140 JOURNAL, NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY OF STAM Vol I. 



uitUi was apparently his own head priest, and on uiouliglit nights 

 entered his temple an I blowl}^ beat a small drum. M37 coolies were 

 atVaid to trespass near the temple, and when my assistant asked per- 

 mission to worship there, the old man said he must first anoint him. 



The household was unusiially large, the parents and eleven 

 children, all alive and sturdy, owing their health presiimably to the 

 high elevation, and having been settled there for man}' years past, the 

 primeval forest had been felled each year in small patches for some 

 distance around. Karang families as a rule ai'e very small, one man this 

 3'ear telling me that his wife had had twenty children, of whom three 

 survived, and they are, too, verj^ improvident, seldom having sufficient 

 rice to last for the whole year. In 1912, the Karangs at the head 

 waters of the Petchaburi, were living on a species of a big potato in 

 July, and would have to subsist on roots and tubers until the rice crop- 

 matured in December. Being laid up here for a week with a poisoned 

 foot, I was able to study the "angeP' previously referred to. He 

 appeared to be a youth more weakly and therefore more indulged than 

 the others, and could speak neither Siamese nor Burmese, though he 

 was an excellent shot with a cross bow. 



Travelling North and crossing the head waters of the Bang 

 Kloi, we crossed the watershed at 1000 metres elevation and followed 

 down the Meh Pachee river, and on the second day arrived at the 

 Karang hamlet nearest to " Ohai Paan Din," arriving at Sooan Peung 

 on the 3rd day. Here mules were obtained, and when nearing Ratbui'i 

 on the (3th May a heavy storm burst, lightning striking the parclied 

 fields and raising huge clouds of dust. Hail falling in large lumps 

 whitened the ground, and within half an hour the paddy fields were 

 flooded. 



I was laid up in Bangkok soi>ie three weeks, but left again at 

 the end of May with 74 Lao coolies and 10 Chinese. Of these latter, 

 four succumbed to malaria and pi'ivation — the Chinese appearing to be 

 useless fur any kind of pioneer work. Arriving at headquarters cam]>, 

 1 found a number of men down with malaria, so on 9th June started off 

 to complete the Topo. detail surve}' on the boundary. The water had 

 risen considerably but the dug outs all reached the rice depot at the 

 Elephant's Tusk rapid without mishap on the 12th June. 



On the way up we met the Kariang head man from Tali Ling 

 Lom with five others, returning frorn a fruitless search for Ban Chai 



