ARRIVAL IN SIAM.—FIRST DAY IN BANGKOK.
The boys found a novel way of taking fresh-water baths during their voyage from Saigon to Bangkok. Nearly every day there was a heavy shower of rain, and sometimes two or three showers in the course of twenty-four hours. The rain came literally in torrents; it poured as though great gates had been suddenly opened in the sky, to allow the passage of the water by dozens of barrels at a time. Neither Frank nor Fred had ever seen the rain fall so fast; the Doctor assured them that showers of this kind were very common in the tropics, especially during the change of the monsoons.
A NATURAL SHOWER-BATH.
Whenever the clouds indicated a coming shower, the boys generally went to the cabin and soon appeared in their bathing-suits. Covering their heads with straw hats, to protect them from the pelting of the great drops, they would sit in the rain and enjoy the luxury of the earliest form of shower-bath ever known. One night, when they were sleeping on deck, they were suddenly awakened by the pouring of the rain in their faces, and, before they could gather their clothing and escape to shelter, they were treated to a bath they had not bargained for. It is one of the inconveniences of sleeping on deck in the tropics that you are liable to have your slumbers disturbed in this way, just as you are dreaming of pleasant things, and in no mood for waking.
Though they were not in sight of land, our friends realized that they were in a comparatively small body of water, and not in the open ocean. The swell and heaving of the Atlantic and Pacific waves were altogether absent; though the steamer was a diminutive one in comparison with the great ships on which they had travelled hitherto, she rolled and pitched very little, and sometimes her motion was as steady as though she was navigating a river. The Gulf of Siam does not occupy a large place on the map, and for a great part of the year it is as peaceful as a lake. The captain told them that it was rarely disturbed by typhoons or severe gales, and was about five hundred miles long by two hundred and fifty in width.
FLYING-FISH.
Porpoises and flying-fish appeared occasionally, and their lively leaps from the water were a source of much amusement to the youths.
The first indication of their approach to the coast of Siam was the appearance of a dark line on the northern horizon. As they steamed on, this line developed into a fringe of tropical trees; but before they could make anything more of it than the merest fringe, the steamer came to anchor. As they were still a long way from land, the boys could not understand the reason for stopping, and Fred ventured to ask the captain why they did not go on.
"The principal reason," the captain answered, "is because we can't. The approach to the river is very shallow, and our steamer cannot cross the bar till high-tide. We must wait here till the tide serves, and we have a pilot to take us in."
The pilot came to the ship soon after they anchored, and in a few hours he announced that it was time to move on. The anchor was lifted, and the Danube steamed slowly onward towards the shore.
Very soon it was apparent to the boys that the waters along this part of the coast were very shallow, as the steamer stirred the mud from the bottom and left a dirty streak behind her. The bar at the mouth of the Menam prevents the passage of large ships, and there was a fleet of half a dozen or more lying outside and receiving their cargo from lighters. Vessels drawing less than fifteen feet can go up without difficulty; and once they have passed the bar, there is no trouble in proceeding on to Bangkok.
"I wonder if that is Bangkok?" said Fred, as he pointed to a conical tower that rose just ahead of them, and apparently a short distance above the mouth of the river.
"Oh no," the captain replied, "that is not Bangkok at all. The city is thirty miles up the river, and what you see now is Paknam. We shall stop in front of it to get the permit from the custom-house to allow us to proceed up the river.
VIEW NEAR PAKNAM.
"The tower that you see is a temple on a small island opposite Paknam. It is used on festival days, and once in awhile the king comes down here to worship. On such occasions they have boat-races, and a good time generally; some of the boats are rowed entirely by girls, and the sport is very exciting."
A boat came from the custom-house, and an officer mounted to the deck of the steamer. His visit was a brief one, as the Danube was a regular visitor at the port, and did not require any unusual formalities. After a short delay, the steamer moved on under charge of the pilot, though the captain remained on the bridge and kept a sharp watch over the movements of his vessel. It is a curious feature of maritime law that when a ship is in charge of a pilot her captain's authority ceases; but in case of accident he comes in for a liberal share of censure.
The boys found that the Menam was as crooked as the Mekong, and not unlike the latter in its general features. The channel appeared to be free of sand-bars or other impediments to navigation, though some of the bends of the stream were rather short for a large ship to turn in with ease. At one place there was a channel or canal that saved a great distance for small boats; but it was impracticable for the Danube, which was obliged to follow the winding of the river. A little tow-boat entered this canal just as they passed the entrance; she steamed leisurely through, and as the Danube rounded the bend Frank discovered that the tow-boat was several miles ahead of them.
NATIVE HUT ON THE MENAM RIVER.
The river was full of native boats, some going in one direction and some in another. Now and then a house was visible in the dense foliage, and there was an occasional cluster of dwellings large enough to be called a village. Many of the houses were built so that a platform in front overhung the water; and the whole structure was on piles, in order to form a refuge against snakes and wild beasts, and also to secure the inhabitants against being suddenly driven out by an inundation.
But what impressed the young travellers more than anything else was the richness of the tropical vegetation along the banks of the river. Here were palms in great variety, and many huge trees whose names were unknown to them; and there was a dense growth of underbrush, through which it would be very difficult for a man to penetrate unless armed with a hatchet, and not at all easy even then. Many of the trees were covered with creeping and climbing plants, so that not a particle of the surface or foliage of the original tree could be seen, and very often the burden of parasites was so great that the trees had fallen beneath it.
"I have read," said Frank, "about the vines that destroyed a tree, but have never fairly seen an instance of it till now."
"Nor I either," Fred responded. "Look at that fine tree that has been quite broken down by the weight of the plants that cling to it. And observe, too, the bright blossoms that the vine has spread out, as if it was exulting over the destruction it had caused."
Some of the creeping vines had a scarlet flower of a very gaudy pattern, and it seemed as if it was their season for blooming, as the vines in several instances were completely covered with blossoms.
A VILLAGE PATHWAY IN SIAM.
Now and then there were little openings in the forest that looked like pathways. The Doctor told his young companions that these paths undoubtedly led to villages or single houses that were hid away in the dense foliage. The Doctor's belief was confirmed by the glimpse of an occasional figure among the trees, and by dusky faces that contemplated the steadily moving steamer.
But it was not all a tropical forest with occasional villages. There were sugar plantations, some of them of considerable extent; and there were rice-fields where dozens and dozens of men were at work. Frank contemplated a lot of these laborers with the captain's glass, and remarked that the Siamese resembled the Chinese so much that it was impossible to distinguish between them. The Doctor laughed, and then gave this explanation:
"The men that you see are Chinese, and not the people of Siam. Nearly all these rice and sugar plantations employ Chinese laborers; and of the five millions of people in Siam not less than two millions are Chinese. They come here, just as they go to America or to Australia, in search of employment; and, though the wages are low, they are quite content. If you could go to every part of Siam you would hardly ever be out of sight of the Chinese, as they are scattered everywhere through the kingdom. There, now, we will have a good view of some of these laborers."
CHINESE FIELD-LABORERS.
As he spoke, the steamer swung quite close to the bank, where there was a group of laborers evidently just ready to depart for the rice-field. Some were squatted, and some were standing; some were fully and some only partially clothed; and all appeared as though they had the good digestion that comes from hard work. It did not need a long study of the assemblage to convince our friends that the men were exactly like those they had seen in Canton and Hong-kong, and the captain told them that probably every one of the crowd was from the Quang-Tung Province of China.
GENERAL VIEW OF BANGKOK.
They were still in the midst of cocoa and other tropical trees, when the captain told them they were at Bangkok. There was a saw-mill and a dock-yard among the trees on one side of the river, and farther on was a large house, with an open space of an acre or more between it and the river. They had reached what may be called the foreign portion of the city; the native part is nearly three miles farther on, and quite concealed by a bend in the stream.
We will see what the boys had to say of Bangkok in their letters to friends at home. Here is what Frank wrote:
"My dear Mother,—We had a charming voyage from Saigon to this port. The weather was fine, and we amused ourselves in various ways; one thing we did was to read up the story of Marco Polo's travels six hundred years ago, and then tell it over to the Doctor. Sometimes it was so hot that we slept on deck, and when it was raining hard we used to go out in our bathing-suits and have a shower-bath that was simply perfect. We had a picturesque ride up the Menam to this city; and we have seen lots of curious things since we landed.
"We came ashore with the captain, and he took us at once to the only hotel in the place. It is a funny sort of a hotel, as you have to go out-of-doors to pass from the dining-room to the sleeping-rooms and the parlor, where we sit when we want to rest. The rooms are not more than ten feet square, and I don't think Fred's will measure as much as that. I made the remark that you couldn't swing a cat around there; and the landlord said he had no cat, and even if he had one he didn't want to swing her anyway. You ought to see the landlord; he is a German, and as jolly as you could wish. He was formerly a sea-captain, and everybody calls him 'Captain Salje.' He must weigh pretty nearly three hundred pounds, and when he laughs he shakes all over. He speaks English as well as German, and he also speaks the language of the country and that of Java, where he lived a long time. When things don't get along well in the kitchen, he goes in among his servants, and you hear his voice ringing out all over the house. He is a capital landlord, and we like his table better than that of any hotel we have seen since we left San Francisco.
IN THE FOREIGN PART OF BANGKOK.
"The hotel stands on the bank of the river, and you can step from a boat directly to the veranda of the house. The river is the Broadway of Bangkok, and all the travelling to and fro, or the greater part of it, is done on the water. In this part of Bangkok is where the foreigners live, and their houses are scattered along the banks for at least a mile. Nobody wants to live where he would be without a front on the river, as it would be just like living off from the street in an American city. The merchants have their warehouses so that goods can be rolled from boats directly inside the doors; but the houses where people live are set back a little, and have a good large yard in front and all around them. They have plenty of trees in the yards, and the houses look very pretty; and as the verandas are wide, there is an abundance of shade. Most of the houses are of two stories, and built of stuccoed brick; and a good many of the floors are of brick or stone. Wood is not very durable in this climate, as the air is moist and rots it; and, besides, they have certain kinds of insects that eat it full of holes, and make it turn to powder. Some woods decay much faster than others, and they have one kind called teak, that the insects never attack.
"As I look from the veranda where I am writing I can see half a dozen ships anchored in the river below here, and as many more up above. Most of them belong to Siam, as we can see by the flag; and there are two or three German ships, one English, and one American. The Siamese flag is red, and has a white elephant on it; we are in the country of the White Elephant, and don't intend leaving until we have seen the sacred beast. I am told that the white elephants at the king's palace have fine stables and lots of attendants, and that they are worshipped and petted till they are quite spoiled in their dispositions.
"We have hired a boat by the day, and it is to be kept for our use as long as we stay here; just as we might keep a carriage in another country. There is a little cabin where you have to stoop as you go in; and there are cushioned seats for four persons, and windows with sliding lattices all around. It takes four men to row it—two on the bow, and two on the stern—and they all row with their faces the way the boat is going. The boat is quite comfortable, and we enjoy it very much.
"The people make use of the river for all sorts of business. It is the great highway for transporting merchandise, and for promenading on the water; and it is the place where people go on shopping excursions. A great many of the houses are built on rafts of bamboo-poles, and they rise and fall with the tide. The raft is somewhat larger than the house, and forms a platform all around it; and when you want to go in at the front of a house, you have only to bring your boat along-side the raft and step off. The bamboo seems almost to have been designed by nature for the purpose of making these rafts. You know it is hollow, and very light, and that it has joints at regular intervals. Now each joint forms a water-tight compartment, and the wood will resist the water for a very long time, so that a bamboo raft has no chance of sinking. Perhaps it was the bamboo that gave the Chinese the idea of building ships in water-tight compartments, as Marco Polo says they did six hundred years ago. Who knows?
"As you go along the river you see the fronts of the houses open towards the water, and if they have anything to sell it is put where it can be seen, exactly as it would be in a shop on Broadway. The houses are divided generally into only two rooms—the men occupying one, and the women the other; and the Siamese rarely make houses of more than one story. The reason is that they wish to avoid having anybody walking over their heads, which is considered an indignity. It is said that when the city was first built along the banks of the river there was a great deal of cholera, on account of the bad drainage, and many people died. The king then gave orders for the people to build on the river itself, which would make the drainage perfect, and thus improve the public health. The order was obeyed, and from it we find the floating houses that seem so curious to us. There are not far from fifteen thousand of these houses and shops, and they are strung along on both sides of the river for several miles, altogether. Then there are many houses built on piles, to overhang the water, just like those we described at Saigon.
"One of the books we have with us tells us that Bangkok is called 'The Venice of the East,' and I can easily understand why. Venice is full of canals, as you know, and so is Bangkok. They run off from the river in all directions, and you can go almost anywhere by them when the tide is up. This is why nearly everybody has a boat, as it would be difficult to go about without one. You see boats of all sizes, from a little dug-out, just large enough for one person—and a small one at that—up to the great house-boat, or barge, that will hold twenty or more. The people spend a good deal of their time on the water, and very often in it; for they swim like otters, and are not at all disturbed when one of their boats overturns with them. This afternoon, when we were out on the river, a steamboat passed us. It did us no harm, though we tossed around for a moment; but there was a small skiff close by that was filled with water by the swell from the steamer. Two boys were in it, and as the skiff went down under them, they took hold of it with their hands and swam to the shore. They soon had the water out of it, and paddled off as merrily as ever.
"Where the largest of the canals branches off there is a pretty dense collection of houses, and this continues for quite a distance. The streets are irregular, and not very wide or clean; perhaps the most of the people living in this quarter are Chinese, and they are not very particular about dirt. Most of the shops are kept by Chinese, and they have a great number of gambling-houses, for which they pay a fixed sum to the government. Gambling is a monopoly, and so is the sale of intoxicating spirits; the licenses are sold by the government, just as an American city gives a man a license to sell liquor when he pays the sum agreed on. The Chinese that come here are just as great gamblers as they are at home, and they are just as fond of smoking opium.
"The city is said to contain half a million inhabitants, and it is little more than a hundred years old. It was founded in 1769, when the Siamese capital (Ayuthia) was captured and plundered by the Burmese. The king lives here, and the royal palace is well worth seeing. We are going there to-morrow, or perhaps next day, and we are going to see some curious temples. There are lots of temples in Bangkok, and the city contains not less than twenty thousand priests of the Buddhist religion. We will tell you more about the priests and the temples in another letter."
A SIAMESE PRIEST.