BIRDS-EYE VIEW OF BANGKOK.
"The first temple we went to was the one known as Wat Seh Kate. It has the general appearance of a pyramid, and is about two hundred and fifty feet high, with a winding pathway that leads to the top. From the platform, on the summit, there is a fine view of Bangkok, or rather the form of the city can be seen, though the most of the houses are concealed by the trees. It is a curious sight, as the trees are nearly all tropical ones, and wherever you look you see palms in some form or other, with their long leaves bending in the wind, and their stems rising, often as straight as arrows, for fifty or a hundred feet. Off in the distance there are rice-fields, some of them of great extent; and close below you is a bewildering mass of temples, and palaces, and pagodas, with the river shining here and there, and forming a sharp contrast to the dark green of the foliage. Some of the spires of the temples look as pointed as needles; and though you might think they would fall down with the first high wind, I am told they have stood for a long time, and are apparently as firm as ever.
"I enclose a picture representing a view from one of the temples, so that you can see what Bangkok is like.
"Some foreigners have been talking of proposing to the government to convert this temple into a reservoir for water, which would be brought into the city by an aqueduct, just as water is supplied to New York and other American cities. Wouldn't that be a novel idea? The city has no aqueduct whatever, but all the water that the people use must be taken from the river or caught in cisterns during the rainy season.
TEMPLE OF WAT CHANG.
"The temple is not yet finished, and therefore the view from the top is the most interesting thing about it. On the other side of the river is another remarkable temple known as Wat Chang; it stands in a large enclosure, perhaps fifteen or twenty acres in extent, and this enclosure contains small gardens, the houses of the priests, and a great quantity of stone statues, some of them very grotesque in character. There are some nice fish-ponds full of fish; and in two or three places we saw grottoes of stone and brick that were very pretty. I should think that the priests had considerable taste, and were not the lazy fellows one often finds around these temples. Perhaps they did not do the work themselves, but only laid it out for others; even if that is the case, they deserve some credit for their good taste.