costume a wooden board across the shoulders, so made as to fit into the neck; and to this is suspended the basket containing the load. In front the board is kept in its place by cords, which are attached to the waist-belt or held in the hand. [Illustration: FOREST ROAD NEAR MUONG LIM.] * * * * * ~PLEASANT TRAVEL.~ Having obtained the necessary authorization to push their researches further, the adventurers set out from Muong Lim on the 1st of July, with an escort of natives carrying their instruments, provisions, and stores. At Puleo, finding the demands of the porters more than their limited funds could afford to meet, they reduced their baggage to the smallest possible proportions, and were thus enabled to dispense with the services of some of their attendants. They found the banks of the Cambodia frequented by numerous caimans, whose eggs are collected and eaten by the inhabitants. By day the journey was rendered pleasant through the constant succession of novel scenes. They made their way over a hilly and richly-wooded country, occasionally coming upon cotton plantations of exceeding richness; at other times upon delicious rills of crystal which spread their silver network over a fresh green expanse of flower-enamelled sward. Then they crossed a stretch of fertile rice-fields; and again they plunged into fresh glades, where a path wound in and out of clumps of palms and tropical trees, and waving ferns and rare flowering shrubs grew in luxuriant masses. But sometimes, at night, their experience was rather painful. They generally constructed a rude shelter of boughs and interwoven leaves; but this was often insufficient to protect them against the heavy rains that fell during passing storms, and was useless, of course, as a defence against the legions of leeches and mosquitoes which haunted the forest-depths. ~HOT WELLS DISCOVERED.~ After leaving a place called Siem-lap, they arrived on the borders of a half-dried torrent, the rocky bed of which was strangely bare of vegetation. The stones, among which a thin thread of water found its way, were a curious appearance; they were white, and covered with saline incrustations. The travellers tasted the water; it was warm. The three or four sources of this singular stream rose, a short distance off, at the foot of a wall of rocks: as they escaped among the shingle they exhaled a cloud of vapour, and their temperature was shown by the thermometer to be not less than 154° F. [Illustration: A NIGHT HALT NEAR SIEM-LAP.] Through a beautiful ravine they made their way to the picturesque village of Sop Yong. The richest and most magnificent vegetation imaginable grew close to the very edge of the river, and the travellers were frequently compelled to take to its waters, swollen as they were by the constant rains, and breast as best they could the violence of the current. [Illustration: TRAVELLING IN A RAVINE NEAR SOP YONG.] ~A SIGN OF CIVILIZATION.~