The Wonderful Mekong 145 
the mountains to the west. Still it looked as if we were 
going to have a glorious day. 
Our route lay in an E.N.E. direction up the bed of the 
torrent we had with some difficulty crossed on the previous 
evening, and now we had to cross it not once, but scores of 
times; in some spots it looked a most formidable under- 
taking, but as we ascended and the stream divided the 
crossings of course became easier. 
The main geological features around us were gravel 
cliffs, the familiar red sandstone of the plateau, and earth- 
tables, each consisting of a column of earth capped by a 
flat boulder. 
At Du-bas, the first and last village in this gulley, we 
changed ponies and set out in quest of a new route over 
the watershed. 
Higher up in the forest, above the small cultivated 
plots, we found that the torrent, here ploughing its way 
through a deep trench cut out of red gravel, had recently 
come down in tremendous flood, spreading deep deposits 
of semi-liquid gravel everywhere, and through these 
abominable quagmires the ponies had to flounder knee 
deep; they got thoroughly scared sometimes, and indeed 
it was most unpleasant. 
Forests of fir and of oak marked the shady and the 
exposed sides of the valley respectively, but down by the 
stream we rode through groves of poplar, willow, birch, 
and numerous shrubs to the pass, whence we looked 
down into a second valley, the separate bands of fir 
and oak forest being here very conspicuous. So dense 
was the vegetation that one of the loads was wrenched 
from the saddle as we brushed through, and after that 
came marshy ground and thickets of willow, till finally 
climbing up between really magnificent fir trees, we reached 
the main pass and emerged quite suddenly on to the grass- 
land plateau once more. 
So far the weather had kept fine, though by this time 
we were well up in the mountains; but no sooner did we 
get out on to the open plateau than I saw we were in for 
trouble. A nasty raw wind blew in violent gusts, and right 
in front of us a great black ridge of cloud hung low over 
the hills. We had scarcely turned southwards down the 
W. T. Io 
