Leaving a little before seven the next morning, and turning east, we ascended the narrow valley of the Meh Hkort, and the following morning reached the crest of the pass. The incline of the valley had been easy throughout, and the deep shade of the forest had made the journey from Luong Hkort very pleasant. The water-parting which separates the streams draining into the Meh Ping from those flowing to the Meh Kong, was 276 miles from Hlineboay and 4235 feet above the sea. The rise in the fifteen miles from the village had been 2656 feet. This was the highest point reached by me upon any of my journeys. The thermometer at 10.15 A.M. read 71°, or 9° less than it had been at the same time at Muang Doo. Following the Meh Chay Dee down-stream, we reached a halting-space, and found the place so pretty and the flowers of the bauhinea-trees in its neighbourhood so fragrant, that we settled to spend the next day, Sunday, there. We had descended 1003 feet in six miles from the crest of the pass, and I was astonished to find teak-trees interspersed through the forest at a height of 3089 feet above the sea. [Illustration: _A ta-lay-ow._ ] I noticed that the elephant-drivers placed _ta-lay-ows_, or small pieces of lattice-work, on tall sticks stuck in the ground, on the paths leading to and from the camp; and on inquiry, I learned that they were intended to entangle any evil spirits that might wish to injure our party. The Shans consider such precautions fully sufficient to ward off their malignant foes. The spirits, in their opinion, have as little intelligence as the birds of the air, and any scarecrow device will keep them at a distance. You cannot send a man alone even with a letter, because a Zimmé Shan will not travel without a companion; and on our asking the reason, we were told that ill would certainly come to the man who drew the water if he likewise made the fire. It gave one quite an eerie feeling to be with a people who believed the land to be full “Of calling shapes, and beck’ning shadows dire, And airy tongues, that syllable men’s names On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses.”[2] Another device that one notices at the cattle-camps is an array of pegs rising about eighteen inches from the ground, joined together by a creeper, or a cane if it be handy, and enclosing the space within which the cattle are tethered. The people believe that tigers, trying to steal into the camp, come with their breasts against the cane, and finding it yield, retreat for fear that it may be a trap. Travellers shun camps that have been used for cattle, as they are generally infested with gadflies and other disagreeable insects.