[Illustration: GOVERNMENT OFFICES, LUANG PRABANG.]

There is, or was, a police force in the town recruited from the Laos, but their duties are very light. Fights or quarrelling are unknown, whatever other faults there may be, and the most important part of the police duties is to keep a watch for fires. Only one occurred while we were there, and the promptitude with which the buglers went sounding out the alarm from all the guard-stations and the men turned out was most creditable; luckily there was no wind, and it was got under very quickly.

The head-quarters, as far as the Siamese Government was concerned, were in a newly built set of offices, standing in a large drill-ground; the whole thing was done by the soldiers and the people of the place under Prah Prasadah's orders and watchful eye. It is built of teak, with red-tiled roofing, and consists of a front hall, long offices on both sides, and at the back sleeping-rooms and more offices. Here, in the evenings, took place regular concerts, to several of which we went for an hour or two. The people of Luang Prabang are undoubted music-lovers to a high degree, and night after night, after the major and lieutenants had messed, the musicians arrived in the hall, squatted down, and began, sometimes the wailing Laos music, sometimes the quick jig tunes of Siam. The instruments consisted of two two-stringed violins, a high-pitched flageolet, and one or sometimes two kans, a kind of reed-organ carried about by the player, who is the bellows. Sometimes the bamboo reeds are over 6 feet in length, but they are light; the mouth is applied at a mouthpiece toward the lower end, where the fingers play on each side, there being two sets of reeds side by side. The instrument is held upright in front or slightly inclined over the shoulder, and the sweetness of the tones is wonderful. This usually forms a bass, and smaller ones with shorter reeds accompany the voice well. It would be no exaggeration to say that nearly every household in Luang Prabang possesses one, sometimes two. A most striking thing it is at night, far into the early hours, to hear the distant kans from all sides playing in the houses, now and then drowned by the nearer approach of one whose master has been out calling late, and goes striding down the road with perhaps three or four more friends in single file behind, playing a march tune with all his lungs like any Highland piper. One of my pleasant memories of life will ever be those evenings when turning in, after the hot day in the verandah, one listened to the sound of the kans passing homeward, and rising and falling on the night-air. What with the evening bugles, too, and the drum upon the hill, and the cocks and nok poots, who never fail to announce the hours 9 p.m., midnight, 3 a.m., and 6 a.m., whether in the jungles or among the dwellings of man, a light sleeper would complain bitterly.

In the concerts at the new offices there were often kan solos; while the orchestra, when in full swing, was accompanied by clapping of hands and the tinkle of metal; the songs, albeit curious, were not to me so enjoyable, though very much so to the Laos. A number of pretty damsels, in their most gorgeous silks, sat round busily chewing betel-nut; these would be asked to give a subject, and one with a good deal of blushing would give in a loud tone her subject. The orchestra struck up, and the singer had to make the best he could of it on the spot; and judging by the laughter and general approbation after each verse, he was generally successful. But we all failed signally to understand the words—the language here differing very much from that of Nan, of which we had begun to pick up some; while, when sung, it is even more incomprehensible. What with the attractions of music, their love and battle songs, and perhaps other things, the Laos of Luang Prabang keep late hours, and are late to turn out.

The Chow Luang and Chow Huanar, with whom I exchanged visits, are pleasant, open-countenanced men, and after a second visit became quite jovial. The latter helped me a great deal in my work, and I was sorry to say good-bye. Their houses were large teak buildings, but the Chow Luang is building one of brick.

[Illustration: KENG KANG, NAM OO. THE PLUNGE OFF THE LEFT BANK.]

Our longest expedition from here was up the Nam Oo, which comes in from the north-east. The scenery of this river is very fine, as all the way from Muang Ngoi, to which we went, it winds through abrupt limestone peaks and ranges, covered with dense forest, and often overhanging the deep quiet river below. But the rapids scattered along its course are furious, and, owing to the shallow water and innumerable sunken rocks, are very dangerous, while quite a high sea runs in them. They differ from most of the big Mekong rapids in that they are caused by rough sloping bottoms of rock ridges, over which the water tears its way. In the great river the majority of the rapids are simply owing to the narrowing of the channel, with possible big rock obstructions rising out of a depth which, with a 20-fathom line, often gave no bottom (this in low-water season). In these the acceleration of speed and commotion are caused by the enormous pressures behind, and the frictions below, and the force of the back eddies, which go tearing in toward any little or big opening in the banks of rock, and come sweeping back again in wave-like rushes or in whirlpools. "Rapid" is often a misnomer; for what with whirlpools, the sudden capricious rushes of water boiling up in a mound of spray, and flowing wildly in apparently any direction but the one by which it will eventually get out, and the great back eddies and counter currents below, the boat, alternately dragged to the right bank, spins round on the edge of a whirlpool, hurries over on a mass of foam to the left side, and there caught and hurried up the side again, or swirled off downwards into another whirlpool, spends several minutes in passing down a hundred yards, though every hand is straining at the oars, and steersman and bow-oar are lugging for dear life to keep her straight, and save her ends from being caught up on the rocks at which she is hurled.

Such are many of the worst of the Mekong rapids, which will prove too much for any number of steamers, extending often, as they do below Chieng Kan, for miles. Even the great rushes of solid water, and converging lines of breakers of the rapids, where, as in the Keng Luang below Luang Prabang, the already compressed water has to fight its way over a shelving bank of huge shingle, of which each stone is often as big as an average Laos house, will prove easier to navigate. But in the Nam Oo the shallowness of the water is the danger, and there is often, as in Keng Luang two days up, a fall straight over a dioritic ledge of 3 feet. This class of rock it is which forms the rapids, and when the limestone hills retire from the river edge, and low-lying, round-topped hills less densely jungled, come in, one may look out for a rapid and change of formation.

[Illustration: KENG LUANG.]

The villages up this river are very poor, except in ducks, which are seen swimming merrily about in all the quiet reaches, and not 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[6] 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 kob, 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.