GEOGRAPHY OE THE UPPER MEKONG. 
539 
Their wares are dhaps (or dhas, as the Burmese call them, the 
invariable arm of every Lao man), lacquer boxes, in which the buyer 
will stow his tobacco and betel-chewing gear, tilseed, and chillies, and 
often some hardy ponies come with them for sale. 
These go further down into the Meinarn Valley than do as a rule 
the Haws, returning with salt fish and betel ; and their usual road is 
through Chieng Rai or Muang Bang, both important routes to the 
north out of Chieng Mai. 
The trade with the south from the province of Chieng Mai is 
almost entirely by boat, along the rivers of the Meinarn Valley, the 
most populated and most possible tract of all Siam. 
Products . — The products of Chieng Mai, Lakon, and Nan, the 
next Lao State eastward, make a pretty list with Padonk and Sapan 
woods, cutch cedar, rosewood, ebony which is found all over Siam, 
gum benjamin, sticklac, tobacco, cotton, sugar both palm and cane, 
tea which grows wild among the hills, and rice of which little more is 
cultivated than is necessary for the immediate wants of each particular 
valley. But it does not give a veracious idea of the country to stop 
there. 
Population . — The fact is the whole of this territory is sparsely 
inhabited, and life in them is a constant struggle against Nature. 
Most of the towns printed in big type upon the maps are but villages, 
whose presence you hardly detect when even in their midst. The 
Trench maps are the most remarkable in this matter of large type, 
and you may generally calculate that the population is in inverse ratio 
to the size of the name of the place. The type may represent what it 
is hoped it will become, given time and the blessings of civilisation, or 
what a credulous and ambitious colonial party is desired to believe. 
But, whatever the cause, a couple of dozen bamboo houses, straggling 
in and out among banana palms and bamboo clumps by the running 
water side, and a narrow plain around with scanty room for rice crops, 
is generally all that represents the Town of So-and-so. Sweetly 
pretty they arc, these little villages, especially after a hard march, 
when to a weary man they seem heavenly abodes of rest. But 
500 yards away you are once more on the hillsides, with the prospect 
of long days high up on mountain spurs in the blazing sun, or deep 
down, stumbling in cold, dark torrent beds, ere again you will reach 
such another grateful spot ; at night disturbed by the incoherent cries 
of men delirious with fever, shouting at the stars ; by day contriving 
how to get them on, and praying for the sight of the grass-thatched 
roof of some Khaclie or other hill tribesman. In truth, 1 always find 
myself most impressed with the fair prospects of any given part of 
Siam when furthest away from it; with the reality of” endless, track- 
less, manless forest and mountain-side toned down by the aid of a 
pipe and an arm-chair. 
Boat Traffic . — Though canoes are used above Chieng Lap for short 
reaches, wc must come down below Muang Lim before we find any 
regular traffic on the Mekong. Here it was that dc Lagree’s expedi- 
tion saw the last of the navigable Mekong; for abreast of Muang Lim 
they had to leave the river, as they found themselves fairly beaten 
by the rapids. Time after time Gamier returned to phe river at 
different points as they made their way up to Chieng Roong along the 
