Leaving Penyow the next morning about seven o’clock, we crossed the Meh Ing, which runs near the south gate of the city. The bed of the river at our ford was saucer-shaped, 80 feet wide, and 5 feet deep in the centre, and contained 1 foot of water, which was covered with a thick yellow slime, that emitted an unpleasant odour. After passing a great clump of rose-bushes, bearing ordinary tea-roses, we entered a plain covered with elephant grass and bamboo jungle, which is inundated to a depth of 5 or 6 feet in the rains. Three-quarters of a mile from the city we left the low ground, and crossing the Meh Hong Sai, the brook of clear water, entered the rice-plain of Ban Meh Sai. This village is inhabited by people who have been turned out of other places in the district, under the accusation of witchcraft. Near the village we noticed many padouk and pyngado logs, which had been dragged there for the purpose of building a temple and monastery. Beyond the fields we entered a bamboo jungle, through which our elephants had to force their way by breaking down the bamboos and small trees, and snapping off such branches and twigs as would interfere with the howdah. It is surprising how docile these great animals are, and how sagaciously they obey the orders given them by their drivers. We halted for breakfast at a house that had been built for us in the pretty village of Meh Hong Khum, which is situated on a stream of the same name. After breakfast, we visited the temple and monastery, where we found the priests busy making rockets for the approaching eclipse, and then continued through the forest to the village of Ban So. Thence proceeding through a slightly rolling country, where several small streams take their rise, we camped for the night under the shade of a great kanyin tree, near the Meh Na Poi, which enters the Meh Ing. We had risen 350 feet in 12 miles since leaving Penyow. The kanyin (or oil-tree), under which we erected our tent, had it been on an affluent of the Meh Nam, might have been chosen for one of the main posts of a Pramene, or Royal Siamese cremation temple. When a king of Siam dies, his successor immediately begins making preparations for the construction of a Pramene, a splendid temporary building, under which the body, after sitting in state for several days on a throne glittering with silver, gold, and precious stones, is committed to the flames. The late Dr Bradley thus described the erection of the posts in one of these buildings:—