Our intention had been to proceed from the guard-station down the Thoungyeen to its junction with the Meh Nium, and up the latter river to Maing Loongyee; but on inquiry we learnt that such a route was utterly impracticable. The numerous rapids in both rivers rendered them impassable for boats, and even for canoes. Neither elephants nor men could follow the banks, as the rivers passed through great gorges—the cliffs from both sides rising from their beds. We had therefore to turn eastwards, and following branch valleys and spurs, cross the Karroway Toung, or Parrot’s Hill, into the valley of the Meh Ngor, which enters the Meh Nium above the defiles, through which it escapes from the hills. A large amount of teak timber has for many years been taken from the forests in the Thoungyeen valley. The Siamese had lately raised the tax from five to six rupees a log: their revenue in 1884 from this source amounted to upwards of two lakhs of rupees. Two hundred and sixty elephants were at work in the forests, which, like other forests in Siam, Karenni, and the Shan States, are worked by our Maulmain Burmese foresters. There is a large sale amongst the foresters of tinned milk, salmon, sardines, butter, and biscuits—all coming from Maulmain. The Kamooks and Kamaits, who attend to the elephants and fell the timber, belong to the dwarf races of Indo-China, and are brought by their masters from their homes in the neighbourhood of Luang Prabang, and hired to our foresters at from sixty to a hundred rupees a year; each master keeping twenty-five rupees or more out of each year’s salary, and the foresters find the men with food. The Khas, who include the Kamooks and Kamaits, are doubtless the aborigines of the country lying between the Meh Kong or Cambodia river, and the Annam and Tonquin seaboard. They are supposed to have been ousted from the plains and driven into the hills by hordes of Laos, an eastern branch of the Shans, migrating from Tonquin when it was conquered by the Chinese about B.C. 110. According to the American missionaries who have visited Luang Prabang, the Khas are harmless and honest but ignorant, and despised by their Laos masters. Their villages are erected within stockades, on the summits of the mountains. The majority, however, live in isolated houses, which with their clearings stand out in bold relief against the sky. They cultivate rice, cotton, tobacco, vegetables, fruit, and betel-nut trees; collect stick-lac from the _pouk_ and _zi_ trees, and gold from the torrent-beds; and prepare cutch for chewing with the leaf of the seri vine, betel-nut, and lime. They are likewise great cattle-breeders, and many of the fine buffaloes met with in Burmah have been brought from Luang Prabang.