GEOGRAPHY OF THE UPPER MEKONG. 543 
It was agreed that the Khache should have first choice, and he 
took the smallest bundle, which lay at the top, and found therein the 
tiny waistcloth which he wears to this day, the Lao getting a fine 
panun/j (or dhobic cloth) which he has ever since adopted. 
The Khache, not to be beaten thus, chose the biggest elephant, 
and took her away home with him. But she “ grew sad in her heart, 
and her thoughts went towards her child, ’* so she bolted away and 
returned to the baby, the Lao thus getting both. The Khache there- 
upon returned up into the hills in the sulks, and has ever since 
remained there, without clothes or elephants. 
Silsong Para . — Muang Sai is the least unimportant place in this 
district, and it is best known for its salt wells, which provide all the 
neighbouring country, its cotton, and its galena. From here there 
are tracks going south and west to Luang Prabang by Ban Lataen, 
seven days ; south and east to Pak Beng. the mouth of the torrent 
known as Nam Beng, eight days ; and to Chieng Kong, ten days ; 
northward to Muang Kwa on the Nam Oo, three days; and thence 
to Muang Wa and the land of the poppy ; and westward to Muang 
La on the Nam La. 
The Puffer State . — Following down the Mekong meanwhile, from 
Chieng Sen we fall some 200 feet to Luang Prabang in the rapids 
already mentioned, which are situated at the beginning of the corners 
seen on the map. 
It is below Chieng Kong that the more serious rapids come in, 
after passing the Nam Ta, which there forms the boundary between 
the Luang Prabang and Chieng Kong or Nan Trans-Mekong territory. 
What is to be the fate of the Nfin territory on that side is no doubt 
one of the questions to be made out by the Boundary Commission, as 
the whole of that district lias gone prinid facie under French rule 
together with the Sibsong Para. ‘ 
The Buffer State or neutral zone is to be created between the 
British Shan States on the west and the French territory on the other ; 
but then comes the question, Out of whose property is it to be carved ? 
It is said that the contribution of France toward the neutral zone will 
be the Trans-Mekong territory which belonged to Chieng Kong; in 
other words, that she will remain east of the Nam Ta. Chieng Kheng 
was under Chieng Toong, which is now British, until Britain per- 
mitted it to go to Siam. 
Is France to be allowed to seize this State too, and so seating her- 
self, armed with her protective tariffs, on the Mekong left bank right 
up to the Yunnan frontier, be able to prevent English trade from ever 
getting over the river into Sumao and Yunnan ? The estimates made 
of the commercial value of Yunnan may have been over-rated, but 
it is yet a doorway which England can little afford to have shut 
against her by another nation with such exclusive ideas about trade. 
The solution is that Chieng Kheng should be included in the 
neutral zone. 
Forests . — At Chieng Kong a considerable deposit of sapphire- 
bearing gravel exists, at present worked by a body of Tongsoo British 
subjects. Below that we pass some Lu settlements, and then entering 
deep gorges are in a land where the Khache reigns alone upon the steep 
