We are a nation of shopkeepers, and it is by trade that we live. Every nerve should be strained by the manufacturer and working man to gain for British commerce the great market existing in Western China. The French are already in the field to snatch it from us; surveyors and engineers are at work surveying and estimating for the railways from the Tonquin seaboard. The race in this case is to the swift, and it still remains to be seen whether French or British enterprise will win the much-coveted prize.
It will be strange indeed if, with the advantage we now possess by the annexation of Upper Burmah and its Shan States, the press, the mercantile community, the manufacturers, and working classes of this kingdom, cannot induce the Government to make or guarantee the sections of our railway to China which lie in British territory, and thus throw open for British commerce the most magnificent, unopened, and available market in the world.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
LEAVE RAHENG—ISLANDS—ZIMMÉ SHANS IN RAHENG—SIAMESE WOMEN—MISLEADING STRANGERS—“SOW” AND “RAT” POLITE TERMS—REACH KAMPHANG PET—SALUTED WITH STONES—FOUND DEAD—BURMESE—VISIT THE GOVERNOR—THE FLOOD—POPULATION—A FEMALE INTERPRETER—LEAVE KAMPHANG PET—CULTIVATION—REACH PAK NAM PO—TOUNGTHOO PEDLARS—NAVIGATION ON THE MEH NAM—LOOPLINE TO OOTARADIT—GAMBLING-HOUSE—A FRENCHIFIED MONK—SKETCHING A BEARDED SIAMESE—SIZE OF THE DELTA—JOURNEY TO BANGKOK—A LONG STREET OF VILLAGES—REACH BANGKOK.
Hand-dredge.
We left Raheng early in the morning of June 13th, and after forcing our way through the double file of boats which lined the banks, passed the fine plastered brick building, somewhat resembling Salween House at Maulmain, where the governor resides, and halted to sketch the south-eastern hills near Ban Ta Kare. A mile and a half farther I got a capital view of the hillocks lying to the east of the city. Seven miles from Raheng the villages forming its suburbs came to an end, and in the next sixteen miles we saw only two small villages or hamlets.
The quicksand in the bed of the river during this stage of the journey, and as far south as the junction of the Meh Ping with the Meh Nam, was a constant cause of delay, as boat after boat had to dredge its way across drifting sandbanks, which closed up as they passed. The hand-dredge used consisted of a blade formed of a teak plank three and a half feet long and one foot deep, with a handle rising two and a half feet above it. One man pressed down the handle, and three or four others drew the blade along by two pieces of cord fastened through holes near its end. The remainder of the men of the three boats aided the action of the dredge by loosening the sand with large teak-wood roofing shingles.
View of hills looking east at 218 miles from Ban Kow Nome Wan.