BANG-PA-IN TO BANGKOK.—STUDIES IN NATURAL HISTORY AND BOTANY.
As they returned down the river the boat stopped at Bang-pa-in, to enable the young tourists to have a view of the place. The name means, "City on an Island," and is a literal description of the situation. The island is not very wide in proportion to its length, and the boys found that the beauties of the spot were quite up to the expectation they had formed during their journey up the river. They walked through the gardens, which were laid out with exquisite taste, and sat beneath the trees, whose dense foliage afforded a grateful shade; they were shown through the palace, found it furnished in European style, and their sharp eyes caught sight of a piano, which gave a hint of the musical taste of the king. The officer in charge of the place showed an album of monograms which his majesty had arranged, and some pencil sketches that were the work of the royal hands. The boys were consoled for the absence of the king by the reflection that if he had been present the palace would not have been open to visitors, and some of the interesting sights of Bang-pa-in would have escaped them.
When they reached the landing to continue their journey, they found a native boat along-side their own with fruits and other things to sell. By direction of Doctor Bronson, the interpreter bought a selection of what was in the market; and, as soon as they were again in motion, the boys employed their eyes and palates in a scientific investigation of the good things before them.
The first article that they discussed was a green cocoa-nut. Frank wondered what use they could make of it, and Fred suggested that they might keep it till it was ripe.
One of the servants speedily put an end to their suspense. With a dexterity that was evidently the result of long practice, he cut away the husk, and then made a hole in the shell of the nut large enough for the easy insertion of one's thumb. The opening revealed the interior of the nut, with a slight accumulation of white pulp close to the shell, while all the rest of the enclosed space was filled with milk. When it was thus prepared he handed the nut to Frank, and immediately opened another, which he gave to Fred.
Frank laughed, and said, "What shall we do with it?"
"Drink the milk, and throw away the shell," replied the Doctor, as he took one from the hands of the servant, and suited his action to his words.
The boys did as they were directed, and the drink was followed by an exclamation of delight.
COCOA-NUTS FULL GROWN AND JUST FORMING.
They found the milk of the cocoa-nut a cool and refreshing beverage; and, on the assurance of the consul that they might take all they wished without fear of injury to their digestion, they proceeded with the demolition of more and more nuts, until the basket was emptied. The consul told them that the juice of the green cocoa-nut was a favorite beverage throughout Siam, and was considered by some people as far safer to drink than the water of the river.
"There is a good deal of vegetable matter in the river water," said he, "and it is undoubtedly the cause of derangements of the stomach when freely used. But the juice of the nut is pure and healthy, and its slightly acid taste makes it welcome to the palate. It is cool, as you have seen, and the acidity doubtless causes it to seem to be of a lower temperature than the surrounding atmosphere."
THE BREAD-FRUIT.
Fred asked if the famous bread-fruit was in the lot they had bought, and was rather disappointed at its absence. But a bread-fruit tree was pointed out to him as they floated down the river, and he made note of the fact that it was about forty feet high, and had a leaf nearly two feet long. The fruit resembled a large, very large apple, or perhaps a small melon; and the Doctor told him that the outer husk furnished a fibre like that of the cocoa-nut, which could be made into a sort of coarse cloth.
The Doctor further explained that the bread-fruit was baked in the shell, the same as an oyster is roasted, and that the inner pulp, when thus cooked, resembled a sweet-potato in taste, and was very nutritious. To the touch it was not unlike the soft part of a loaf of bread, and its name was due to this latter quality rather than to its taste. "It forms," said he, "the chief sustenance of the inhabitants of many of the islands of the South Pacific Ocean, and is to be found nearly everywhere in the tropics. It was introduced into the West Indies about a century ago, and its cultivation has been very successful in that region; later it was planted in Central America, and has become so well known and used that the natives rely largely upon it for their food. The product of three trees in some of the Pacific Islands will support a man for a year; and it is no wonder that he becomes lazy when he has nothing to do but pluck his food from a tree."
PINEAPPLE.
When they had finished with the cocoa-nuts, they had a fine pineapple; and they remarked that its freshness made it sweeter and better than any pineapple they had ever eaten at home. Frank made a sketch of this fruit, with its long and sharp-pointed leaves, and then he drew the inside of a fruit which, for want of a better name, he called a star-apple. It had a purple skin, and resembled an orange in shape and size; the pulp was white, and, when it was cut across, the cells for the seeds showed the exact form of a star. Fruit after fruit was cut, in the hope that one would be found without the star; but the effort was a complete failure.
STAR-APPLE.
Of course they had oranges in abundance; and they had half a dozen fruits whose names were quite unknown to them, but which were all delicious. Fred lamented that the attempt to tell about the flavor of a strange fruit was like trying to describe the song of a bird, or the perfume of a flower. So they concluded that the best thing for them to do was to eat the fruit and admire it; and if anybody wanted to know what it was like, he would refer him to the article itself, and let him judge of the quality.
A NEW KIND OF FRUIT.
While seated on the deck of the boat, and engaged in testing the peculiarities of an orange, Frank espied something on a tree that grew close to the water. Thinking it might be a new kind of fruit, he called the Doctor's attention to his discovery; the latter said the strange thing was nothing more nor less than the nest of a bird, and would hardly prove edible. Frank's illusion was broken, as the Doctor spoke, by a small bird that hopped on a limb in front of the supposed fruit, and at the same instant the head of another bird appeared from a hole in the nest. Evidently the nest was constructed of cotton, or something of the sort, as it was nearly snow-white in color; it hung from the limb, so that it swayed in the wind, and it was not at all surprising that Frank had mistaken it for a variety of fruit hitherto unknown to him.
TAILOR-BIRD AND NEST.
"That nest is not so remarkable," said the Doctor, "as the one made by the tailor-bird, an inhabitant of Siam and the tropical parts of India and Malacca. It chooses a leaf on a small twig, and then proceeds to puncture a row of holes along the edge with its beak, just as a shoemaker uses an awl for making holes in a piece of leather. When it has thus perforated the leaf, it takes a long fibre from a plant, and passes it through the holes. The operation of sewing is imitated with great exactness, and the fibre is pulled, like a thread, until the edges of the leaf are drawn towards each other and form a hollow cone. If the bird cannot find a single leaf large enough for its purpose, it sews two leaves together; and instances have been known where three leaves were used. When the framework of the nest is completed, the bird fills the interior with the softest down it can gather from plants, and it thus has a home which it is next to impossible to discover among the leaves. There is another bird that lives near watercourses and marshes, and constructs a nest by sewing the reeds and rushes together; but its work is not so perfect as that of the tailor-bird, and does not entitle him to equal credit."
Frank was anxious to obtain one of these nests as a curiosity, and was gratified, on his return to Bangkok, to find one for sale in the hands of a native. He bought it, and had it carefully packed, so that he could send it home without fear of injury in the next box of curiosities they should despatch to America.
From birds the conversation wandered to fishes, and the boys learned something that caused their eyes to open with astonishment. Lest it should be forgotten, it was entered in both their note-books, and read as follows:
"There is a fish in Siam, and other parts of the East, that has the remarkable peculiarity of going overland from one pond to another. When the water where they are dries up, the fishes start for the nearest pond, though it may be several miles away; and they propel themselves by means of their fins, very much as a turtle drags himself with his feet. Their instinct is unerring, and they have never been known to make a mistake about heading for the water that is nearest. It is said that you may take one of them up and turn him around half a dozen times, till he is dizzy, but he will not lose his points of compass. When he is put down again he takes the proper direction, and though you put him off the track ever so many times, he always returns to it."
"We shall next hear, I suppose, that there are fishes that climb trees," Fred remarked, as he finished his note on the fishes that go overland.
"Quite possibly," Frank replied; "let us ask the Doctor."
They asked the question, and were taken somewhat aback when Doctor Bronson answered in the affirmative.
A CLIMBING-FISH.
"I don't know," said he, "if there are any fish in Siam that climb trees, but there is one in Brazil that can perform this feat. He does not ascend a perpendicular tree, but when he finds one that slopes at an angle of about forty-five degrees, and has its roots in the water, he will venture on an excursion in the air. His scales are very large, and he works himself forward by a motion of the lower ones as they press against the bark of the tree. He hugs the tree with his fins in order to maintain his balance; his movements in climbing are very slow, and he certainly appears to better advantage in the water, where he is a rapid and graceful swimmer. You see that a fish out of water is not always the unhappy creature he has been supposed to be by most persons."
"I heard somebody say one day," said Fred, "that oysters grow on trees in some parts of the world. Is that really so?"
"Certainly," was the Doctor's answer; "they do grow on trees, but not in the way you are naturally led to suppose."
"How is it, then, Doctor?" queried Frank.
"It is quite simple when you understand it," was the response. "The spawn of the oyster floats in the water, and attaches itself to the first thing with which it comes in contact. It frequently happens that, at high-tide, the water comes up a little way on the trunk of a tree, or it may be that a limb of a tree hangs in the water. The oyster-spawn is attached to the trunk or limb, as the case may be, and when the tide goes away it remains there. It has enough vitality to live until the tide comes again; it retains its hold, and in course of time becomes an oyster growing on a tree. He could not live altogether without water, but he can easily get along during the intervals of the tides. He does not grow on a tree like an apple or an orange, but he certainly makes the tree his home."
"Do they have oysters in Siam?" one of the boys asked.
"Oysters grow in the Gulf of Siam," was the reply; "but they are not equal to those of the Atlantic coast of the United States. As for that matter, no oysters in any part of the world can or do equal ours; at least in the opinion of residents of the United States. Here in the East Indies they have some very large oysters; there is one variety that often attains a weight of three hundred pounds; it is not good for anything, however, and you never hear a man in a restaurant calling for a dozen of this variety on the half-shell.
"Naturalists have described about sixty varieties of oysters in different parts of the world, and it is said that more than two hundred species of fossil oysters have been found by geologists. Most of these forms are now extinct, and, therefore, we have no way of determining whether all of them have been good to eat or otherwise. It is often remarked that the first man who ate an oyster must have been very brave, and it is a pity that his name has not come down to us. One version of the story is that he thrust his fingers into an open shell which he saw lying on the sea-shore; the oyster was angry at this intrusion, and immediately closed on the fingers, very much to the man's astonishment. It required a great deal of wrenching to liberate them from the shell, and they were somewhat injured in the operation; the man naturally put his fingers in his mouth to relieve the pain, and in so doing he learned the taste of the oyster. Having learned it, he immediately smashed the shell with a stone and devoured the contents, and he continued to eat oysters till he had made a hearty meal. Always after that, when he was hungry, he went to the oyster-bank and satisfied his appetite, and from being thin as a skeleton he grew fat and rosy. His neighbors noted the change, and one day when he was proceeding stealthily to his favorite retreat they watched him and found his secret. When it was once out, the news spread with great rapidity, and thus was inaugurated the habit of eating the oyster. When this occurred no one knows; but the fact is that the ancient Romans and Greeks were fond of the oyster, and esteemed it greatly as an article of food.
"Another remarkable fact is—"
Before the Doctor could finish the sentence, Frank sprung to his feet in an excited manner, and pointed to a tree that stood not twenty feet from the bank of the river.
"See that great snake!" he shouted; "and see that squirrel in front of him!"
THE SNAKE AND THE SQUIRREL.
A snake was coiled around the limb of the tree with his neck bent, and his head slowly waving in the air. His body glistened in the sunlight as it played on his scales, and Frank fancied he could see the fire darting from his eyes. A foot or so in front of him was a squirrel, sitting on his haunches, and with his tail erect; his eyes were fixed on the serpent, and he was chattering wildly, and as if greatly alarmed.
While they looked at the strange spectacle, the head of the snake was darted forward, and in an instant the poor little squirrel was transfixed by the deadly fangs. Frank wished they had been able to save the squirrel by killing the snake, but his wishing was of no avail, as they were moving down the stream; and, besides, they had no fire-arms with which the serpent could have been disturbed in his retreat up the tree.
"I suppose the squirrel was charmed by the snake," said Fred, as soon as they had passed out of sight of the tree.
"As to that," replied Doctor Bronson, "there is much dispute. Many persons who have studied the subject are positive that snakes have the power of charming or fascinating small birds and animals; and others, who have studied it quite as much, deny that any such power exists. I have heard so much on both sides, that I am not able to form a positive opinion. I am inclined, however, to believe that the power is possessed by certain snakes, as I have seen manifestations of it, or something very like it. When I was a boy in the country, I one day saw a large black snake in an apple-tree on my uncle's farm. A bird was hopping around on the limbs in great alarm, as I judged by his twitterings; he seemed to be terribly afraid of the snake, and at the same time unable to get away from him. I watched his movements for nearly half an hour, and observed that each time the bird moved he came nearer to the snake; and the performance ended by his lighting on a branch within a foot of where the latter was coiled. Then the snake darted his head forward and seized the bird, precisely as you saw that scaly fellow, a few moments ago, seize the squirrel.
"Exactly what the process of charming is, if it really exists, it is difficult to say. Probably the victim is paralyzed, to some extent, by the horrible appearance of the serpent, and deprived of the use of his limbs. If you suddenly come in contact with a ferocious wild beast, or some terrible danger is presented to you, it is not at all improbable that you will be unable to move from sheer fright. I am inclined to believe that the fascination of birds and small mammals by serpents is something of this sort, but I confess my inability to explain why the victim, in moving around, comes every moment nearer to his destroyer, as though he could not remove his eyes, however much he might wish to do so."
"If you travel around much in Siam," the consul remarked, "you will find all the snakes you care to see. It is not unusual to see them swimming in the river; and in the rainy season they frequently get into the houses, particularly those that float on the water. Most of them are harmless, but there are some poisonous ones, including the famous cobra di capella."
Frank thought he would prefer not to live in a floating house, for the present at least; and his opinion was shared by Fred. They were not at all enamored of the idea of having an intimate association with the wandering snakes of Siam.
MONKEYS AT HOME.
"I think," said the Doctor, "that if you were compelled to select some of the inhabitants of the Siamese forests as your companions, you would prefer monkeys to snakes. In the region north of here you could find an abundance of them, and of all sizes; they run wild in the forests, and sometimes are found in large droves. They are sociable beings, and very fond of each other's society; and if one of them gets into trouble, his companions are quite likely to come to his relief. A friend of mine was out hunting one day, and saw a monkey on a tree where a fair chance for a shot was presented. He fired and wounded the monkey, who immediately set up a piteous howl; in a few minutes dozens of monkeys were around him, and they seemed to understand that my friend was the cause of the trouble. He fled, and they pursued him; he fired his gun to frighten them, and, after knocking several of them over, he reached an open space of country, and was allowed to go on undisturbed. If he had been without his gun he would not have escaped so easily.
"Monkeys have a good many enemies besides man. Wild beasts devour them, and occasionally snakes manage to take them in; the fellows are so active that they can only be captured by strategy, or their own carelessness and curiosity; and they often fall victims to the last-named quality. A tiger will lie down and pretend to be dead; the monkeys see him, and draw near to investigate. They approach cautiously, stop frequently, and do a deal of chattering. If the tiger stirs a muscle, they take the alarm at once and are off; but if he lies perfectly still, they are sure, in a little while, to come so close that one of the boldest will venture to pluck at his hide. As he does so he jumps several feet to one side, and if the tiger should rouse himself he would be baffled of his prey. He continues to lie as if dead; and finally the monkeys, believing he is really nothing but a carcass, proceed to sit on him and hold a coroner's inquest. Now is the tiger's chance; and with a sudden spring he has one of the fattest in his jaws, while the rest scamper away to the forest.
"Another enemy of the monkey is the eagle. When the monkeys are playing in the branches of a tree the eagle swoops down with great rapidity, and carries one of the party off in his powerful claws. Often there is a fearful struggle in the air, as the monkey is not inclined to die without a protest; and as he has a great deal of strength, and is full of activity, he occasionally comes off victorious and escapes, though he may be killed by the fall from the height where the eagle drops him. A gentleman of my acquaintance once witnessed the capture of a monkey by an eagle; the eagle fastened his claws in the back of the monkey, and, though the latter struggled violently, his hold was not once broken. The eagle flew to the top of a distant tree, where he undoubtedly devoured his victim at his leisure.
EAGLE CAPTURING A MONKEY.
"In seizing a monkey, the eagle always endeavors to grasp him by the back and neck, one claw being in the neck, and the other farther down. The reason of this is that, unless the monkey is firmly held by the neck, he will turn his head and inflict a terrible bite on his assailant; but as long as the neck is thus held he is powerless. It is said that the first thing the eagle does, after taking a monkey, is to put out his eyes with his powerful beak; but in so doing he is in danger of having his head seized by the monkey's paws."
"On the whole," said Frank, "I don't think I care about forming an intimate acquaintance with the monkey."
Fred was of the same opinion, and the subject of conversation was changed.