[Illustration: A HEAD MAN—STERN VIEW.]
[Illustration: A HEAD MAN—SIDE VIEW.]
At Ban Soap Ta, or Pak Ta, we were in the Province of Luang Prabang. The village is most beautifully situated on the left bank of the river, just below where the wild torrent of the Nam Ta falls into it. There is a regular street all down the village, with deep ditches on each side, between the road and the scattered houses. We met numerous Kache from inland—a perfectly wild people, wearing only the smallest strip of cloth, with a long metal hairpin stuck through the hair rolled up behind, and often a flower in the lobe of the ear. They are short and fleshy, and, though not prepossessing, we subsequently found some of them to be good hard workers, and quiet, simple creatures. The inhabitants of the village were not so smart as our Southern Laos or the Lus we had just left; some of them wore slight whiskers, and one or two had thin beards, and there are a good many stout men among them.
[Illustration: A HAW—PACKS DISMOUNTED.]
[Illustration: LAOS BOAT.]
We here changed boats, our other craft returning with their crews to Chieng Kong. These boats are mere dug-out canoes, some 60 feet long as a rule, with 4 feet beam. They are fitted all along amidships with a light framework of split bamboos, standing up from the gunwale in a barrel shape. On and tied to these are rectangular-shaped pieces of bamboo plaiting, of a primitive character, stuffed with dead leaves, about 8 feet by 6 feet, of which two form the sides, and a third the roof, overlapping them. Two lots together give a good long cabin, and sitting on the light bamboo decking fitted at the level of the gunwale, one has 3 to 4 feet of head room. One's gear goes in underneath, and the men's cooking and camping gear will be stored aft. Two-thirds of the way aft an open space is left, and the decking is discontinued, and here, going through a rapid, bailing is resorted to.
For going down river the most distressingly primitive oars are used, two or three men pulling at them, working in a grommet. The steersman stands aloft astern, with a rudder 6 or 9 feet in length, which he places in a loop on one quarter or the other. To help the speedier turning of the boat in rapids, a long oar is fitted to work athwart-ship out over the stern, and the power of these two is very great, but not too much for the places they are sometimes in. But the most important and ingenious part is the fitting of bundles of long bamboos round the gunwale outside. Three of these bundles will go to the length of the boat, and they not only give the boat 1½ or 2 feet more beam, and therefore great steadiness, but they act as breakwaters outside her in the rapids, and as air-tight compartments when she is swamped. They are turned up at the ends with the boat's run; but they hide her very effectually, so that she looks more like a bamboo raft than a boat.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION OF OAR AND STEERING-GEAR.]
In going up stream, these bamboo bundles are cut adrift, and long bamboos are used for poling from the fore-deck; the boats winding in and out among the rocks upon the edges, using the swift back currents with such effect that, except on the very rapid parts of the river, the upward journey averages a rate of 3 miles an hour. At the rapids, the boats must be often unloaded and hauled over, this occupying a whole day.
In the flood season, from June to October, the whole river valley is a sea of swift turbid water, often 40 feet above the level of the dry season, as is attested by the hulls of wrecked boats, gigantic tree stems, and water marks, which one sees to that height upon the crags among the sandbanks. Then the boats work their way up among the trees and bushes on the jungle edge. Below Luang Prabang, a double boat is used for going down river, and one gets a wide deck upon it of 10 feet beam; in these, besides the crew of five men, seven men could live comfortably, while in the single boats, with the crew of four men, four more make rather close quarters.