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

AMONG THE MUSO VILLAGES 347
We took both the old Muso men as assistants, and
the younger ones as carriers for our equipment. Our
first day's journey was a fair sample of what we had
to do continually. In many places it would be a misnomer
to speak of the track we travelled as a path.
We left the plain in the morning, and it was half-past
two in the afternoon when we reached the first summit.
It was five o'clock when, desperate with thirst, we came
upon a flowing brook. There was, then, still another
hard climb before we saw our long looked-for first village
ahead. And, in general, because of the habit these
people have of planting their villages upon the very
highest points where they can get water, the journey
from one of these villages to another in plain sight,
and, apparently, but a short distance away, would take
hours of the hardest travel. Sometimes we would walk
weary hours through rain, or through bushes as wet as
rain, to visit a village; only to walk back again after
sitting three hours in wet clothes trying in vain to
awaken some interest in old or young.
One of the most interesting, and, at the same time,
one of the saddest, cases we met was that of Mftn
Kamprai, the head man of a village which clearly bore
the impress of his character in the intelligence and industry
of its inhabitants. From opium he had kept
entirely aloof until, only a few years before this time,
under the stress of a severe illness, he began to take it.
The poor man now realized that he was becoming a
wreck, but seemed to have no will-power left to make
the effort to break away from the habit. He was much
interested, however, in his two fellow-tribesmen whom
I had brought as my assistants; and Cha Waw's example
seemed to afford him a faint gleam of hope. If
we would stop a week and teach his people, and would