Where the Strange Trails Go Down / Sulu, Borneo, Celebes, Bali, Java, Sumatra, Straits Settlements, Malay States, Siam, Cambodia, Annam, Cochin-China

by E. Alexander Powell

As the road to Pnom-Penh is quite uninteresting—just a narrow yellow highway chopped through a dense tangle of tropic vegetation—suppose I take advantage of the opportunity to tell you something of this little-known land in which we find ourselves.

French Indo-China occupies perhaps two-thirds of that great bay-window-shaped peninsula which protrudes from the southeastern corner of Asia. In area it is, as I have already remarked, somewhat larger than Texas; its population is about equal to that of New York and Pennsylvania combined. It consists of five states: the colony of Cochin-China, the protectorates of Cambodia, Annam and Tongking, and the unorganized territory of Laos, to which might be added the narrow strip of borderland, known as Kwang Chau Wan, leased from China. In 1902 the capital of French Indo-China was transferred from Saigon, in Cochin-China, to Hanoi, in Tongking.

By far the most interesting of these political divisions is Cambodia, which, for centuries an independent kingdom, was forced in 1862 to accept the protection of France. An apple-shaped country, about the size of England, with a few score miles of seacoast and without railway or regular sea communications, it lies tucked away in the heart of the peninsula, its southern borders marching with those of Cochin-China, its frontier on the north co-terminous with that of Siam. Though the octogenarian King Sisowath maintains a gorgeous court, a stable of elephants, upwards of two-hundred dancing-girls, and one of the most ornate palaces in Asia, he is permitted only a shadow of power, the real ruler of Cambodia being the French Resident-Superior, who governs the country from the great white Residency on the banks of the Mekong.

I know of no region of like size and so comparatively easy of access (the great liners of the Messageries Maritimes touch at Saigon, whence the Cambodian capital can be reached by river-steamer in two days) which offers so many attractions to the hunter of big game. Unlike British East Africa, where, as a result of the commercialization of sport, the cost of going on safari has steadily mounted until now it is a form of recreation to be afforded only by war profiteers, Cambodia remains unexploited and unspoiled. It is in many respects the richest, as it is almost the last, of the world's great hunting-grounds. It is, indeed, a vast zoological garden, where such formalities as hunting licenses are still unknown. In its jungles roam elephants, tigers, rhinoceroses, leopards, panthers, bear, deer, and the savage jungle buffalo, known in Malaya as the seladang and in Indo-China as the gaur—considered by many hunters the most dangerous of all big game.

Nailed to the wall of the Government rest-house at Kep was the skin of a leopard which had been shot from the veranda the day before my arrival, while raiding the pig-pen. The day that I left Kampot an elephant herd, estimated by the native trackers at one hundred and twenty head, was reported within seven miles of the town. Twice during the journey to Pnom-Penh I saw tracks of elephant herds on the road—it looked as though a fleet of whippet tanks had passed.

Nevertheless, I should have put mental question-marks after some of the big game stories I heard while I was in Indo-China had I not been convinced of the credibility of those who told them. Only a few days before our arrival at Saigon, for example, an American engaged in business in that city set out one morning before daybreak, in a small car, for the paddy-fields, where there is excellent bird-shooting in the early dawn. The car, which, owing to the intense heat, had no wind-shield, was driven by the Annamite chauffeur, the American, a double-barrel loaded with bird-shot across his knees, sitting beside him on the front seat. Rounding a turn in the jungle road at thirty miles an hour, the twin beams of light from the lamps fell on a tiger, which, dazzled and bewildered by the on-coming glare, crouched snarling in the middle of the highway. There was no time to stop the car, and, as the jungle came to the very edge of the narrow road, there was no way to avoid the animal, which, just as the car was upon it, gathered itself and sprang. It landed on the hood with all four feet, its snarling face so close to the men that they could feel its breath. The American, thrusting the muzzle of his weapon into the furry neck of the great cat, let go with both barrels, blowing away the beast's throat and jugular vein and killing it instantly. With the aid of his badly frightened driver, he bundled the great striped carcass into the tonneau of the car and imperturbably continued on his bird-shooting expedition. Some people seem to have a monopoly of luck.

Though Saigon and Pnom-Penh do not possess the facilities for equipping shooting expeditions afforded by Mombasa or Nairobi, and though in Indo-China there are no professional European guides, such as the late Major Cunninghame; the elaborate and costly outfits customary in East Africa, with their mile-long trains of bearers, are as unnecessary as they are unknown. The arrangements for a tiger hunt in Indo-China are scarcely more elaborate and certainly no more expensive, than for a moose hunt in Maine. A dependable native shikari who knows the country, a cook, half-a-dozen coolies, a sturdy riding-pony, two or three pack-animals, a tent and food, that is all you need. With such an outfit, particularly in a region so thick with game as, say, the Dalat Plateau, in Annam, the hunter should get a shot at a tiger before he has been forty-eight hours in the bush. In a clearing in a jungle known to be frequented by tigers, the carcass of a bullock, or, if that is unavailable, of a pig, is fastened securely to a stake and left there until it smells to high heaven. When its odor is of sufficient potency to reach the nostrils of the tiger, the hunter takes up his position in the edge of the clearing, or on a platform built in a tree if he believes in Safety First. For investigating the kill the tiger usually chooses the dimness of the early dawn or the semi-darkness which precedes nightfall. With no warning save a faint rustle in the undergrowth a lean and tawny form slithers on padded feet across the open—and the man behind the rifle has his chance. I have found, however, that even in tiger lands, tigers are by no means as plentiful as one's imagination paints them at home. It is easy to be a big-game hunter on the hearth-rug.

Pnom-Penh, the capital of Cambodia, stands on the west bank of the mighty Mekong, one hundred and seventy miles from the sea. Pnom, meaning "mountain," refers to the hill, or mound, ninety feet high, in the heart of the city; Penh was the name of a celebrated Cambodian queen. Until twenty years ago Pnom-Penh was a filthy and unsanitary native town, its streets ankle-deep with dust during the dry season and ankle-deep with mud during the rains. But with the coming of the French the flimsy, vermin-infested houses were torn down, the hog-wallows which served as thoroughfares were transformed into broad and well-paved avenues shaded by double rows of handsome trees, and the city was provided with lighting and water systems. The old-fashioned open water sewers still remain, however, lending to the place, a rich, ripe odor. Pnom-Penh possesses a spacious and well ventilated motion-picture house, where Charlie Chaplin known to the French as "Charlot" and Fatty Arbuckle convulse the simple children of the jungle just as they convulse more sophisticated assemblages on the other side of the globe.

But all that is most worth seeing in Pnom-Penh is cloistered within the mysterious walls of vivid pink which surround the Royal Palace. Here is the residence of His Majesty Prea Bat Samdach Prea Sisowath, King of Cambodia; here dwell the twelve score dancing-girls of the famous royal ballet and the hundreds of concubines and attendants comprising the royal harem; here are the stables of the royal elephants and the sacred zebus; here a congeries of palaces, pavilions, throne halls, dance halls, temples, shrines, kiosks, monuments, courtyards, and gardens the like of which is not to be found outside the covers of The Thousand and One Nights. It is an architectural extravaganza, a bacchanalia of color and design, as fantastic and unreal as the city of a dream. The steep-pitched, curiously shaped roofs are covered with tiles of every color—peacock blue, vermilion, turquoise, emerald green, burnt orange; no inch of exposed woodwork has escaped the carver's cunning chisel; everywhere gold has been laid on with a spendthrift hand. And in this marvelous setting strut or stroll figures that might have stepped straight from the stage of Sumurun—fantastically garbed functionaries of the Household, shaven-headed priests in yellow robes, pompous mandarins in sweeping silken garments, bejeweled and bepainted dancing-girls. It is not real, you feel. It is too gorgeous, too bizarre. It is the work of stage-carpenters and scene-painters and costumers, and you are quite certain that the curtain will descend presently and that you will have to put on your hat and go home.

From the center of the great central court rises the famous Silver Pagoda. It takes its name from its floor, thirty-six feet wide and one hundred and twenty long, which is covered with pure silver. When the sun's rays seep through the interstices of the carving it leaps into a brilliancy that is blinding. On the high walls of the room are depicted in startling colors, scenes from the life of Buddha and realistic glimpses of hell, for your Cambodian artist is at his best in portraying scenes of horror. The mural decorations of the Silver Pagoda would win the unqualified approval of an oldtime fire-and-brimstone preacher. Rearing itself roofward from the center of the room is an enormous pyramidal altar, littered with a heterogeneous collection of offerings from the devout. At its apex is a so-called Emerald Buddha—probably, like its fellow in Bangkok, of translucent jade—which is the guardian spirit of the place. But at one side of the altar stands the chief treasure of the temple—a great golden Buddha set with diamonds. The value of the gold alone is estimated at not far from three-quarters of a million dollars; at the value of the jewels one can only guess. It was made by the order of King Norodom, the brother and predecessor of the present ruler, the whole amazing edifice, indeed, being a monument into which that monarch poured his wealth and ambition. Ranged about the altar are glass cases containing the royal treasures—rubies, sapphires, emeralds and diamonds of a size and in a profusion which makes it difficult to realize that they are genuine. It is a veritable cave of Al-ed-Din. The covers of these cases are sealed with strips of paper bearing the royal cypher—nothing more. They have never been locked nor guarded, yet nothing has ever been stolen, for King Sisowath is to his subjects something more than a ruler; he is venerated as the representative of God on earth. For a Cambodian to steal from him would be as unthinkable a sacrilege as for a Roman Catholic to burglarize the apartments of the Pope. And should their religious scruples show signs of yielding to temptation, why, there are the paintings on the walls to warn them of the torments awaiting them in the hereafter. It struck me, however, that the Silver Pagoda offers a golden, not to say a jeweled opportunity to an enterprising American burglar.