AT LUANG PRABANG.
Luang Prabang, where Mouhot arrived on the 25th of July, is a pleasantly-situated town, occupying an area of one square mile, and containing a population of eight thousand. The mountains which, both above and below it, enclose the broad and copious Mekong, form at this point a kind of circular valley or amphitheatre, nine miles in diameter, and, with their woods, and luxuriant verdure, and lawny slopes, combine in a picturesque panorama, reminding one of the Alpine lakes.
The town extends on both banks of the stream, but chiefly on the left bank, where the houses surround an isolated mount about three hundred and fifty feet in height, covered by a pagoda.[*]
THE RIVER NAM KAN.
An important tributary of the Mekong, the Nam Kan, skirts on the east and north the little hill at the foot of which Luang Prabang is situated, and divides the latter into two unequal parts, the larger of which lies to the south of the point of confluence. The banks of this stream, for a considerable distance inland, are lined with an uninterrupted series of pagodas and great gardens, in the latter of which the betel-nut is cultivated, and peaches, plum-trees, and oleanders flourish: a sign that the traveller here enters a very temperate region, where the fruits and plants of Central Asia may be successfully cultivated.
In the southern district of the city is placed the palace of the king, an enormous aggregate of huts, enclosed by a high and strong palisade, and forming a rectangle, one side of which is contiguous to the base of the central mount. As this sacred hillock is there almost perpendicular, the ascent to its pagoda-crowned summit is effected by a flight of several hundred steps excavated in the rock. A daily and excessively animated market is held under some sheds situated near the junction of the Nam Kan and the Mekong; but they are insufficient to accommodate all the vendors, and open booths, stalls, or shops are prolonged for upwards of half a mile in a wide street parallel to the river.
COMMERCIAL LIFE AT LUANG PRABANG.
M. Garnier remarks that this was the first market, in the European sense of the word, which he had seen since leaving Pnom Penh. This sudden activity, he adds, and comparatively considerable commerce, to judge from the numerous and diverse types which at Luang Prabang represented all the nations of Indo-China and India, were obviously due less to a change of race or increased product of the soil than to a radical difference of government. The countries of Southern Laos, in their era of independence, had been celebrated for their wealth and commercial enterprise; but Siamese tyranny and monopoly have blighted their prosperity. If life be reviving at Luang Prabang, it is because the Siamese court have awakened to a perception of the fact that a milder rule was essential for so powerful a province.
HISTORICAL NOTES.
The foundation of Luang Prabang appears to date only from the early part of the eighteenth century. No reference to it occurs in the careful account of Siam compiled by the Jesuit missionary La Loubère in 1687-88. Its distance from the theatre of the wars which desolated Indo-China in the eighteenth century, greatly contributed to assure its prosperity, and was probably one of the principal causes which led to its foundation. Its government skilfully contrived to obtain the nominal protection of China, by sending an envoy once every eight years with a couple of elephants, as a sign of homage; and it has secured the goodwill of the Annamite empire, by consenting to pay a small triennial tribute. The mountainous country to be traversed before an army can reach Luang Prabang, and the energy which its population owes to the admixture of numerous savage and warlike tribes inhabiting the borders of Tonquin and Laos, invest this province with exceptional means for resisting aggression on the part of Siam.