a
few of the rapids. As to buying them, it was almost impossible, though
it was the only form of fresh food obtainable. We could hardly get the
people to take money, and had to barter, though we were rather short of
things ourselves. It is odd how difficult it is to get tea, and as our
Bangkok tea had given out, hot water, with sometimes a few herbs *
picked by Chow Benn Yenn, had to take its place. He also produced a
dish of butterflies' bodies one evening with the curry, but they had,
to my mind, not much flavour. He also had a weakness for a species of
cricket, which he cooked by throwing on the fire, and then devoured.
Frogs, too, are eaten by the Laos, they going to the extent of eating
the body as well as legs of the ongan when the rains begin. The Siamese also eat the hob, a
small frog, of which the legs are certainly very good; and when the
French gunboats were in Bangkok they were not to be got in the markets
for love or money.
Up
and down this river a considerable trade in hill rice takes place
between the hill villages and Luang Prabang, and we met greater numbers
of boats than on the Mekong; they were most of them ascending at
the time, with three men, or in the longer craft four, poling. The
bamboo is placed against the outside shoulder; the man, facing aft and
leaning low, runs the boat up till he reaches the deck-house; he then
brings in the pole hand-over-hand until he has it about the middle,,
and then with the arms straight up above his head, to keep the bamboo
over the head of his fellow, goes forward again. This business,
continued for hour on hour, is very hard work indeed, as any one who
tries it will discover; and the light narrow boat rolls a good deal,
making foothold at times very difficult, and no one wearing shoes could
stay on board for two minutes.
Going
up the rapids is far more dangerous than descending, for the boat has
to be poled and often hauled round right angles of rock just outside
which- a tall hollow sea is jumping in a roaring cataract. If the bows
be once caught, away she goes broadside, and nothing will stop her, and
all hands at the tow-line go too. It is in this way that all the
swampings, as a rule, take place; but, except in Keng Kang, it is
seldom that any one is drowned. It is really astonishing at what a rate
these fellows run their boats with their poles up the
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