The Last of the Mekong 241 
meanwhile turning round to me with a pleased ‘See what 
I’ve done!” sort of expression, I thought it expedient to 
lead him by a rope when passing pack-mules, though even 
then they sidled past him in the gutter with an eye open 
for possibilities. 
On December 13 we made a long stage, the road 
alternately threading the rice-fields and winding over low 
hills covered with pine trees, which shaded numerous graves. 
At the base of one of these intervening ridges masses of 
calcareous rock lay about in confusion, and innumerable hot 
springs welled up, some underfoot, others out of the tufa. 
Indeed, one of these springs issuing from a rock crevice 
formed a small geyser, jets of hot water mingled with vapour 
spurting out now and again to the accompaniment of a 
continuous gurgle inside the rock. The usual bath had 
been built at a point conveniently situated for the inflow of 
a cold stream, and here several men were washing them- 
selves, while others sat on the rampart of stones dangling 
their feet in the water. Not only was hot water rising 
from the ground and casting up tiny fountains of sand in a 
score of places, but the whole marshy region was bubbling 
with gas, which streamed up through holes no bigger than 
worm-burrows, perforating the ground in all directions. 
Somehow the marsh with its beds of rushes, the uncouth 
blocks of cankered stone, heaped about in chaos, and the 
clouds of vapour hanging over the bathers, looked curiously 
out of place amongst the rice-fields which surrounded them : 
the sizzling rush of bubbles—it was probably marsh-gas 
disengaged by the action of hot water on rotten vegetation— 
sounded very thin and far away. 
We lunched at Chiang-tso and continued traversing the 
same interminable rice-fields, in many of which the ploughs 
were already at work slopping through the deep mud 
behind the ponderous buffalos. Two very pretty arched 
wooden bridges, supported on chains in some ingenious way, 
span the Shweli below Chiang-tso, where the river contracts 
and flows gently between high wooded cliffs. Crossing by 
the second bridge we presently found ourselves in rolling 
country once more, and gradually left the eastern branch 
of the river behind; we were in fact crossing the low spur 
which here intervenes between the two branches of the 
W. T. 16 
