The Yaks of Indo-China are close kin to the giants in our nursery tales, and the Buddhist stories relating to them and other mythical beings would compare well with our own nursery tales. To show what fearful beings they are, I take the following story from ‘Nontuk Pakaranam,’ the translation of which appeared in the ‘Siam Repository’ for 1873:— STORY OF A YAK. [Illustration: _A Siamese king._ ] “Aupata Racha Tirat, a son of royalty, went forth to conquer a kingdom. He had four servants to accompany him. A Yak, taking the form of a beautiful woman, beset his path. She enticed the servants one by one to leave their master, and ate them. She purposed to entrap the royal heir, but failed. She then went on before to the royal city, found favour in the sight of the king, and killed and ate all the people in the palace—ladies, nobility, and the king himself. The people saw the bones, and came together to see whence came all this desolation. The king’s son came forward and told the story how the Yak ate his servants and wished to eat him, but was not allowed. The king had been taken with her beauty, and so lost his life and the lives of all who had died with him. They took Aupata Racha Tirat and made him king.” The ridge bordering the Bau plateau on the north-east continues at the same level for three miles, gradually turning into a great spur. The path which we descended follows a broad plateau sloping gradually down alongside the north slope of the spur, and bordered by the valley of the Huay Sai, which lies between it and Loi Kom. Descending rapidly for the first fifty feet, with granite outcropping on both sides, we crossed the Huay Pa-lat, a small stream five feet broad and one foot deep, flowing in a granite bed. The slope then became easy, but granite masses were still exposed. Continuing through the pine-forest, we crossed two small brooks, the first flowing over a bed of white granite, and the latter dry. The pine and other trees here commenced to be moss-laden, and _zi_, cotton, and evergreen trees began to appear in the forest. Reaching Pang Eemoon, a swampy shallow valley, we halted for the night. Our camp, 142 miles from Hlineboay, lay 2685 feet above sea-level. The temperature at 5 P.M. was 78°, and at 6 A.M. 45½°, or considerably higher than on the other side of the table-land. Near the camp are the ruins of an old pagoda, and a small stream flowing over a tough rock, which is used by the people for making hones to sharpen their knives and weapons. Still following the sloping plateau, I noticed that pine ceased to be seen in the forest at the point, a mile from the camp, where the plateau commences to throw off spurs on either side, and a steep descent amongst outcrops of granite and boulders begins. The top of the descent lies 2545 feet above the sea.