When the harvest has been gathered in the Stiêns commence a series of festivities. The rice having been piled up in oblong stacks, they take from these every morning as much as suffices for the day’s consumption. One community sends invitations to another, and the inhabitants of a wealthy village will often kill as many as ten oxen for the entertainment; all must be consumed before they separate, and day and night they eat and drink to the accompaniment of the Chinese tam-tam and tambourine. This excess, after a long period of privation, brings on illness, commonly the itch and other cutaneous disorders. Much of this, however, also proceeds from the want of salt, which they cannot always procure. For all internal complaints, the general remedy here, as in Cambodia, is an iron heated in the fire and applied to the pit of the stomach, and there are few men without scars on this part of the body. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. They are acquainted with many of the remedies drawn from simples; they never cover up a wound or sore, but leave it exposed to the air and sun, and it generally heals. They appear to be exempt from leprosy, so common among the Chinese; but then they are very cleanly, and bathe in all weathers, often three times a day. The Stiêns have no resemblance to either the Cambodian or Annamite races; like the last, however, they wear the hair long, twisted up, and fastened by a bamboo comb, in which is often inserted, for ornament, a piece of brass wire surmounted by the crest of a pheasant. They are usually above the middle height, are well proportioned and robust; their features are regular, and the thick eyebrows and beard of the men, when they do not pull out the hair from the face, give them a grave appearance. The forehead is well developed, and announces an intelligence much beyond that of the Annamites. Their manners are hospitable, and a stranger is always certain of being well received and feasted. They either kill a pig or fowl, and offer you wine, which is not drunk out of any sort of vessel, but sucked, through a bamboo cane, from a large jar; it is made from rice, fermented, but rarely distilled. To refuse a pipe when offered is considered a great rudeness, which more than one savage has paid for by a knife-thrust. It is also etiquette to eat the whole of the food set before you. Their only dress is the long scarf I have already mentioned, and which, when worn, appears only about two inches wide. I often surprised them quite naked in their cabins; but on perceiving me they always covered themselves. The greatest liberty is allowed to slaves, and corporal punishment is never inflicted on any one. For theft, a forfeit is exacted of a pig or ox, and several jars of wine, of which the whole village partake. If the fine be not paid, it rapidly increases in amount; the offender is soon in debt to the community for fifteen or twenty buffaloes, and finally he is sold as a slave. SUPERSTITIONS.