“Inside was a lofty cavern lighted by a natural skylight. On a raised platform in the cave was a great reclining image of Buddha some thirty feet long, and around it a number of figures representing his disciples. Numerous small wooden and stone images of Buddha had been placed by pious pilgrims about the platforms. Pillows, mattresses, robes, yellow drapery, flags, water-bottles, rice-bowls, fans, dolls, images of temples, doll’s houses for the spirits, and all sorts of trumpery, were lying together with fresh and faded flowers that had been offered to the images, and were strewn in front of them. A steep ladder led up to niches near the roof of the cave, in which images were enshrined. “My companions, full of ardor, determined to explore the inner recesses of the cave, and accordingly lighted their torches and proceeded further into the bowels of the earth, whilst I enjoyed a quiet smoke amongst the gods. Down they went, creeping through low, narrow passages, over rocks, and along ledges, with chasms and pits lining their path as the cave expanded—bottomless as far as they could judge by the faint light of their torches, but really not more than twenty or thirty feet deep—until they could get no further, and had to return, having proceeded about the eighth of a mile.” That night brought us to the Mê Fāng River. The narrative proceeds: “Here we spent the most unpleasant night we had yet spent, as we were troubled with rain, heat, and mosquitoes. We were told that game was plentiful. Wild cattle larger than buffaloes come in droves from the hills to graze in the plain, while the rhinoceros and the elephant roam about the plains. “At our next stopping-place, after we had settled ourselves in an empty house, a villager came to inform us that the house belonged to the Chief of Mûang Fāng, and that anybody that slept in it would have his head cut off. As rain was threatening, we determined to risk the penalty, and we were soon glad that we had done so, as the rain poured down in torrents.” There is a small deer called tamnê, which twenty years ago was very abundant in all the northern provinces. They are not found in the very tall grass of the river-bottoms, but in grass about waist-high thickly covering the higher plains. They have their beds in this grass by day, and graze at night. They are lower than the grass, and never leap so as to show the body, but glide smoothly along as if swimming, discovering their presence only through the parting and waving of the grass. Sometimes you get right upon them before they will run.