# Siam: Its Government, Manners, Customs, &c/Chapter 1

S i a m.
Chapter I. Geography, Etc.
O n my “overland” journey from Siam to the United States, through France and England, many persons were accustomed to accost me saying, “Pardon me, Sir, but what nationality is that young man who is with you?” Referring to my Siamese boy. That boy, Sir, is a Siamese. “A Siamese! Well, I must confess my geography is a little shaky,—I scarcely know where Siam is,—but I remember now that is where the Siamese twins came from.” referring, of course, to those unfortunate beings who by some “Lusus naturæ” are inseparably connected together, ​and have been obliged to spend a long life in that condition, and who have consequently become almost the only means by which their native country is known to a vast majority of Europeans. When I, in 1860, determined to go to Siam, I found it next to impossible to gather from books any reliable information concerning it, and consequently took shipping at New York almost as ignorant of the country to which I was going, as I was of the moon. Fortunately however, some of our party were returning, and before we arrived at our destination I was pretty well prepared for what I was to encounter. Geographies are nearly silent in regard to Siam, from the simple fact that geographers themselves know nothing about it. It is also to be regretted that, until very recently, chiefly all the books concerning oriental countries were written by mere cursory travellers, whose knowledge of the countries through which they passed, or at which they touched, must necessarily have been limited, and the chief object of many of them ​appears to have been to make a readable book, oftentimes at the expense of truth.
You will naturally ask, where is Siam? At the extreme point of that vast continent extending from the snows of Siberia to the Equator, and terminating in the long narrow Malay peninsula, is the little island of Singapore, separated from the mainland by a narrow strait. The island is about twenty-five miles long, and about fourteen miles broad, and commands the entrance of the China sea. The English, who have ever had an eye to strategic points, and especially in the east, took possession of it in 1819, being then little more than a Malay fishing village, and a nest for pirates. The present town of Singapore, well laid out and neatly built, and situated on the southern extremity of the island commanding the anchorage, contains perhaps one hundred thousand inhabitants, whilst the principal English merchants live in palatial residences on the hills in the rear of the town. The government of the island, together with Malacca, Penang, ​and Province Wellesley, has lately been transferred from the Indian Government directly to the Crown. It is a beautiful little island, with a genial climate, and I know of no place in the east where I would rather live.
Leaving Singapore, and passing through the strait, up the peninsula, over the lower part of the China sea, and up the gulf of Siam about eight hundred miles, you come to the kingdom of Siam, sandwitched between Cambodia on the east and Burmah on the west, extending from about latitude 4° to 22° north, and from longitude about 98° to 104° east; consequently there is neither frost or snow, but perpetual summer reigns. The leaves fall and are replaced by new ones, whilst those who are daily witnesses to it scarcely notice the change.
The climate of Siam is genial and healthy, but the constant heat is trying to the constitutions of Europeans, who require a change at least once in ten years. The seasons are two, the wet and the dry. From November ​to May scarcely a cloud obscures the sky, and no rain falls except perhaps a shower in January. The Siamese look for a shower in that month, and are disappointed if it does not come. They think it necessary for certain kinds of fruit which is just then forming, and they also think it indicative of a good rice season. I have, however, in ten years, seen January pass several times without the expected shower. From November to February the weather is delightful, being the cool season, but the thermometer is seldom lower than 64°. March and April are the hottest months, but the thermometer does not rise as high as might be expected in such a climate. I have never seen it over 98°, but on account of the long absence of rain, the ground in most places becomes dry and parched, and the rays of the sun, reflected from the heated earth, give the atmosphere a kind of bake-oven feeling, which is oftentimes hard to endure. From November to May the wind blows constantly from the northeast, and is called the “north​east monsoon.” from May till November again, is the wet season, the wind blowing constantly from the southwest, and is called the “Southwest monsoon,” the rain falling in copious showers almost every day. The showers come in a kind of rotation. If there is one to-day at a certain hour, there will be one to-morrow an hour later. The showers are copious indeed, and sometimes one would think the “Windows of heaven were opened.” the lightning is vivid, and the thunder oftentimes terrific.
Whither the name Siam came, or whence it is derived, it is now impossible to tell. The Siamese themselves know nothing of it, only as it is applied to their country by Europeans. The name they apply to their country is “Muang Thai,” the free country, in distinction from those countries which are tributary. The name Siam, however, is now coming into common use, and is sometimes inserted in public documents.
The geology of Siam is simple, the lower ​portion near the gulf being an alluvial deposit, the result of the annual overflowing of the rivers, which takes place at the close of every rainy season. The water from the copious rains rushes down from the mountains up the country, and overflows the lowlands, enriching them and causing them to produce abundant crops of rice. The mountains are volcanic, and some of them have the appearance of having been thrown from a distance and set down in their present positions.
Many of them are barren of almost everything green, presenting to the eye but little that is attractive, but others, especially in the North Laos country, present scenery indescribably grand. In many places, especially along the seacoast, the old granite, the foundation of all things, geologically speaking, comes to the surface, and even projects out in bold bluffs and headlands. The rocks on many of the mountains present the appearance of having at one time been lashed by the waves of the sea, and there is abundant evidence that much ​of the lower country has been redeemed from the sea at no very remote period.
The country is drained by three streams of considerable size, which empty into the gulf. The principal one is put down on our maps as the Menam, but called by the Siamese Menam Chow Phya, Menam being the generic name for river, meaning mother of water, and Chow Phya being the specific name for that particular river. Were it not for a sandbar at its mouth, it would be navigable for the largest class of vessels to Bangkok, but on that account the largest vessels are obliged to anchor in the roadstead outside. The Bampakong on the east, and Tacheen on the west, are also streams of some importance. Besides these, there are also a number of smaller streams.
Bangkok, the capital of the kingdom, is situated on both sides of the Menam Chow Phya, about twenty-five miles from its mouth. It contains about four hundred thousand inhabitants, and has been called the Venice of ​the East, from the fact that much of the city is floating on the river in the form of floating houses. These floating houses are a kind of nondescript affair, and it is impossible to give one who has never seen them any idea of them. The following description, by the oldest missionary in Siam, and published in the Bangkok Calendar of 1866, though quite too elaborate for easy reading, is as good as anything that can be given, and I shall insert it “in toto.”
“Our friends in the western world have heard a good deal about the floating houses of Bangkok, but they universally speak of being unable to understand, after all that has been written, what kind of things they are. If the descriptions that have been given of them could have always been accompanied by good photographic pictures of the same, our friends would have had much less difficulty in understanding them. But such pictures are too expensive to procure for illustrating ‘The Bangkok Calendar,’ which never ​pays for its cost, and hence we must do the next best thing, and that is to descend into quite minute detail, if we would make our friends who have never visited Bangkok understand such unique structures as the floating houses of the city. And as these houses form a large part of the dwellings and mercantile shops of this great metropolis, being the most conspicuous of all buildings (the temples only excepted) as you pass up and down the Menam Chow Phya, the ‘Broadway’ of Bangkok, they seem to demand a minute description in ‘the calendar.’ these floating houses are moored on both sides of the river for a distance of nearly three miles. Their size, on an average, is about forty by thirty feet on the base; in height, eight feet to the eves, and fifteen feet to the ridge of the roof. As this base could not be covered by a roof of only two sides, and make it sufficiently steep to shed rain well, without being too high for safety on the river in time of a squall, the natives divide the area to be covered into two nearly equal ​parts, and put a two-sided roof over each division, thatched with the attap palm leaf, (cocos nipa.) the two eves that thus meet in the middle of the house have an eve-trough common to both of them, which is always seen in the house about eight feet from the floor, passing uniformly in the direction of the river. Hence nearly all these floating houses appear to be double, standing sidewise to the river, the ridge of the front being a little lower than the one behind it. There is always a narrow verandah four or five feet wide attached to the front division, which is covered with an extra roof of attap leaves, extending from under the main point roof, with a more gentle slope than the front roof, and then, in front of these, there is usually a small bamboo float from three to five feet wide. This is sometimes extended the whole length of the house, and sometimes only from three to ten feet. The eve of the verandah is not more than six feet above the floor. From this there is often suspended a bamboo mat, or some other ​material more tasty, for a screen from the glare of the river. The ends of the two double roofs are all furnished precisely alike with a peculiar kind of moulding made of a thin plank tastefully curved at the bottom, like the written capital A, and put up edgewise at the extreme end, to constitute a neat finish for the thatching. The triangular area made by each double roof at the ends is generally closed with attap thatching; sometimes with bamboo matting, sometimes with wooden pannelled work, sometimes with a regular clap-boarding, and rarely with woodwork radiating from the lower side of the triangle upwards.
“These floating houses are always divided into two main rooms—the front and inner one. The floor of the latter is about one foot higher than the front. There are narrow passages five feet wide at the right and left of these rooms, which are simply enclosed verandahs, with each an attap roof, leading to a narrow room of the same width and kind in the extreme rear. The front room is used for the ​purpose of a variety-store, and the inner one for a bed-room.
“In it you will generally find the family idol-altar, if the occupant be a Chinese. It is often used for putting away lots of goods, a few samples of which are daily exposed for sale in the front room. These exhibitions are made on a kind of amphitheatre-formed shelving facing the river, so that every article can be seen at a glance by passers-by in boats. The whole front is exposed to view in the daytime, not by opening all the doors and windows, but by taking down much of the front siding, which consists of boards varying from ten to twelve inches in width, standing up endwise, and fitted into grooves above and below. These boards are slid out early every morning, one by one, and laid away out of sight under the floor, in a place reserved for them during the day. Early in the evening each board is put in its place for closing up the front of the shop, leaving not the least door or window by which one may have direct ​access to it. But there is a small door in front of each of the narrow passages in the extreme rear.
“This narrow room is commonly used for the purposes of a cook-room. The fire place is simply a shallow wooden box filled with clay. There is no chimney or stovepipe attached to any of them. In the place of one they make a scuttle hole in the thatched roof only six feet above, and this has a trap door made of the same material as the roof, which can be closed in rainy weather. Even in the best weather only a part of the smoke escapes through the opening, while the remainder finds its way out in all quarters. Consequently this little cook-room is always a very smoky place, and is blackened with soot to a greater or less extent, as are also many other parts of the establishment.
“Some better-to-do occupants of these floating houses have a small bamboo caboose, moored at one end of the dwelling house. The floating houses are usually enclosed with teak boards standing up endwise, and permanently fixed ​into grooves above and below. Sometimes the siding is made of bamboo wattling.
“It remains to be shown the mode of buoying up the floating houses above the water, which being quite unique, deserves a particular description. In the sills of the house are framed five rows of scantling, four-by-six inches or larger, which descend into the water five or six feet. These are so arranged that they divide the whole area underneath the sills into four equal parts, or, as the Siamese say, hawngs, or sections, for filling with bamboo poles. The first object of these five rows of legs, bounding as they do the four equal divisions, is to prevent the bamboo poles from rolling out sideways under the pressure of the superincumbent house; and the other is to render it quite convenient to exchange every year old and rotten bamboos for new ones. Now a new set of bamboos will serve well the purposes of a buoy only about two years; and to save the trouble of exchanging all under the house at once, the natives manage to exchange only half of them annually, ​so that the house is not for a moment left without enough to keep it well out of the water. This is done by removing all the bamboos from one or two of the divisions which have been in use two years, and filling their places with new ones. The divisions which have bamboos of one year’s service remain undisturbed until next year; when their time has expired, they too are cast out to give place to others. Thus there are always left two divisions of the last year’s bamboos to serve in conjunction with two divisions of new ones. The annual cost of new bamboos for a floating house of medium size is not far from forty Ticals, and the number of bamboo poles required is from five to eight hundred.
“As these floating houses are generally moored close together, standing end to end, in an even line in the direction of the river, it becomes necessary that the house which is to be replenished with bamboos should be moved out a little in front of its neighbor’s, thus making room for sliding out the old bamboos from either ​end, and sliding in new ones to fill their places. There are men who follow this business as their profession, and do it very dextrously. One day is quite sufficient to accomplish the whole work for any house. The bamboos, it scarcely need be said, are slender poles, from three to four inches in diameter at the butt-end, and not more than half that size at the top. They are from twenty-five to thirty feet in length. The top ends of the poles are always the ones that are pushed under the house, and consequently are hidden, while the butt-ends are always external, forming an even surface at each end of the house. The poles being about three-fourths the length of the house, the smaller extremities consequently overlap each other from eight to ten feet, and make an equal thickness of buoying material beneath the middle of the house, with that of each end.
“A house newly buoyed up looks quite tidy and dry, its floors being from three to four feet above water. The houses are kept in their places, forming a regular line with their fellows, ​thirty feet or more from shore, by means of three or four teak posts or piles, driven at each end into the soft bottom of the river six or eight feet; and these are made mutual supporters of each other by lashing a bamboo pole across them all near their tops. The house is then fastened to these posts by means of bands or hoops encircling very loosely each post, so that they shall readily slip up and down as the tide raises the house or causes it to settle down. For this purpose it is indispensable that there be no notches or knots on the posts that shall cause the hoops to catch on them. Such a notch would cause the post to be drawn up out of its place in a flowing tide, and would sink it deeper in an ebbing one. While sitting in these houses you will often hear a crack, and consequent sudden sinking of the house, caused by the sliding of a hoop out of the place where it had been caught on the posts. Where the water is unusually deep where a floating house is moored, and the bottom of the river unstable, you will see the tops of the mooring posts made fast by ​a cable to something firm on shore. Sometimes the whole gives way notwithstanding, and then the house is adrift at the mercy of the tide. The writer was once in a floating house that had got adrift in the night time, and floated down the river many miles before it could be made to submit to the power of the ropes and cables, with which we endeavoured many times in vain to stop her downward way. She would snap our stoutest ropes, as Samson did all the instruments with which his enemies bound him. These floating houses are often moved from place to place, and it is no uncommon thing to see one floating up or down the river with the family in, and everything going on as regularly within as if it was snugly moored.”
The buildings on shore belonging to the chief princes and nobles, are built of rough brick and stuccoed inside and out. The style of architecture is a kind of Siamo-Chinese. The next best kind of house consists of posts sunk into the ground, which constitute the frame work, whilst the sides are made of boards wrought into a ​kind of pannel work. This is called a “ruen fa kadan,” or weatherboarded house. These are the houses of the poorer princes and nobles, and the better class of the common people. The houses of the poorer classes of the common people are made on the same plan, only the sides are constructed of bamboo wattling. These are called “ruen fa tak,” or open-sided house.
The river is the “Broadway” of the city, whilst canals form the principal cross streets or avenues. Chiefly all travel in the city, and indeed everywhere in Siam, is done in boats. If a person wishes to go to church, to market, to call on a friend—in short, any where, he goes in a boat. The rivers are the great avenues of trade, whilst the whole country near the gulf is intersected by a network of canals. But in those portions distant from the rivers or canals resort must be had to ox-carts and elephants.
Siam is the genial land of the elephant. He roams wild in her forests, but those which have not at least been partially tamed are now becoming scarce. He constitutes in the northern ​provinces the chief beast of burden, and one of the special uses to which he is put, is drawing timber from the forest to the bank of the river, where it can be formed into rafts and floated to market. I have seen a huge elephant with his tusks and trunk roll a large log up a declivity more quickly and dextrously than a dozen men would have done it.
Siam has also been denominated the land of the “White elephant,” from the peculiar reverence shown for that animal. There is, however, no such thing as a white elephant. The standing color is black, but occasionally one is found which by some freak in nature is a kind of albino, or flesh color. He comes as near the color of a badly burned brick as anything else. The Siamese do not call him a white elephant, but a “chang puak,” a strange colored elephant. From time immemorial the Siamese have considered this strange colored animal the emblem of good luck, and the king, who has had the greatest number of them, is handed down in ​history as the most fortunate monarch. A certain king had at one time three of them. The king of Burmah sent an embassy, asking one as a special favor, which was emphatically denied. At this the king of Burmah took umbrage, and sent an army and took the whole of them. When one is found in the forest, word is sent immediately to the capital, and preparations are made for conducting him to the palace with the greatest honors and religious ceremonies. He is enthroned in a palace within the walls of the king’s palace, and is henceforth fed on the luxuries of the land. He seldom, however, lives long, being killed with kindness. He would be much happier and his life would be considerably prolonged by allowing him to roam in his native forest. The finder of such an elephant too, is generally handsomely rewarded. Some travellers have stated that the white elephant is worshipped, but I have never seen anything of the kind, nor do I believe it. He is, however, held in peculiar reverence, because he is considered the ​emblem of good luck. The flag of the country is the flag of the white elephant. I am told that some Frenchman has lately written a book, in which he states that he has in his possession a hair from the tail of the white elephant of Siam, which he obtained at great sacrifice, and even risk of his life. The hair he may have, but the rest is imaginary.
The present population of Siam cannot be much short of eight millions. The Siamese proper are evidently an off-shoot from the Mongolian race, but by what admixtures they have arrived at their present status it would be difficult to ascertain. Some one has given the following description of them, which is substantially correct. “The average height is five feet three inches, arms long, limbs large, and bodies inclined to obesity. The face is broad and flat, the cheek bones high, and the whole face assumes a lozenge shape. The nose is small, mouth wide, and lips thick, but not protruding. The eyes are small and black, and ​the forehead low. The complexion rather inclined to a yellowish hue. The whole physiognomy has a sullen aspect, and the gait sluggish.” The Siamese, as a general thing, do not tattoo their bodies as many eastern nations do.