IN THE LAND OF THE WHITE ELEPHANT.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIII, Issue XXIII, 8 December 1894, Page 544

IN THE LAND OF THE WHITE ELEPHANT.

BY FRANK G. CARPENTER. day of proprietary despots is passing away, but j Chulalongkorn, King of Siam, is a king in deed and in trntb. Every acre of land in the two hundred and fifty thousand square miles which make up Siam belong to him. He has the right to every stick of timber in bis forests of valuable teak wood, and the mines of sapphires and gold are worked for him alone. He is practically

THE MASTER OF EVERY ONE OF HIS TEN MILLION SUBJECTS.

The men and women are his slaves. From his royal palace at Bangkok his word goes forth meaning life and death and it is only his remarkable character which prevents his reign from being marked by the disgraceful deeds and cruelties of the tyrants of history. He is the greatest king Siam has ever bad, and is in point of ability the best of the rnlers of his kind. It is a question in the minds of many Eastern thinkers whether he will not be the last king of Siam. The country is so rich that the great colonizing powers of Europe are casting their covetous eyes upon it, and the prophecy is frequently uttered that it will before many years be the property of either England or France. It lies like a wedge of gold between the English territory of Burmah and the French possessions of Cochin China, and, should occasion offer, it will fall into the hands of one or the other. SIAM IS THE HOLLAND OF THE ORIENT. During a part of the year the best of its lands lie under water, and the people move from one village to another in boats. The rivers and canals are the highways of the kingdom and the city of Bangkok, the royal capital, has more houses built upon pi'es than have the piled cities of Amsteidam and Rotteidam, and its canal streets surpass in number the liquid avenues through which the Venetian

gondola glides. B ingkok is even more the daughter of the waters than is the famed qneen city of the Adriatic. Venice rises from the sea and its foundations reach down into its sand. Bangkok fl rats upon the bosom of the mighty Menam River, and its hundred thousand dwellings rise and fall with the tide. The Menam is called the mother of waters and Bangkok, its most beautiful daughter, is soothed during the day and lulled to sleep at night upon the bosom of this mighty mother. Bangkok has few things in common with its sister city of Italy, end it differs from Venice as the half-nude savage

maiden of the tropics, laden with barbaric gold differs from the fashionable girl of our modern civilization, clad in her latest Parisian dress. Imagine a low, flat country filled with the most luxuriant of tropical vegetation. The wind sighs through the palm trees. Birds of the gayest plumage fill the air with their tropical songs. In the jungle is heard the chatter of the monkey, and along the fiat streams basks the alligator. A low, clear blue sky, in which the sun of the tropics shines its hottest, hangs over it, and at night the moon and the stars shine with an untold brightness. Sailing up this river, from the Gulf of Siam, at about thirty miles from its mouth you note in the distance, the spires of temples and palaces. As yon go on from out the palm trees on each side shine little

one story houses, their roofs thatched with palm leaves, and their foundations apparently rising from the water itself. None of these houses are large. The average base is not more than fifteen feet square, and the roofs sharp ridged and bellying inwards, are not more than twelve feet from the flior. They have neither windows nor doors, and their fronts open in verandahs directly on the water. Coming nearer you see that they float, and that their foundation is a raft of bamboo poles, each about three inches thick, and piled crosswise, one on the top of the other, like the corn cob house of a country urchin. ALL OF THE WOMEN HAVE SHORT HAIR, and some of them would be beantiful were it not for the universal custom of betel nut chewing. The betel nut is the product of a palm tree. It is about as large around as a walnnt, and its meat is of a soft-, spongy nature, the taste of which suggests the astringent properties of the unripe persimmon. The natives cut these nuts into quarters, and when they chew them they add a mixture of pink-coloured lime and tobacco, which with the betel nut makes the compound which they munch from morning till night. After a short time it becomes a cud, and they lodge this between the lips and the teeth when not engaged in chewing. The chewing produces a blood-red saliva, which turns the teeth from white to polished jet-, makes the lips crack, contracts the gums so that the teeth become long black fangs, to disfigure what would be otherwise fairly beantiful faces. BETFL-NUT CHEWING IS FOLLOWED BY ALL SIAMESE,

from the lowest to the highest, and a nobleman going through the streets has always his servant following him, bearing a box of silver or gold half the size of a cigar-box, in which are choice mixtures of betel and lime. In one of the European stores, whose business it is to snpply King Chulalangkorn with all sorts of goods, 1 saw at least one thousand little china cups the size of a shaving mug These were the hand spittoons which the ladies of the harem buy to use while chewing the betel. Some of them were elegantly painted, and the artist of the most favourite spittoon was a Siamese prince. There is etiquette in betel chewing, and it is impolite in Siam not to offer a visitor a betel chew upon entering the house. The betel box is one of the chief pieces of furnitnre. During my shopping in this river of stores, I was repeatedly asked to partake. After one experience I was not anxious for a second taste, but I was surprised to find that the people were hopelessly addictel to the habit. Babies learn to chew almost as soon as they are weaned, and for old folks who by long chewing have lost their teeth, the betel is ground into a powder. Its effect is, I am told,

somewhat the same as that of tobacco. All of the Siamese MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN SMOKE AS WELL AS CHEW.

You see cigarettes and cigars, unlit and half smoked, behind the ears of both sexes. I watched a little naked boy, clad in jewels, smoking one cigarette while he had another in reserve over his ear. He was, I judge, about four years old, and his father was carrying him.

THE WOMEN ARE THE WORKING PEOPLE of Chulalangkorn’s realm, and the loafers of Siam are the men. Tne women do all the business of the water stores, and they form a large proportion of the pedlars who move about on the canals. One reason for this is that the men of Siam are practically the slaves of the king. They are divided into classes and have to serve for three, six, or nine months each year, as the otfiiers of the king direct. They receive practically no wages and there is a demand for all kinds of workmen trom the coolie labourer to the skilled jeweller and accountant. Io the cases of criminals and of prisoners of war the service is still harder. Debt is also inherited in Siam, and THE CHILDREN OF THE DEBTOR BECOME THE SLAVES OF THE CREDITOR. The woman of Siam has few rights that the man is bound to respect. If a slave girl marries her husband has to assume her debt, but if be gets tired of her he leaves her to support the children and pay the debt. He can sell her if he wishes and he can become divorced whenever he pleases by entering the priesthood for a month or so. There is little visiting between Siamese families, and the chief events which bring friends together are weddings, cremations and hair-cuttings. Hair-cutting is the great event of the Siamese lifetime. It takes place when the boy enters upon manhood, and it marks his change from a boy to a man. Before this he has a top-knot on the crown of

his head. This has never been shaved nor cut since his birth, though the remainder of the scalp has, by the razor, been kept as clean as the front part of a mandarin’s skull. The ceremony is as grand as the condition of the family will allow, and in the cases of princes it forms the occasion of a national holiday. Chulalangkorn’s favourite son, the heir apparent to the throne, is at present only eleven years old, and his top-knot will remain upon his head for some years to come. THE HAIR CUTTING OF THE PRESENT KING WAS ONE OF THE MOST SPLENDID AFFAIRS IN SIAMESE HISTORY. It lasted for three days and the story of it reads like a chapter in the Arabian Nights. A mighty mountain was erected in the Palace Gardens at Bangkok It contained grottoes and caves, and on its top was a grand pavilion hung with costly curtains and covered with gold. The prince was borne in a golden chair, with a grand procession, to this pavilion, and his royal father handed the golden shears and a golden raz >r to the haircutter. While his black top-knot was being cut away, the musicians from all parts of the kingdom filled the air with noise, and the king, acting as priest, spoke as follows : * Thou who art come out of pure waters, be thy offences washed away ! Be thou relieved from other births Bear

thou in thy bosom the brightness of that light which shall lead thee even as it led the sublime Buddha to Nirvana, at once and forever 1* In the procession which conducted the prince there were fonr hundred Amazons in green and gold, followed by twelve maidens attired in cloth of gold. There were a host of priests, who acted as Buddhist angels, boys in all the costumes of the world, and five thousand men in rose-coloured robes with tapering caps. These were the guardian angels attending on the different nations. Then there were women in all the costumes of the world. After the ceremony there was a feast, and the young price; was given presents by all the nobility. These gifts were very costly, and at such hair-cuttings they range in value from three hundred thousand to six hundred thousand dollars. The poorest people have their hair cutting done at the temples. The better classes cover the child with the family jewels, and the hair-cutting costumes go down from father to son through generations.