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On December 20, we turned away from the Mekong valley and began to march southeast by east across an unmapped region toward Ta-li Fu. We camped at night on a pretty ridge thickly covered with spruce trees just above a deep moist ravine. In the morning our traps contained several rare shrews, five silver moles, a number of interesting mice, and a beautiful rufous spiny rat.
He took a bus ride with myriad others across the Friendship Bridge of the Mekong river, filled out his entry card at this extended checkpoint, his passport eventually being stamped in a line of waiting and moving but seemingly going nowhere, he paid a new monetary charge, the cryptic exit fee then shared a tuk-tuk for a forty minute ride to the city, sometimes witnessing exaggerated gestures and hearing jocular comments about how cold it was from Laotians and Thais, some in both shorts and hooded jackets, though not from westerners who didn't seem to suffer any distress outside of blowing strands of disheveled hair.
Over a broad, zigzagging, roughly-paved road, said to have no less than ninety-eight curves from bottom to top, we ascend for thirty li, and then descend for the remainder of the journey through a narrow defile along the northern bank of the river, the opposite side being a vertical sheet of rock rising to at least a thousand feet sheer up, very similar to the gorges of the Mekong at the western end of the province, which I crossed in due course.
Never again can she stroll with her lover in the fragrant twilight on the palm-fringed banks of the Mekong. Never again can she leave the precincts of the palace, save to accompany the King. The bars behind which she dwells are of gold, it is true, but they are bars just the same.
My plan on the present occasion was to travel onwards by the following stages: On Friday, February 26th, 1909, I steamed up the muddy mouth of the Mekong to Saigon in Indo-China in a French mail steamer. To-day, February 3rd, 1910, I cross the same river many hundreds of miles from where it empties into the China Sea. I cross by a magnificent suspension bridge.
The others run southwards, the Mekong into the China Sea, the Salwin, Irawaddy, and Brahmaputra into the great inlet of the Indian Ocean which is called the Bay of Bengal. A large quantity of water runs off along the outer side of your thumb; this is the Ganges, which comes down from the upper valleys of the Himalayas.
Hsiakwan was crowded, as it was market day. We had lunch together at a Chinese restaurant, and then, my men having come up, the kind missionaries returned, and I went on alone. A river, the Yangki River, drains the Tali Lake, and, leaving the south-west corner of the lake, flows through the town of Hsiakwan, and so on west to join the Mekong. For three days the river would be our guide.
The first step in the spoilation of the helpless little kingdom was taken by France in 1893, when, claiming that the Mekong which the French were eager to acquire under the impression that it would provide them with a trade-route into Southern China formed the true boundary between Siam and Annam, she demanded that the Siamese evacuate the great strip of territory to the east of that river.
It was necessary to visit the Mekong River, for even though it might not be a good big game region it would give us a cross-section, as it were, of the fauna and important data on the distribution of small mammals. Therefore we decided to leave for the long ride as soon as the weather permitted.
So numb he was in his own despondent realm with such minimal awareness of the prowess of his internal and external faculties that rational scrutiny of action and motivation was not readily possible. Recognition of himself was a witnessing from afar as on a distant bank on the Laos side of the Mekong River.
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