down a steep bank to the river's brink through the tall grass and bamboos, our beast sometimes sliding on his haunches, then bracing and feeling the way with his trunk, or plunging into the soft ooze of the river, wading through water so deep that nothing but the howdah and elephant's head and trunk appear above the surface, and then climbing with slow but sure steps up a bank at least forty-five degrees steep.
Overtaken at night away from a town, we encamp under the trees. Our attendants make an enclosure with the cart and branches of trees, placing the cattle inside. We cook and eat our evening meal, making a great fire and boiling the coffee and rice over the bright coals. Our bivouac is underneath the stars on branches piled high above the malarious surface of the ground. The natives watch in turn, keeping up the fire to drive off wild beasts. Elephants prowl in droves outside the enclosure and cries of jackals disturb our dreams. Possibly in the morning tiger-tracks are pointed out to us.
On the higher waters of the Sesupon River, running south to the lake, are the first traces of the ancient Cambodian civilization in the shape of a ruined shrine buried beneath overgrown jungle; other ruins are found in more than forty different localities up to the confines of China.
Diverging to the north-east, evening finds us
