1863. | A visit to Xiengmai. 399 
persons to attend to the elephants, carriers, &c., indeed ourselves 
included and the boatmen from Bangkok, we mustered 150 men. We 
had to traverse the regions infested by the Red Karens, a wild and 
predatory Indian tribe, who had recently been very troublesome ; 
hence so numerous an escort was requisite. 
Although we had not received much courtesy and attention from 
the Operat while in Xiengmai, he had by all means exercised his 
authority under the King’s letter, and as long as we travelled in the 
Siamese territory, we found comfortable night quarters erected, when 
arriving at our halting-place, a party having been always sent in 
advance for that purpose. 
The journey from Xiengmai to Maulmain occupied us twenty-four 
days ; from thence we went by steamer to Tavoy, and again resorting to 
elephants for our transport, we crossed the great Central mountain 
ridge, which being a spur of the great Himalaya, traverses the Malay 
Peninsula, and ends at Cape Romania. We had a journey of eight days 
from Tavoy to the mouth of the Menam noi where that rivulet falls 
into the Canbari river near Chai-Yoke. Our journey from Tavoy 
to Chai-Yoke occupied eight days, the report that it is only a distance 
of a couple of days is erroneous. At last we arrived safely at Bankok. 
We had been absent from it 185 days, 86 of which found us under 
way. 
We felt very grateful that our journey had been accomplished with- 
out any further drawback than the loss of nearly all that i had col- 
lected in illustration of Natural History. Five days of almost inces- 
sant rains during our journey from Tavoy to the central mountain 
ridge, was sufficient to defy the precautions which had been taken to 
secure my gatherings: moreover in lieu of the nice howdees which we 
had in our journey from Xiengmai, here we had miserable structures, 
only to be compared to the crates in which earthenware is packed, 
and open to the whole influence of the weather. During the period 
that we had to undergo this ordeal, the order of the day was, that 
every one of us, previous to the morning’s cup of cofiee being served, 
had to take two grains of quinine in a wine-glass full of water—and 
to this remedy next to God’s will, I ascribe it, that all of us escaped 
the pernicious jungle fever, more fatal to Huropeans and Americans 
ati the setting in of the rainy season than at any other time. 
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