ALAU SHUTS UP THE CALIPH OF BAUDAS IN HIS TREASURE-TOWER.
"While describing Baudas—the modern Bagdad—he tells how an army, under Prince Alau, captured the city, and found the greatest accumulation of treasure that ever was known. The prince was enraged at seeing so much wealth, and asked the caliph why he did not take the money to hire soldiers to defend the city. 'The caliph,' says Marco, 'wist not what to answer, and said never a word. So the prince continued, "Now then, caliph, since I see what a love thou hast borne thy treasure, I will e'en give it thee to eat." So he shut the caliph up in the treasure-tower, and bade that neither meat nor drink should be given him, saying, "Now, caliph, eat of thy treasure as much as thou wilt, since thou art so fond of it, for never shalt thou have aught else to eat!"'
"So the caliph lingered four days in the tower, and then died. The story has been used by several poets both in England and America, and it has been made the basis of an Eastern romance.
"Some of the more fanciful stories he tells are about the men of Lambri, and of Angamanain. Here is what he says of the former:
"'Now you must know that in this kingdom of Lambri there aremen with tails; these tails are of a palm in length, and have no hair on them. These people live in the mountains, and are a kind of wild men. Their tails are about the thickness of a dog's. There are also plenty of unicorns in the country, and abundance of game in birds and beasts.'
"The story is not very definite," Frank suggested, "as there is a great difference in the size of dogs' tails. The range from a terrier or pug to a mastiff or a Siberian blood-hound is pretty wide. It reminds me of the stone thrown at a man, that was described by a witness as about the size of a piece of chalk."
"By the island of Angamanain," Fred continued, "Polo probably meant the Andaman Islands. Here is what he says of them:
DOG-HEADED MEN OF ANGAMANAIN.
"'The people are without a king, and are idolaters, and no better than wild beasts. And I assure you that all the men of this island of Angamanain have heads like dogs, and teeth and eyes likewise! In fact, in the face they are just like big mastiff dogs! They have a quantity of spices; but they are a most cruel generation, and eat everybody they can catch, if not of their own race. They live on flesh and rice and milk, and have fruits different from ours.'
"Now, the fact is," Fred explained, "that the natives of the Andaman Islands have a bad reputation. Down to the present time they have been repeatedly charged with murdering the crews of ships that were wrecked there; and it is only recently that their cannibalism has been denied. They are very black, and not at all handsome in face or figure; and out of these facts I suppose the story came that they had heads like dogs.
"He describes a fountain in the kingdom of Mosul, 'from which oil springs in great abundance, insomuch that a hundred ship loads might be taken from it at one time. This oil is not good to use with food, but 'tis good to burn, and is also used to anoint camels that have the mange.' Evidently they had petroleum in Asia six hundred years ago, as we have it in America to-day, and thought we had made a new discovery.
"He speaks of oxen 'that are all over white as snow, and very large and handsome. When they are to be loaded they kneel like the camel; once the load is adjusted, they rise. Then there are sheep as big as asses; and their tails are so large and fat that one tail shall weigh more than thirty pounds. They are fine fat beasts, and afford capital mutton.'These fat-tailed sheep are known in Asia and Africa, and the weight he gives is said not to be excessive.
"In one place there is an account of the posting system of the Great Khan of Tartary, which seems to have been more perfect than the posting system of Europe at the same date. From Kambaluc, the capital—now known as Peking—the roads branched in all directions, and 'each road,' says Marco, 'is known by the name of the province to which it leads. And the messengers of the emperor, in travelling from Kambaluc, be the road whichsoever they will, find at every twenty-five miles of the journey a station which they callYamb, or, as we would say, the Post-horse-house. And at each of those stations used by the messengers there is a large and handsome building for them to put up at, in which they find all the rooms furnished with fine beds, and all other necessary articles in rich silk, and where they are provided with everything they can want. If even a king were to arrive at one of these, he would find himself well lodged. At some of these stations there shall be posted more than 400 horses, standing ready for the use of messengers; and at some 200, according to the requirements.... There are more than 300,000 kept at all these posts, and more than 10,000 great buildings for the use of messengers.'"
"How much China has declined since the days of Marco Polo," Frank remarked. "The great buildings and the silk beds do not exist; and as for the horses, we were unable to find them at the posting-stations, or even to find any stations where they might be kept."
Fred took breath during this interruption, and then went on with the story of what Marco Polo claimed to have seen.
MEDIÆVAL TARTAR HUTS AND WAGONS.
"'The houses of the Tartars,' says Marco, 'are made of wands covered with felt. These are carried along with them whithersoever they go. They also have wagons covered with black felt so efficaciously that no rain can get in. These are drawn by oxen and camels, and the women and children travel in them. They eat all kinds of flesh, including horses and dogs and Pharaoh's rats. Their drink is mares' milk.' This account is confirmed by other writers; and the houses of the Tartars are made to-day as Polo describes, though they are not drawn about on wheels. One ancient writer says that he measured one of the Tartar wagons, and found that the wheels were twenty feet apart, and it was drawn by twenty-two oxen, eleven abreast.
THE ROC, FROM A PERSIAN DRAWING.
"He has a good deal to say," Fred continued, "about the famous bird known as the roc, or rukh. He does not claim to have seen one of these birds, but was informed by persons who had done so. According to hisaccount, 'It was for all the world like an eagle, but one, indeed, of enormous size; so big, in fact, that its wings covered an extent of thirty paces, and its quills were twelve paces long, and thick in proportion; and it is so strong that it will seize an elephant in its talons and carry him up in the air and drop him, so that he is smashed to pieces; having so killed him, the bird swoops down on him and eats him at leisure.'
ROC'S EGG, NOW IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
"In a note explaining this story, Colonel Yule says there was once a bird in Madagascar, where Polo places the roc, that was much larger than any known bird of the present day. Its eggs have been found in a fossil state, and one of them is preserved in the British Museum. It measures thirteen and a quarter by six and a half inches (length and width), and the capacity of the shell is nearly three and a half gallons. It was undoubtedly from this bird that the fable of the roc arose."
Frank ventured to ask Fred if he had found from Marco Polo's bookwhat kind of money was used in China at the time he visited that country.
CHINESE BANK-NOTE OF THE MING DYNASTY.
"I am just coming to that," Fred answered. "Polo says that the great emperor, Kublai-Khan, was a wonderful man. 'He transformed the bark of the mulberry-tree into something resembling sheets of paper, and these into money, which cost him nothing at all, so that you might say he had the secret of alchemy to perfection. And these pieces of paper he made to pass current universally, over all his kingdoms and provinces and territories, and whithersoever his sovereignty extended; and nobody, however important he thought himself, dared to refuse them on pain of death."
"History repeats itself," said Doctor Bronson; "for many a modern government has made the same laws in order to compel the circulation of its promises to pay."
"And with the same result," Fred responded; "for we learn farther on from Marco Polo that, in spite of the death penalty, the legal-tender issue of the Great Khan was only worth half its nominal value in silver; and the more money he issued, the greater was the depreciation. But the khan was not the inventor of paper-money, for it was known at least four centuries before his time. Its origin is disputed, but the probabilities are that it came from the East.
"Some of the stories that are told about supernatural appearances are very interesting," continued Fred. "In the desert of Gobi, Polo says that the traveller who lags behind his party at night will hear spirits talking, and will suppose them to be his comrades. Sometimes the spirits will call him by name, and thus shall a traveller oft-times be led astray, so that he never finds his party; and in this way many have perished. And sometimes you shall hear the sound of a variety of musical instruments, and still more commonly the sound of drums.
"He says, in another place, 'When the Great Khan, seated on a platform some eight cubits above the pavement, desires to drink, cups filled with wine are moved from a buffet in the centre of the hall, a distance of ten paces, and present themselves to the emperor without being touched by anybody.'
CHINESE CONJURING EXTRAORDINARY.
"Polo describes other magical performances, some of which are partially explained by Colonel Yule. Another traveller relates that a juggler performed some remarkable tricks in his presence; and among them is the following: 'He took a wooden ball with several holes in it, through which loose thongs were passed, and, laying hold of one of these, slung it into the air. It went so high that we lost sight of it altogether. There now remained only a little of the end of a thong in the conjurer's hand, and he desired one of the boys who assisted him to lay hold of it and mount. He did so, climbing by the thong, and we lost sight of him! The conjurer then called to him three times; but getting no answer, he snatched up a knife as if in a great rage, laid hold of the thong, and disappeared also. By-and-by he threw down one of the boy's hands; then a foot; then the other hand, and then the other foot; then the trunk; and, last of all, the head. Then he came down himself, all puffing and panting, and, with his clothes all bloody, kissed the ground, and said something in Chinese. Then he took the lad's limbs, laid them together, gave a kick, when, presto! there was the boy, who got up and stood before us.'"
"The Indian jugglers are said to do the same trick, or one very much like it," said Doctor Bronson. "I have read a description of one of their performances, in which they took a long chain and threw one end of it in the air, where it remained as if fastened to something. A dog was then brought forward, and ran up the chain and disappeared in the air. In the same way a hog, a panther, a lion, and a tiger were sent up the chain one after the other, and all disappeared at its upper end. Finally they took down the chain, rolled it up and put it in a bag, no one being able to discover how the trick was performed."
"We must come to a stop now," said Fred, "though we haven't heard a tenth part of the strange things in Marco Polo's story of his travels. His account of the Court of Kublai-Khan would take a long time to tell, and perhaps you would get tired of it before I came to the end. So, if you want to know more, you must do as I have done—read for yourself."
The interesting session of the party over the travels of the famousVenetian were brought to a close. The Doctor complimented the boys on the excellent work they had done in making a condensed account of the book, and said he was so pleased with them that he would give them a similar piece of employment whenever the opportunity occurred.
"It is a capital way," said Fred, "to fix in mind what we have read. I find that I read with greater care when I know I must make a summary of a book than if I am to throw it down when through and think no more of it. I'm very glad we had to go through Marco Polo's history in this way."
"And I too," Frank added. "But it is what we used to dislike so much at school."
"What was that?" Fred asked.
"Why, writing compositions, to be sure," Frank responded. "Don't you remember how we used to detest it?"
"Of course I do," was the answer; "but we always did it without an object. The teacher told us to write something about 'spring,' or 'the beauties of nature,' or some other subject that was not at all definite. Now if he had given us an interesting book to read, and said he wantedus to do with it as we have done with this, we should have 'written a composition' with some relish."
"It will be eight bells soon," the captain interrupted, "and if you want to see me take the sun you had better come forward."
CAPTAIN CLANCHY AT WORK.
The boys had familiarized themselves with the process of finding a ship's position; but anything at sea that varies the monotony is always welcome. So they went forward with Captain Clanchy, and stood by the rail till that brief performance was ended. Then they retired to the cabin, and watched the operation of working up the steamer's position; and by the time this was over, the steward announced that dinner was ready.
COME TO DINNER!
The boys found a novel way of taking fresh-water baths during their voyage from Saigon to Bangkok. Nearly every day there was a heavy shower of rain, and sometimes two or three showers in the course of twenty-four hours. The rain came literally in torrents; it poured as though great gates had been suddenly opened in the sky, to allow the passage of the water by dozens of barrels at a time. Neither Frank norFred had ever seen the rain fall so fast; the Doctor assured them that showers of this kind were very common in the tropics, especially during the change of the monsoons.
A NATURAL SHOWER-BATH.
Whenever the clouds indicated a coming shower, the boys generally went to the cabin and soon appeared in their bathing-suits. Covering their heads with straw hats, to protect them from the pelting of the great drops, they would sit in the rain and enjoy the luxury of the earliest form of shower-bath ever known. One night, when they were sleeping on deck, they were suddenly awakened by the pouring of the rain in their faces, and, before they could gather their clothing and escape to shelter, they were treated to a bath they had not bargained for. It is one of the inconveniences of sleeping on deck in the tropics that you are liable to have your slumbers disturbed in this way, just as you are dreaming of pleasant things, and in no mood for waking.
Though they were not in sight of land, our friends realized that they were in a comparatively small body of water, and not in the open ocean. The swell and heaving of the Atlantic and Pacific waves were altogether absent; though the steamer was a diminutive one in comparison with the great ships on which they had travelled hitherto, she rolled and pitched very little, and sometimes her motion was as steady as though she was navigating a river. The Gulf of Siam does not occupy a large place on the map, and for a great part of the year it is as peaceful as a lake. The captain told them that it was rarely disturbed by typhoons or severe gales, and was about five hundred miles long by two hundred and fifty in width.
FLYING-FISH.
Porpoises and flying-fish appeared occasionally, and their lively leaps from the water were a source of much amusement to the youths.
The first indication of their approach to the coast of Siam was the appearance of a dark line on the northern horizon. As they steamed on, this line developed into a fringe of tropical trees; but before they could make anything more of it than the merest fringe, the steamer came to anchor. As they were still a long way from land, the boys could not understand the reason for stopping, and Fred ventured to ask the captain why they did not go on.
"The principal reason," the captain answered, "is because we can't. The approach to the river is very shallow, and our steamer cannot cross the bar till high-tide. We must wait here till the tide serves, and we have a pilot to take us in."
The pilot came to the ship soon after they anchored, and in a fewhours he announced that it was time to move on. The anchor was lifted, and theDanubesteamed slowly onward towards the shore.
Very soon it was apparent to the boys that the waters along this part of the coast were very shallow, as the steamer stirred the mud from the bottom and left a dirty streak behind her. The bar at the mouth of the Menam prevents the passage of large ships, and there was a fleet of half a dozen or more lying outside and receiving their cargo from lighters. Vessels drawing less than fifteen feet can go up without difficulty; and once they have passed the bar, there is no trouble in proceeding on to Bangkok.
"I wonder if that is Bangkok?" said Fred, as he pointed to a conical tower that rose just ahead of them, and apparently a short distance above the mouth of the river.
"Oh no," the captain replied, "that is not Bangkok at all. The city is thirty miles up the river, and what you see now is Paknam. We shall stop in front of it to get the permit from the custom-house to allow us to proceed up the river.
VIEW NEAR PAKNAM.
"The tower that you see is a temple on a small island opposite Paknam. It is used on festival days, and once in awhile the king comes down here to worship. On such occasions they have boat-races, and a good time generally; some of the boats are rowed entirely by girls, and the sport is very exciting."
A boat came from the custom-house, and an officer mounted to the deck of the steamer. His visit was a brief one, as theDanubewas a regular visitor at the port, and did not require any unusual formalities. After a short delay, the steamer moved on under charge of the pilot, though the captain remained on the bridge and kept a sharp watch over the movements of his vessel. It is a curious feature of maritime law that when a ship is in charge of a pilot her captain's authority ceases; but in case of accident he comes in for a liberal share of censure.
The boys found that the Menam was as crooked as the Mekong, and not unlike the latter in its general features. The channel appeared to be free of sand-bars or other impediments to navigation, though some of the bends of the stream were rather short for a large ship to turn in with ease. At one place there was a channel or canal that saved a great distance for small boats; but it was impracticable for theDanube, which was obliged to follow the winding of the river. A little tow-boat entered this canal just as they passed the entrance; she steamed leisurely through, and as theDanuberounded the bend Frank discovered that the tow-boat was several miles ahead of them.
NATIVE HUT ON THE MENAM RIVER.
The river was full of native boats, some going in one direction and some in another. Now and then a house was visible in the dense foliage, and there was an occasional cluster of dwellings large enough to be called a village. Many of the houses were built so that a platform in front overhung the water; and the whole structure was on piles, in order to form a refuge against snakes and wild beasts, and also to secure the inhabitants against being suddenly driven out by an inundation.
But what impressed the young travellers more than anything else was the richness of the tropical vegetation along the banks of the river. Here were palms in great variety, and many huge trees whose names were unknown to them; and there was a dense growth of underbrush, through which it would be very difficult for a man to penetrate unless armed with a hatchet, and not at all easy even then. Many of the trees were covered with creeping and climbing plants, so that not a particle of the surface or foliage of the original tree could be seen, and very often the burden of parasites was so great that the trees had fallen beneath it.
"I have read," said Frank, "about the vines that destroyed a tree, but have never fairly seen an instance of it till now."
"Nor I either," Fred responded. "Look at that fine tree that has been quite broken down by the weight of the plants that cling to it. And observe, too, the bright blossoms that the vine has spread out, as if it was exulting over the destruction it had caused."
Some of the creeping vines had a scarlet flower of a very gaudy pattern, and it seemed as if it was their season for blooming, as the vines in several instances were completely covered with blossoms.
A VILLAGE PATHWAY IN SIAM.
Now and then there were little openings in the forest that looked like pathways. The Doctor told his young companions that these paths undoubtedly led to villages or single houses that were hid away in the dense foliage. The Doctor's belief was confirmed by the glimpse of an occasionalfigure among the trees, and by dusky faces that contemplated the steadily moving steamer.
But it was not all a tropical forest with occasional villages. There were sugar plantations, some of them of considerable extent; and there were rice-fields where dozens and dozens of men were at work. Frank contemplated a lot of these laborers with the captain's glass, and remarked that the Siamese resembled the Chinese so much that it was impossible to distinguish between them. The Doctor laughed, and then gave this explanation:
"The men that you see are Chinese, and not the people of Siam. Nearly all these rice and sugar plantations employ Chinese laborers; and of the five millions of people in Siam not less than two millions are Chinese. They come here, just as they go to America or to Australia, in search of employment; and, though the wages are low, they are quite content. If you could go to every part of Siam you would hardly ever be out of sight of the Chinese, as they are scattered everywhere through the kingdom. There, now, we will have a good view of some of these laborers."
CHINESE FIELD-LABORERS.
As he spoke, the steamer swung quite close to the bank, where there was a group of laborers evidently just ready to depart for the rice-field.Some were squatted, and some were standing; some were fully and some only partially clothed; and all appeared as though they had the good digestion that comes from hard work. It did not need a long study of the assemblage to convince our friends that the men were exactly like those they had seen in Canton and Hong-kong, and the captain told them that probably every one of the crowd was from the Quang-Tung Province of China.
GENERAL VIEW OF BANGKOK.
They were still in the midst of cocoa and other tropical trees, when the captain told them they were at Bangkok. There was a saw-mill and a dock-yard among the trees on one side of the river, and farther on was a large house, with an open space of an acre or more between it and the river. They had reached what may be called the foreign portion of the city; the native part is nearly three miles farther on, and quite concealed by a bend in the stream.
We will see what the boys had to say of Bangkok in their letters to friends at home. Here is what Frank wrote:
"My dear Mother,—We had a charming voyage from Saigon to this port. The weather was fine, and we amused ourselves in various ways; one thing we did was to read up the story of Marco Polo's travels six hundred years ago, and then tell it over to the Doctor. Sometimes it was so hot that we slept on deck, and when it was raining hard we used to go out in our bathing-suits and have a shower-bath that was simply perfect. We had a picturesque ride up the Menam to this city; and we have seen lots of curious things since we landed.
"We came ashore with the captain, and he took us at once to the only hotel in the place. It is a funny sort of a hotel, as you have to go out-of-doors to pass from the dining-room to the sleeping-rooms and the parlor, where we sit when we want to rest. The rooms are not more than ten feet square, and I don't think Fred's will measure as much as that. I made the remark that you couldn't swing a cat around there; and the landlord said he had no cat, and even if he had one he didn't want to swing her anyway. You ought to see the landlord; he is a German, and as jolly as you could wish. He was formerly a sea-captain, and everybody calls him 'Captain Salje.' He must weigh pretty nearly three hundred pounds, and when he laughs he shakes all over. He speaks English as well as German, and he also speaks the language of the country and that of Java, where he lived a long time. When things don't get along well in the kitchen, he goes in among his servants, and you hear his voice ringing out all over the house. He is a capital landlord, and we like his table better than that of any hotel we have seen since we left San Francisco.
IN THE FOREIGN PART OF BANGKOK.
"The hotel stands on the bank of the river, and you can step from a boat directly to the veranda of the house. The river is the Broadway of Bangkok, and all the travelling to and fro, or the greater part of it, is done on the water. In this part of Bangkok is where the foreigners live, and their houses are scattered along the banks for at least a mile. Nobody wants to live where he would be without a front on the river, as it would be just like living off from the street in an American city. The merchants have their warehouses so that goods can be rolled from boats directly inside the doors; but the houses where people live are set back a little, and have a good large yard in front and all around them. They have plenty of trees in the yards, and the houses look very pretty; andas the verandas are wide, there is an abundance of shade. Most of the houses are of two stories, and built of stuccoed brick; and a good many of the floors are of brick or stone. Wood is not very durable in this climate, as the air is moist and rots it; and, besides, they have certain kinds of insects that eat it full of holes, and make it turn to powder. Some woods decay much faster than others, and they have one kind called teak, that the insects never attack.
"As I look from the veranda where I am writing I can see half a dozen ships anchored in the river below here, and as many more up above. Most of them belong to Siam, as we can see by the flag; and there are two or three German ships, one English, and one American. The Siamese flag is red, and has a white elephant on it; we are in the country of the White Elephant, and don't intend leaving until we have seen the sacred beast. I am told that the white elephants at the king's palace have fine stables and lots of attendants, and that they are worshipped and petted till they are quite spoiled in their dispositions.
"We have hired a boat by the day, and it is to be kept for our use as long as we stay here; just as we might keep a carriage in another country. There is a little cabin where you have to stoop as you go in; and there are cushioned seats for four persons, and windows with sliding lattices all around. It takes four men to row it—two on the bow, and two on the stern—and they all row with their faces the way the boat is going. The boat is quite comfortable, and we enjoy it very much.
"The people make use of the river for all sorts of business. It is the great highway for transporting merchandise, and for promenading on the water; and it is the place where people go on shopping excursions. A great many of the houses are built on rafts of bamboo-poles, and they rise and fall with the tide. The raft is somewhat larger than the house, and forms a platform all around it; and when you want to go in at the front of a house, you have only to bring your boat along-side the raft and step off. The bamboo seems almost to have been designed by nature for the purpose of making these rafts. You know it is hollow, and very light, and that it has joints at regular intervals. Now each joint forms a water-tight compartment, and the wood will resist the water for a very long time, so that a bamboo raft has no chance of sinking. Perhaps it was the bamboo that gave the Chinese the idea of building ships in water-tight compartments, as Marco Polo says they did six hundred years ago. Who knows?
"As you go along the river you see the fronts of the houses open towards the water, and if they have anything to sell it is put where it canbe seen, exactly as it would be in a shop on Broadway. The houses are divided generally into only two rooms—the men occupying one, and the women the other; and the Siamese rarely make houses of more than one story. The reason is that they wish to avoid having anybody walking over their heads, which is considered an indignity. It is said that when the city was first built along the banks of the river there was a great deal of cholera, on account of the bad drainage, and many people died. The king then gave orders for the people to build on the river itself, which would make the drainage perfect, and thus improve the public health. The order was obeyed, and from it we find the floating houses that seem so curious to us. There are not far from fifteen thousand of these houses and shops, and they are strung along on both sides of the river for several miles, altogether. Then there are many houses built on piles, to overhang the water, just like those we described at Saigon.
"One of the books we have with us tells us that Bangkok is called 'The Venice of the East,' and I can easily understand why. Venice is full of canals, as you know, and so is Bangkok. They run off from the river in all directions, and you can go almost anywhere by them when the tide is up. This is why nearly everybody has a boat, as it would be difficult to go about without one. You see boats of all sizes, from a little dug-out, just large enough for one person—and a small one at that—up to the great house-boat, or barge, that will hold twenty or more. The people spend a good deal of their time on the water, and very often in it; for they swim like otters, and are not at all disturbed when one of their boats overturns with them. This afternoon, when we were out on the river, a steamboat passed us. It did us no harm, though we tossed around for a moment; but there was a small skiff close by that was filled with water by the swell from the steamer. Two boys were in it, and as the skiff went down under them, they took hold of it with their hands and swam to the shore. They soon had the water out of it, and paddled off as merrily as ever.
"Where the largest of the canals branches off there is a pretty dense collection of houses, and this continues for quite a distance. The streets are irregular, and not very wide or clean; perhaps the most of the people living in this quarter are Chinese, and they are not very particular about dirt. Most of the shops are kept by Chinese, and they have a great number of gambling-houses, for which they pay a fixed sum to the government. Gambling is a monopoly, and so is the sale of intoxicating spirits; the licenses are sold by the government, just as an American city gives a man a license to sell liquor when he pays the sum agreed on. TheChinese that come here are just as great gamblers as they are at home, and they are just as fond of smoking opium.
"The city is said to contain half a million inhabitants, and it is little more than a hundred years old. It was founded in 1769, when the Siamese capital (Ayuthia) was captured and plundered by the Burmese. The king lives here, and the royal palace is well worth seeing. We are going there to-morrow, or perhaps next day, and we are going to see some curious temples. There are lots of temples in Bangkok, and the city contains not less than twenty thousand priests of the Buddhist religion. We will tell you more about the priests and the temples in another letter."
A SIAMESE PRIEST.
A letter from Fred was in the same mail with Frank's. The dutiful boy remembered his mother, and wrote as follows:
"Frank has told all about our arrival in Bangkok, and what we saw on our first day in the city. I know you will hand our letters around for both families to read, and so I will try to avoid repeating what he has said.
"One of the first things we wanted to see was the temples, for which Bangkok is famous. You must know that Siam is a country where the Buddhist religion has a very strong hold; and the king is supposed to be the defender of the ancient faith. A large part of the annual revenue of the country is expended in the repair of the temples now in existence, or the construction of new ones; and also in processions and other religious ceremonies. We are fortunate in coming here at the season of the year when the king goes to make his visits to all the temples; and, as there are many of them in the city, he has enough to do for two or three weeks. We have seen one of these processions, and expect to see more: as the one we have seen is not the grandest of them, I will keep the description of this part of our sights in Bangkok for another letter.
BIRDS-EYE VIEW OF BANGKOK.
"The first temple we went to was the one known asWat 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 greenof 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 asWat 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.
"The general shape ofWat Changis that of a bell; and there is a spire at the top that would make a very good handle, if some one could be found large and strong enough to take it up and ring it. Doctor Bronson guessed that the building was two hundred and fifty feet high, and about the same in diameter; it is built of brick, and the outside is covered with plaster, which was stuck full, while it was moist, with all sorts of curious things. These include plates, and cups and saucers, and all manner of dishes with as many colors as the rainbow, and arranged into a mosaic that forms figures of animals, fruits, flowers, and other things, some of them hideous and unnatural. As you might suppose would be the case in the Land of the White Elephant, the largest animal that we know of is frequently represented. Sometimes he has only one head, as he has in actual life; but occasionally they give him three heads, which the Doctor says is to symbolize the Buddhistic Trinity. Besides these mosaics, there are other elephants in the form of statues, which are set in niches half-way to the summit. The sun was shining brightly when we visited this temple, and at every step the rays were flashed into our eyes till they almost ached with pain.
TEMPLE OF THE SLEEPING IDOL.
"We went to the 'Temple of the Sleeping Idol,' which is one of the wonders of Bangkok. It is not a great ways from the royal palace, and gets its name from the fact that there is a statue of Buddha in a horizontal position that fills the most of the interior of the building. The figure is one hundred and sixty feet long, and lies on its side; the soles of the feet are sixteen feet long, and each of them is inlaid with mother-of-pearl as delicately as though it was a finger-ring. The figures represented by this inlaid work are entirely fruits and flowers; Doctor Bronson says the fable is that fruits and flowers sprung from the earth wherever Buddha planted his footsteps. The figure of Buddha is built ofbrick, and then heavily gilded, so that you might easily suppose it was of gold. When I tell you that the arm at the elbow is six feet in diameter, you will get an idea of the greatness of the work.
"The Sleeping Idol is not the only wonder of this temple. There are nearly a thousand other idols there, most of them of life size, and they are so thickly packed as to make you think they would be liable to get in each other's way. The temple itself is about two hundred feet long, and has a high roof with sharp peaks at the ends, and three stages rising one above another. The eaves are supported by tall columns, and thus quite a veranda is formed between them and the doors of the building; and there is a high wall around the temple, so that it would not be easy to get in without permission. The enclosure contains the houses of the priests, and some small pagodas and temples; and the priests evidently have an eye to business, as they would not open the doors till we had paid a tical for each person of our party. The tical is the Siamese coin in which everything is reckoned; it is worth about sixty cents ofour money, and consequently the price of admission to the temple seemed rather dear to us.
BRASS IDOL IN A TEMPLE.
"There is another temple that has a statue of brass nearly fifty feet high, and, like most of the statues, it is intended to represent the divine Buddha. It is in a sitting posture, with the legs crossed, and the pedestal on which it sits is of the same material, and delicately ornamented. In front of the altar there are cups and flower-vases in great variety—some of brass, others of copper, and others again of bronze thickly covered with gold. Offerings of fruit and flowers were lying on the altar, and on each side of the figure of Buddha there was the statue of a priest, standing erect, and with his hands folded in the attitude of prayer. We could not help admiring the beauty of the work, and regretting that so much money and labor had been devoted to the worship of a heathen god. The temple of the Sleeping Idol is said to have cost not less than a million of dollars, and probably ten millions would not cover the expense of the temples within half a mile of the royal palace, to say nothing of the others in the city.
"The Chinese that live in Bangkok have a great many temples of their own, but none of them are as fine as the Siamese ones. The temples that the Chinese build must be paid for out of their own contributions; while those of the Siamese are erected by the government, and the priests that take care of them have an official character. There were formerly thirty or forty thousand priests in Bangkok: they were so numerous that the father of the present king determined to compel them to work for a living, and so he took away the government support and turned them out. For a few years after he did so they were not very numerous; but they have gradually increased, until their number is now reckoned at twenty thousand. They can be recognized by their yellow robes, and they have their heads shaved as smooth as door-knobs. They live about the temples, and every morning they go around begging.
"This morning we started out early, in order to see the priests on their begging missions; and it was a curious sight, you may believe.
"Each begging priest has a boat, and generally a boy to paddle it. In front of the priest there is a basket with a cover, and as the boat is rowed up to a house the priest says not a word, but raises the cover of the basket. On the platform in front of the door there is a kettle of freshly boiled rice, and somebody, generally a woman, lifts out a quart or so of the rice with a ladle and pours it into the basket. When the operation is completed, the priest moves on; he never says 'Thank you,' and the giver never speaks. If another priest comes a moment after, he gets the samequantity, and the same silence is preserved. Charity is enjoined by the Buddhist religion, and what is given is given from a sense of religious duty. Captain Salje says that nobody need starve in Bangkok, as it is the privilege of every one to go to the temples and be fed. The priests receive from the people, and are expected in turn to give to those that need. But if you went to the temples you would get nothing more than boiled rice, with an occasional fish; and, as I should tire of those things in a short time, I don't think either Frank or myself will become a mendicant in the capital of Siam.