The heat is greater here than any I have felt; when the sun shines, and there has been no rain for several days, I find it worse than at Bangkok; still the nights are generally pleasant, and from the month of December to the end of March I am told that it is really cold. TO M. CHARLES MOUHOT. Louang Prabang, West Laos, 27th July, 1861. As you will have the opportunity, my dear brother, of reading my other letters, I shall not write to you at length; but, nevertheless, I must give you some details as to my journey to Laos, although I cannot tell whether the crowd of curious gazers around me will permit me to write as I would wish; if not, you must blame them and not me. On the 10th April I wrote you from Korat, and I think you must also have received a message which I sent to you by a good and honest Chinese, who has been very useful to me, and from whom I have received more help and kindness than from any other of the mandarins. I was not then in good spirits, for I doubted whether I should be able to accomplish the journey for which I had already suffered so many annoyances, one of which was having to return to Korat to procure more useful letters than those which I had taken with me on starting. At last I obtained one from the Viceroy of Korat, which was the only one of service to me, and which sufficed to secure me aid and protection during my whole journey to Laos. From Korat to Bangkok you know that I travelled in company with an animal who has a title equal to that of the greatest Siamese mandarin, and who was served by two inferior mandarins, who gave him his meals composed of cakes, biscuits, and sweetmeats out of golden dishes; and who had slaves sent before him to clear the way and cut down the brushwood and branches, for this elephant, according to the Siamese superstition and ignorance, possesses the soul of some deceased prince or king. They called him a white elephant, but in reality he had only a few spots of that colour on his body. Alas! The king and all his mandarins are now in mourning, for the object of their worship died of indigestion. Poor beast and poor king! I have travelled a long way since I last wrote, and God has protected me. I crossed the mountains and went through the most dreaded jungles in the rainy season without losing a man, and without having suffered myself. My travelling expenses were comparatively small to what they might have been; everywhere I was furnished gratis with elephants, escorts, guards, and provisions (rice and fowls), as though I were an envoy from the king, and all this owing solely to a letter from the Viceroy of Korat. I have made a good collection of coleoptera, and have procured a number of excessively rare and beautiful species. I have also obtained some very rare and interesting conchological specimens. As for animals, I have but few; some monkeys and a good many serpents.