VOYAGE TO KHAO-KHOC.--DONG PHYA PHAI (FOREST OF THE KING OF FIRE). VOYAGE TO KHAO-KHOC. I am now en route for Khao-Khoc, in the boat of a Chinese merchant, a worthy person, who, luckily for me, does not intoxicate himself with opium or arrack. He intends going as far as Boatioume, but the current is so strong that I doubt if he will be able to proceed higher up the river than Khao-Khoc; for, in spite of his four rowers, and the aid of my two men--(I sent away my Laotian, who found it too great fatigue to row, and preferred sleeping and smoking)--we have been nearly carried away at every bend of the river and at the frequent rapids. The weather, which I trusted was settled, has changed during the last three days, and every afternoon, about four or five o’clock, we have a violent shower. Last evening I was seized with a more severe headache than any I have had since I entered the country, and my first impression was that I had been attacked by fever, which, in the rainy season, there is so much cause to dread in the neighbourhood of Dong Phya Phai. It proceeded, however, only from the heat of the sun, to which I had been all day exposed, and was dissipated by the freshness of the night air at the prow of the boat. In the morning I felt as well as usual. They tell me that to-morrow I shall see Khao-Khoc, and I shall not be at all sorry. The little boat is so encumbered with our united baggage, that the fraction of space left for me forces me to all sorts of constrained and uncomfortable positions; and these twelve days of tedious navigation have fatigued me much. And what a place this is! The air is damp, unwholesome, and dreadfully heavy; one’s head burns, while one’s body is at one time covered with perspiration, and at another a cold shivering comes on. After four days of excessive toil we entered a gorge through which the river passes, which, even at this season, is here not more than 90 metres wide. Torrents of rain, bursting suddenly upon us, forced us to stop rowing, and take refuge under our roof of leaves. The rain lasted all night, and a wretched night it was for the poor men, who, having yielded to me the front of the boat, were all crammed together in the cabin, and, after all their fatigues under a burning sun, were unable to obtain a moment’s sleep, but lay groaning under the suffocating atmosphere and the attacks of legions of mosquitoes. KHAO-KHOC. At daybreak about a hundred strokes of the oar brought us past a new bend in the river, and we found ourselves before Khao-Khoc. This place has, in my humble opinion, been badly chosen by the kings of Siam for their stronghold and retreat in case of an European invasion of the south. In the event of this occurring, they would abandon Bangkok; and, certainly, as whoever possesses that town is master of the whole country, no one would be likely to come and molest the kings in their solitude.