THE UPPER MEKONG, SIAM.	27
	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 Kliorat plateau, we consumed large quantities. 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