Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/494

 thing above another's head, he would beg the latter's pardon before raising his hand. A great and passionate love for flowers and music also indicates a delicacy of feeling. Although, before missionaries went there, the women did not know how to read, they were always trained to be useful in their homes, and a Laos girl who does not know how to weave her own dress is considered as ignorant as a girl in this country who does not know how to read.

During the season of rice-planting and harvesting every member of the family works in the fields, and the baby is left at home under the care of the next oldest child. The children are thus early taught self-dependence, and a boy who here would be thought scarcely able to care for himself is expected, after the planting season, to take care of the buffaloes in the fields all day long. The Laos use buffaloes for ploughing, oxen for carrying rice, elephants for bearing other burdens and ponies for pleasure riding; in which latter only the gentlemen indulge, the ladies being debarred that pleasure. The motion of the elephant, which is the chief beast of burden, is a swaying one, but there is as much difference in the gait of elephants as in the gait of horses, and those with an easy gait always command very high prices. The top of a howdah, or elephant's saddle, is very much like that of a buggy, and the seat is not unlike the buggy-seat; the difference