The farmer has his own jails, where he can keep debtors in fetters, until they clandestinely and fraudulently pay their debt, by selling themselves and their children to him as slaves.
If it were not for slavery, serfdom, vexatious taxation, and for the vices of the people, the Siamese might be a happy race. Living as they do chiefly upon vegetables and fish; in a country where every article of food is cheap; where a labourer’s wages are such as to enable him to subsist upon a fourth of his earnings; where a few mats and bamboos will supply him with materials for a house sufficient to keep out the rays of the tropical sun and the showers in the rainy season; where little clothing is needed, and that of a cheap and simple kind; where nine-tenths of the land in the country is vacant, without owners or inhabitants,—surely such a people might be contented and happy. The land is so fertile and the climate is so humid, that every cereal and fruit of the tropics grows there to perfection. Yet among the common people it is seldom a man or woman can be found who is not the slave of the wealthy or the noble.
The Government battens on the vices of the people by granting monopolies for gambling, opium, and spirits. Government places the people under unscrupulous and tyrannical Government masters—merciless, heartless, and exorbitant leeches—who, unless heavily bribed, force the peasantry to do their three months’ corvée labour at times and seasons that necessarily break up all habits of industry, and ruin all plans to engage in successful business.[[11]]
Government imposes taxes upon everything grown for human requirements in the country; fishing-nets, stakes, boats, spears, and lines are all taxed. The Government net is so small that even charcoal and bamboos are taxed to the extent of one in ten, and firewood one in five, in kind. Fancy the feelings of an old woman, after trudging for miles to market with a hundred sticks of firewood, when twenty of the sticks are seized by the tax-gatherer as his perquisite! There is a land-tax for each crop of annuals sown, and paddy and rice are both subject to tax; so that three taxes can thus be reaped from one cereal. The burdensome taxation is levied in the most vexatious manner that can be conceived; for the taxes are let out to unscrupulous Chinamen, who are thus able to squeeze, cheat, and rob the people mercilessly. It is no use appealing from the tax-gatherer to the officials. Money wins its way, and justice is unknown in Siam. Every one who has not a friend at Court is preyed upon by the governors and their rapacious underlings.
Such being the present state of Siam, one is not surprised to learn that the majority of its inhabitants, besides being slaves and selling their children, are libertines, gamblers, opium smokers or eaters, and given to intoxicating beverages. No amount of earnings will bear these heavy strains upon their industry and their purse. The effect of over-taxation has been showing itself of late years in the import of betel-nuts, bee’s-wax, cocoa-nuts, molasses, and other articles, which were formerly exported. The effect of sapping the morals of the people by encouraging gambling, opium smoking and eating, and spirit-drinking, is displayed by their present state of degradation.
Nowhere in the Shan States is misgovernment and oppression of the people so rampant as in Siam. Taxation in the Shan States is exceedingly light; and the people are not placed under grinding Government masters, but have the power to change their lords at their will; they are not compelled to serve for three months in the year without receiving either wages or food; amongst them gamblers, opium smokers, and drunkards are looked down upon and despised; and libertinism is nearly unknown. The only loose women seen by me in the Shan States were a few Siamese, who had taken up their quarters at Zimmé, the headquarters of the Siamese judge. Siam, in comparison with the Ping Shan States, is as pest-ridden Penyow, situated on its sluggish and fetid streams, to the healthy city of Muang Ngow, on its beautiful clear-flowing river, that we were about to visit.
CHAPTER XXI.
LEAVE PENYOW—WILD ROSES—AN INUNDATED COUNTRY—ROYAL FUNERAL BUILDINGS—POSTS TWO HUNDRED FEET LONG—COLLECTION AND USES OF WOOD-OIL—DESCRIPTION OF DAILY MEALS—WATER-PARTING BETWEEN THE MEH KONG AND MEH NAM—PATH FOR RAILWAY—A DEAD FOREST—REACH MUANG NGOW—SETTLED BY LAKON—KAREN VILLAGES—TEAK-FORESTS—FOUR THOUSAND BURMESE DESTROYED—A DISTRIBUTING CENTRE FOR MUANG NAN AND MUANG PEH—DEFICIENT RAINFALL—BURMESE PEDLARS—IMMIGRANTS FROM KIANG HUNG-A TERRIBLE DIN—THE ECLIPSE—BUDDHIST LEGEND—ELEPHANTS SHOULD REST AFTER NOON DURING HOT SEASON—LEAVE MUANG NGOW—RAILWAY FROM BANGKOK TO KIANG HUNG CROSSES NO HILL-RANGE—BATTLE-FIELD—THE STONE GATE—WATER-PARTING BETWEEN THE MEH NGOW AND MEH WUNG—A JOLTING ELEPHANT—BAN SA-DET—OFFERINGS FOR THE MONKS—PRESENTS FOR THE CHILDREN—THE BUDDHIST LENT—LIGHTS FOR EVIL SPIRITS—THE DEMON’S LENT—OFFERINGS TO THE NAIADS—ILLUMINATING THE RIVER—KING OF SIAM LIGHTING FIREWORKS—SCARING THE SPIRITS—OFFERINGS TO NAIADS AND DEMONS IN CASE OF SICKNESS—TRIAL BY WATER—SUPERSTITION AGAINST SAVING DROWNING FOLK—DESCENT OF THE RAIN-GOD INDRA—LIBATIONS—THE WATER-FEAST—BATHING THE IMAGES—SCENE IN THE TEMPLE—WAKING THE GODS WITH WATER—PROPITIATING THE LAWA GENII—THE WARMING OF BUDDH—A DOUSING—A COMPLIMENT—CALLING THE SPIRITS TO WITNESS—LEAVE BAN SA-DET—RUBY-MINES—REACH LAKON.
We were detained at Penyow from the 3d to the 8th of April, waiting the arrival of a fresh relay of elephants. The elephants had been turned out for the hot season to graze in the forests, and had to be tracked for long distances before they could be captured. At length, when four elephants had been brought in, Chow Rat, the Lakon prince, kindly lent us two of his own animals; and we thus, with Dr M‘Gilvary’s elephant, and twenty porters, had as much transport as we required.
During our stay the Chow Hluang furnished us with rice and fowls, and the day before we left, to our great joy sent us the fore quarters of a pig. Never was roast-pork more enjoyed by mortal beings.