38 AN ACCOUNT OF A JOURNEY ACROSS THE MALAY PENINSULA, 



the last of our rice, and threw up a rude roof of leaves, so that 

 when the rain fell with the darkness we were prepared for it. 



It required some cajoling to get NUAN to again trust his 

 life on the raft, for said he " Last night the river spirit 

 came" — here Nuan held out his hands and shook his head 

 quite despondently. But the river was the only way out of 

 the hills ; we knew dwellings could not be far off, and the 

 river had abated somewhat ; these and other inducements 

 allowed us to again resume our journey in the morning. Early 

 in the forenoon we came upon tracks of honey and gum- 

 dammar collectors, and at midday we sailed out between two 

 hills that stood as sentinels to a flat, jungle-covered country 

 with small rounded hills scattered over it. The soil was deep 

 and eminently suited for agricultural uses, but we saw no 

 vestige of cultivation until the day was well spent, when we 

 suddenly came upon a small settlement of houses. These 

 bamboo houses were evidently of recent erection, and stood 

 amongst plantains and maize, which grew amongst the fresh 

 trunks of lately felled trees. The inhabitants were Siamese, 

 most of whom had recently come over from the Provinces on 

 the East coast, and many of them had worked as miners at 

 Bangtaphan. Siamese priests had come up from Wat Kew, an 

 old Siamese settlement a day's journey down the river, and 

 had taken advantage of the flood which had made the river 

 navigable for big boats to visit this outlying Colony of their 

 parishioners and collect their tithes. All night long the old 

 priest with his two young brethren were feted, so that we were 

 allowed to spend the night there in comparative peace. 



Next morning the priests set out for their ' Wat/ and we 

 obtained permission to occupy part of the boat. A little 

 further down we reached a larger village, also a Siamese 

 Colony — for the Siamese occupy the valley of this river down 

 to Tenasserim. There the priests stopped to take their 

 midday meal. The headman told me he had been settled 

 there for upwards of eight years, and that he came from trie 

 Province of Koowi. The soil, he also informed me, was much 

 richer than any on the East Coast, and that they cultivate 

 only a little rice, devoting their time more to the raising of 



