Siam: Land of Free Men

Produced by the volunteers of Project Gutenberg Thailand.
Proofreading by users emil, rikker, dekpient. PGT is an affiliated sister project focusing on public domain books on Thailand and Southeast Asia. Project leads: Rikker Dockum, Emil Kloeden. (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.)
By H. G. DEIGNAN
(Publication 3703)
The Lord Baltimore Press BALTIMORE, MD., U. S. A.
Geography Peoples Prehistory Kingdom of Sukhothai-Sawankhalok Kingdom of Ayuthia Kingdom of Tonburi Kingdom of Siam Thailand
1. 1, Gorge of the Me Ping 2, Ancient wall at Chiengmai 2. 1, A monolith in the Me Ping gorge 2, Boat being pulled upstream through the rapids by ropes 3. 1, The mai kwao, tree that yields gum resin 2, Transplanting young rice plants 4. 1, Fishing from the roadsides after the rains 2, Water buffalo 5. 1, A primitive type of cart 2, Elephants breaking up a log jam 6. 1, Small river boats, and bamboo water wheel 2, A temple 7. 1, A reliquary 2, The high altar of a Buddhist shrine 8. 1, Royalty visits Chiengmai 2, A princely funeral at Chiengmai
1. Map of Siam
By H. G. DEIGNAN Associate Curator, Division of Birds U. S. National Museum
Whatever more or less final rectifications of frontiers result from the current war, the land of the Thai will still, for general purposes, fall into four geographic divisions of major importance: Northern, Central, Eastern, and Peninsular.
Northern Thailand, lying between the Salwin and the Me Khong, two of the world's most majestic rivers, is, for the most part, a country of roughly parallel ranges and valleys running north and south. At the heads of the flat-floored valleys, which vary in elevations above sea level from 800 feet in the southeast to 1,200 feet in the northwest, arise important streams, the Me Nan, the Me Yom, the Me Wang, and the Me Ping, which, falling through narrow defiles to debouch in the low land of Central Siam, eventually there conflow to form the Me Nam Chao Phraya, the chief artery of that division. On the alluvia of these streams, as might be expected in a country whose civilization was originally based upon riziculture, live the great bulk of the northern Thai or Lao, in a setting of rich fields and orchards. The ranges similarly rise, southeast to northwest, from low, rounded hills to imposing peaks, many of which exceed an altitude of 5,000 feet and two of which achieve more than 8,000 feet. These mountains, rising abruptly from the valley floors and, on the whole, densely forested, are scarcely inhabited by man except for scattered groups of seminomadic hill tribes, which exist there by hunting and a primitive agriculture. The northernmost province, Chiengrai, is separated from the sister provinces by a mountain wall and belongs wholly to the Me Khong drainage; it is largely a region of marshes and grassy savannas.