I did not get off on a long tour that season, being unable to secure an elephant. It was better so, however, for early in May Dr. Cheek went to Bangkok to consult a physician, and went on thence as far as Hongkong. It was April 30th of the next year before he got back to Chiengmai. And the season proved to be one of the most unhealthy in the history of the mission. Worst of all, we had only six bottles of quinine to begin the season with. There was a rush for the quinine, and it seemed cruel to withhold it so long as any was left. The fever was of a violent type, and often fatal. Native doctors were helpless before the scourge. On looking about me for a substitute for quinine, I found that arsenic was the next best remedy, and that Fowler’s Solution was the best form for administering it. But we had not a drop of the solution. We had, however, a bottle of arsenious acid, and a United States Dispensatory, so that I had to become pharmacist as well as doctor. I had all the ingredients save one, an unessential colouring matter. So I made it up by the quart. But it was not a medicine to be trusted in native hands. They were accustomed to take their own medicine by the potful, and had the theory that if a little is good, a great deal would be better. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ XVII THE RESIDENT COMMISSIONER In this same year, 1877, there occurred an event of utmost importance to the mission and to the whole country. We have seen that, up to the death of Prince Kāwilōrot, those Lāo provinces which are now a part of Siam had been virtually free states. The Siamese yoke had been very easy. They had never been conquered in war. Their original association with Siam had been a voluntary one, in order to escape the oppressive rule of Burma. Their location and their weakness made it a necessity that they should look to one of these rival kingdoms for protection against the other. At the same time, they added both dignity and strength to the one on which they leaned—they served it as a buffer against the other. Nature had connected the Lāo country more intimately with Siam. All its communication with the sea was through the Mênam Chao Prayā and its tributaries, while a range of lofty mountains separated it from Burma. In race and language too, they were Siamese, and not Burmese.