At Pak Nam Po, the town at the junction of the Meh Ping with the Meh Nam, I met some Toungthoo pedlars from Thatone in Burmah, and halted for an hour to enable the boys to replenish their larder. The water in the Meh Ping, from Zimmé downwards, had seldom exceeded 2 feet in depth.
The Meh Nam below the junction has much more water in it, and large boats are able to sail up the stream nearly to Phichai (Peechai), and poling-boats can reach Ootaradit from Bangkok in twenty days. A steamer drawing 4 or 5 feet, according to Mr Satow, might do the same journey in four or five days. Above Ootaradit, owing to rapids in the bed, the Meh Nam is only navigable for dugout canoes. Ootaradit is one of the termini for the Chinese caravans from Yunnan, and might be connected with the Siamese main line of railway by a loop-line from near Pak Nam Po, rejoining the main line near Muang Ngow. It could likewise be connected with a branch from Raheng, which would pass through Sawankalok and Sukkhothai—the ancient capitals of Northern Siam.
Loi Kow Luong.
In the 84 miles between Kamphang Pet and Pak Nam Po, we passed fifty-four villages—many of them of considerable size; and during the whole of the journey from Kamphang Pet to Bangkok, we frequently heard at night reports of firearms from boats anchored near us, and on inquiry I learnt they were fired off to scare the pirates—bands of whom are said to infest the river. There are no river-police above Bangkok; the boatmen, therefore, have to carry arms to defend their cargoes. The policy of the Government seems to be to squeeze as much as they can out of the people, and to leave them a prey to the officials and to pirates; the officials, indeed, are said generally to be in league with the pirates, and to share the plunder with them.
View from the junction of the Meh Nam.
When walking through Pak Nam Po, I had my attention drawn to the gambling-house by the band playing within its precincts and by the crowd in its neighbourhood. Whilst watching the gamblers, in order to comprehend the method of the game, a man at my side addressed me in Siamese. On turning, I found he was a young man dressed in the yellow robe of the monks, but wearing an imperial beard and small twisted-up moustaches after the French fashion. I addressed him in French, thinking he was a French half-breed from Cochin China spying out the land in disguise, who had not had the heart to sacrifice his personal appearance beyond shaving his crown, but merely got a blank expression and some more words of Siamese. Not even a tell-tale shrug could I get out of him. If he was a Siamese monk, he was the only one that I ever saw so adorned.
Some of the Shan and Siamese laity neglect to pluck out their beards and moustaches; and I had an amusing interview with one of these hairy-faced men at Nakhon Sawan—a city about two miles below the junction of the Meh Nam. Whilst rambling about the place, I noticed a man with his hair parted in the middle, and with well-grown whiskers, beard, and moustaches, amongst the crowd of gazers who were accompanying me. I at once stopped to take his likeness, and, for fear he should bolt, kept him within 18 inches of me whilst I completed the sketch. The crowd formed a ring round us, nearly splitting their sides with laughter at one bearded man staring intently at and sketching another, and incessantly chaffing my victim.
Below Pak Nam Po the villages become more numerous, frequently lining one or the other or both sides of the river. For 55 miles below Muang In, and for 25 miles above Bangkok, the string of towns and villages on each side of the river may be said to be conterminous—one long street of houses. Nearly the whole population of the delta, which is about 130 miles long by an average of 50 miles broad, reside on the banks of the main river and its affluents.