542 
PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION E. 
Their dress first earned them our esteem, for it is nothing more 
or less than that of the stage pirate, such as one might see in the 
“ Pirates of Penzance” ; very wide blue trousers, with a gay trimming 
at the ankle, brought in tight at the waist, blue double-breasted 
jackets with little gold or silver buttons, and a white, green, or red 
turban tied tight round the head, from which their central tuft of hair 
and the two points of the cloth stand up defiantly, while over one 
shoulder is slung the trust v dhap. The women are often almost fair, 
and are equally tasteful in their rig, with their home-made petticoats 
of horizontal colours, a short double-breasted coat, more gorgeous 
than the men’s, and often a turban round their knotted hair. 
I never met people so determined to make the best of everything, 
little enough as their everything is, poor souls ; and it was a revelation 
to a Saxon, who loves his growl, to live and journey with these people, 
watching their invariable good temper, and the laughter with which 
all hands would greet every misadventure. They seem to have 
acquired more civilisation than many of the other tribes, and have 
settled and cultivated in their loveiy valleys. Some have come south 
of the Mekong, and even built monasteries; and though they by no 
means neglect the spirits of the river and the mountain, they follow 
the methods of the Buddhist Laos near them. 
Their villages are generally built by the water’s edge, among the 
rustling areca and banana palms; the thatch- roofed houses reared 
high on piles and surrounded with stout palisades, inside of which some 
sugar-cane is growing. Close by on a higher knoll stands the white- 
walled monastery with its pretty steep-sloped roof, and the bells on 
the gables tinkling at evening in the wind are the only sounds heard, 
but the far-off thunder of the rapid, a weird air upon a flute, or a dog’s 
bark among the cottages, and, as night advances, the distant note of a 
tiger prowling after deer, or the scared trumpet of an elephant. 
Khaclie . — The simplest of all the people that we saw, however, 
were the Khamus* or Khaclie (or Katcha), as they are locally known. 
They wear nothing but a waist-cloth, a big hairpin in their long 
knotted hair, and silver earrings or a flower in their ears. 
Their life is a hard one up upon the hillsides, the “ rat ” clearings 
being visible many miles climbing right to the hilltops. There they 
live, planting their rice and cotton, clearing and draining year by year 
with great labour large tracts of forest-clad mountain tor their next 
crop. They are timid and shy in the extreme, a result of their treat- 
ment by the Lao, who, in the Nan and Luang Prabang territories on 
both sides the Mekong, have long looked on them as their slaves, to do 
what they liked •with ; and at; the present time the Luang Prabang 
people depend on them and their industry for a great part of their 
rice. We found them gentle and docile as w T ell as willingas porters, 
and, needless to say, they were flue men on the hills. Of the same 
race are the Lawas who live among the high ranges in Chieng Mai and 
Chieng Toong further west. 
The Lao account for the present uncivilised condition of the 
Khache by a yarn which relates that the Lao and Khache were once 
brothers. Their father died, and left to be divided between them a 
box containing two bundles, and an elephant and her young one. 
First syllable pronounced Kar = slave. 
