In the northern states the land is higher; and considerable portions of it, being above inundation, are directly dependent upon the seasonal and local rains. But with a population by no means dense, this very diversity of the cultivated areas is a source of safety. A season of heavy rainfall which drowns the lowland rice, is apt to prove exceptionally good for the uplands. And, on the other hand, a season of light rainfall, which cuts short the upland crop, is apt to be a good season for the flooded areas. And in considerable sections of the country there is the chance that a second crop in the same season may make good the loss of the first. There is a further security also in the fact that, until communication with the coast becomes such as to make exportation profitable, the excess of fruitful years remains unconsumed in the country, to supply the need of less fruitful ones. It thus comes about that scarcity amounting to a real famine cannot result from the failure of crops in any single year. It requires two consecutive failures to produce extensive suffering among the very poor, and three to result in a real famine. This last, however, was the case in 1892. In 1890 there was a light crop throughout the land, with less excess than usual to be stored. In 1891 the crop was lighter still. In the eastern provinces, particularly in Lakawn and Prê, there was very little rice to be reaped. Famine conditions began there long before the time for harvest. People were scattering off in squads or by families into Chiengmai and the northern provinces, begging a daily morsel. They were poverty-stricken as well as famishing. The distress led the brethren in Lakawn to make an appeal to friends in the United States for a famine fund. Quite a liberal response, amounting to several thousand dollars, was made to this call, largely by the friends of the Lāo mission. The relief was almost as timely for the missionaries as it was for the famishing people. Otherwise they scarcely could have lived through the long strain on their nerves and sympathies caused by the constant sight of sufferings which they could not even in part relieve. The province of Chiengmai could have met its own needs until the new crop came in, had it not been for the constant draft upon its reserves to meet the demands of Lakawn and Prê. But, between high prices offered and pity for the less fortunate, those reserves were steadily drained away, until, during the latter months of the year, famine was upon us in Chiengmai, too. Bands of men from destitute villages, maddened by hunger and unable to buy food, began to roam about the country by night, or, sometimes, by day, and seize rice wherever any little remnant of it could be found. The authorities were powerless to restrain them or to keep order. The condition of the more destitute provinces can better be imagined than described.