FROM BANGKOK TO CHEUNG MAI.
As the newly-arrived missionary for Laos
stands in Bangkok and looks "up the
river," the five hundred miles that lie between
him and Cheung Mai mean more to him perhaps
than any of the same number he has traversed
since leaving his native land. It means
from sixty to ninety days' travel in a rocking
boat, and when accomplished puts him in one
of the most isolated outposts of the Church.
The boats for the journey, with a Laos crew are sent down from Cheung Mai, as they are constructed to meet the peculiarities of the upper Menam, its changing channels, its shallows and its rapids. The hull is of light draught, and in the larger boats is about thirty feet long and widens to the breadth of six or seven feet across the deck. At either end it rises from the water in a sharp, narrow curve, that of the stern being broadened and finished with an ornamentation which resembles a fish's tail. This is the design, and poetical it may be, but in appearance it is clumsy and unsymmetrical in the general con-
