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CHAPTER VI.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
The entrance into the kingdom of Siam by the great river, which divides the country east and west, brings the traveller at once into all the richness and variety of tropical nature, and is well suited to produce an impression of the singular beauty and the vast resources of the "Land of the White Elephant." For this is the name which may properly be given to the kingdom since the flag of the country has been established. A very curious flag it makes – the white elephant on a red field – and very oddly it must look if ever it is necessary to hoist it upside down as a signal of distress; a signal eloquent indeed, for anything more helpless and distressing than this clumpsy quadruped in that position can hardly be imagined.
The editor of this volume, who visited Siam in one of the vessels of the United States East India Squadron in 1857, and who was present at the exchange of ratifications of the treaty made in the previous year, has elsewhere described6 the impressions which were made upon him at his first entrance into the country of the Meinam, and reproduces his own narrative, substantially unaltered, in this and the two following chapters.
There is enough to see in Siam, if only it could be described. But nothing is harder than to convey in words the indescribable charm of tropical life and scenery; and it was in this, in great measure, that the enjoyment of my month in Bangkok consisted. Always behind the events which occupied us day by day, and behind the men and things with which we had to do, was the pervading charm of tropical nature – of soft warm sky, with floating fleecy clouds and infinite depths of blue beyond them; of golden sunlight flooding everything by day; and when the day dies its sudden death, of mellow moonlight, as if from a perennial harvest moon; and of stars, that do not glitter with a hard and pointed radiance, as here, but melt through the mild air with glory in which there is never any thought of "twinkling." Always there was the teeming life of land and sea, of jungle and of river; and the varying influence of fruitful nature, captivating every sense with sweet allurement. Read Mr. Tennyson's "Lotos Eaters" if you want to know what the tropics are.
It was drawing toward the middle of a splendid night in May, when I found myself among the "palms and temples" of this singular city. It had been a tiresome journey from the mouth of the river, rowing more than a score of miles against the rapid current; and, if there could be monotony in the wonderful variety and richness of tropical nature, it might have been a monotonous journey. But the wealth of foliage, rising sometimes in the feathery plumes of the tall areca palm – of all palms the stateliest – or drooping sometimes in heavier and larger masses, crowding to the water's edge in dense, impenetrable jungle, or checked here and there by the toil of cultivation, or cleared for dwellings – was a constant wonder and delight. Now and then we passed a bamboo house, raised high on poles above the ground, and looking like some monstrous bird's nest in the trees; but they were featherless bipeds who peered out from the branches at the passing boats; and not bird's notes but children's voices, that clamored in wonder or were silenced in awe at the white-faced strangers. Sometimes the white walls and shining roofs of temples gleamed through the dark verdure, suggesting the architectural magnificence and beauty which the statelier temples of the city would exhibit. Bald-headed priests, in orange-colored scarfs, came out to watch us. Superb white pelicans stood pensive by the riverside, or snatched at fish, or sailed on snowy wings with quiet majesty across the stream. Or maybe some inquiring monkey, gray-whiskered, leading two or three of tenderer years, as if he were their tutor, on a naturalist's expedition through the jungle, stops to look at us with peculiar curiosity, as at some singular and unexpected specimen, but stands ready to dodge behind the roots of mangrove trees in case of danger.
It will be fortunate for the traveller if, while he is rowing up the river, night shall overtake him; for, beside the splendor of the tropic stars above him, there will be rival splendors all about him. The night came down on me with startling suddenness – for "there is no twilight within the courts of the sun" – just as I was waiting at the mouth of a cross-cut canal, by which, when the tide should rise a little, I might avoid a long bend in the river. By the time the tide had risen the night had fallen thick and dark, and the dense shade of the jungle, through which the canal led us, made it yet thicker and more dark. Great fern leaves, ten or fifteen feet in height, grew dense on either side, and fanlike, almost met over our heads. Above them stretched the forest trees. Among them rose the noise of night-birds, lizards, trumpeter-beetles, and creatures countless and various, making a hoarse din, which, if it was not musical, at least was lively. But the jungle, with its darkness and its din, had such a beauty as I never have seen equalled, when its myriad fire-flies sparkled thick on every side. I had seen fire-flies before, and had heard of them, but I had never seen or heard, nor have I since then ever seen or heard, of anything like these. The peculiarity of them was – not that they were so many, though they were innumerable – not that they were so large, though they were very large – but that they clustered, as by a preconcerted plan, on certain kinds of trees, avoiding carefully all other kinds, and then, as if by signal from some director of the spectacle, they all sent forth their light at once, at simultaneous and exact intervals, so that the whole tree seemed to flash and palpitate with living light. Imagine it. At one instant was blackness of darkness and the croaking jungle. Then suddenly on every side flashed out these fiery trees, the form of each, from topmost twig to outmost bough, set thick with flaming jewels. It was easy to imagine at the top of each some big white-waistcoated fire-fly, with the baton of director, ordering the movements of the rest.
This peculiarity of the Siamese fire-flies, or, as our popular term graphically describes them, the tropical "lightning-bugs" was noticed as long ago as the time of old Kämpfer, who speaks concerning them as follows:
"The glow-worms settle on some trees like a fiery cloud, with this surprising circumstance, that a whole swarm of these insects, having taken possession of one tree and spread themselves over its branches, sometimes hide their light all at once, and a moment after make it appear again, with the utmost regularity and exactness, as if they were in perpetual systole and diastole." The lapse of centuries has wrought no change in the rhythmic regularity of this surprising exhibition. Out upon the river once again; the houses on the shore began to be more numerous, and presently began to crowd together in continuous succession; and from some of them the sound of merry laughter and of pleasant music issuing proved that not all the citizens of Bangkok were asleep. The soft light of the cocoanut-oil lamps supplied the place of the illumination of the fire-flies. Boats, large and small, were passing swiftly up and down the stream; now and then the tall masts of some merchant ships loomed indistinctly large through the darkness. I could dimly see high towers of temples and broad roofs of palaces; and I stepped on shore, at last, on the with a half-bewildered feeling that I was passing through some pleasant dream of the Arabian Nights, from which I should presently awake.
"Dark shore, just seen that it was rich,"
Even when the flooding sunlight of the tropical morning poured in through the windows, it was difficult for me to realize that I was not in some unreal land. There was a sweet, low sound of music filling the air with its clear, liquid tones. And, joining with the music, was the pleasant ringing of a multitude of little bells, ringing I knew not where. It seemed as if the air was full of them. Close by, on one side, was the palace of a prince, and somewhere in his house or in his courtyard there were people playing upon instruments of music, made of smoothed and hollowed bamboo. But no human hands were busy with the bells. Within a stone's throw of my window rose the shining tower of the most splendid temple in Bangkok. From its broad octagonal base to the tip of its splendid spire it must measure, I should think, a good deal more than two hundred feet, and every inch of its irregular surface glitters with ornament. Curiously wrought into it are forms of men and birds, and grotesque beasts that seem, with outstretched hands or claws, to hold it up. Two thirds of the way from the base, stand, I remember, four white elephants, wrought in shining porcelain, facing one each way toward four points of the compass. From the rounded summit rises, like a needle, a sharp spire. This was the temple tower, and all over the magnificent pile, from the tip of the highest needle to the base, from every prominent angle and projection, there were hanging sweet-toned bells, with little gilded fans attached to their tongues; so swinging that they were vocal in the slightest breeze. Here was where the music came from. Even as I stood and looked I caught the breezes at it. Coming from the unseen distance, rippling the smooth surface of the swift river, where busy oars and carved or gilded prows of many boats were flashing in the sun, sweeping with pleasant whispers through the varied richness of the tropical foliage, stealing the perfume of its blossoms and the odor of its fruits, they caught the shining bells of this great tower, and tossed the music out of them. Was I awake I wondered, or was it some dream of Oriental beauty that would presently vanish?
Something like this Æolian tower there must be in the adjacent kingdom of Birmah, where the graceful pen of Mrs. Judson has put the scene in verse:
"On the pagoda spire
The bells are swinging,
Their little golden circlets in a flutter
With tales the wooing winds have dared to utter;
Till all are ringing,
As if a choir
Of golden-nested birds in heaven were singing;
And with a lulling sound
The music floats around
And drops like balm into the drowsy ear."
The verse breathes the spirit, and gives almost the very sound, of the bewitching tropical scene on which I looked, and out of which "the music of the bells" was blown to me on my first morning in Bangkok.
No doubt my first impressions (which I have given with some detail, and with all the directness of "that right line I") were fortunate. But three or four weeks of Bangkok could not wear them off or counteract them. It is the Venice of the East. Its highway is the river, and canals are its by-ways. There are streets, as in Venice, used by pedestrians; but the travel and the carriage is, for the most part, done by boats. Only, in place of the verdureless margin of the watery streets, which gives to Venice, with all its beauty, a half-dreary aspect, there is greenest foliage shadowing the water, and mingling with the dwellings, and palaces, and temples on the shore; and instead of the funeral gondolas of monotonous color, with solitary gondoliers, are boats of every size and variety, paddled sometimes by one, sometimes by a score of oarsmen. Some of the bamboo dwellings of the humbler classes are built, literally, on the river, floating on rafts, a block of them together, or raised on poles above the surface of the water. The shops expose their goods upon the river side, and wait for custom from the thronging boats. The temples and the palaces must stand, of course, on solid ground, but the river is the great Broadway, and houses crowd upon the channel of the boats, and boats bump the houses. It is a picturesque and busy scene on which you look as you pass on amid the throng. Royal boats, with carved and gilded prows, with shouting oarsmen, rush by you, hurrying with the rapid current; or the little skiff of some small pedler, with his assortment of various "notions," paddling and peddling by turns, is dexterously urged along its way. Amid all this motion and traffic is that charm of silence which makes Venice so dream-like. No rumble of wheels nor clatter of hoofs disturbs you. Only the sound of voices, softened as it comes along the smooth water, or the music of a palace, or the tinkling of the bells of a pagoda, break the stillness. It is a beautiful Broadway, without the Broadway roar and din.
Of course there is not, in this tropical Venice, anything to equal the incomparable architectural beauty of the Adriatic city. And yet it seemed to me that the architecture of Siam was in very perfect accord with all its natural surroundings. In all parts of the city you may find the "wats" or temples. When we started on our first day's sight-seeing, and told the old Portuguese half-breed, who acted as our interpreter, to take us to a "wat," he asked, with a pun of embarrassment, "What wat?" Of course we must begin with the pagoda of innumerable bells, but where to stop we knew not. Temple after temple waited to be seen. Through long, dim corridors, crowded with rows of solemn idols carved and gilded; through spacious open courts paved with large slabs of marble, and filled with graceful spires or shafts or columns; along white walls with gilded eaves and cornices; beneath arches lined with gold, to sacred doors of ebony, or pearly gates of iridescent beauty; amid grotesque stone statues, or queer paintings of the Buddhist inferno (strangely similar to the mediæval Christian representations of the same subject), you may wander till you are tired. You may happen to come upon the bonzes at their devotions, or you may have the silent temples to yourself. In one of them you will find that clumsy, colossal image, too big to stand, and built recumbent, therefore – a great mass of heavy masonry, covered thick with gilding, and measuring a hundred and fifty feet in length. If you could stand him up, his foot would cover eighteen feet – an elephantine monster. But the roofs, of glazed tiles, with a centre of dark green and with a golden margin, are the greatest charm of the temples. Climb some pagoda and look down upon the city, and, on every side, among the "breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster," you will see the white walls roofed with shining green and gold, and surmounted by their gilded towers and spires. Like the temples are the palaces, but less splendid. But everywhere, whether in temples or palaces, you will find, not rude, barbaric tawdriness of style, but elegance and skill of which the Western nations might be proud. Good taste, and a quick sense of beauty, and the ability to express them in their handiwork, all these are constantly indicated in the architecture of this people. And they make the city one of almost unrivalled picturesqueness to the traveller, who glides from river to canal and from canal to river, under the shadow of the temple towers, and among the shining walls of stately palaces.
Where so much wealth is lavished on the public buildings there must be great resources to draw from; and, indeed, the mineral wealth of the country appears at almost every turn. Precious stones and the precious metals seem as frequent as the fire-flies in the jungle. Sometimes, as in the silver currency, there is an absence of all workmanship; the coinage being little lumps of silver, rudely rolled together in a mass and stamped. But sometimes, as in the teapots, betel-nut boxes, cigar-holders, with which the noblemen are provided when they go abroad, you will see workmanship of no mean skill. Often these vessels are elegantly wrought. Sometimes they are studded with jewels, sometimes they are beautifully enamelled in divers colors. Once I called upon a noble, who brought out a large assortment of uncut stones – some of them of great value – and passed them to me as one would a snuff-box, not content till I had helped myself. More than once I have seen children of the nobles with no covering at all, except the strings of jewelled gold that hung, in barbarous opulence, upon their necks and shoulders; but there was wealth enough in these to fit the little fellows with a very large assortment of most fashionable and Christian apparel, even at the ruinous rate of tailors' prices at the present day. To go about among these urchins, and among the houses of the nobles and the king's palaces, gives one the half-bewildered and half-covetous feeling that it gives to be conducted by polite but scrutinizing attendants through a mint. Surely we had come at last to
"Where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold."
Of course, of all this wealth the king's share was the lion's share.
Then, as for vegetable wealth, I do not know that there is anywhere a richer valley in the world than the valley of the Meinam. All the productions of the teeming tropics may grow luxuriantly here. There was rice enough in Siam the year before my visit to feed the native population and to supply the failure of the rice crop in Southern China, preventing thus the havoc of a famine in that crowded empire, and making fortunes for the merchants who were prompt enough to carry it from Bangkok to Canton. Cotton grows freely beneath that burning sky. Sugar, pepper, and all spices may be had with easy cultivation. There is gutta-percha in the forests. There are dye-stuffs and medicines in the jungles. The painter gets his gamboge, as its name implies, from Cambodia, which is tributary to their majesties of Bangkok. As for the fruits, I cannot number them nor describe them. The mangostene, most delicate and most rare of them all, grows only in Siam, and in the lands adjacent to the Straits of Sunda and Malacca. Some things we may have which Siam cannot have, but the mangostene is her peculiar glory, and she will not lend it. Beautiful to sight, smell, and taste, it hangs among its glossy leaves, the prince of fruits. Cut through the shaded green and purple of the rind, and lift the upper half as if it were the cover of a dish, and the pulp of half transparent, creamy whiteness stands in segments like an orange, but rimmed with darkest crimson where the rind was cut. It looks too beautiful to eat; but how the rarest, sweetest essence of the tropics seems to dwell in it as it melts to your delighted taste!
This is the Land of the White Elephant, so singular, so rich, so beautiful; but we need also to tell what manner of men the people are who live beneath the standard of the elephant, or what kings and nobles govern them.
CHAPTER VII.
A ROYAL GENTLEMAN
Soon after arriving in Bangkok, in 1857, on the occasion referred to in the last chapter, the present editor was invited to an interview with the second king. The account of that interview was written while it was still a matter of recent memory; and it seems better to reproduce the story, for the sake of the freshness with which the incidents described in it were recorded, rather than to attempt the rewriting of it. It is a characteristic picture of an extraordinary man, and of the manners and customs which still prevail for the most part (with some important exceptions) at the court of Siam. This king was the grandson of the founder of the present dynasty, and was the junior of the two princes who, by the usurpation of their half-brother, were, for twenty-seven years, kept out of their birthright. Even so long ago as 1837, an intelligent traveller who visited Siam said concerning him: "No man in the kingdom is so qualified to govern well. His naturally fine mind is enlarged and improved by intercourse with foreigners, by the perusal of English works, by studying Euclid and Newton, by freeing himself from a bigoted attachment to Buddhism, by candidly recognizing our superiority and a readiness to adopt our arts. He understands the use of the sextant and chronometer, and was anxious for the latest Nautical Almanac, which I promised to send him. His little daughters, accustomed to the sight of foreigners, so far from showing any signs of fear, always came to sit upon my lap, though the yellow cosmetic on their limbs was sure to be transferred in part to my dress. One of them took pride in repeating to me a few words of English, and the other took care to display her power of projecting the elbow forward," – an accomplishment upon which the ladies of Siam still pride themselves, and in which they are extraordinarily expert.
This was in 1837. How greatly the character of the second king had developed since that time will appear from the editor's description, which refers, as has been said, to the year 1857.
One king at a time is commonly thought to be as much as any kingdom has need of. Indeed, there seems to be a growing tendency among the nations of the earth to think that even one is one too many, and the popular prejudice is setting very strongly in favor of none at all. Nevertheless, there are in Siam (or rather, until very recently, there were) two kings reigning together, each with the full rank and title of king, and with no rivalry between them. It is probable that, originally, a monarchy was the normal condition of the government, and that the duarchy is of comparatively modern origin. But it is certain that when I was in the Land of the White Elephant there was a kind of Siamese-twin arrangement in the kingdom. The two kings were brothers, and though, as has been said, their rank and title were equal, the real power and work of government rested on the shoulders of the elder of the two, the other keeping discreetly and contentedly in the background. Both were men of noteworthy ability, and deserve to be known and honored for their personal attainments in civilization, and for what they have done to lift their kingdom out of degradation and barbarism, and to welcome and promote intercourse between it and the Western nations. When we remember the obstinacy of Oriental prejudice against innovation, and the persistency with which the people wrap themselves in their conceit as in a garment, we shall the better appreciate the state of things at the court of the White Elephant, which I am about to describe.
The second king was a man of social disposition, and fond of the company of strangers. It was, doubtless, owing to this fact that when he heard that there was an American man-of-war at the mouth of the river, and that an officer had been sent up to Bangkok to report her arrival, he sent a messenger and a boat with the request that I would come and see him. It did not take long for the score of oarsmen, with the short, quick motion of their paddles, and the grunting energy with which they plied them, to bring the boat up to the palace gates. For, of course, the palace has a water-front, and one may pass at one step from among the thronging boats of the river into the quiet seclusion of the king's inclosure. Passing through a lofty gateway at the water's edge, we came to a large and stately temple, about which were priests in orange-colored drapery trying to screen their shining skulls from the fierce heat of the morning sun by means of fans. I used to feel sorry for the priests. Ecclesiastical law and usage compel them to shave every sign of hair from their heads. Not even a tail is left to them, but they are as bald as beetles. And when (as in Siam) the sun's rays beat with almost perpendicular directness, it is no trifling thing to be deprived of even the natural protection with which the skull is provided. Whatever can be done with fans toward shielding themselves they do; and, also, they can, by the same means, shut off their eyes from beholding vanity, so that a fan is a most important part of the sacerdotal outfit. Leaving the priests to group themselves in idle picturesqueness near the royal temple, we pass on by storehouses and treasuries and stables of the royal elephants, between sentries standing guard with European arms and in a semi-European uniform, to the armory, where I was to wait until the king was ready.
The messenger who had hitherto conducted me was known among the foreign residents of Bangkok as "Captain Dick" – a talkative person, with a shrewd eye to his own advancement. He spoke good English, and a good deal of it, and suggested, I remember, certain ways in which it would be possible for me to further his interests with the king. He had been at sea, and had perhaps commanded one of the king's sea-going vessels – his "captaincy" being rather maritime than military. He was quite disposed to join the embassy, which was at that time getting ready to be sent to Great Britain. He mentioned, incidentally, that a few of the naval buttons on my uniform would be a highly acceptable gift for me to offer him. The confidence and self-assurance with which he had borne himself, however, began perceptibly to wilt as we drew a little nearer to the august presence of royalty. And, at the armory, he made me over, in quite an humble manner, to the king's oldest son, who was to take me to his father. As I shook hands with the tall, manly, handsome youth who was waiting for me, I thought him worthy of his princely station. Kings' sons are not always the heirs of kingly beauty or of kingly virtues; but here was one who had, at least, the physical endowments which should fit him for the dignity to which he was born. He was almost the only man I saw in Siam whose teeth were not blackened nor his mouth distorted by the chewing of the betel-nut. For the betel-nut is in Siam what the tobacco-cud is in America, only it is not, I believe, quite so injurious to the chewer as the tobacco; while, on the other hand, its use is a little more universal. As between the two, for general offensiveness, I do not know that there is anything to choose.
The second king, seeking a significant name for his son, chose one which had been borne, not by an Asiatic, not by an European, but by the greatest of Americans – George Washington. "What's in a name?" It may provoke a smile at first, that such a use should be made of the name of Washington, as if it were the whim of an ignorant and half-savage king. But when it shall appear, as I shall make it appear before I have finished, that the Siamese king understood and appreciated the character of the great man after whom he wished his son to be called, I think that no American will be content with laughing at him. I own that it moved me with something more than merely patriotic pride to hear the name of Washington honored in the remotest corner of the old world. It seemed to me significant of great progress already achieved toward Christian civilization, and prophetic of yet greater things to come.
But as the Prince George Washington walked on with me, and I revolved these great things in my mind, another turn was given to my thoughts. For when we had gone through a pleasant, shady court, and had come to the top of a flight of marble steps which took us to the door of the king's house (a plain and pleasant edifice of mason-work, like the residence of some private gentleman of wealth in our own country), I suddenly missed the young man from my side, and turned to look for him. What change had come over him! The man had been transformed into a reptile. The tall and graceful youth, princely in look and bearing, was down on all his marrow-bones, bending his head until it almost touched the pavement of the portico, and, crawling slowly toward the door, conducted me with reverent signs and whispers toward the king, his father, whom I saw coming to meet us.
This was the other side of the picture. And I draw out the incident in detail because it is characteristic of the strange conflict between the old barbarism and the new enlightenment which meets one at every turn in the Land of the White Elephant. There are two tides – one is going out, the ebb-tide of ignorance, of darkness, of despotic power; and one is coming in – the flood-tide of knowledge and liberty and all Christian grace. And, as in the whirl of waters where two currents meet, one never knows which way his boat may head, so sometimes the drift of things is backward toward the Orient, and sometimes forward, westward, as the "star of empire" moves. Each rank has, or until quite recently had, some who crawl like crocodiles beneath it, and is in its turn compelled to crawl before the higher. Nor are the members of a nobleman's family exempt. I was introduced once to one of the wives of a fat, good-natured prince (a half-brother of the two kings), who was crawling around, with her head downward, on the floor. I offered my hand as politely as was possible, and she shuffled up to shake it, and then shuffled off again into a corner. It was very queer – more so than when I shake hands with Trip, the spaniel, for then we both of us understand that it is a joke – but here it was a solemn and ceremonious act of politeness, and had to be performed with a straight face. The good lady has her revenge, however, and must enjoy it, when she sees her fat husband, clumsy, and almost as heavy as an elephant, get down on his hands and knees, as he has to, in the presence of his majesty the king. I have been told that, when the Siamese embassy to Great Britain was presented to the queen, before anybody knew what they were about, the ambassadors were down on all fours, at the entrance of the audience chamber, and insisted on crawling like mud-turtles into her majesty's presence. For, consistently enough, the court of Siam requires of foreigners only what etiquette requires in the presence of the king or president of their own country – but when its representatives are sent to foreign courts they carry their own usage with them. I felt a pardonable pride, and a little kindling of the "Civis-Romanus-sum" spirit, and an appreciable stiffening of the spinal column as I walked straight forward, while Prince George Washington crawled beside me. Blessed was the man who walked uprightly.
