82 EAMBLES OF A NATUEALI8T. [Ch. V. 



more substantially of brick and tiles, but usually of grass 

 and reeds, arranged in tiers, and plastered over witb mud 

 and cement, — the floor, even of the better houses, of mud 

 or earth, — the roofs, often crescenticaUy gabled, giving the 

 towns a very characteristic appearance. In the poorer 

 houses in villages, the pigs and fowls made themselves quite 

 at home in the interior, and I have seen a large cesspool 

 only partially separated from the dweUing-room. Pigs, fowls, 

 ducks, geese, and buffaloes, were the only domestic animals, 

 if we except the dogs and cats. The cats were mostly of 

 the Malay breed, with a short broken or twisted tail, and 

 usually tortoise-shell in colour ; the dogs most commonly 

 black, seldom white, of an ugly mongrel appearance, about 

 the size of a pointer ; they barked vigorously as soon as they 

 caught sight of the foreigner, though there was no fear of 

 their biting, provided we possessed a stick, for they were 

 most arrant cowards. Horses and asses were unknown, and 

 humped cattle, of a small size, rare. 



At length we entered a narrow gorge of rocks, which only 

 left room for two boats to pass one another, and warned us 

 that the aquatic part of our excursion was at an end, and in 

 a few minutes we were in the midst of a number of boats the 

 counterparts of our own, which completely lined a beach 

 about 100 yards long, scarcely leaving space for the painted 

 nose of our own craft to iasinuate itself between them. Here 

 were clustered some houses forming the village of Liang-kha, 

 about three miles from Ke-Iung, where the river we had 

 ascended abruptly terminated on the shoulder of a hill, up 

 which we had risen by a series of rapids, another and a 

 smaller stream branching off from the same spot, and 

 descending the other side towards Ke-lung. 



Having placed our gear in a chair obtained from Ke-luUg, 



