The total population of Luang Prabang, including that portion of the province on the right bank, was just over 98,500. In the town itself there cannot be more than about 9000; this only includes the Laos proper, and not Lus, La was, or Khache.[9] It is difficult to judge of the town, which straggles along the three or four main roads that have recently been made around the central hill, and far beyond them out into the plain, both inland, up the Nam Kan, and down the Mekong. North of the town are also numbers of fairly large and prosperous villages. The broadening out of the river here, the absence of rapids, and the retirement to the eastward of the hill range, which forms a sort of amphitheatre around the little plain, seems to have attracted settlers from an early time. Still, either owing to the laziness of the inhabitants or, as I think more probably, to the poverty of the soil (which is the same barren red sandstone mentioned above), there is certainly not much cultivation done here or on the other side of the big river, where there is low-lying land behind the small range which immediately abuts on the river there. The jungle, too, is itself very thin and dwarfed. I hardly think laziness will account for this, for peaceful tending of rice crops would be far easier work than poling and struggling up Nam Oo rapids, which is the way the people get their rice at present, going right up into the hills for it. Some really beautiful silver-work is done, but fishing and killing pigs seem to be the chief industry. There is a breed of the finest-shaped and fiercest goats I have ever seen, which wander about the streets and hill, and give the pariah dogs a rough time; but I did not see that any other use was made of them.
The day we left, a letter arrived from the king in Bangkok, and was received in great state by the Chow Luang; it was carried in state down the road with gorgeous umbrellas above and flutes playing before. This was re the appointment of Phya Pechai as Commissioner—the last.
The minimum temperature for these three weeks[10] was 61° up the Nam Oo; the average minimum for ten days up that river, 64°; the average maximum in the deck-house of the boat, 85°. The lowest maximum for any day was 71°, but it was a "saft" day, with a solid deluge for thirty-six hours. (The Laos cannot work in the rain; they shiver to such an extent that the whole boat vibrates, so we spent a day sitting in the boats. In this case I had 3 feet 3 inches head-room, 2 feet 4 inches extreme elbow-room, the boat being only 45 feet long.)
The maximum in Luang Prabang I did not get, being there very little by day; the temperature in the jungle is much lower. Strong, hot winds from south-west and thick haze was the rule except before the storms, when the air became sultry, and then it blew a gale of wind from north-west to north. The rains were beginning. Aneroid, which was unreliable, 28.60 inches to 28.45 before squalls.
The first day out, going south from Luang Prabang, one of our double boats filled and sank, ruining maps, notes, and other things. We awaited the arrival of another at Pak Si, from whence one of our Laos boatmen had also to be sent back. He had apparently abscess in the liver; I could do nothing for him, and he sank rapidly. The stream Hoay Si, a few miles inland, comes tumbling over a fine fall, where a number of beautiful travertine terraces have been formed below, in which the pools are of intense blue. All the trees, branches, twigs, and leaves within reach of the foam are being encrusted with carbonate of lime, and the effect is very beautiful, with the luxuriant growth around.
Five days brought us to Paklai, whence the trail goes over to M. Pechai on the Meinam. The journey up takes a fortnight, for this long north and south reach is full of serious rapids. Two days and three days below Luang Prabang are the rapids of Keng Seng and Keng Luang. In the former, which tears over a rough bottom, my boat was completely swamped, but was kept afloat by her bamboos. The latter is a very fine sight, and is a narrow contraction, with a rough, inclined bottom; the water tumbles off the bluff domes of the east bank in cascades of foam, and from the west it is driven off in three hollow ridge-like waves. In the centre, at first quietly, and with accelerating pace goes the main mass, getting narrower, until with three huge undulations, which send a boat half her length out of water as she jumps down them, it tears into the embrace of the two raging, broken currents coming off the banks, and there it leaps and foams and thunders, echoing off the big black crystalline rocks from age to age. Many boats are lost here, and just below lay the battered remains of a fine craft of 65 feet, smashed from stem to stern. The Laos show considerable sense in always taking breakfast before they try one of these rapids, however early in the morning.
South of Keng Luang the river bed is narrow, and flows very fast among slate rocks, dipping very steeply (50°, 60°, and upwards), west for many miles, limestone hills lying back some way from the river. These long reaches are very wild, with no sign of man. Birds, crocodiles, and tigers, with occasional pig, "sua pah" or leopard, and deer reign and fight and feed along the jungled banks.
Above Paklai begin the first wooded islands, of which there are many below, and the whole river widens out and hills fall back. Here I was able to get soundings with a 20-fathom line, and above the fine limestone mass which distinguishes Ban Liep, we had 19, 17, 8, 6, 5, 3, and 2 fathoms as the river spread out; below it it narrowed down a bit, and we had over 10 fathoms most of the way to Paklai, with now and then 6 and 8. Paklai is a pretty little place, and is the official port of departure for the north. There are good salas and elephant stables, and a clearing by the river, a good landing in a creek among the rocks, and plenty of boats and people. But here for the first time we had the abominable little "luep," small black flies, which are a far more irritating torture than mosquitos, and attack one's hands and face by thousands. They are worst just about sunset as a rule, and smoke or a strong breeze are the only things to keep them away, and to sleep in a curtain of linen is absolutely necessary. The rains bring them and most other jungle plagues.
From here the river begins to turn away to the south-east, with quite a new phase of Mekong scenery—placid reaches half a mile wide, with gently sloping banks, the hills low and gentle in their curves, more like some upper reaches in the Meinam, or a bit of Thames. The change was delightful, as it always is, and continued for two days to Chieng Kan, with only one break at Keng Mai, a rapid over a shallow, shelving bank, where the water storms with a bar of white crests right across, like sea breaking on a reef. Decks were cleared and the hands set baling, and we all went through in style, but the cook's boat, which got the least bit athwart the current, was caught in the rough water, and swamped with our rice. The depths down to the town are 1, 2, up to 5 fathoms.
Chieng Kan is built along the southern bank (for here the river begins an east-north-east course), with a fine paddy-growing plain behind it, and is about a mile long, with an indifferent road passing along it. The most remarkable things about the place are the immense numbers of coconut palms, and the cheapness of the fruit;[11] the number of Burmese British subjects (who out of the kindness of their hearts supplied one with any amount of provisions); and the fact that the Laos women cut their hair short like the Siamese. The people are a friendly, pleasant race. A good deal of fishing is done here, and in poling the small craft up stream, a small rudder is used over the outside (in this case starboard) quarter to prevent the boat running round, as also at Luang Prabang and Nongkhai. These rudders are fixed, and do their work alone as a rule, but are sometimes in bigger boats fitted with a yoke and long bamboo tiller (as used together in Norwegian boats), the latter reaching to the fore deck. Sometimes in the evening, as the people lie tending their fish-baskets, the boats look, with their up-turned ends and small shelter (in which the man's clothes or his net, with its weights and buoys, may be put) which stands almost amidships, like a distant gondola.