TSEKOU TO KHAMTI 



From Pandam, which we left on the 15th (November), to 

 Melekeu the route was good, on easy gradients, and well cleared 

 of brushwood. Except for a slight personal touch of fever, we all 

 felt light-heeled by contrast with our late crawl. Melekeu was 

 composed of pile houses sometimes 130 feet long, not unlike the 

 Moi dwellings in Annam. The families were separated by bamboo 

 partitions, with a passage of communication. Each compartment 

 was arranged alike — a square hearthstone in the centre, round 

 which the inmates slept ; abov^e it a platform supporting a loft, and 

 a sloping roof about 16 feet high, which projected several feet in 

 front over a little terrace, where stood the pestle for husking rice. 

 Round the piles ran a trellis to keep in the pigs. Melekeu was 

 set in an attractive semicircle of gently retiring hills partly covered 

 with yellow rice clearings : a few large trees, survivors of the 

 primeval forest, dotted the slopes ; in the distance the level sunshine 

 smote the line of woods like the head of a repulsed column in every 

 variety of light and shade. 



We already had a foretaste of the Moamites (to coin a word) in 

 two copper-coloured men who had joined our party. There was no 

 doubt about their personality ; their cotton garments and turban over 

 the hair-knot bespoke them Thais. They had come from seeking 

 lead in the mountains, and had with them some Kioutses to carry it. 



So the plain of Moam is really peopled by the Thais, members 

 of that numerous race which stretches from the Canton River to 

 Assam, while it extends south to the INIalay Peninsula. An 

 intelligent, easy-going folk, possessing artistic tastes and a mature 

 caligraphy which in its diffusion has infected the greater part of 

 Indo-China. The two above-mentioned representatives observing 

 us making notes, took a piece of charcoal to show that they also 

 knew how to write. 



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