Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/443

 whose towering tops tell us the site and limits of Cheung Mai surrounded by its high and massive wall of brick. Beyond and over the top of this city arose that grand old mountain, Doi Su Tape, ever beautiful, ever changing in its beauty.

"Were I an expert at the pencil, I might send you some time a landscape of river, plain and mountain superior to many that are esteemed by the true artist as gems of the beautiful and picturesque. It is our privilege to look upon this landscape of varied beauty every day. For a week or more we were shut in, native style, at every point of the compass by a luxuriant growth of tamarind, bamboo, and garden shrubbery. It is thus that the native houses, which generally stand back a distance from the river-pathway, are sometimes entirely concealed by the dark-green foliage of the gardens. In front of our premises a number of tamarind trees stand in all the carelessness of the primeval forest. Some of them clutch the bank with their great roots, a part of which have been washed bare by the stream when at its height. Their wide-spread branches intercepted our view of the river and mountain and kept out the cooling breeze. But the axe, by lopping and pruning, soon gave scope to the eye and ingress to the healing wind."

This principal mission-station is on the right bank of the river. On the left bank, near the bridge, is Dr. Cheek's compound, on the city side*