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 the march to Kamarat. The meticulous conduct of the Frenchmen, who insisted upon paying for services ren- dered to them, occasioned considerable surprise through- out their journey. The chiefs openly lamented the waste of good brass wire upon mere peasants, and thought that if such things were going cheap, they themselves should have been selected as the recipients. The porters could barely comprehend a love of justice which declined to de- fraud the labourer of his hire, and which at the same time restricted his indubitable rights; for when performing a like service for Siamese officials they had always been permitted to rob the villagers of the whole countryside, and this de Lagrée would by no means allow. On the whole it may be questioned whether the justice of the white man impressed the natives as anything more admirable than an inexplicable eccentricity. The point is interesting because it illustrates in an amusing fashion the divergent views of the East and the West, and the frequency with which the principles of the latter fail to make any appeal to the understanding or admiration of the former.

From Amnat the way led through wild and sparsely peopled country, separated from the Mekong by a belt of forest, to a district broken by gentle undulations, where the previously sandy soil, bespattered with out-crops of iron-stone, is replaced by rice-fields. On January 30th the travellers found Delaporte awaiting them at Kamarat. This place, the point at which the proposed railway will cross the Mekong, is situated on the right bank, as indeed, since the subjugation of Laos by Siam at the beginning