In the month of June, the mountain snows begin to melt, the deluging rains of the wet season set in, the strong southerly winds dam up the waters of the Mèinam, and it begins to rise,--an event most eagerly looked for by the people, and hailed by them as a blessing from Heaven. In August the inundation is at its height, and the whole vast valley is like one immense sea, in which towns and villages look like islands, connected by drawbridges, and interspersed with groves and orchards, the tops of which only are seen, while boats pass to and fro without injury to the rice and other crops starting beneath them. The whole valley is intersected by canals, some of great size and extent, in order to distribute as far as possible the benefits of this grand operation of nature; but the lands situated about the middle of the great plain derive the greatest advantage therefrom. When the inundation is supposed to have reached its height, a deputation of Talapoins, or priests, sent by the king, descend the river in magnificent state barges, and with chants and incantations and movements of magical wands command the waters to retire. Sometimes, however, the calculations prove to have been incorrect, the river continues to rise, and it is they who are compelled to retire, filled with chagrin and disappointment. The popular river festival, which takes place after the waters begin to subside, both in origin and character belongs to the Hindoos, rather than to the Buddhists. It is an annual festival held at night, and the scene which is exhibited during its celebration is exceedingly beautiful. The banks of the Mèinam are brilliantly lighted up; accompanied and announced by numerous flights of rockets, a number of floating palaces, built on rafts, come sailing down the stream, preceded by thousands of lamps and lanterns wreathed with chaplets of flowers, which cover with their gay brilliancy the entire surface of the flashing water. The rafts, which are formed of young plantain-trees fastened together, are often of considerable extent, and the structures which they bear are such as Titania herself might delight to inhabit. Towers, gates, arches, and pagodas rise in fantastic array, bright with a thousand colors, and shining in the light of numberless cressets,--so the fairy-like spectacle moves on, while admiring crowds of men, women, and children throng the banks of the river, not only to join the brilliant pageant, but to watch their own frail little bark, freighted, perchance, with a single lamp, yet full of life's brightest hopes, as it floats unextinguished down the rapid stream, glimmering on with ruddy flame amidst the shadows of night.