After eleven days from home we arrived at Cheung Rai. This is a small city of three hundred houses, population between two and three thousand. It is in the province of Cheung Mai, and its chief officers receive their appointment from the chief or king of this place. It is situated on the banks of the Ma-Kok, fifty or sixty miles from where that river joins the Ma-Kawng (or Cambodia) River. The large plain outside of the walls of the city is but thinly populated. The people are mostly fishermen. Only a small portion of the surrounding country is under cultivation, hence there are but few villages in its vicinity. Here we dismissed our elephants, and by noon on the following day had completed our preparations for the river-journey. During our delay there Mr. McGilvary was occupied with the numbers of people who visited us at our sala, preaching the gospel, distributing from our supply of Siamese books to those who could read, and gathering information concerning the country. We set out again as soon as our boat and men were ready. Our passage down the Ma-Kok to the Cambodia River occupied two days, during which time we passed four or five small villages of twenty or thirty houses each. These were near to Cheung Rai, within three hours’ journey of it. We spent our Sabbath on a sandy bank of this river, as we did the preceding one, many miles away from human habitations. In the morning we discovered tracks of a large tiger near our boat. These fierce brutes are quite numerous throughout the country. For mutual protection against their attacks, and the more dreaded depredations of robbers, nearly all the people of this country reside in villages or congregate in larger numbers in cities. The Kamoos, a mountain-tribe of people, inhabitants of this country at an earlier period than the Laos, form an exception to this rule. More about them hereafter. Near the mouth of the Ma-Kok is a mountain by the Laos called Doi-Prabat-Rua, or “sacred feet and boat.” It is considered a holy place, and many pilgrims go thither seeking to make merit. It does not have, like the mountain of a similar name in Siam, an impression of a foot in its rock. Its object of veneration is an unfinished stone boat. The legend of the people is that Gotama Buddha commenced to hew out of the solid rock a boat which was to be about thirty feet in length. It was left when about half finished, and remains an object of superstitious veneration, if not of worship. Few if any Laos will pass it without fervently raising the folded hands toward it and murmuring a prayer.