* * * I had waited at some distance, and as the day grew stronger, saw that this new grave was not the only one upon that lonely height.
On my right was a mound on which lay the betel-box, the pipe, the haversack, and "dah" (or chopper-knife) that in life had been his who lay beneath. I turned to rest on the trunk of a fallen tree, when I heard the sound of footsteps. The childless man and woman were passing. I knew the man, and I spoke to him. He had often been my guide in former visits to his village. He stopped. His wife passed on. I asked, tenderly I hope, as to his child. What was the cause of death?
"Fever." Then he squatted down, drew out his pipe, filled and lit it.
"Whose grave is that?" I asked, pointing to the mound with the betel-box and "dah."
"One of the men of my village," he replied; "he died some months ago."
"Why do you leave his betel-box, haversack, and 'dah' on the grave? What use can it be to him?"
"But you see his 'lah' has not taken them. They are still there, and they are rotting away."
"Oh, no!" Very promptly. "What you see are only the forms of the things. Their 'lahs' have gone away and are with the man's 'lah.'"
"And so people's 'lahs' after death go to another world and work as in this?"
"Yes; and if they had no haversack, and no betel-box, and no 'dah' how would they get on? How could they cut down forest and cultivate rice for food if they had no 'dah'?"
"So our people say, but I don't know. I am ignorant. I am only a poor jungle fowl."
"But," I persisted, "how do your people know that it is true--that the betel-box, the haversack, the knife, and other things have 'lahs,' or even that the man has a 'lah'?"
The Karen was silent for a while. Then he said--
"My child is dead--his body is buried there. It can not move and go about; yet I know that in my sleep he will come to me. He will speak, and I shall speak to him. It is not his body but his 'lah' that will come. So also I lost an ax long ago. It fell in the forest somewhere. I could not find it, but in my sleep I have seen its 'lah' and have held it in my hand." He paused, and went on: "It must have a 'lah,' for iron and handle have rotted away long ago, yet I held them last night in my hand."