Siam : The Land of the White Elephant as It Was and Is

by George B. Bacon

"On the pagoda spire
The bells are swinging,
Their little golden circlets in a flutter
With tales the wooing winds have dared to utter;
Till all are ringing,
As if a choir
Of golden-nested birds in heaven were singing;
And with a lulling sound
The music floats around
And drops like balm into the drowsy ear."

The verse breathes the spirit, and gives almost the very sound, of the bewitching tropical scene on which I looked, and out of which "the music of the bells" was blown to me on my first morning in Bangkok.

No doubt my first impressions (which I have given with some detail, and with all the directness of "that right line I") were fortunate. But three or four weeks of Bangkok could not wear them off or counteract them. It is the Venice of the East. Its highway is the river, and canals are its by-ways. There are streets, as in Venice, used by pedestrians; but the travel and the carriage is, for the most part, done by boats. Only, in place of the verdureless margin of the watery streets, which gives to Venice, with all its beauty, a half-dreary aspect, there is greenest foliage shadowing the water, and mingling with the dwellings, and palaces, and temples on the shore; and instead of the funeral gondolas of monotonous color, with solitary gondoliers, are boats of every size and variety, paddled sometimes by one, sometimes by a score of oarsmen. Some of the bamboo dwellings of the humbler classes are built, literally, on the river, floating on rafts, a block of them together, or raised on poles above the surface of the water. The shops expose their goods upon the river side, and wait for custom from the thronging boats. The temples and the palaces must stand, of course, on solid ground, but the river is the great Broadway, and houses crowd upon the channel of the boats, and boats bump the houses. It is a picturesque and busy scene on which you look as you pass on amid the throng. Royal boats, with carved and gilded prows, with shouting oarsmen, rush by you, hurrying with the rapid current; or the little skiff of some small pedler, with his assortment of various "notions," paddling and peddling by turns, is dexterously urged along its way. Amid all this motion and traffic is that charm of silence which makes Venice so dream-like. No rumble of wheels nor clatter of hoofs disturbs you. Only the sound of voices, softened as it comes along the smooth water, or the music of a palace, or the tinkling of the bells of a pagoda, break the stillness. It is a beautiful Broadway, without the Broadway roar and din.

Of course there is not, in this tropical Venice, anything to equal the incomparable architectural beauty of the Adriatic city. And yet it seemed to me that the architecture of Siam was in very perfect accord with all its natural surroundings. In all parts of the city you may find the "wats" or temples. When we started on our first day's sight-seeing, and told the old Portuguese half-breed, who acted as our interpreter, to take us to a "wat," he asked, with a pun of embarrassment, "What wat?" Of course we must begin with the pagoda of innumerable bells, but where to stop we knew not. Temple after temple waited to be seen. Through long, dim corridors, crowded with rows of solemn idols carved and gilded; through spacious open courts paved with large slabs of marble, and filled with graceful spires or shafts or columns; along white walls with gilded eaves and cornices; beneath arches lined with gold, to sacred doors of ebony, or pearly gates of iridescent beauty; amid grotesque stone statues, or queer paintings of the Buddhist inferno (strangely similar to the mediæval Christian representations of the same subject), you may wander till you are tired. You may happen to come upon the bonzes at their devotions, or you may have the silent temples to yourself. In one of them you will find that clumsy, colossal image, too big to stand, and built recumbent, therefore—a great mass of heavy masonry, covered thick with gilding, and measuring a hundred and fifty feet in length. If you could stand him up, his foot would cover eighteen feet—an elephantine monster. But the roofs, of glazed tiles, with a centre of dark green and with a golden margin, are the greatest charm of the temples. Climb some pagoda and look down upon the city, and, on every side, among the "breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster," you will see the white walls roofed with shining green and gold, and surmounted by their gilded towers and spires. Like the temples are the palaces, but less splendid. But everywhere, whether in temples or palaces, you will find, not rude, barbaric tawdriness of style, but elegance and skill of which the Western nations might be proud. Good taste, and a quick sense of beauty, and the ability to express them in their handiwork, all these are constantly indicated in the architecture of this people. And they make the city one of almost unrivalled picturesqueness to the traveller, who glides from river to canal and from canal to river, under the shadow of the temple towers, and among the shining walls of stately palaces.

Where so much wealth is lavished on the public buildings there must be great resources to draw from; and, indeed, the mineral wealth of the country appears at almost every turn. Precious stones and the precious metals seem as frequent as the fire-flies in the jungle. Sometimes, as in the silver currency, there is an absence of all workmanship; the coinage being little lumps of silver, rudely rolled together in a mass and stamped. But sometimes, as in the teapots, betel-nut boxes, cigar-holders, with which the noblemen are provided when they go abroad, you will see workmanship of no mean skill. Often these vessels are elegantly wrought. Sometimes they are studded with jewels, sometimes they are beautifully enamelled in divers colors. Once I called upon a noble, who brought out a large assortment of uncut stones—some of them of great value—and passed them to me as one would a snuff-box, not content till I had helped myself. More than once I have seen children of the nobles with no covering at all, except the strings of jewelled gold that hung, in barbarous opulence, upon their necks and shoulders; but there was wealth enough in these to fit the little fellows with a very large assortment of most fashionable and Christian apparel, even at the ruinous rate of tailors' prices at the present day. To go about among these urchins, and among the houses of the nobles and the king's palaces, gives one the half-bewildered and half-covetous feeling that it gives to be conducted by polite but scrutinizing attendants through a mint. Surely we had come at last to

"Where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold."

Of course, of all this wealth the king's share was the lion's share.

Then, as for vegetable wealth, I do not know that there is anywhere a richer valley in the world than the valley of the Meinam. All the productions of the teeming tropics may grow luxuriantly here. There was rice enough in Siam the year before my visit to feed the native population and to supply the failure of the rice crop in Southern China, preventing thus the havoc of a famine in that crowded empire, and making fortunes for the merchants who were prompt enough to carry it from Bangkok to Canton. Cotton grows freely beneath that burning sky. Sugar, pepper, and all spices may be had with easy cultivation. There is gutta-percha in the forests. There are dye-stuffs and medicines in the jungles. The painter gets his gamboge, as its name implies, from Cambodia, which is tributary to their majesties of Bangkok. As for the fruits, I cannot number them nor describe them. The mangostene, most delicate and most rare of them all, grows only in Siam, and in the lands adjacent to the Straits of Sunda and Malacca. Some things we may have which Siam cannot have, but the mangostene is her peculiar glory, and she will not lend it. Beautiful to sight, smell, and taste, it hangs among its glossy leaves, the prince of fruits. Cut through the shaded green and purple of the rind, and lift the upper half as if it were the cover of a dish, and the pulp of half transparent, creamy whiteness stands in segments like an orange, but rimmed with darkest crimson where the rind was cut. It looks too beautiful to eat; but how the rarest, sweetest essence of the tropics seems to dwell in it as it melts to your delighted taste!

This is the Land of the White Elephant, so singular, so rich, so beautiful; but we need also to tell what manner of men the people are who live beneath the standard of the elephant, or what kings and nobles govern them.

[A] Hours at Home, vol. iv., pp. 464, 531; vol. v., p. 66.