"Some American machinery is used here, but not much, for the very simple reason that there is very little machinery of any kind used in Siam. All the weighing apparatus in the custom-house and other government offices is from America, as you will find on going through them."
"We passed the custom-house the other day," said Frank, "and I remember seeing some scales there which seemed like American ones. I looked for the maker's name, and saw the word which everybody knows at home, 'Fairbanks.' I was told that the king had some of these scales in his royal museum, and the only weighing-machines used in Siam, at least by the government, were made by Fairbanks."
"The native merchants are learning the advantages of the American system of weighing, in preference to their primitive one, as they can get along so much faster with the new than with the old," the consul answered. "But the East is conservative, and cannot be expected to adopt anything new very hastily.
"There is a good deal of American petroleum burnt here," he continued, "but it comes to Siam from Singapore, and not directly from America. In fact, about seventy per cent. of all the import and export trade of Siam is through Singapore, and so the merchants of Siam pay more for their goods than if they were brought here direct from the countries where they are produced. The king is desirous of having direct trade with the United States, and so are many private individuals, and it is to be hoped that some of the merchants will yet bring it about. It is a pity that the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, or the Occidental and Oriental, does not see its way clear to a branch line between Hong-kong and Bangkok, to connect with the regular steamers between Hong-kong and San Francisco. Two small steamers would perform the service, and I am confident it would pay."
There were occasional interruptions to this conversation. Now and then the boys saw a curious tree or something else that they wished to study, and they were never tired of looking at the native boats that paddled, or sailed, or floated down the river.
PARASITE AND PALM.
One of the trees that attracted their attention as they went along near the shore belonged to the family of parasites, and was not unlike some they had seen as they ascended the river from Paknam to Bangkok. The Doctor explained that in this case the parasite was not a vine, but a distinct tree that grew from a seed deposited by the wind or by the birds on the trunk or among the leaves of a palm. It grows much faster than the palm, and in a few years the palm dies and the parasite lives. It is held in the air by the decaying stem of the parent tree until the latter altogether rots away and falls. When once the parasite has obtained a hold, the destruction of the palm is only a question of time. Frank made a sketch of one of these trees while the boat was stopped a few moments to enable the engineer of the steam-launch to arrange something that had got out of order.