monks I used to see many very fine thoughtful faces; while I shall, I hope, always remember the friendly evenings I spent after the day's voyage, sitting perched on the bamboo flooring of the sala, high above the quiet stream, listening to a duet played on their simple two-stringed fiddles. The body is made of half a coconut-shell, over which the sounding-board is placed. The string of the bow is between the two strings, and the execution is wonderful. The airs, which are all handed down by ear, are a very fast weird music, distinctly catchy, and one, "the trotting pony," is a wonderfully sweet and descriptive air. Another instrument is the toka, a hollow teak sounding-box with two strings stretched over a number of bridges, on which the fingers of the left hand work while the right twangs the strings: this joined in very well with the fiddles. The intervals are not the same as ours, and the European ear takes some time to get accustomed to the novelty; after a time, however, one can sufficiently interpret the airs to get them on a flute, whereon the proper intervals seem to enable one to get a correct version of what before seemed rather a jargon. Another favourite pursuit with the youthful monks is tetakvoa, a football of open wicker-work, which is kept going by the dozen or so players taking "full volleys" with knee or foot, and often "heading" the ball. This, of course, is common in the villages too, but I did not see it in the Laos states.

It is the custom to bring up for the night, whenever possible, alongside one of these wats, both on account of the convenience of finding a good sala, and the greater security against robbers. There is always a wide clear space beneath the trees which shade the buildings of the monastery, and some of these quiet spots, from which, as one walks up and down in the evening, one sees the long reach of river reflecting the last light in the west, or, in the chilly morning, the first streaks of dawn, are almost ideal places for retirement and meditation. They, and the life which goes on within, have been admirably described by Shway Yoe, in his book 'The Burman,' one of the completest pictures which has ever been drawn of any people; and the monastery life of Siam is almost identical. As the monotonous but almost weird chant of the monks floated out across the stream at sunset, we used to tie up for the night beneath: often it would go far on into the night; and then long before day the great gong would begin its clanging, and once more the chant rise among the mists, and for us another day's poling would commence.

In the Laos states there are many points of difference in the wats, not only in the architecture (and the hill-wats become very simple, with a few roughly baked bricks for the low walls, and a thatch roof in place of the red or wood tiled roofs of Siam), but also in the régime. Every boy, for instance, who goes to do his schooling at the wat wears the yellow robe, which assumes thus almost the character of the college gown at home, and until he has so worn it he has no title to the name of "man." As in Siam, besides his letters, he learns the elementary precepts taught by Buddha; but, as not in Siam, he often goes out with his superiors into the jungle, with robe tucked up, to hew wood or do other work for the support of the wat, which the laymen, being too few or too poor, cannot do.

During this month of December the north-east monsoon was blowing, but we had curiously cloudy cool days nearly all the time, with, at the start, slight rain at times. The minimum reading of the thermometer was 42° Fahr. on the 22nd, just before sunrise. The two following mornings we had 45° Fahr.; the maxima in the shade of the steersman's house being 73°, 77°, and 76° on those days. 50°, 52.5°, 49°, 51°, 54°, 57°, 50°, and 57° were the minima for the next eight days, and the maximum recorded was 85° at 1 p.m. At 9 a.m. the thermometer was never above 64°.

At Muang Phitsanulok, which stands along a very pretty sweep of water, hid deep in its areca and banana palms, I spent a morning at wat Chinareth. This was the nearest approach to a real piece of effective architecture that I had seen since leaving, and I once more experienced the feeling of exultation which one used to know at home, when enjoying the lights and shadows of some old building where the mind of man had worked with great result. An additional charm was the colouring. The coloured tiles of the roofs of the wats are remarkable in Bangkok; but far in the jungle, when the eye has become accustomed to green for weeks, the wonderful yellow-red, picked off with green borders, and the light-red lower buildings of the cloisters, were most striking. The building was once very extensive, cruciform in shape, in four distinct sections round the great central tower. The western building is the only one in any sort of preservation, and south of it, and at its south-western end, still stand the cloisters. Brick and laterite blocks are the material used, the former in some cases, as in the wall and the pillars of the cloister, being stuccoed. These little pillars are only 6 feet high, and the roof is gabled, supported on simple uprights, which rise from horizontal cross-beams resting on the pillars; and so a very pretty and simple cloister walk is obtained. The remains of such walks lie in every direction round the centre. As for the western building itself, I was much delighted with the interior. One enters a monk's doorway at the south-east corner from a cloister, and is at first lost in gloom. At last the great black columns, with their elaborate gilt ornamentation (the one decoration they understand in Siam), grow out in the feeble light from the little narrow windows in the low side walls. The lofty peaked roof, which rises far into blackness, comes down gradually, sloping less steeply to the columns, of which there are two rows, and so to the low walls, thus as it were covering a nave and side aisles. At the eastern end are placed the usual gilt statues of Buddha, of all shapes and sizes—of which in one cloister alone I saw over thirty-six over 3 feet high. Until these force themselves upon one's notice with all the tawdry wreckage with which they are ornamented, the air of retirement about the place is quite captivating. The central tower is some 60 feet high, covered with niches, in which stand more "prahs," or statues, and on the eastern side is a staircase up halfway to a dome-shaped chamber. The entrance to this was in its day very prettily panelled and gilded; now, alas! cobwebs and bats are legion. But the whole effect, there almost lost in jungle, is memorable.

[Illustration: WAT CHINARETH (CENTRAL TOWER FROM WEST).]

At a smaller wat to the southward (wat Boria) there is a very fine Buddha, on whose head and shoulders the light is thrown from a small window in the roof. The effect is quite impressive, and does great credit to the architect who designed it. This is by no means the only place in Siam where the light is dexterously managed.

[Illustration: A SALA IN THE NAN FORESTS.]

[Illustration: KORAT PLATEAU. ENTRANCE TO FOREST DONG PHYA YEN.]

Throughout this country the rivers, streams, and canals (or klongs) are the highways, and the villages are built on their edge; the banks, owing to the accumulations, the houses, and the preservative effect of the palms in which the villages nestle, are often the highest points in the country round—which in the rains becomes a series of vast lakes, with islands here and there, and the houses standing out of the water gaunt upon their long stilt-like piles of teak. In many parts the buffaloes and oxen have to be driven away for miles to higher ground; and one may meet whole villages moving with as many as forty ox-carts in a gang, with spare oxen trotting behind their masters' carts.

We had met a good deal of teak being rafted down the lower part of the river. The small rafts come through the innumerable klongs and creeks from all directions, and then below Pichit and Paknam Pho the big rafts are made up, and go off downwards with their crew of men, the cock crowing merrily on the roof of the little bamboo shelter which is their "deck-house." Passing sandbanks and shallows is often a very difficult operation. Some three or four men go overboard astern with long 8-feet stakes, to which the end of a long hawser is fast. The sharpened ends they drive into the bottom, clinging on to the top end as the strain comes on, till at last often it is too great, and the stake is pulled over man and all. However, by degrees they will bring the great floating mass to a standstill for the night, or, as the case may be, they succeed in checking the after end sufficiently to keep it to the current, while three or four more hands are working the long transverse-set oars at the fore end in the direction required, and two or three more will be using long poles to keep off the shallows; all hands shout lustily the whole time. By this process, repeated hour by hour, they travel slowly to Bangkok with the current.

[Illustration: GORGE NAM PGOI.]

Above Pichit we met but few rafts, and those only consisting of bamboo and "mai kabao," which is much used for small work, such as tables, and is brought down in small pieces, generally about 14 feet long.

Muang Pechai is the chief town of a very extensive and important province, which to the north-east reaches to the Mekong at Chieng Kan. The Governor, Phya Pechai, is a fine, tall young man, who is (and this is not too often the case in Siam) extremely popular with the people. His evident honesty of purpose was apparent the first moment he spoke. We had to stay here a few days to get the elephants together and buy rice. Twelve kanan (a coconut-shell) were selling at a tical, and on the average each man consumes one kanan per day. We laid in a stock of 35 thang (of 20 kanan), and were shortly after glad to get off on our journey towards the distant hills. I should add that this place is the starting-point for Paklai, on the Mekong, the trail between these two places being the route generally followed by the officials going to Luang Prabang. Apart from this it is not of much importance, and, situated in the uninteresting plain, is subject to high floods in the rains, as the water-marks on the piles of the post-office and the school and court houses attest.

Two days, passing through scrub jungle, brings the traveller to Ban Nam Pi, where there are some iron "mines"—a series of shallow diggings on an extensive deposit of limonite, which seems to be "derivative" from surface decomposition. The quartz rock, which generally underlies it, is probably a quartz sand which has been metamorphosed under pressure into the hard material we now find. In, or in close connection with the latter, the iron nodules are not to be found, but near the surface, where the quartz has softened and looks almost like a sandstone, the nodules occur in abundance.

The great difficulty was to get any one to do any work, even in clearing away débris, such is the fear of the "Pi," or spirits, who are said to guard the mineral. Without the offer of a white bullock, who ought first to be slain for their benefit, it was asserted that the spirits would certainly interfere with any one attempting to do any work. I was also told that when the iron ore is removed it brings bad luck to any house in which it is stored, and that, if hung up on a tree (certainly an odd place for stowing ores), it invariably causes the death of the tree. An iron-shod bamboo is the only tool used, but no work has been done for ages, and the small furnace which once existed at the village is quite dilapidated. It was quite vain setting to work myself, and giving out that I had made a permanent arrangement with all the "Pi," even the most vicious, before leaving Bangkok; nothing less than a royal proclamation will ever give the people confidence enough to make the opening up of these places possible.

On January 10 we were fairly under way for the north, high in hope and spirits, as a party always is when the scenery begins to change, and weary plains give way to lofty hill-ranges and distant peaks, with cool clear streams splashing in the rocky watercourses. At Muang Fang we came down to the Meinam once more, and camped in a very fine wat, which none of us will ever forget; for we marched in, parched and dusty, to find ourselves under orange trees loaded with fruit, and then and there all hands almost bathed in the delicious cool juice. To the south is a lovely semicircle of hills of schist, which turn the river away to the west. To the north, the timber-clad heights rose shoulder upon shoulder, far into the peaks of Kao Luet and Kao Taw, dim with distance. We were at last fairly in the mountains and in the Laos country.

I do not wish to give what would perhaps be a wearying account of our marches day after day, full of pleasure, of changing beauties, and of memorable incidents as they were, but as succinctly as possible to speak of the configuration of the country we passed through.

We next day forded the river at Ban Taluat, and were in the province of Nan. The trail on to Cherim (north-east) crosses a number of small hills of clay slate, which form the outlying buttresses of the rougher country to the north; the strike which I observed here and all the way up on our northerly journey is pretty regularly north and south, the dip westerly at about 25°, sometimes steeper. Water is scarce here, and when we stopped for breakfast in the bed of a hoay (or mountain-stream) at 9, after about three hours' going, even the holes in the sandy bed only gave us two or three pints of water; but, of course, in January this is to be expected. To avoid the rough country northward the trail crosses the Meinam once more, where its direction is southerly, to Cherim, whence the march to M. Faek is a very long and hilly one, over high ridges of clay slate, which carry one up over 1000 feet above the river. Some of the glimpses we got in the early mornings, as we climbed upwards among the tall trunks, were quite magnificent. These forests, in their winter clothing of reds and yellows, with the tall grey trunks standing out clear against the deep shadows behind, are, with the early morning or evening sun upon them, perfectly gorgeous. As day dawns the rays climb down the heights above you into the mists, which forthwith whirl and melt; and then, as you rise above it all, there lies below on all sides a billowy sea of wild forest, high on jagged ridges in the sunlight, or darkened in shadows far down in the deep torrent valleys; in the blue distance eastward the Nam Pat range lies dim, and north and west the eye loses itself among endless cloud-capped ranges.

The sala at Muang Faek is on the west side of the river, and consists of a number of separate bamboo shelters; here we had to rest our elephants, all eighteen of which were tired out by the climb from Cherim, and we had to engage two more to reduce the weights on our tired beasts. Elephants in Siam are never idle, and the animals I got from Pechai, which belonged to the Minister of the Mining Department, had all been hard at work hauling teak and such things before our arrival. At Muang Faek there are a good many, and the two which now joined us were a male and female of magnificent proportions. They had a swinging gait, with which they travelled much faster than the others, evidently not being accustomed to dragging heavy timber, but to light weights and hard climbing. At first they didn't like their new surroundings at all, and it was most curious to see how, when the one began to trumpet and back out of the crowd, the other rushed up, caressing him with her trunk all over, and even pushing it into his mouth, and stood by him till he was pacified; but if she left his side for a moment, round he whirled in search of her, and the mahout could do nothing to stop him. I never saw them separated by more than twenty yards the whole time they were with us; they had always to be loaded and unloaded together, as they stood side by side, entwining their trunks lovingly, and in the evening, after the march, they bathed together and squirted one another in huge enjoyment. The howdahs are simply rough saddles like big baskets, and are generally fitted with a close plaited roof with a long peak before and behind, like those fitted on the kiens, or ox-carts, of the plains.

From M. Faek the trail, which is well trodden, passes along the steep wooded banks of the Meinam, which, however, is here known as the Nam Nan. The clay slate dips 65° W., and makes long black ridges in the river-bed, which can be seen deep down in the clear water, or rising in sharp crags above it, and forming the rapids, which make the river a difficult highway at the best, and only navigable by the long narrow dug-outs.

It is a short march to Hoay Li, where there is a sala kept, as they all are in Nan, in excellent condition; but there is a stream close by. The next day's march was a heavy one, over more lofty ridges without water, and it is, therefore, a good stopping-place. Leaving at sunrise, the Laos guide and myself reached the small shelter at Hoay Nai at one o'clock, the rest of my Siamese straggling in well blown an hour later, and the elephants climbing down the steep watercourse at three. This is generally the extent of a day's march, and the average rate of jungle-travelling, allowing for stoppages, is never over 2½ miles an hour, and a six hours' march is as much as the Siamese can do; in these hills the elephants certainly do not do more than 2 miles an hour. To the Laos trotting along on foot there is, however, no limit that I ever discovered, even with the heavy loads which they carry swung on a pole across the shoulder. With a couple of handfuls of kao nëo, the hill-rice, which they steam over a pot into a glutinous mass, very handy and portable for the day's march, and with some dried fish and a banana, and a long pull at the fresh stream water once in the day, they will go cheerily from morn till night, swinging when necessary their long dhâp (a sword of Burmese style, which every man over sixteen carries if he be a man at all), to cut and lop the branches and jungle which are for ever blocking the tracks. This stopping-place was one of the wildest we were ever in; nothing but jungle and mountains all around, the place itself a tiny clearing in the bottom of a deep narrow ravine, where the monster trunks climbed far above us, leaving only one little space of open sky, from which at three o'clock the sun was shut out, and where at half-past five night had fairly set in. A number of gangs going south from Nan were camped here with us.

Another, easy, march brought us to Muang Hin, over 1200 feet above sea-level. Imagine a number of lovely villages clustering among their coconut and areca palms, in a beautiful wide valley surrounded by forests and hills, the glistening yellow paddy-stalks bright in the afternoon sun, with the black backs of the buffalo moving lazily about; the homely red of the little oxen, and the moving islands the elephants make whisking the paddy in their trunks; with the village sounds drifting down the quiet air—the distant drum at the monastery, whose grey roof stands above the other houses, or the far-off "poot, poot" of the "nok poot" in the jungle (a black bird, by the way, with a long pheasant-like tail and light red wings)—and you have an idea of the lovely scene which spread before us that evening as we emerged from the hills.

This valley runs parallel to the Nam Nan valley to the eastward, but drains in exactly the opposite direction, the water running north and turning into the Nam Nan considerably north of M. Sisaket. Three days going down this lovely valley brought us through a rough piece of limestone country to Muang Sa, where I stayed some days visiting several places in the neighbourhood. This township is important, and stands by the Nam Nan in a very fine paddy-growing plain, and is better supplied with inhabitants than the country we had come through; but even here the tigers are very bold, and often come right into the villages. Small irrigation canals extend in all directions.

[Illustration: THE PADDY-FIELDS, HIN VALLEY.]

Like the quarrymen in North Wales, whenever there is a cry of "gold" at Clogan, the Laos take every piece of yellow copper pyrites or iron pyrites for gold, and we had several very hard days' travelling both east and west after gold-mines of this description.

The minimum readings for the last five days were 62°, 49°, 46°, 43°, and 45° Fahr., and going on one day's march over the plain to Muang Nan, the capital of this great province, we had 60° as minimum for several days.

The salas stand outside the red-brick walls of Nan, and are only a few hundred yards from the river, and here was every sign of prosperity; every other family seems to own an elephant or two. The houses are well built and enclosed in stout palisades; and besides the town inside the walls, there is a very large number of houses between them and the river. I saw numbers of dug-outs arriving with cotton, and many too going away south. There are a few Burmese shopkeepers along the east wall, their principal stock consisting of check-patterned panungs and sarongs and small knickknacks, betel boxes, and a little silver-work. A mule caravan of Haws from the north—as dirty and ugly as the dirtiest Chinamen—were also anxious to sell Chinese slippers, sheepskin coats, walnuts and sandals, and shortly after left for the south, like others we had met at Muang Sa. From M. Sa I gathered they were going to make westward toward M. Pray. Some of the Burmese brought me some sapphires from Chieng Kong, and there were some fine stones, but I was at the time surprised to find they had no rubies. Coloured quartzes are also found in this neighbourhood, and are cut for ornament. The rupee is the current coin, and the Burmese shopkeepers and a Chinaman or two were the only people who would exchange our money for us—at the rate of three salung to the rupee.

[Illustration: WAT BEN YEUN, M. SA.]

[Illustration: EAST GATE OF NAN.]

The sight of Nan is the early morning market, to which before sunrise the women are seen coming from all directions, wrapped in their long plaids—for such, indeed, the Lao cloak is, both in pattern and mode of wearing. The market is held within the walls in the open space, in which stands the sanam, or court-house; this is surrounded on three sides by wats, and on the west by the palace, a large house with no very striking features. The women crouch along the sides in rows with their baskets in front of them, as at Luang Prabang and at all the markets one sees in this part of the peninsula. Fruit, biscuits, and cakes, ready rolled cigarettes and flowers, are for sale, but the quantities are very small. There is a muffled sound of subdued chatter and laughter, and the scene is a very pretty one—till at last the mists are gone, the sun is well up in the heavens, and the crowd melts away as silently as it came.

Once inside the walls the town may be described as countrified, the houses standing in their own enclosures among their palms, where the elephants twirl their trunks among the cocks and hens. Very fair roads run at right angles to one another, but are always quiet and shady, like country lanes. The chief business seems to be outside the town, villages extending on all sides, and especially along the road to the north, past the "old city," which is about one mile in that direction, and where there are some very good substantial palisades still standing, with the remains of a deep ditch and massive wall on the north-west side, all of course very much grown over. The custom of shaving the head all round, with the exception of the tuft at the top which stands bristling straight on end, and gives a good grip to the light-red or white turban which is often worn, is a cool and cleanly one, and gives the men a smart appearance; the black tattooing, which extends from the knee up to the middle of the body, is the other distinctive feature throughout the province of Nan. They seldom wear more than the panung and a short blue jacket, except in the early mornings, when, with the thermometer at 50°, they shiver inside their long plaids; as the day becomes warmer, the plaid is rolled up and stowed in the bag, which is as indispensable as the dhâp, and goes over one shoulder, carrying its owner's all—consisting of a small basket of kao neo for the day, some tobacco, and betel-nut, with often a long-stemmed pipe and flint and steel.

[Illustration: LAOS BAG, OR STRIPED CLOTH.]

[Illustration: KAO NEO WICKER BASKETS.]

The women tie their long hair up on the top of their heads, and when I first got among them I was reminded of the same fashion at home, as also by other points of resemblance one had not seen among the Siamese—a light springy step, a pleasant-sounding voice, a well-cut figure, and a rosy cheek. In some of the districts in the hills the women suffer severely from goitre, and up the Nam Wa, a wild torrent which joins the Nam Nan from the east, just below Muang Sa, three out of every four of the women I saw had it. Up that river, too, I noticed a lack of expression in the faces of the men and lads when in repose; but they are rare hands at a joke, and then their faces light up wonderfully. These men all wore short jackets to the waist, of blue cloth, leaving a strip of tattooing between it and the blue panung. I was astonished at the number of children I saw there, too, every man we met in the jungle having some four or five of his sons with him. Ten or even fifteen children is a number not uncommon for one woman, while in Siam, as a rule, the number three is not exceeded. I imagine the population must be now recovering from the effects of the continual warfare which existed before Siam made its rule felt in the north, and which no doubt accounts for the meagre population throughout the entire peninsula.

[Illustration: AXE FOR HOLLOWING BOATS.]

[Illustration: DIPPER FOR WATER.]

Of the joyful, kindly, and hospitable character of the Laos of Nan one cannot say too much; I never saw a surly face or heard an angry word. Their honesty is proverbial, and they are singularly temperate: drinking lao (which is distilled from rice to a large extent in Siam itself), smoking opium, theft, and malice seem to have no attractions for them. I believe every one who has travelled with and among them will say the same, and will ever keep their memory stowed away in a warm corner of the heart.

The Rachawong was the official I saw most of—an upstanding, refined, and gentlemanly looking man, with a touch of iron grey in his hair, a firm step, a strong mouth, and high clear forehead. He gave me the story of some recent trouble with Chow Sa (the Prince of Sa) without any of that repetition, detail, or tinge of animosity one expects from an uneducated or inferior mind when speaking of an enemy.

Preparations were beginning for the cremation of the late "king" who was just dead, but we left before the ceremony began.

The punishment of death, which was inflicted for opium-smoking, elephant-killing, or theft, has been replaced during the last few years by a milder form; but it is noteworthy that in two years only one man has been put in the prison at Nan.

The music is a great contrast to that of the Siamese. At a dinner to which I was invited at M. Sa, we had, to an accompaniment of three bamboo flutes with very sweet low tones, a kind of duet sung by two girls, each taking a verse in turn. The rather nasal notes would soar up quite independently of the flutes, and then suddenly return to the keynote, which was a lovely minor, and was sustained; then would come a pause, with the delightful subdued refrain on the flutes again, ere the other began. The subject was a war-song, on which they both extemporized; but even my Siamese could not follow the words at all. After a solo from one of the flutists, who, as usual, sang falsetto (which is especially affected by the Siamese too in love-songs), he and one of the damsels lighted tapers, and though in no dress but their ordinary open dark blue jackets of panung, they performed another kind of duet, accompanied by waving of hands and arms, and a certain amount of not ungraceful attitudinizing. It seemed to be a kind of sacred affair, with a slow dignified air, and they quite lost themselves in it, though some of my Siamese were making running comments in the usual style of the vulgar all over the world.

As far as music goes, it was far more expressive and peaceful than anything I had heard in Siam, as the others owned. I had with me as assistant-surveyor a very accomplished young Siamese, who is an excellent specimen of the best that Siam produces; he is a capital musician after the fashion of his country, and used continually to warble languishing love-airs to our great amusement, and also good marching airs. He had a good ear, and soon picked up some of the Laos tunes, and so one had good opportunities of comparing them. It was curious, too, how he and several of the others took to English airs they heard from me, even copying the sounds of the English words. The proficiency of the Siamese "service" bands in Bangkok shows, too, that they can master and appreciate our music.

I have heard the Laos called "savages," which can only be said in ignorance. They respect superiors, are devoted to their "chows," to whom they are united by feudal ties, are obedient to their parents, extremely hospitable, and perfectly honest. The stranger to them is no enemy, but a creature that needs kindness, and invariably gets it. Quarrelling is unknown. They respect their women, and, unlike the Siamese, walk behind them and bear the heaviest load. They do the jungle-work, and the women stay at home, weaving their silk panungs or their horizontally striped petticoats at the loom beneath the house; while the dogs, no longer vile pariahs, but cared for well, and of a breed something like a sheepdog, sit by and watch the children play.

Surely there is something besides savagery here.

[Footnote 1: M.= Muang.]

PART II.

MUANG NAN TO MUANG CHIENG KONG.

From Muang Nan my orders were to find the best route I could over the watershed to M. Chieng Kong in the Mekong valley. As usual, the information obtainable was very meagre. One trail goes west from Nan till the valley of the Nam Ing is reached, when that stream is followed down north; a second follows the Nam Nan northward, and crosses the range north-north-westerly up the stream flowing down from M. Yao; the third, which I selected, as showing one more of the Nam Nan valley, follows that river up as far north as M. Ngob (lat. 19° 29'), when the direction becomes north-westerly over the rough country which brings one to M. Chieng Hon and M. Chieng Kob.

Leaving Nan on February 1, we followed a good tract among low but precipitous and picturesque limestone hills, into a curiously disforested country, where the only growth was bamboo, until we dropped suddenly upon the river once more at Pak Ngao, where we camped on the sandbank. We had by this time picked up, as one does in the East, a considerable following. A Commissioner had been sent across from Chieng Mai to accompany me up to Chieng Kong. What his actual duties were I never discovered; he was very useful, however, in helping me in various ways, but I would willingly have done without him, for he was evidently one of that class of officials who grind the people very tight when their superiors are out of sight. Another, the brother of Chow Sa, by name Chow Benn Yenn, who was with me all the time from Muang Sa until I reached Bangkok again, was the greatest contrast to the former. He was a small, neatly made fellow of about twenty-one, a splendid forest man, who, though a great swell in these parts, travelled with only three or four lads with him, and could walk the whole expedition off their legs. He knew and could imitate exactly every forest sound, and as he trotted along the trail he gathered all kinds of unlikely looking plants, which in the evening made excellent additions to our curry. He was a born sportsman, and far more at his ease sleeping out at night under his plaid, with his lads stretched round him, than under any form of roof. The lads with him—for they were mere boys—were like him, and treated him with the usual freedom and familiarity peculiar to the Laos, but which if an order was given, disappeared before complete obedience; and if the Chow wanted a drink of water or half a handful of kao neo, they would go miles or give their last crumbs to supply him, and many were the generous and willing kindnesses I had to thank them for.

We had also an official with his sons and a few men to carry their loads from Nan, who acted as guides and a kind of walking letter of introduction everywhere. They were a remarkably handsome lot, but the old fellow himself used to come in very done up after the day's march. Yet, like all the rest, he was never put out by hunger or weariness, and would take his bag off his shoulder, throw down his long dhâp, and squat on his heels and laugh again to think that he should be tired and the youngsters not.

From Pak Ngao, where we saw a few dug-outs shooting past down the rapids, we next day passed over more of this disforested limestone country, the dip of the rocks being westerly and very steep (50° to 60°), until we forded the river below M. Saipum. We passed through a number of villages, with very pretty whitewashed monasteries, and high palisades round them; the view to the north-east was a novel one, for the usual foreground of yellow fields, with its dykes and ditches, and its many watch-houses reared high on piles, was backed not by forest, but by open expanses, with trees here and there, or low bamboo scrub, and a dwarf range of bare hills behind. There is a red sandstone which seems to underlie the limestone, and wherever that rock outcrops, the soil is excessively thin and poor, and the denuding power of the rains is very marked. That often accounts for low scrub jungle; but where that is not present, as in the limestone country we had just crossed, the absence of forest must, I fancy, be due to fires; and no doubt when a fire is lit for the purpose of clearing ground for the hill rice, it will, with a good breeze, clear square miles instead of acres. I saw a great deal of this burning going on subsequently in the Mekong valley, and I never saw results commensurate with the destruction caused.

The sala at M. Lim, where we slept, is on the east bank, the town being opposite, and the "Chow Muang" or Governor came wading over with the water up to his neck, and his clothes in a bundle on his head. There are numbers of very fine ducks here, but, as usual, we had great difficulty in getting any in exchange for money. They have not great use for money here, as they themselves say, and they prefer their ducks. This happens constantly, especially when buying rice. Each village has enough for its consumption for the year, and very often no more; and naturally they prefer to keep the necessaries of life to having comparatively useless silver buried under their house. As the country is opened up, this will no doubt change, but at present it is not worth their while to grow more than they can consume themselves.

Again, a few irresponsible travellers have been in the habit of provisioning themselves at the expense of the villages without paying, and the consequence is that when a European appears (or, indeed, often a Siamese official), there is a general stampede into the jungle, and everything is hidden away, for they expect nothing but robbery at his hands. Until, after infinite pains, they are persuaded that they will be dealt honestly by, and treated with the consideration which the wildest from their own hills would never fail to show, you can get nothing but negatives, and small blame to them. It is humiliating in the extreme, after travelling with men for some weeks, to be asked one night over the camp fire why the nai farang (the foreign master) doesn't kick and thrash the men on the march, or flog the Chow Muang into handing over all the rice in the village, and do other not less objectionable things. Yet such is the conduct expected of one, as a matter of course, from the past repute of the farang which travels far, and no doubt also does suffer from exaggeration. Still, it shows what our methods too often have been. With these people you get the measure you mete to them; firmness is first of all necessary, but brutality is lowering to all concerned, and never has done anything but harm, and is more far-reaching than the contemptible authors of it understand.

Another day's march through a good deal of evergreen brings one, after crossing the Nam Pur, flowing in from the east, to M. Chieng Kan. An hour further north is M. Chieng Klan; and the confusion of the two names is endless. The latter is the better stopping-place, though the former is very prettily situated, on the bank of the Nam Nan, among very fine clumps of bamboo and a great many banana palms and sugar-cane plantations. Of the latter every man slings a couple of stalks over his shoulder for the day's journey, and most refreshing they are. The cakes of brown sugar made from them, of which one generally takes a piece or two to give a taste to the kao neo, are not considered good for the digestion, and quite rightly, and so only, just enough is taken at a time to give a taste. The sugar from the sugar palm of the plains, however, never has any evil results, and as it has a pleasant flavour, when we got back to it in the Khorat plateau, we consumed large quantities.

[Illustration: A HILL MONASTERY, M. LE.]

The next day M. Le was reached over sandy, undulating jungle country. On foot one could easily have reached M. Ngob, but the elephants could not do it, being, as I mentioned before, in bad condition. I was not loth to rest the night here, it being one of the most beautiful of the hill-enclosed valleys we had been in. From the sala we looked out over the terraced paddy fields, with the winding silver of the river below, and abruptly beyond it shoulder upon shoulder of heavily timbered ranges rising into the peaks which divided us from the Chieng Hon plain to' the west and north-west. Eastward, and just over us, were low steep hills, on a spur of which was a small hill monastery, whence the bells on the gables sent down a gentle tinkling as they were swayed by the strong south-westerly breeze which was sweeping a watery rustling sound out of the bamboos and coconut palms.

The salas being small, the people of the village ran up in half an hour one of their bamboo lean-to shelters for the men, but the Laos as usual seemed to prefer lighting a fire and lying out in the open round it m their cloaks, there being always one man sitting up on watch and supplying fuel when necessary.

M. Ngob is in a narrow hollow, which I should not care to visit in hot weather, for the wind hardly gets into the place. We had nearly a whole day's rest here. A mule caravan of Haws came in from the north and rendered the otherwise peaceful air hideous with their loud, hoarse talking. But for them a Laos village is singularly quiet; no sounds but the quack, quack of the fat ducks who share the pools in the stream with a few laughing children, the grunts of a family of pigs, the occasional trumpet of an elephant who has been up to some playful game or other of which the master does not approve, and the steady thump, thump of the small foot rice mills, which the women work apparently from morn till night.

Before sunrise, as the sonorous chant rises from the wat, these mills are at work too, and often the last thing at night one hears them still. Mr. McCarthy has described them, but I may just mention that they consist of a piece of tree-trunk hollowed into a funnel-shape, into which the rice is put, and a long lever worked at the outer end by the foot, the woman stepping on and off, fitted with a hammer-head of wood, of which several of different sizes are used. And while the mother works her loom close by, the two daughters will work the mill and chat and chaff the passers-by.

Minimum readings for the last four days, 52°, 55°, 57°, 58° Fahr. The maximum in one of these salas is generally about 82° for this month at 2 to 3 p.m. The winds were now south-westerly, very strong, with bright fierce sun, but cumuli lying on the higher peaks after 4 p.m., sometimes a slight shower falling from them.

One mile north-west from M. Ngob, the Nam Nan,[2] here known as the Nam Ngob (and actually the people did not know that it was the same river as the Nam Nan below), runs over shallow pebble beds, where we forded to the west side. This day's march is a very good example of the kind of travelling to be done. The tracks over the hills are either in the bed of the "hoays," or streams, far down in a perpetual night, where the coldness of the water chills the feet and legs through and through; or, after a steep climb, high up on narrow spurs leading to the central range, where the forest is thick enough to keep off all the wind but not the rays of the sun after 10 a.m. Once on these ridges no water is to be had for half a day, and the stick of sugar-cane or water-bottle of cold tea, the best of all beverages, is worth its weight in gold. However, drinking on the march is a ruinous habit. The Laos sensibly rinse the mouth when they can, and only drink at the end of the day.

[Illustration: VIEW FROM M. LE, LOOKING NORTH-WEST ACROSS THE NAM NAN
AND WATERSHED OF MEINAM KHONG.]

Following up Hoay Sakeng over red sandstone rocks, the track then climbs on to a long ridge, leading, with many rises and falls, to a small gap in the range, about 1100 feet above the river. We met on the way four pack oxen coming, with their pretty deep-toned bell, down the path, and on reaching the summit had a most glorious view of the thick forests of the Chieng Hon valley, with the small clearings here and there and surrounded on all sides, as far as one could see in the dim haze which accompanies the south-west wind, by hill ranges. Twenty minutes down a steep drop at a run brought us into a different climate and the most perfect valley I was ever in. Far above, the sun glistened here and there on the wide-spreading fronds of huge tree-ferns; for the rest; we were almost in darkness, with orchids and great twisted creepers climbing on the tree-trunks dim above us. The stream is known as Hoay Tok, and down its bed we stumbled, cutting ourselves about on the rough outcrops, the strike of which, with a steep westerly dip, was at right angles to our course, and made most unpleasant travelling. Two hours more across a partially cultivated plain, and we passed another Haw caravan encamped, and reached the sala. The elephants did not arrive until 5 p.m., it having taken them twelve hours to reach M. Chieng Hon.

At M. Pechai I had bought some ponies. There are not many there, and the choice was limited, while the price, forty to sixty ticals, was heavy. These animals, as long as we were in flat country, were useful, but they were not good mountaineers, and I found travelling on foot much pleasanter, while, as a general rule, the more exercise men get in these jungles, the healthier they are. On this day each one of my Siamese assistants had a fall, for they, as a rule, stuck to their ponies' backs, whatever the trail was like; this often means getting one's face and hands tremendously knocked about, frequent dismountings, slow progress, and endless bother, while it also stands in the way of surveying or careful observation of the lie of the ground.

There was a very heavy, damp mist when we pushed on next day through the Dong Choi, a magnificent forest, which almost covers this plateau with the scenery of Hoay Tok continued, only on a larger and more imposing scale. The size of the ferns, and especially of the hart's-tongues, which clung in masses, with clumps of orchids, far up on the bare trunks of the trees which form the roofing of branch and leaf above, was quite astonishing to me.

Camp was made by a small sala in a wild clearing at Sala Pangue, from which the sun was early excluded by the hills and forest on the west, which we were to cross on the morrow. The tired elephants had a well-earned afternoon's rest. To give them time to get in before sunset, next day we got under way at 3.30 a.m., every six or eight men having a torch about eight feet long of split bamboo. These early marches are a sort of scrambling dream, and should not be resorted to except under compulsion, as, although the cool morning air is pleasant for the first hour, every one soon gets very done up, and stumbles on hazily. Sunrise puts new life into one, but the want of the early morning sleep makes one feel the heat of the day far more. Moreover, of course, nothing of the country is seen. We rose for an hour and a half up over hills, and one or two of the ponies had some tremendous falls, and were soon left struggling behind. At sunrise we were descending once more among the wildest and most rugged scenes into the valley of Nam Pote, and were now fairly in the Mekong drainage. This was another of the wonderful valleys which are so common here; and the temperature was just over 10° Fahr. below that of the hill ridges when we left them at 6 a.m. About 8.30, after crossing and recrossing the stream about thirty times, and being regularly chilled, I stopped at a small sala, and was glad to bask in the sun. An hour and a half later the others came up, and we breakfasted. Chow Benn Yenn's sharp eyes had seen some deer and two tigers, but they were off in a moment. Where the former is the latter follows, but neither will stay when he detects the sound of man coming through the forest. The tiger takes the greatest trouble to avoid a man, unless very famished. Often then he is rendered bold enough to attack a solitary man, when squatting down to eat his kao neo, and it is thus that accidents occur; but he will seldom face two men, and that is why one always meets the Laos in couples, if not in greater numbers.

At 10.30 we continued down the valley; rock apparently red sandstone, but so decomposed at its outcrop as to give no clue of reliable character. Passed numbers of wild banana trees, which do not bear fruit. They are very aggravating to tired men, who hear the cry of a jungle fowl, and coming round a corner see the broad leaves of the bananas; naturally we jump forward, thinking to get a rest and a bunch of bananas, and, perhaps, a fowl or some eggs for the evening's supper, but find nothing and no sign of man or fowl.

The course is roughly north-west until the hills fall back, and the valley opens on a flat piece of paddy land, bounded north and south by lofty limestone rocks, with, to the west, a barrier caused by a steep north and south ridge, over which lies M. Kob, but round which a long detour has to be made to the north-west, down the Nam Pote valley, to where the Nam Kob meets it. Passing Ban Tam, Ban Prow, and Ban Faek, prosperous-looking villages, we reached the junction at one o'clock. After a brief rest in the shade, in another hour and a half, after fording Nam Kob pretty frequently (making about the ninetieth time we had been in the water that day), we reached the sala of M. Kob. The others began to arrive about four o'clock, and the elephants at 6.30, looking very sorry; and we had to give them a complete rest next day.

[Illustration: Map—Route from Muang Ngob on the Nam Nan to Muang
Chieng Kong on the Mekong River From a Compass Survey by H. Warington
Smyth, F.G.S. 1893.]

From the character of the scenery here, and at the top of the Nam Pote, where we struck it, I imagine the hills we came down among were limestones overlying the sandstone again; all round the Muang are the wildest and most fantastic peaks, and, with the steep heights hanging immediately over it, it was more like a Norwegian valley than anything I have seen.

The wats here are very simple, the houses neat, but small; bricks are baked in the valley, and the rice-mills thump cheerily and echo off the hills all day. There were some pack oxen, which came over from the westward; but the Laos who drove them, whether from distrust of us or not, I do not know, would not converse with any of us. The bells of these caravans as they go trotting down the valleys are beautiful. First goes a large, deep-toned bell, swinging between the packs of the leader; the next is a third above it; and the rear is brought up by a treble bell. The little oxen trot in their order without other guidance than that of the bells and an occasional shout, one man leading, another to every five animals, and one to bring up the rear. The baskets are hung on each side of the hump, with often an ornamental erection between them; there are fore and aft stays of leather, and these prevent the packs coming off when the animals are climbing. We had met some before—and met and used others afterwards; however pretty they look as they trot along, their bells tinkling far over land and forest, they are not pleasant to travel with, especially in the rains, when streams are all in flood, for it is impossible to keep anything they carry at all dry.

While we were resting here a fire occurred, and two houses were burnt to the ground in about seven minutes. My Siamese, I must say, worked very well and pluckily, the Laos seeming quite dazed by the catastrophe. We cut down a row of banana palms, split up the trunks, and threw them on the flames, by the water and moisture in them beating down the fire, so that two neighbouring houses were saved, with the outhouses, in which, in huge bins, the rice was stored. For this last the poor fellows who only arrived home at night to find their houses burned, were most grateful; they came to thank us, and I was very much struck with the conduct of my people, who, beginning with my boat-boy, a Mon, or Peguan (who at the fire and on every other occasion had shown himself a very smart, handy, and good-hearted fellow), selected what clothes they could spare, and sent the two Laos men away loaded with raiment, and with tears of thankfulness in their eyes. It gives an additional pleasure to work with men who can act like that.

Thermometer readings on the march from Sala Pangue were—3 a.m., 42° Fahr.; 5.30 a.m., on the hills, 60°; 6.30 a.m., in Nam Pote valley, 50°; 9 a.m., ditto, 59°; noon, in the shade. Ban Faek, 87° Fahr. My aneroids had both been injured by my careless people, and I could get no reliable heights.

From M. Kob the trail follows up the Nam Tan in a general south-south-west direction, and crosses a low watershed into the bed of the Hoay Chang Kong, another rocky stream disastrous to foot gear. It then crosses low ridges and jungle, passing several small villages to Ban Ton Kluay, 6½ hours' walk, though most of the people took 8, and the elephants over 9.

Thermometer minimum—54° at sunrise in heavy damp mist; strong south-westerly breeze at noon; thick haze all day.

Six hours from here, over flat country, past M. Chieng Len, and in a general north-north-west direction from that place is M. Ngau, which gives its name to the Nam Ngau flowing north-north-east to the Mekong, and meeting it half a day's boat journey below Chieng Kong. We met a number of traders from the north carrying their loads; they were smoking long-stemmed pipes, and looked very Burmese in face. They wore blue sailor-looking trousers, with red trimmings round the ankle, where they were very loose, and small blue jackets with bead trimmings, while some had marvellously wide straw hats; with their uniformity of dress and its high colouring they made a very pretty picture crossing the yellow paddy fields.

The Chet Muang at Chieng Len was in trouble with the Nan authorities because he is, unfortunately, under the disaffected Chow Sa, and far away from there as he is, and utterly ignorant, as he protested, of his proceedings, it seemed likely that he would be involved in the disgrace of his chief.

From M. Ngau the trail crosses the upper end of the long range which forms the watershed of the Nam Ing and Nam Ngau, along the western side of which for three days we travelled, sleeping at Muang Ing and Ban Pakeng. From the latter place, leaving at a quarter to two in the morning. Ban Lung was reached at a quarter to seven. Here we forded Nam Ing, and crossed a burning plain almost entirely devoid of vegetation for four hours more, and then in a huge and very comfortable sala disposed of the contents of our haversacks with the pleasant feeling of having reached our goal. Chow Benn Yenn meanwhile had left us for a day or two's visiting at some other villages east of Nam Ing which owed allegiance to Chow Sa. Consequently, when I got in, there were only the Laos guide, my Mon boatman, and two lusty young Siamese servants who had kept up; and, absurd as it may seem to Western ideas, the Chieng Kong people took some hours to believe that I was come on genuine Government business; for a man is measured in these parts according to the number of his following, and until the men and elephants turned up I was often looked at askance. This was sometimes very amusing and sometimes not, especially when trying to procure coconuts or bananas! The sense of hospitality was, however, generally quick to prevail.