Drawn by M. Bocourt, from a Sketch by M. Mouhot.
BIVOUAC OF M. MOUHOT IN THE FORESTS OF LAOS.
The monkeys and hornbills began to be heard again, and I killed several pheasants and peacocks, and an eagle, on which our guides feasted. Beyond these mountains the soil becomes sandy again and vegetation scanty. We encamped once more on the banks of the river of Korat, 300 metres from a village dignified by the name of chief town of the district.
The last range of hills which we crossed still displays itself like a sombre rampart, above which tower the dome-like and pyramidal summits of others farther in the distance.
Our guides are all Laotians from the neighbourhood of Korat, and their leader is unremitting in his care and attention towards me. Every evening he prepares my place for the night, levelling the ground and cutting down branches which he covers with leaves, and I am thus raised from the earth and protected from the dew. These guides lead a hard life, tramping in all seasons along these wretched roads, having scarcely time, morning and evening, to swallow a little rice, and having but little sleep at nights, tormented by ants, and exposed to the attacks of robbers, against whom they have constantly to be on their guard.
PROVINCE OF KORAT.
Every day we met one or two caravans of from eighty to a hundred oxen, laden with stag and panther skins, raw silk from Laos, langoutis of cotton and silk, peacocks’ tails, ivory, elephants’ bones, and sugar; but this latter article is scarce.
The country presented much the same kind of aspect for four days after leaving the forest. We passed through several considerable villages, in one of which, Sikiéou, are kept six hundred oxen belonging to the king. The journey from Keng-Koë to Korat occupied ten days. The Chinese quarter of this latter town contains sixty or seventy houses, built with bricks dried in the sun, and surrounded by palisades nine feet high, and as strong as those of a rampart.
TOWN OF KORAT.
These precautions are very necessary, for Korat is a nest of robbers and assassins, the resort of all the scum of the Laotian and Siamese races. Bandits and vagrants, escaped from slavery or from prison, gather here like the vultures and wolves which follow armies and caravans. It is not that they enjoy complete immunity, for the governor, son of Bodine, the general who conquered Battambong and the revolted provinces, is viceroy of the state, has absolute power of life and death, and is, they say, very severe, cutting off a head or a hand with little compunction. But still it is Siamese justice, “non inviola:” there are neither gendarmes nor police; the person robbed must himself arrest the offender and bring him before the judge. Even his neighbour will give no assistance in the capture.