File:Travels in the central parts of Indo-China (Siam), Cambodia, and Laos - during the years 1858, 1859, and 1860 (1864) (14759963566).jpg

Identifier: travelsincentral01mouh (find matches)
Title: Travels in the central parts of Indo-China (Siam), Cambodia, and Laos : during the years 1858, 1859, and 1860
Year: 1864 (1860s)
Authors: Mouhot, Henri, 1826-1861 Mouhot, Charles
Subjects: Mouhot, Henri, 1826-1861
Publisher: London : John Murray
Contributing Library: University of Connecticut Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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e, our courselay for about an hour and a half along a charming valley,nearly as smooth as a lawn, and as ornamental as a park.By and by entering a forest, we kept by the banks of astream, which, shut in between two mountains andstudded with blocks of granite, increases in size as youapproach its source. Before long we arrived at the fall,which must be a fine spectacle in the rainy season. Itthen pours down from immense perpendicular rocks,forming as it were a circular peaked wall, nearly thirtymetres in diameter, and twenty metres in height. Theforce of the torrent having been broken by the rocky bedinto which it descends, there is another fall of ten feet;and, lower down, after a third fall of fifteen feet, it passesinto an ample basin, which, like a mirror, reflects thetrees and cliffs around. Even during the dry season thespring, then running from beneath enormous blocks ofgranite, flows in such abundance as to feed severalstreams. I was astonished to see my two servants, heated by
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Chap. V. ATTACKS OF INSECTS. 161 their long walk, bathe in the cold water, and on myadvising them to wait for a little, they replied that thenatives were always accustomed to bathe when hot. We all turned stone-cutters, that is to say, we set towork to detach the impression of an unknown animalfrom the surface of an immense mass of granite risingup out of one of the mountain torrents. A Chinese hadin January demanded so exorbitant a sum for this, thatI had abandoned the idea, intending to content myselfwith an impression in wax, but Phrai proposed to meto undertake the work, and by our joint labour it wassoon accomplished. The Siamese do not much like mymeddling with their rocks, and their superstition is alsosomewhat startled when I happen to kill a white ape,although when the animal is dead and skinned they areglad to obtain a cutlet or steak from it, for they attri-bute to the flesh of this creature great medicinal virtues. The rainy season is drawing near, storms become moreand mo

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