The hunter gave me a good deal of information about the country, and indicated the position of the sources of the various rivers. He said he would gladly take my companions the following day to a place in the hills where game was plentiful, if Dr M‘Gilvary would arrange with the governor—who would be back later in the afternoon—for beaters. On my noticing that several of the men wore pieces of cotton-thread tied round their wrists, Dr M‘Gilvary told me that it was a bond of friendship showing that the wearer was a sworn companion to another man. It is the custom in many parts of Indo-China for men to enter into these solemn friendships. It exists in Cambodia, and likewise amongst the Karens and other people. Amongst the Koui, in Cambodia, the ceremony is performed before the village elders. Five taper candles and five sticks of incense are lighted to call the spirits to witness the act; cotton-threads are wound about the wrists of the young men to produce a mystical tie between them. Holy water is then imbibed by each of the oath-takers, and the ceremony is concluded. In Forbes’s ‘British Burma’ he gives an account of this ceremony amongst the Karens, which runs as follows: “There exists a singular institution of brotherhood among them, and to a certain extent among the Burmans, although I believe the latter have borrowed it from their wilder neighbours. When two Karens wish to become brothers, one kills a fowl, cutting off its beak, and rubs the blood on the front of the other’s legs, sticking on them some of the feathers. The augury of the fowl’s bones is then consulted, and, if favourable, the same ceremony is repeated by the other party; if the omens are still auspicious they say, ‘We will be brothers—we will grow old together—we will visit each other.’” The practice of passing merit and mystical influence by the means of thread from one person to another seems to be of Brahmin origin, and enters into many ceremonies in Siam. In describing the ceremony of the first hair-cutting, Dr House says: “The ceremonies begin with the priests (monks) chanting in chorus their prayers, seated cross-legged on mats on an elevated platform, a thread of white cotton yarn passing from their hands around the clasped hands of the kneeling child and back to them again, serving as a sort of electric conductor to the child of the benefits their prayers evoke.” Amongst the Lao branch of the Shans, the passing of cotton round the wrists forms the sole marriage ceremony.