Page:Further India; (IA furtherindia00clif).pdf/264

wilder and less thickly populated than Garnier afterwards found it. On October 18th, the party spent the night at Lochan, which is probably to be identified with Lakon. "The Laos-folk," says Wusthof, "regard Lochan as a great town, although it is no bigger than Harderwijk. We walked in the streets by the light of the moon. This town is quite the most dreadfully pagan place there is in the world;" for the worthy Dutchman was horrified at the behaviour of his native companions, though he adds characteristically, " Much gold is found here at a cheap price."

On the night of November 3rd, orders were received from the capital that the mission was to halt at a mile from the town of Vien Chan (Wincian, Wusthof calls it), and on the morning of the 16th, the party was conveyed on elephants to the temple without the city, to which it is joined by an avenue of trees; in this temple the audience with the King of Vien Chan was to be given to them. The King treated them with kindness. Wusthof himself, whose term of service with the Company was near its ex- piration, obtained permission to depart alone on his re- turn journey, and after some delay he was able to set forth, charged with certain pacific messages from the King of Vien Chan to the Court of Kambodia, which he undertook to deliver.

Here his individual narrative is interrupted by a de- scription of the Kingdom of Laos. From this it may be gathered that Wusthof's notions of the geography of the country were vague and inaccurate, and that his under- standing of the teachings of Buddhism was even less ex-