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Ch. 4: Luang Prabang

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THE UPPER MEKONG, SIAM.
79
invariably have a bell), there are clappers hung on a string on each side, which keep up a continual tinkle. Fixed on a bent bamboo, the same form of bell is used by fishermen on the shore end of their set lines to give warning of a big fish or other disturbance. There is always a slit up, about a quarter of the way, slightly wider at the top, on each side.
The weather from the time we left Luang Prabang to the time we reached Nongkhai had the unsettled character of the beginning of the rains, though it was only April month. South-westerly winds and haze by day, low heavy clouds in the evenings, and thunder­storms of great violence, with strong squalls of wind shifting round
BELL-CLAPPER AND JOINT.                                                          BAMBOO BELL.
by west and north-west to north at night, making sleep impossible while they lasted, and generally driving into the boats everywhere. The lowest and highest readings of tlie thermometer were, on the same day when we arrived at Chieng Kan, after some heavy storms, 63° Fahr. at sunrise, 104° at 2 p.m. in the boats. For the rest of the time, the average minimum was 72°, generally half an hour before sunrise. The average maximum in the shade, 92° (in the boats). In the shady sala, on the tree-covered bank at Nongkhai, we never had over 89°, and, whether owing to the advent of the rains or not I do not know, it was much cooler and pleasanter than Luang Prabang had been, and all our sick men, with one or two exceptions, mended entirely; while at the former place (as too in the case of Mr. Archer's party) every one had had turns of fever or bad headaches. The coinage here was once more the tical, with only an occasional rupee. At Luang Prabang the two, with their small silver sub­divisions, are both taken; but in Nan no Siamese money would pass, strings of areca nut being used for small change, as cowries are at Luang Prabang.
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