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 he nor his interpreters had any great knowledge of the Laotine dialect; "varied gestures and ingenious draw- ings," he tells us, "were called to the aid of our igno- rance of words, and it was rarely that by this process we did not obtain, at the end of half an hour of effort, seven or eight entirely contradictory answers." In these circumstances there was room and to spare for misunder- standings, but Garnier believed, and perhaps justly, that the locality of silver mines was being purposely con- cealed from him. He was unable to prove the truth of his suspicions, however, and eventually had to return to Bassak without having obtained any information concern- ing the object of his search.

He reached headquarters on October 9th, and found that the Mekong had fallen more than sixteen feet during his week of absence. The end of the rainy season had come; on every hand preparations were being made for planting the land which had been enriched by the overflow of the river, and during the last days of the month, the travellers witnessed the great feast of Hena Song, which is a kind of public thanksgiving annually made for the harvest that is to be. Immediately after the feast Garnier set off down the Mekong, his object being to get word of the mail-bags of the expedition which were long overdue. Leaving Bassak on November 4th, Gar- nier reached Stung-Treng four days later, and there learned the disquieting news that the insurrection which had broken out in Kambodia under Pu Kombo had assumed serious proportions, and that the valley of the Mekong to the south of Stung-Treng was in the hands of