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 with great sandstone outcrops and obstructed by numer- ous flights of rapids, was begun anew. At Keng Kabao the boats of the expedition had to be unloaded before they could be hauled up the falls, but a little above this point, at Ban Thasaku, the river was found running through an immense plain covered with forest, and as it widened out the difficulties which it presented to naviga- tion ceased for a space.

On February 15th, Ban Nuk was reached, a big village below which is the handsome temple of Tong Bao, with a façade inlaid with porcelain; and a week later the party landed at Peu Nom, a pyramidal structure which is one of the most famous Buddhist shrines in all the Laos. country. The upper portion is obviously modern, but its base, the work of a Kambodian princess the wife of a King of Vien Chan, dates from early in the seventeenth century, and is believed to have been built upon the site of a far older pyramid.

Leaving Peu Nom on February 24th, the expedition made its way up-stream to Lakon, opposite to which vil- lage some enormous limestone bluffs spring suddenly from the plain; from these the natives prepare large quantities of quicklime, both for building purposes and as an ingredient of the betel-quid. Here a small Annamite colony was met with, and the near neighbourhood of Annam suggested to Garnier the possibility of opening communications with the sea vià Hue, an idea which has since been furthered by the labours of other explorers. Huten was reached on March 6th, and thence de Lagrée and Joubert ascended the Nam Hin Bun for two days,