But it would be a hard heart that could follow unmoved that long, weary homeward trip of the dying Prince. He was so weak that he could not endure the jarring caused by the use of the setting-poles. His boat had to be taken in tow of another. When the last lingering hope of life died out, his one desire was to reach home—to die in his own palace. The trip through the rapids he could not bear, and it was too slow for the dying man. Travel by elephant is both rough and slow. He is brought ashore, therefore, and borne on a litter as swiftly as relays of men can carry him. Over the mountains and up the valley of the Mê Ping, under burning sun and through driving rain, they hasten. At last, on the evening of June 28th, they halt on the left bank of the Mê Ping, with only that stream between him and his own country. “What land is this?” he asks. “Lampūn,” is the reply. “Carry me across quickly!” He is obeyed, but sinks exhausted by the fatigue of crossing. He passes a restless night. His mind wanders. He dreams of being at home; of worshipping in his own palace. The morning comes. He is still alive; but so weak that, in spite of his eagerness to hasten on, at every few paces his bearers must halt, while attendants fan him or administer a cordial. At last fan and cordials fail. The litter is set down under the two golden umbrellas that screen it from the burning rays of the sun. The little group stand with bowed heads and hushed hearts while the spirit takes its flight, to appear before its Maker.—Almost, but not quite home, and with none of his immediate kin by him to see the end! The attendants cover the body with a cloth, and hasten on to the next station, a few miles below the city. The procession halted there at about the very time that the messenger reached Chiengmai with the news that he was dead. Such, as I learned next day from the attending prince, were the last hours of His Highness Chao Kāwilōrot Suriyawong, Prince of Chiengmai. He died at ten o’clock in the morning of June 29th, 1870, in the seventieth year of his age, and in the sixteenth of his reign. Next morning before breakfast I was sent for by the younger daughter of the Prince, to go to the residence of the nephew, whom I had left late in the evening before in such a distracted state of mind. How shocked was I on entering to find the prince cold and dead! The Princess wished to get my judgment whether he was really dead beyond all hope of resuscitation. But it required no skilled physician to answer that question. He had evidently died by a dose of opium administered by his own hands. The little cup from which it was taken was still by his bedside. Whether it was intentional suicide to escape the lawsuits of his deceased master, or was simply designed to ease the mental troubles of that night, they could tell as well as I. In either case, he slept the sleep that knows no waking till the summons of the last trump.