After breakfast we started again, and passing the Ta Pa, or “rock-ferry,” named from the conglomerate and sandstone formation that outcrop in the banks, we reached Ban Meh Soi, in which was situated the first monastery we had seen since leaving Muang Haut. Over the water was a neat thatched-roofed building 12 feet long and 9 feet broad, with wooden posts, the sides planked for 3 feet in height, and a bamboo floor raised 3 or 4 feet above the top of the bank, with which it was connected by a foot-bridge. This little summer-house had been built for the use of the _Phra_, or abbot, when repeating at the time of full and new moon the ritual appointed for cleansing himself from his sins. From the village we saw the high plateau or great table-topped hill from which Loi Hsope Kang springs; the crest, which extended for some miles, was peakless and as flat as a board. Two miles farther we passed two islands situated in a deep reach of the river called Wung Hoo-a Kwai, “the pool of the buffalo’s head.” Thence for five miles to the place where we halted for the night there was not a vestige of a habitation or a garden seen from the river. If there were any in the vicinity, they were effectually screened by the fringes of bamboos which lined the banks. Leaving early the next morning, we noticed a low range of hills four miles to the south-east, and soon afterwards passed the end of a low, straight, and level spur from this range looking like a great embankment, and known as Loi Ta Khan Lai, “the hill of the passage of the hundred steps.” Two miles farther, we reached Ban Nong Long, “the village of the lake of monk’s coffin.” This village formed the refuge of Phya Cha Ban, the chief of Zimmé, when he fled from the Burmese in 1777. From Ban Nong Long northwards the country becomes more populous. After passing the mouth of the Meh Kang, where a large caravan of laden Shans was crossing the river, we halted at a suburb of Wung Pan for breakfast. Here we noticed a simple press for extracting sugar from the sugar-cane. It was driven by a buffalo yoked to a long bamboo lever, which worked a central wooden shaft, which had part of its length cogged, and its lower portion smooth but notched with grooves. The cogs worked into two similar cogged shafts. The three shafts fitted into an upright frame, thus completing the press. The syrup is boiled in pans 2 feet 9 inches broad and 6 inches deep, set in holes on inclined ground, fuel being fed under them through short tunnels, and the flues consist of shorter ones with their exit up-hill. The buffalo being scared by the sight of two invaders of his country, had to be replaced by two men, a woman, and a boy whilst I sketched the machine. Leaving Wung Pan, we proceeded through several straggling villages and reached the southern mouth of the Meh Li, which enters from the east.