388 A visit to Xiengmai. [No. 4, 
enough. We arrived at. Lamboon on the 11th of February and left 
it on the 14th, much to the regret of the Governor, who wished us to 
stay some time longer. I shall now take up my more detailed descrip- 
tion of our further progress to Xiengmai, which is only one day’s jour- 
ney from Lamboon. 
As already mentioned, we left Lamboon at half-past 9 o’clock 
A. M., of the 14th February, passed round the north gate and turned 
into the Xiengmai road. The suburb of the city extended for more 
than half a mile on our right. We traversed the canal which brings 
the water from the Méping to Lamboon, serving in its course to 
irrigate the whole adjacent country by numerous side canals. At the 
point where we forded it, branches as large as the main canal itself 
flow to the right and to the left. Indeed it was a perfect network of 
canalization, so that every cultivator might get his supply of water. 
Villages and habitations were on both sides of our road. It was a 
succession of them ; generally surrounded with trees, they formed bands 
extending N. and 8., between which, tor miles in breadth, the ground 
was cultivated with rice. 
Our road led us through the village of Luk—the Wat at its entrance 
is very neat; the roof is supported within by eight columns of scarlet 
colour, richly ornamented with gilt tracery. The other buildings 
which belong to the Wat were merely built of unbaked bricks. 
Having passed the groves of trees that surround the village, we saw 
before us on both sides of the canal, gardens planted with vegetables, 
tobacco, safflower, and here and there some indigo. A number of women 
and girls, some of the latter no more than five or six years of age, 
were employed to water the plants, while the men were sitting under 
the shade of a shelter, the frame prepared of bamboo and covered with 
large leaves, so constructed that it might be turned east or west accord- 
ing to the position of the sun, their only employment being to smoke 
and to see what the women and children were doing. To facilitate the 
method of irrigation a kind of huge shovel or ladle of basket-work, 
fixed to a pole, is used, which works upon a crinkle or fork, and dips 
in the canal; the water is taken up and transferred to a tank, from 
whence it flows by trenches to the different parts of the field. 
From Bang Pokok, a hamlet, the elephants had to wade for a con- 
siderable distance through water. The canal had been forced by a 
dam to throw its waters over the adjacent fields, to render them pro- 
