PICTURE OF BANGKOK.

North Otago Times, 20 September 1904, Page 4

PICTURE OF BANGKOK.

"VENICE OP, THE EAST."

Caspar Whitney, the editor of "Out- 1 ing,'' who is now making an extended i trip of mingled pleasure and business; in the Par East, supplies his magazine; with a cicar-cilt picture o£ Bangkok,, capital of Siam. Ho writes! | . I "It is a strange, half floating city,! this Bangkok, overrun with pariah dogs! and crows; Oriental despite ite improvements, and one of the most inter-; esting cities in tho Far East. Yet a, sad city for tho visitor with mind apart, from margins and money-saving maohinory. At ovory turning are evidences, of decay of nativo art, and in thoir stead the hideously commonplace things that bear the legend 'made in Germany.'. Ono would scarcely believe to-day, after: a visit to Bangkok, that at ono timo ■ the Siamese wcro distinguished, ovon among Asiatic artisans, in silk wear-: ing, in ceramics, iu ivory carving and in silversniithing. Yet tlio royal museum discloses treasures not found elsewhere ill the world, which servo to remind how far Siam has fallen from the place sho once occupied among the art producing nations of the world. When therefore wo behold a people discouraging and losing their splendid ancient arts and giving instead a ready market to the cheap trash that comes out c.f tlio West, wo may hardly look for nativo industrial development. Tho day is probably not far off when Siaon's industries will dopend upon foreign guidance; and if England, not France, supplies that impetus— tlio .world will bo (ho gainer. "By those la'avollcrs who delight in comparisons—and read travellers' folders especially compiled for tourist consumption—Bangkok has been variously called tlio Constantinople of Asia and tho Venico of tho East, True, tlioro is much pertinence in both comparisons, Certainly Bangkok is the homo of tho, gaunt and ugly pariah dog, which fiponds its days foraging to keep life, in its mangy carcass, multiplying meanwhile with tho fecundity of cats in a tropical clime, because the Buddha faith forbids its killing. Nor are outcast, dogs tho only pests of Bangkok, to grow numerous because of native religious prejudice; more noisy crows porch of an early morning on your window casing and (lie tree immediately boyond it than in tlio space of a day hover near tho 'Towers of Sileneo' at Bombay awaiting the pleasure of the vultures fowling on tho earthly remains of ono that has dial in the faith of the Parsoo. Somo people fancy Bangkok a city of islands; hence I suppose the comparison with Venico. Bangkok has, indeed, a very largo /floating population, and tho city is intersected with many 'klawugs' (canals); at certain times of tho year, too, peiicips half the city and the surrounding couutry is under a foot or mora of tido water. Yet tho largest half of Bangkok's dOO,OOO citizens lives on land, though tho easiest means of travel throughout much of tho city is by boat, and. in fact, half of it is reached in no othor way. Tlio Siamese woman of tho lower class daily paddles her own canoe to tlio market; or, if in the bettor class, she goes in a r rmi. chang,' tho common passenger boat, which, together with tho jinrikislia, the land passenger carrkj throughout tlio Orient, is included among tho household possessions of ovory Siamese who can afford it."

On the Chattoga Itivor, Georgia, ai'o largo cotton factories which aro nm by wator power furnished by a turbine water wheol. Not long ago tlw superintendent of the factory found that something had gono wrong with tho power, and tho factory had to bo stopped lo see. what wm tho matter. Tho water was shut off, tho sluico gates raised, tlio wator drained from tho canal, and piorlioad and tho wheel box was opened. Inside wero found an enormous nunibor of eols, which woro twisted and knotted around tho shaft and .'ibong tho blades of tho wheel bo as to mako the force of wwr, although amounting to soveral hundred ho.sepower, insufficient to turn Iho machinery. When tho eels were removed thoy woro found to number ICO and weighed 2&i ; poundfi, some of them scaling as high as four pounds, Tho river has long boon celebrated for 1U eel Bshing, but this was an unusually largo catch. i