A half century among the Siamese and the Lao : an ... - Khamkoo

THE RESIDENT COMMISSIONER 197
" Day before yesterday we tried to have a picnic. A
princess had promised us two elephants, but only one came.
Your father took a horse. The three children and I rode
the elephant. Our destination was the Doi Sutep temple.
About half the way up the mountain the elephant either concluded
that there was no fun in going up alone, or, more
probably, that he had an uncomfortable load, and refused
to go any further. He turned out of the road, and tried
to throw the driver from his neck. The children became
alarmed, and we dismounted as best we could. The children
refused to try riding him again; and since we had
come largely for their pleasure, we had our lunch by a
brook, and returned home on foot." [Mrs. McG.]
" We had an interesting incident at our December communion.
Just as I had announced the communion hymn,
I saw Chao Borirak—the Nan prince, who had twice accompanied
me with his elephant on my journeys, and for
whose sake largely one of my trips to Nan had been taken
enter the room. As he had been the subject of much
special prayer on our part, I could hardly command my
voice sufficiently to proceed with the hymn. On my return
from my furlough he had written that he would visit me at
the first opportunity. His uncle, the Prince of Nan, had
a grandson in danger of losing his sight from an accident.
He had persuaded the Prince that possibly our medicine
might help him. He brought a few presents from the
Prince, and for himself had brought a gold ring with a
native pearl from the Nan river. He is very anxious that I
should move to Nan, but I tell him that he must wait for
you. . . . With fever and death around us we have been
wonderfully preserved from ' the pestilence that walketh in
darkness, and the destruction that wasteth at noonday.'
We have had our anxieties about the children. During the
last hot season we were afraid that little Margaret would
melt away, she was so thin," [D. McG.]
But the labours of the year were not in vain. During
its progress Nan Suwan, who afterwards became