A SIAMESE BULLOCK CART.
In many places valuable minerals are said to exist. Gold, rubies, sapphires, and diamonds have been found, but so far have not been obtained in very large quantities. In the Siamese provinces in the Malay Peninsula, tin is exceedingly abundant and is mined by the Chinese.
In the northern provinces there are numerous valuable teak forests, from which the Government derives a very large revenue. Nearly the whole of the teak that is used in building the ships of the different nations of the world, comes from the extensive forests of Upper Burmah and Northern Siam. Much of the teak that is exported from Moulmein and sold as Burmese or Indian, is really obtained from Siamese forests lying between the River Meping and the River Salween. The forests of Burmah have been worked for a much longer period than those of Siam, and the logs obtained therefrom are of inferior quality and smaller girth. The teak forests of Siam are worked with British capital alone, no French or Germans being engaged in the trade. The agents of the British firms live at the scene of the lumbering operations, and are personally responsible for the hiring of the forests, the cutting of the wood, and its subsequent exportation to Bangkok. The different firms have saw-mills of their own in the city, and they trim and cut the logs before they are finally sent abroad. The leases for the forests are obtained from the Lao chiefs in whose districts they stand, but the terms of the leases are often subject to revision by the Siamese Commissioners. The trees are killed before they are felled, by having a ring cut in the bark, about two or three feet from the ground. The "girdled" stem is left for nearly three years before it is cut down, as it is not properly dead before that time. The only method of transport possible in places where there is no water, is by elephants, and this form of transportation is so very expensive that the workings are mostly confined to the banks or the immediate vicinity of the streams. Teak trees unfortunately do not grow in clusters or groves, but only in isolated spots, often separated from each other by considerable distances, so that the question of carriage is financially a very important one.
Felling takes place during the rainy season when the ground is soft and wet, so that the trees as they fall are not likely to sustain any serious damage. Three labourers working together are able to fell three trees in one day. The rough logs are piled side by side until they are removed by the elephants. One of these strong sagacious creatures is harnessed to the log by ropes. He drags it over the ground to the nearest water, his work being considerably lightened by the aid of rude rollers placed along the track. The elephants on reaching the water, pile up the logs on the bank, until the buyer or the agent has examined them. The owner places his own mark on them for purposes of identification, and then the elephants roll them into the water, and place them in positions that render their being bound into rafts a comparatively easy matter. Thieves make themselves busy at such times, breaking up rafts, stealing logs from which they obliterate the owner's mark, and disposing of them as rapidly as possible at nominal values to the first customer they can find. They keep on the look-out for stray elephants too, and occasionally manage to get safely away with their valuable spoil. No replanting goes on, and great waste of timber is caused by the servants of the lessees. The forests will ultimately be destroyed unless some regulations are made with regard to the girth of the trees cut down, and the replanting of fresh ones in the places of those that have been felled. The loss that the world will experience from the loss of the wood, will be infinitesimal compared with the injury that is likely to fall upon the country itself in the changed climatic conditions that invariably attend such wholesale deforestation.
Very fine trees are allowed to stand because the natives are afraid to cut them down. Within any giant of the forest they suppose powerful spirits to be embodied, and they are afraid to call down upon themselves unforeseen and terrible visitations of anger from the spirits who inhabit them.
The villagers in all parts of the country are very hospitable and kindly disposed towards travellers. They show their politeness in their extreme inquisitiveness. They poke their noses into everything, and beg old bottles and sardine tins from the cook, at the same time making little presents of eggs and fish. In very remote places the white skin of the European is a great curiosity, but they never molest any traveller whatever his colour, nor do they interfere with his personal liberty. On the other hand, every one, from the governor of the district down to the lowest slave, will do all they can to help the wanderer, provided he treats them with that courtesy and respect which they are prepared to show to him. Sometimes a native with a little mischief in his nature will attempt a practical joke, but it is usually of such a harmless character that only a very disagreeable person would be likely to experience any great annoyance. A fisherman one day visited a small party of Europeans who were encamped in his neighbourhood, and offered to sell them an animal for food. The creature had neither head, feet, nor tail, but their absence was explained by the vendor, who said he had removed them in order to save the white men trouble. He further stated that the animal was a hare that he had trapped in the jungle. None of the party knew very much about anatomy, but they felt rather dubious as to the truth of the man's statements. One of them, quite thoughtlessly and casually, observed, "Perhaps it is a dog." A broad grin spread over the wily fisherman's face, for the stray shot had hit the mark. He retired roaring with laughter, and exclaimed in the vernacular, "Master very clever, very clever!"
They are generally frightened by a camera, but it is a strange thing that no where do the priests object to having their photographs taken and printed. In fact, as soon as they learn the nature of the apparatus they become a perfect nuisance by the eagerness they express to be photographed. They will come every morning to the tent or hut where the photographer is encamped, dressed in their best Sunday robes, and wait about all day, in the hope of being "taken." They express considerable astonishment at the coloured and inverted picture seen on the ground-glass screen at the back of the camera, and they are unable to understand why prints cannot be instantaneously produced. A very picturesque old Peguan was once entreated to sit for his portrait by a man who was travelling. The ancient one hesitated, and thought, and consulted his family. He was allowed to look through the ground glass and see the faces of a few of his friends thereon. That decided the point. He threw his fears and scruples to the winds, and posed himself in a graceful attitude astride a water-jar. The photographer focussed and adjusted his machine, snapped the shutter, shut up the slide, and exclaimed, "It is finished." Then the old man came up to have a look. When he found that his picture was not ready at once, he felt that he had been grossly deceived, and his remarks were such that the photographer deemed it wise to seek for the company of his friends.
The sight of the coloured picture on the ground-glass screen of the camera, led a few villagers to commit an amusing error. After looking at it for some time, they went to another spot to watch an artist who was at work there at the same time. They decided amongst themselves that his work was a superior form of photography, and that as he drew his brushes across the canvas they made the coloured picture come up through the back. Their theory worked excellently for a while, but when the artist began to put in boats in places in the picture which did not correspond to those in the landscape, they felt that the machine had gone wrong, and departed, murmuring that it wasn't a very good "picture-box" after all.