144 The Wonderful Mekong 
were barking, people were out with flaming torches, and 
we were made welcome for the night. I was very tired, 
for we had been ten hours in the saddle, drenched most of 
the time, but the air down here was warm and balmy, and 
as the moon rose over the mountains lighting up the thin 
river mist, I slept soundly again. 
Early on the following morning, while the men were 
getting ready, I went down to look at the Mekong. 
Just here the river presented an extraordinary spectacle. 
For a quarter of a mile it flowed between fluted walls of 
limestone, not more than fifty feet apart and perhaps a 
hundred feet high, and looking down from the cliff on to 
the red water writhing in this confined sword-cut below 
gave one some idea of the irresistible power of the river. 
It was impossible to escape the conviction that the river 
itself had sawn its way down between these cliffs to its 
present level, especially as there were traces of another 
similar wall at a higher level. The depth of water piled 
up in this narrow space must be tremendous, and consider- 
ing the immense volume that was coming down and the 
quite puny size of the torrents which flow from the dividing 
ridges, really distant only a few miles to east and west, | 
am inclined to think that the Mekong rises further up in 
Tibet than is generally supposed. For where the Mekong- 
Yang-tze ridge spreads out into the plateau, it is not the 
former river which drains the wide expanse of rain-swept 
grass-land—at least not here, whatever it may do further 
north. 
Across this chasm were slung rope bridges, though I 
should have shied at crossing by them, and on the other 
side a mountain road led away across Ta-miu into the heart 
of Tsa-riing; but there was no road down the Mekong, 
and no road up the river either, above the valley we had 
come down. However, there was luckily no occasion to 
retrace our steps to Chianca. 
Masses of light cloud hung about the valley, and a 
heavy dew had settled on everything, but no sooner had 
the sun appeared over the ridge than this was dispersed 
like magic, blue sky appeared overhead, and the ravine 
began to heat up for its daily roasting, though columns of 
cumulus were already towering up in gigantic puffs from 
