It is possibly harvest-time; in the fields the reapers are among their crops. Some of the plains are covered with tall grass ten feet high. There are perhaps burnt patches or a spark has just started a fire, and the flames, swept on by the wind, are roaring, crackling and sending up dense columns of smoke in their wake. As we pass under the overarching branches of trees in the forest our elephant keeps an eye the while ahead, and when some lower limb would strike the howdah he halts, raises his trunk and breaks it off. We toil up and over the watershed and down a steep bank to the river’s brink through the tall grass and bamboos, our beast sometimes sliding on his haunches, then bracing and feeling the way with his trunk, or plunging into the soft ooze of the river, wading through water so deep that nothing but the howdah and elephant’s head and trunk appear above the surface, and then climbing with slow but sure steps up a bank at least forty-five degrees steep. Overtaken at night away from a town, we encamp under the trees. Our attendants make an enclosure with the cart and branches of trees, placing the cattle inside. We cook and eat our evening meal, making a great fire and boiling the coffee and rice over the bright coals. Our bivouac is underneath the stars on branches piled high above the malarious surface of the ground. The natives watch in turn, keeping up the fire to drive off wild beasts. Elephants prowl in droves outside the enclosure and cries of jackals disturb our dreams. Possibly in the morning tiger-tracks are pointed out to us. On the higher waters of the Sesupon River, running south to the lake, are the first traces of the ancient Cambodian civilization in the shape of a ruined shrine buried beneath overgrown jungle; other ruins are found in more than forty different localities up to the confines of China. Diverging to the north-east, evening finds us sheltered in a sala near the quaint old town of Panomsok. To the north are the first altitudes of the upland steppes of Laos. After such toilsome days and nights of exposure, crossing some sunny eminences and ancient stone bridges, we finally reach Siamrap, situated on a small stream about ten miles from the head of Thalay Sap. It is a walled city, the teakwood gates thickly studded with large iron nails, the gateways surmounted by curious pointed towers. Houses similar to those of the middle class in Bangkok, the court-house and governor’s residence, are the only substantial buildings. Extensive, straggling suburbs extend southward for several miles on either bank of the river. The province has from eight to ten thousand inhabitants, all Cambodians. Dr. McFarland reports: “We found but two or three persons who understood the Siamese language. The governor was a rather intelligent young Cambodian who had been educated at Bangkok, and of course spoke Siamese. He was pleasant, affable and very fond of foreigners.”