The St. Cloud journal. [volume] (St. Cloud, Minn.) 1866-1876, 1874-06-04
THE KINGDOM og s1Au
BY MRS. A. b. LEONoWENs.

With her deepotic ruler, priest and
king; her religion of contradictions, at
once pure and corrupt, lovely and
cruel, eunobling and debasing; her
laws, wherein wisdom il 80 perversely
blended With blindness, enlightenment
With barbarism, strength With weak
ness justice with oppression !; her pro-
found scrutiny into mystic forms Of
philosophy, her ancient culture of
physics, borrowed from the primitive
speculat'ous Of Brahminism ;-siam is,
beyond peradventure, one Of the most
remarkable and thought compelling of
the empires Of the Orient; . t.so,nst.
ing and provoking enigma, alike to the
theologian and the political economist.
Like troubled dream, delirious in
contrast with the coherenee and stabili-
ty Of Western life, the lsnd and its
people seem to be coDjured out of q
secret Of darkness, q wonder to tho
senses and mystery to the mind.
And yet it is strangely beautiful
reality. The enchanting variety of it,
scenery, Joined to- the inexhau,tible
productiveness of its soil, constitutes q
challenge to the charms Of every other
region, except, perhaps, the country
watered by the g,eat river of China.
Through 40 immense, continuous level
of unfailing fertility, the Meinam rolls
slowly, reposefully, grapdly, in its
course receiving draugbts from many
lesser stream, filing many = useful canal
10 its turn, and, from the abundance
the generous raios bestov, distributing
supplies Of refreshmentand fatnsss 70
innumerable acres.
In soil at once 80 rich and % veil
watered, the sun, with its vivifying
heats, engenders a mighty vegetation,
deligbtiug the eye for more than half
the year with endless undulations of
grain and great golden Eden Of fruit.
Its staples are solid blessings rice, the
Asiatic's staff Of life !; sugar, most pop
ul'r OF dietetio luxunes j.; indigo, most
valuable Of dyes; in the drier tracts.
cotton, tobacco, coffee, a variety Of
palms (from one species Of which Gugar
not unlike that Of the maple is extinct.
ed), the wild olive, and the fig. Thsn
there are vast forests Of teak, that IN.
during monarch Of tho vegetable king.
dom, ebony, satin-rood, eagle-veod:
beside ivory, beeswax and honey, nx
silk, and many aromatic gums and fra
grant spices. Aud though the scenery
is less various and picturesque than
that of the regions of Gangetie Indis,
where ranges Of noble mountains make
the land majestic, nevertheless nature
riots here in bewildering luxurianees Of
vegetable forms and -solars. Vast
tracts. shady and cool With dense dark
foliage; trees, tall and strong, spread
Ing their giant arms abroad, With prick
ly, shining shrubs between, while para.
sites aud creepers, wild, bright, and
beautiful, trail from the highest boughs
to the ground the bamboo, shooting
to the height of sixty feet aud upward,
with branches gracefully dropping ; the
generous, kind banana fairy forests of
ferns Of thousand forms tall grasses,
with their pale aud pluuy blossoms;
the many-trunked and many rooted
banyan the bob, sacred to Buddhs,
all combine to form q garden that
Adam might have dressed and kept,
and only Eve could spoil.-"English
Gooerness at the Sianese Court"