104 JOURNEY THROUGH LAOS FROM BANGKOK TO CBOn. 
: 
Pére Xavier Guéco, who had already been for two years a Mis- 
sionary in Laos. We bought in Bangkok such things as were 
absolutely necessary, these being of an exorbitant price among 
the Chinese of Tae. viz., cotton goods, thread, cooking 
utensils, medicines, ete. On Septuagesima Monday, the 
11th of February, 1884, two boats loaded with luggage took 
their departure for Thakien, four days’ journey N. it. of Bang- 
ae The following Thurs day we were at Thakien, where the 
nhabitants entertained us during the few days employed i in 
a fedinhis the carts to be used on our journey. These carts 
were the same which had brought down our confreres from 
Laos a few days before. On We ednesday, the 20th vee 
the carts started; we followed a few hours later, and overtook 
them, and halted at mid- day at the village of Ban-seng. This 
village is at the eatrance of the forest , which we were not to 
leave again after this point. There is nothing but one immense 
forest, in some places very dense, in others relieved by clearmgs 
in the midst of which vil llaces are scattered about. It isa 
thick wood, through which passes a road just broad enough 
for a cart, there i is not room for a man either on the right or on 
the left. Here and there one comes acrossaclearing. It must 
not be supposed that the road is free from obstructions ; now 
it is a deep rut which nobody fills up, now it is an enormous 
root which blocks up part of the road-way and which has to 
be crossed at the risk of seeing the cart smashed into a 
thonsand pieces. We advanced in this way with our ten carts 
and relays of bullocks, which either followed or preceded us 
by a short distance. Sometimes a wheel would lose its 
spokes, and sometimes an axle would break (these axles are 
merely bars of some tough wood which go through the 
wheels and have to be renewed frequently). 
At last, about 9 o’clock, we reached a muddy pool and 
pitched cur camp on its banks. This consisted in arranging 
the carts in a large circle, in the centre of which the buliocks 
and horses were tethered to stakes driven into the ground. 
Their drivers spread their mats on the grass under the carts 
and . passed the night there. As for ourselves, we had 
manufactured two little tents which we seé up between two 
earts. Large fires, fed with fuel by watchmen who mounted 
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