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De Lagrée explored the Se-Kong on this occasion as far as Sien-Pang, and he later completed the work using Bassak as his pied-à-terre. To the latter place he now decided to push on, his object being to establish a base from which to conduct further explorations, and in which he might fix his headquarters during the coming rainy season. His design was somewhat delayed by the severe illness a malignant form of fever-by which both Gar- nier and Thorel were prostrated, but though the former was still delirious a start was presently made from Stung- Treng, and by the time the rapids of Khon were reached on August 17th, the second-in-command was sufficiently recovered to be able to take his usual eager interest in all that was going on around him.

Above Stung Treng the river is so bespattered with islands that it was rarely possible to catch a glimpse of both banks at the same time, but just below the Khon Falls the stream opens out into a great basin, some three and a-half miles across. The northern end of this is oc- cupied by a compact group of islands, divided each from each by narrow channels through which the river tears its way, its waters being precipitated into the basin be- low. In many of these channels all obstacles have been worn away, and here the waters glide downward in long, unbroken waves, the force of which is terrific. In the channels of Salaphe and Papheng, the two principal falls, however, the stream runs in absolute cascades, the body of water being more than 1,000 yards across, and plung- ing vertically from a height of fifty feet. From bank to bank the broken line of rapids, rushing through the group