The Romance of the Harem

by Anna Harriette Leonowens

The great river Mèinam is the Nile of Siam. Rising among the southern slopes of the snow-covered mountains of Yunan, it traverses the whole length of the valley, receiving in its course the waters of many other streams, the most important being the Mèikhong, which in its length of nearly one thousand miles drains the eastern provinces of Laos and Cambodia. Ancient annals relate that in the fifteenth and as late as the seventeenth century, Chinese junks ascended the river as far as Sangkalok, nearly one hundred and twenty leagues from its mouth; now, owing to the increasing alluvial deposit, it is not navigable more than fifteen leagues at most.

In the month of June, the mountain snows begin to melt, the deluging rains of the wet season set in, the strong southerly winds dam up the waters of the Mèinam, and it begins to rise,—an event most eagerly looked for by the people, and hailed by them as a blessing from Heaven. In August the inundation is at its height, and the whole vast valley is like one immense sea, in which towns and villages look like islands, connected by drawbridges, and interspersed with groves and orchards, the tops of which only are seen, while boats pass to and fro without injury to the rice and other crops starting beneath them. The whole valley is intersected by canals, some of great size and extent, in order to distribute as far as possible the benefits of this grand operation of nature; but the lands situated about the middle of the great plain derive the greatest advantage therefrom.

When the inundation is supposed to have reached its height, a deputation of Talapoins, or priests, sent by the king, descend the river in magnificent state barges, and with chants and incantations and movements of magical wands command the waters to retire. Sometimes, however, the calculations prove to have been incorrect, the river continues to rise, and it is they who are compelled to retire, filled with chagrin and disappointment.

The popular river festival, which takes place after the waters begin to subside, both in origin and character belongs to the Hindoos, rather than to the Buddhists. It is an annual festival held at night, and the scene which is exhibited during its celebration is exceedingly beautiful. The banks of the Mèinam are brilliantly lighted up; accompanied and announced by numerous flights of rockets, a number of floating palaces, built on rafts, come sailing down the stream, preceded by thousands of lamps and lanterns wreathed with chaplets of flowers, which cover with their gay brilliancy the entire surface of the flashing water. The rafts, which are formed of young plantain-trees fastened together, are often of considerable extent, and the structures which they bear are such as Titania herself might delight to inhabit. Towers, gates, arches, and pagodas rise in fantastic array, bright with a thousand colors, and shining in the light of numberless cressets,—so the fairy-like spectacle moves on, while admiring crowds of men, women, and children throng the banks of the river, not only to join the brilliant pageant, but to watch their own frail little bark, freighted, perchance, with a single lamp, yet full of life's brightest hopes, as it floats unextinguished down the rapid stream, glimmering on with ruddy flame amidst the shadows of night.

The products of Siam, as may be supposed from its range of latitude, its tropical heats, its variety of climate, and the fertility of the valley, annually renewed by the inundation, are very diversified, and almost unlimited in quantity. Its rice, of which there are forty varieties, is excellent, and its sugar is esteemed the best in the world. Among the other exports are cotton, tobacco, hemp, cutch, dried fish and fruits, cocoanut-oil, beeswax, precious gums, spices, dye and other woods, especially teak, ivory, and many articles too numerous to mention. The mineral riches of the country are still almost entirely in an undeveloped state.

The search for sparkling gems has in all ages been eagerly engaged in; diamonds and other precious stones are frequently offered for sale, but the precise locality in which they are found is kept secret by the natives. The thousand-fold more valuable seams of coal and iron have remained unsought and most imperfectly worked as yet. A beginning has at last been made by the present king, and the last and best, though poetically maligned, age of iron is about to spread its blessings over the Siamese Empire.

The population of Siam cannot be ascertained with correctness, owing to the custom of enumerating only the men. When I was in Bangkok, the native registers gave the number of them as four million Siamese, one million Laotians, one million Malays and Indians, one million five hundred thousand Chinese, three hundred and fifty thousand Cambodians, fifty thousand Peguans, and the same number of mountain tribes; in all, nearly eight millions. If these figures are even approximately correct, and the women and children bear the same proportion to the men as in other countries, the total population of Siam far exceeds the numbers which have hitherto been assigned to it.

No people in the world exhibit so many exceptional developments of human nature as the different races occupying the eastern peninsula of India. The most impressible of races, ideas and views of life take root among them such as would find no acceptance elsewhere. Supple and pliant in their bodily frames, they are equally so in their mental and moral constitution; and upon no other race has the force of circumstance and the contagion of example so potent an influence in determining them towards good or evil. Royalty, therefore, to them, is not a mere name. It has taken such hold on their affections that it usurps the place of a religious sentiment. The person of the king is sacred. He is not only enthroned, he is enshrined. His rule may be called despotic, but it is tempered by law and by not less revered custom. He may name his successor by Will, but the Royal or Secret Council will determine whether that Will shall be carried into effect. A second king, selected, like the first or supreme king, from the royal family, is also appointed by the Secret Council. Whatever may have originally been the functions of this second king, his exercise of them appears, from incidents of the late reign, to be dependent upon the disposition of the supreme king, and his desire or disinclination to concentrate in his own person all the powers of the throne.

The whole empire is divided into forty-nine provinces, with their respective Phayas, or governors; and these again are subdivided into districts under inferior officers, respecting whose administration but little that is good can be said.

Every subject, even the most humble, has by law the right to complain to the king in person against any official, however exalted; and the king sits in public at the eastern gate of the palace to receive the petitions of his people.